The Transgressors (9 page)

T
om Lord drove away from Joyce Lakewood’s cottage with that rare good feeling a man has when he has been persuaded to do exactly what he wanted. Sobering up the last couple days, getting off the booze entirely, he had decided to get away from Big Sands for a while. Not far away, not splendidly away, but just away. There was nothing to hold him here now—although, of course, he must come back. He could not picture himself as living permanently in another place. But for the time being, he needed a change. And it was the one need, among his many, which he was able to satisfy.

He had been about to tell Joyce of his decision, to suggest that she might like to accompany him, when she herself had begun to hint at just such an excursion. And Lord, knowing her nature, had immediately put on a long face and demurred.

“But you should get away, Tom! It would be good for you.”

“Maybe. Hard to say. Be a lot of trouble for you, though.”

“No, it wouldn’t, honey! Honestly! I’d love to do it.”

“Well, that’s different,” Lord drawled. “You want to do it, why, I will. Just for you, baby.”

Joyce kissed him delightedly. He did lov—like her a lot, didn’t he? More than anyone else?

“Hell, don’t it look like it?” Lord said. “Catch me pulling up stakes on a minute’s notice for any other gal.”

He left her glowing with happiness, babbling with a thousand plans for their trip. He was to hurry right back, now. Just as soon as he could pack a bag. And she’d be ready when he got back.

Lord promised, feeling pretty good himself, only faintly disturbed by the fact that having seemingly won her way in this matter, she was hopeful of a still greater victory. Because she obviously was hopeful. She was keeping it corked up, trying not to show it, but he could see it just the same. Which meant that she was building herself up for a hell of a letdown. But that was her fault, not his.

He wasn’t marrying her. He wasn’t marrying anyone, and he particularly wasn’t marrying her.

A man—a Lord, anyway—couldn’t. He couldn’t go through life wondering how many of the guys he passed had laid his wife. He didn’t hold her past against her; everyone had a reason for being what he was, and she doubtless had hers. But he couldn’t live with that past. She shouldn’t expect him to become a partner in it.

The Lord residence was in the old-family section of Big Sands, a single long row of houses overlooking the town from a gentle slope. The newest of the twenty-odd homes there was more than sixty years old, and most had been built in the Civil War era or earlier, yet all were of such reserved architecture—the commodious, clean-lined American Plains school—and all had been so well-constructed with no sparing of time and expense that none seemed dated, none was even incipiently run-down or wearing out.

The Lord home, one of three houses in its block, occupied a corner, with grounds stretching some seventy-five yards along the street. Despite the perpetual scarcity of water the lawn was always green, when the seasons permitted; the shrubs and trees were always nourished and flourishing. Imbedded in the roadside hitching block and affixed to the front door of the house were bronze plates with the identical legend:

Lord’s great-grandfather had put the plates in place. His son and his grandson, both bearing the name, both following the same profession, had left them there. And the last of his line, ex-Deputy Sheriff Thomas DeMontez Lord, had never thought of removing them. They belonged there. They were not his to remove.

With the coming of the boom, the plates brought an occasional intruder, newcomers looking for a doctor and encouraged to walk in by the hospitably unlocked front door. But Lord regarded this as rather amusing, and no real bother at all. And he saw no reason to change his ways or break with tradition because of it.

The plates remained where they had been put. The doors remained unlocked. And strangers continued to stray inside. As he entered the house today, paused in the doorway of his father’s office, he saw that still another had come in. She was a pretty little gal, he thought. Cute as a bug’s ear and just about as tiny, but with proper amounts of meat in all the right places. Awful peaked-looking, though. Seemed to have just enough blood in her to pink up her mouth and put a spot on each cheek.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said, looking her over impassively. “Were you waitin’ to see the doctor?”

“Well, no. No, I wasn’t.” She half came to her feet. “I wanted to see his son—that is, I guess it would be his son. Tom Lord…?”

The statement came out as a question. She found herself smiling weakly, already pleading and placatory when there was no reason at all to be. She had a right to be here. She certainly had the right to come to this town, to press the investigation into Aaron’s murder. But while these people—all of them out here—did not deny that right, neither did they concede it. They volunteered nothing. They looked at you and through you, as though you had no real substance. And if you blew up and lost your temper, as she had already done once today, they remained completely unmoved. Coolly polite, laconically impassive. Silently demanding that you justify yourself, while they decided what should be done about you.

