Authors: John R. Maxim
Tags: #Horror, #General, #Psychological, #Suspense, #Memory, #Thrillers, #Fiction, #Time Travel
Time Out of Mind (89 page)
“
Do you want it known that the noble and blameless
Tilden Beckwith was a hypocrite who sired a bastard child
of his own and supported that child all his life and yet
would not give that child the Beckwith name? Even more,
do you want the why of it known?”
Tilden took a step forward. “The why of it, sir?’'
“
That she was a whore, sir. A tart. A doxy. That the
equally noble and blameless and beloved columnist known
as Charlotte Corbin is in fact a prostitute named Margaret
who was once driven from Greenwich, Connecticut, by fear
of exposure.”
Huntington's head seemed to be floating in space. The desk, the office, the young woman in the chair, and the nervous young man who stood by the fireplace had faded into a dark gray vapor.
A prostitute ... Margaret... you will see her reputa
tion go up in smoke just like—”
“
Father, shut up.”
Just like her house ... and all she had ... except for
the things we've saved to use as evidence if you do not—”
“
Shut up, Father.”
snapped back to the sneering face that floated near the base
of the large painting of nudes on the wall. The face was
leaner, darker, younger. It was Carling's face, and it was Huntington's daughter, and the cowardly, mewling face of Huntington's son. And the expression was turning as Car
ling's had turned from contempt, to disbelief, to fear.
Jab, lad. Jab once with the left, then again . ..
The face rocked backward.
...
then cross with the right
as his arms come down... Put yer back into it, lad.
The face sprayed blood and fell away across the desk.
He heard movement behind him and half turned toward
the cane, Albert Hacker's cane, that he knew was being
raised to strike him. Tilden was not alarmed. He knew that
the cane would not fall. It would be stopped in its descent
by the strong arm of the man wearing long hair and a West
ern hat. Yet he felt a blow across his temple. What was it?
Where is Colonel Cody? Nat? Nat? He tried to find their
faces within the white light that was blinding him. But the face that came through was Ella's face—the dead Ella, and
her teeth were bare and snarling her hatred, just as they
were that night. Her arms were pinned behind her in the
snow, but somehow she got one of them free and with a
great heave she swung it in a wide arc toward his head.
Now it was he who was on his back. Or was he still stand
ing? He couldn't tell because now they were both floating
in a great cold darkness among a million snowflakes and
she was hissing at him, saying,
Twice the man you are,
Tilden, He is twice and more.
The last face he saw was
Margaret's. Young Margaret's. She was running to him,
reaching for him, her face twisted in anguish. But he was
falling too quickly.
The funeral was five days later. Ella Beckwith delivered the
eulogy. Tilden II led the first hymn. Huntington Beckwith, sending word that he admired his father as he did no man
living, was too distraught to attend. He was under a doc
tor's care for painful injuries as well as grief, having fainted full on his face when he learned the news that his beloved
father had apparently suffered an accidental fall in his of
fice.
fied. Nor did the news of Tilden's death appear in the Chi
cago newspapers. It was during the following week that Margaret, concerned because she had heard nothing from
him, called his office. She came to New York with Jonathan
the following day. Whitney, in England, was denied leave for the death of a nonrelative. Jonathan took his mother to
the cemetery on Long Island, where they laid flowers on
Tilden's grave. He left her alone with him for an hour.
He drove her from there to Greenwich, where she visited
an ailing Laura Hemmings. They spent another solitary hour in each other's arms. She tried the next morning to
visit Huntington, but he would not see her. She wrote to
him upon returning to Chicago. He did not answer. She
tried calling, but he would not come to the phone. She
wrote again without reply. Most of February passed. Mar
garet wrote him one more time, expressing the hope that
she would not be forced to involve an attorney in family
business of a delicate nature.
Within a month of posting that letter, Margaret was dead.
Perhaps of natural causes, perhaps asphyxiated by a defective heater in her rented apartment. There were no signs of
forced entry, no reason to suspect foul play. Just another
old woman living alone. Two days later, Jonathan Corbin,
perhaps distracted by his grief, stepped into the path of a
speeding car as he crossed Evanston's main street on his
way to a consultation with a local lawyer. The driver sped off, a hit-and-run. George Bigelow drove the car to Chi
cago's South Side, where he abandoned it to the first pas
serby who noticed that the key was in the ignition.
