The Killing Edge (9 page)

“We're still out combing the boondocks,” Will said. “I'm afraid the poor bastard may have frozen to death.”

“Do I look like a man to you, Will?”

“Come on, L.C. I had to leave last night.”

“I know. I just need a little reassurance this morning.” Jane Ellen, for all her talk of feminine liberation, was quietly driving Vic Mange up the wall, and if he already hadn't, would soon be climbing into her bed. Sandra Devonshire had her 69 Corvette with Raleigh Bridger on the side, and she couldn't seem to keep one man in bed. She laughed at her own self-pity.

“What's so funny?”

“Nothing. Hey, did you know that Raleigh's supposed mistress has a permanent male roommate?”

“No, but at this point I don't think it makes any difference.”

“It might. I don't see why he'd kill his wife over a girl he sleeps with one day a week, and who sleeps with someone else the other six.”

“He ran, L.C. He ran, and innocent men don't take off.”

“Did the autopsy report say anything important?”

“That she died when we figured, near 8:00 from the neck wound. She also had contusions and two broken fingers.”

“Fingers?”

“Crushed, like someone had stepped on them.”

“And that's all?”

“The usual other stuff. Nothing important except that she'd had recent sexual relations.”

“That doesn't make sense if she and Raleigh were fighting. Have you considered that the whole thing might be a rape-murder?”

“I'm chasing one maniac already. About tonight …”

“I know. After you catch the bastard.”

“We've got a bunch of state troopers out here, and if we don't find him by this afternoon they're sending in a company from the National Guard.”

“I wish you luck, Will. And I mean that.”

“I know you do, L.C.”

She replaced the phone on the call director and sat staring at it. Her feelings were mixed. On the one hand she wanted Will to succeed in his job, and that presently meant running Raleigh Bridger down. And yet, she instinctively felt that Raleigh was incapable of performing the brutal murder. During the past five years she had fought to avoid that type of intuitive sensibility, and had immersed herself in pragmatic things: tools, precision machines, bookkeeping entries and monthly sales charts.

She shrugged off the thought and retreated into the repair shop. The storm had limited the number of repairs on the line, and she noticed that Eddie was working on the Sunbeam. He looked up from under the hood, wiped his hands on a cotton rag, and fell into step as they walked the length of the garage.

“You never told me how you got the limp.”

She reddened. “I hadn't realized it was that obvious.”

“Not too bad. Gives your bottom a kinda cute wiggle.”

“You're out of line.”

“Piece of gum?”

She shook her head as they stopped before the blackboard and quickly scanned the remaining repair jobs listed. The pool column on the far right of the board still puzzled her. “I don't understand about the pool. Are you betting for or against yourself?”

“For. Sorry you can't get in, but you're not a disinterested party. Hurt your leg in a racing wreck?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“It was a year ago at Daytona. The car ahead of me hit an oil slick. My car would have hit him broadside, so I swerved off the track.”

“Flipped over.”

“Couple of times.”

“You were damn lucky.”

“I know.”

“Miss it?”

“Racing?”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“I've often thought I should get myself a rich girl friend to finance my racing.” He looked at her and arched an eyebrow. “You know, you'd fill the bill nicely. You've got the money and could manage the pit crew on the side.”

“You had better see if you make your first month here before planning our future.”

“I've got five hundred riding on it.”

“Don't double your wager. I'll be back in an hour or two,” she said and hurried from the shop.

Raleigh was in the woods. He'd be tired, cold, consumed by the desire for sleep, a sleep that would ultimately kill him. She pulled a sheepskin jacket over her coveralls and went out to her car and drove toward Murphysville.

She pulled into a diner on the outskirts of town and fumbled for the thermos bottle behind the seat, and had it filled with steaming hot coffee. A thermometer on the outside of the building registered 10 degrees. Streaks of snow whipped across the near empty parking lot and she estimated wind velocity at nearly 30 knots. She wondered what that made the wind-chill factor. And Raleigh'd been out there for twelve hours.

The road to Murphysville ran along the ridge line above the river. Occasionally she could see through the trees to the wetlands along the shore. The car passed the Lantern City Yacht Club with its yard of phantom boats resting for the winter on large wooden cradles.

At the junction of Route 99 and the Turnpike, four troopers were flagging down cars in the opposite lane. The occupants of all cars leaving the search area would be checked against photographs of Raleigh. She knew that Will was thorough, there would be a similar checkpoint on the highway to Murphysville and also on Route 77 to the south. The northern border of the search area was blocked by the sluggishly moving river.

The summer they were seventeen a small child had been lost in the same area. Out-of-state campers, pitching their tent for the night, had failed to notice the disappearance of their small daughter until she'd been gone over an hour. L.C.'s father had supervised the operation, while she, Frank and Will, carrying heavy duty flashlights, had spent the night in fruitless search.

She recalled walking hand in hand, with Frank back to the highway at dawn to find her father bent over the hood of his car with a geodetic map mounted on a large piece of plywood. He sadly marked off grid after grid as the various search groups reported in.

At full first light Will had found the child. She had fallen asleep on a small ledge fifty feet above the swollen river. Will had yelled, limped back toward the highway, and carried the little girl on his back with her hands wrapped around his neck.

He would remember that and use the same methods her father had devised. Grids would be drawn on the map, assignments made, the individual groups would divide and search until Raleigh or his body was found.

She braked to a stop behind a line of Lantern City and state police cruisers pulled off on the shoulder. Will was in the back seat of his car conferring with a National Guard captain. She tapped on the window. He looked up and frowned until she waved the thermos jug.

“It's cold out here,” she said.

He waved her to the front seat.

“I hope that's got a couple of shots in it,” the captain said as Will took the thermos.