“Tom Lord,” she said firmly. “I want to see Tom Lord.”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Yes! Can you tell me where I can find him?”

“Might be I could. What’d you want to see him about, ma’am?”

“About m-my, my—” Her head swam with sudden dizziness, and she sank back on the lounge. “P-lease,” she said. “Can’t you answer a simple question? Can’t anyone in this crazy place answer a question without asking one?”

“Yes, ma’am. Can you?”

“Can—? All right,” she sighed. “I’m Mrs. Donna McBride. My husband, Aaron McBride, was recently killed out in the fields. I want to talk to Mr. Lord about his death.”

“Tom’s not a deputy anymore, ma’am. Seems like you ought to talk to the sheriff.”

“I know he’s not a deputy, and I did talk to the sheriff! I talked to him and all those other stupid oafs that’re supposed to be officers, deputies, and they were as bad as you are! Worse even! I almost exhausted myself just finding out where Mr. Lord lived!”

“Maybe they figured Mr. Lord didn’t want to see you.”

“But I—I—!” She wanted to yell. In fact, she realized, she had been yelling. “Please,” she said, fighting down the swelling hysteria, struggling up from the growing dizziness. “Please. I can’t tell you exactly why I want to see Mr. Lord. I’m not completely sure myself, and I just don’t know why I should. It’s between Mr. Lord and me.”

“You mean it’s none of my business, ma’am?”

“Well…frankly, no, it isn’t.”

“Reckon I better not butt into it then, had I? Shouldn’t be asking me to.”

She stared at him, dully, despairingly. He looked back at her, his expression blankly polite. Or—or was it completely so? Wasn’t there a trace of amusement, of mockery, in the cool dark eyes.

“All right,” she said, her voice shaky with weakness. “I’ll go now. You won’t help me. No one in this rotten, filthy place will help me. Just where anyone ever got the notion that Westerners were p-polite and courteous is—is—”

She faltered, the blackness rolling over her in a wave.

“Yes, ma’am?” he said. “Maybe they got it from people that was polite and courteous themselves.”

Another black wave hit her. When she floated up out of it, she was lying on the lounge, and he was seated on its edge looking down at her.

“You shouldn’t be up wandering around, ma’am. Not so soon after a Caesarean.”

“Oh…” She blushed, tugged primly at her skirt. “Then, you’re Doctor Lord?”

“Might say I was a reasonable facsimile, thereof, ma’am. Now, you just stay here a minute. Goin’ to give you a little shot of something.”

He prepared a hypodermic. These many years after Doctor Lord’s death, he still received samples from the various medical supply houses.

He rolled up her sleeve, sponged her arm. As he started to inject the hypo, she tried to pull away from him.

“This won’t put me to sleep, will it, Doctor?”

“Well”—he depressed the hypo plunger, completed the injection—“Well, yes, ma’am. Give you the good sound rest you need.”

“But I can’t! I mustn’t! I’ve got to see Tom Lord!”

“Oh, you’ll see him, ma’am. And he’ll see you.” He grinned at her impishly, his voice following her down into the void in which she was swiftly descending. “Yes, sir, he’ll see a lot of you…literally and figuratively.”

Her brows knitted in drowsy puzzlement. Her eyes drifted open for a moment, stared into his. She blushed faintly, and a tiny, half-shamed giggle arose in her throat.

Then she was asleep.

Lord carried her upstairs, and into a bedroom. He carried her to the bed, and paused in the act of laying her down.

She needed rest, this little lady. Not just for a few hours, but at least several days. And the way she was bundled up, she sure couldn’t do much of a job resting. Felt like she had so damned many duds on—slips and underskirts and God-knew-what-all—that they weighed more than she did. And he wondered whether all these cumbersome trappings of modesty were her own idea or McBride’s.

Well, no matter. She had to come out of them, and there was no one but him to get her out.