She snapped her fingers. “That I didn't think of. Any luck?”

“Not yet, but he's out there somewhere and we'll find him.”

“How do you know he didn't slip through before you set up the road blocks?”

“We were able to follow his footprints for half a mile before the wind obliterated them, and by that time we had the roads sealed.”

Will held the mounted map on his knees, and she wondered if it was the same one her father had used. “O.K.,” she said as she left the car. “Just wanted to see how you were making out.”

She drove back towards Lantern City, was stopped briefly by the troopers who checked the car, and was then waved through.

There was something about maps that nibbled at the corner of her mind. The map on Will's lap, her father's spread over the hood of the car, the large tourist information map mounted in front of her service station … the course she'd taken last year at Power Squadron.

Raleigh Bridger had given the course on basic navigation. He had obviously loved his subject and had therefore been able to present it in an interesting and exciting manner. Raleigh had once told her that he had accepted Wadsworth Strickland's offer to come to Lantern City because of its proximity to the water. She knew his house was furnished in a nautical motif, and that he was a member of the Yacht Club. At this very moment his cabin cruiser would be one of those mounted on the stark cradles in the yard of the marina.

If he had somehow managed to slip through the cordon of police, his winterized boat would make an excellent hiding place. There was no way to get through. Roads were blocked, the river's current kept it from freezing over … unless he stole a small boat from one of the houses along the river.

Her hands trembled on the wheel and she slowed the car. A stolen boat. Paddles, oars and motors would be locked up, but many of the home owner's kept dinghys and rowboats upturned on their docks or yards. It wouldn't be difficult to get one into the water, and even without oars, the current would move it downstream toward the marina. It could be done.

She pulled to a stop in the yacht club parking lot. There were half a dozen cars in front of the club's dining room which was open all winter, and the occupants were probably in the game room for the continuing card games. The marina piers were vacant, the area unplowed, as boats loomed in neat rows on their cradles along the water.

Smaller boats, her own day sailer included, were kept in a long tiered warehouse. In order to use your stored boat, it was necessary to call an hour ahead of time to the harbormaster. A large fork lift placed the boat in the water. Cabin cruisers and motor sailers too large for the warehouse were winterized on cradles with large tarps covering their flying bridges and across their sterns.

She tried to recall the name of Raleigh's boat as she walked in knee-high show past the long line of crafts.

She recognized the
Mauvoway
when she passed it. A ladder hung near the stern, and two cleats had been removed from the protecting tarp near the ladder. The canvas flapped open in an aperture large enough for someone to squeeze through. She began to climb the ladder.

As she peered down the companionway the ports let in enough dim light to illuminate the main saloon. She took off a glove and stooped down to feel damp places on the decking.

“Raleigh. Raleigh Bridger, it's L.C. Converse.”

She went slowly down the companionway into the saloon. An arm circled her neck and she felt a knife blade pressed against the flesh.

“Who's with you?” the guttural rasping voice asked.

“I can't talk,” she gasped and felt the pressure immediately released.

“Don't turn around. Now what in hell are you doing here?”

“I had a hunch.”

“Where's your boy friend?”

“They're searching the woods above the intersection.”

“Good. I thought that's what they'd do.”

“You stole a boat.”

“A damn rotten rowboat. It's a wonder I didn't drown.”

“You shouldn't have run away, Raleigh.”

“My own lawyer tells me I should plead guilty to murder two. He says I'd be out in six years.”

“It's better than being dead.”

“I wonder. You want a drink?”

“Whatever you have,” she replied and then realized the incongruity of the remark under the present situation and laughed.

“What's so funny?”

“I don't expect you to have a fully stocked bar.”

“Tequila?” He hobbled across the saloon and held up a half-filled bottle. “Don't ever try drinking tequila when you're cold as hell.”

“If it's all you have.”

He filled a soggy paper cup. “Sorry, I don't have a glass.” He laughed.

“Now what's funny?”

“The whole thing is ridiculous. Here I am, the victim of a manhunt, a moment ago I almost slit your throat and we're making excuses for the lack of social amenities.”

“What's the matter with your feet?”

“I think they're frost bitten.”

“Let me see.” She gently pushed him back on the divan and bent over his shoes. The laces were encrusted with a layer of ice, and she gave up trying to untie them. She pried the shoes off and peeled down the socks. “You're in trouble.”

“That's what my lawyer tells me.”

“The feet are bad, Raleigh. They need immediate care.”

“I didn't kill her, L.C., and I'm not going to waste the next six years because some nut did.”

“Did you make love to Mauve that day?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“The medical examiner said someone had.” She began to massage his frost bitten foot.

“I think she'd been playing around.”

“With who?”

“I don't know. Jesus, the foot is beginning to really hurt.”

“I've got to get you to the hospital, Raleigh. If we don't do something you could lose your foot. Is there anyway to get heat in here?”

“No, not once it's winterized. Take me to your place for a couple of hours. Long enough to get my foot taken care of and do some thinking. Maybe talk to my lawyer.”

She stood in the dim light and looked down at the frost bitten foot that was now turning a most unpleasant color. She knew she could run from him. He was in no condition to chase her more than a few feet, and once out of the cabin and off the boat she could reach the car and go for Will. But she was afraid that if she left him he would make another hazardous escape attempt. Considering his present condition, it might be fatal this time. Once in her apartment there'd be opportunity to get word to Will.

“All right,” she said. “Can you wrap something around the foot and hobble to the car?”

“You're damn right.”

Raleigh had dropped off into a moaning, fitful sleep. She had warmed his foot, packed hot water bottles around it, fed him a sandwich and a big glass of whisky. When his eyes flickered shut she tiptoed from the room.

She slipped the kitchen extension phone off the hook and dialed police emergency.