He did so with awkward efficiency, laying her across his lap in baby-burping fashion and peeling the garments off over her head and down over her feet. Then, digging down into an ancient cedar chest, he came up with a tissue-paper-wrapped armful of gossamer silk and lace.

Its faint fragrance drifted up to him, and for a moment he was back in that long-ago night, in the dream that had been a reality. And a haunted, hungry look came into his eyes. He stood almost motionless, hugging the silk and lace against him, fighting to bring back, to hold onto something that was gone forever. Finally, seeing himself in the tall, mahogany-framed mirror, he was jerked back into the present.

He laughed harshly. He made his selections from the garments, tossed the others back into the cedar chest, and kicked the lid down on them.

Dressing Donna McBride in his mother’s nightgown and negligee, he was struck by how well they fitted. As though they had been made for her almost. As though they—she was—and he angrily slammed the door on the thought. So they were the same size. What the hell of it? A lot of women had the same full but delicate build, and it didn’t mean a damned thing. It had nothing to do with his feelings about Donna McBride, or why he was treating her as he was.

She was ill. Having killed her husband, he was responsible for her; he had to take care of her. And he also had to find out just how much she knew about Tom Lord, and exactly what she intended to do about it.

The last wasn’t too hard to guess; that is, if she knew nothing but the bald truth without the circumstances that went with it. Maybe the circumstances wouldn’t make any difference to a little hardhead like her anyway. Doubtless they wouldn’t. Her presence here indicated her attitude, her belief that McBride had been killed. And judging by the weight of her purse, she was all set to take care of his killer.

He opened the purse, and verified his assumption. He hefted the small, fully loaded pistol. It was brand, spanking new; bought, apparently, for just one purpose.

So…?

So he had to stick with her, keep an eye on her. Try to divert her or reason with her, or set up some defense for himself. He had to do it. Otherwise, he damned well wouldn’t be doing it. For in trying to stave off the danger which she represented, he was laying himself wide open to as great a peril in Joyce Lakewood.

He was already overdue back at Joyce’s house. Joyce would be all saddled up and champing at the bit by now. Any minute she’d be phoning to ask why the hell the hold up, telling him to get going like he’d promised. And when he told her that the trip was off, indefinitely, if not permanently—this trip which meant so much to her and which she was already regarding as a prelude to marriage…

She wouldn’t take it. She wouldn’t take any excuses. She’d cry and she’d beg, and then she’d get sore. Blind, crazy mad. And pretty soon after that she’d be talking to Sheriff Dave Bradley. Putting him in a spot where he’d have to do something about the killing and the killer of Aaron McBride.

She’d be sorry about it afterward. But the damage would be done then.

The phone rang.

He hurried out of the room, pulled the door shut, and picked up the hall extension.

“Hello,” he said. “Oh, hi, Joyce.”

“Tom! For Pete’s sake, honey, what’s holding you up? I’ve been waiting and waiting, and—”

“Look, Joyce. Listen,” he cut in guardedly. “I can’t talk right now. I mean, I don’t want to do a lot of talkin’ over the telephone. But—”

“I don’t want to do a lot of talking either!” She was already sore; intuitively, she saw that her plans were fading away. “I want you to get over here right now, and you’d better come!”

“And I’m trying to tell you I can’t. We can’t make that trip, Joyce. Not for a while, anyways. I’ll try t’ get over an’ explain in a few days, but—”

“Wh-aat? What do you mean we can’t.…You’d better explain right now, damn you! I’m not going to believe it anyway, but you get over here or I’m coming over there!”

“Huh-uh,” he said, his temper flickering. “I’m not, and you’re not. You ain’t coming anywhere near here. I told you I was sorry, an’ you oughta know I—”

She broke in with an angry sob; she bawled. Lord fidgeted fretfully.

“Now, looky, Joyce. We talked about all we better, so—”

“Don’t you hang up on me, Tom Lord! You just try it and see what happens.”

“Swell,” said Lord, “and maybe after I see what happens, you’ll see what happens.”

He hung up. Almost immediately, the phone rang again.

“Now, you listen to me, Tom. I’m going to wait just thirty minutes for you to get over here. No, I’ll wait an hour. If…”

“You do that,” Lord said. “Try holdin’ your breath while you’re waiting.”

He slammed down the receiver.