Two months after that, a burglar strangled an aged black
woman, another widow named Lucy Stone Tuttle. Captain Whitney Corbin missed that funeral as well, although he'd
been flown home for those of his father and grandmother.
Before the snows came again, he, too, was dead. The only
surviving Corbin, the only surviving Beckwith, was grow
ing, unsuspected, in the womb of the former Agnes Ann Haywood of Wilmette, Illinois.
Nineteen
There is a bend on Maple Avenue that one must pass before the former Laura Hemmings's house comes into
view. Tom Burke spotted the old man's car there. He had
parked it out of sight from the house. Burke rolled down
his window and signaled to Dancer that he was stopping.
Dancer pulled in behind him. Burke stepped from his BMW and made a throat-cutting motion toward Dancer, who then
shut off the ignition of Mr. Makowski's dented blue car. It
dieseled loudly, then died.
Burke walked toward the bend and stopped there. He
motioned Dancer forward, telling him with hand gestures to move carefully and to stay concealed. Dancer reached
his side. He held a fur cap firmly on his head with one hand
and peered through the wind and the gathering darkness.
In the golden light of a doorway he saw a slender woman
in an old-fashioned gown. Still within the doorway's light,
she stepped to the edge of the porch and, picking up her
skirts, walked toward two shadows at the foot of the driveway. The larger of the two shadows moved toward her, into
her path, before half turning. He seemed to be shielding
her with his body. The second shadow moved. Burke and Dancer could see the rifle now. Ella's brother was either
forcing them or following them inside.
“
Go get ‘em, Mr. Beckwith,” Tom Burke muttered.
“Way to go.”
“
What are you talking about?”
“
Maybe he'll save us all a lot of trouble. He shoots them
”
I saw no sign of Corbin.”
“
He's either inside or he'll be along. How's Lesko?”
“
No sound or movement.”
We might have to thaw him to get him back out of that
trunk.” Tom Burke chuckled as a memory came to him.
“In Korea, sometimes they had to break a guy's arms to get a body bag around him.”
on. “Listen, Burke,” he said quietly, “you're not taking
what Miss Beckwith said literally, are you?”
”
I don't get you.”
“
She seemed to be saying she wanted all these people
killed tonight.”
It's what she said.” He shrugged. “Especially if her brother gets to them, and he did.”
I keep trying to persuade you that massacres attract
attention, Mr. Burke. In any case, she also said you're to
do nothing without my expressed approval.”
“
Well, make up your mind then, Mr. Ballanchine. It's
almost dark, you got all this snow and wind, you're not
ever going to have a better chance.”
eral murders was not what unnerved him. Burke, in his
limited way, had made a point. Lesko could be disposed of
across the state line and, in all likelihood, no connection with the rest of them would ever be made. As for Corbin
and those other two, it might very easily be made to look
like a double murder and suicide. No one who looked into
his recent behavior would be terribly surprised. The antique
costume that girl is wearing might even help make it seem
like some sort of ritual killing. But Ella's brother would
not fit into that scenario at all. Worse, he'd be an immediate
link back to Ella, and neither she nor her bullet-riddled
house was in a state to receive visitors for the next day or
so. He and Burke would, after all, have to spend the rest
of the night plastering and painting. Then it would probably
fall on him to dispose of Mr. Burke. All this with his leg
throbbing so badly. But then it would be over and he would
be rich. The new chairman of Beckwith Enterprises. Per
haps even Ella's heir. None of this, however, might happen if they just stood here in the snow while Tillie was down there botching it.
“
Two things are essential,” he said to Tom Burke. “We
get Tillie out of there and keep him quiet even if we have to fill up another trunk. The second is that it must appear
as if Corbin killed the other two and then himself. Do you
understand that, Mr. Burke?”
“
You got it,” Burke replied.'' I need that scarf and hat
you're wearing.”
Dancer did not quite understand but he surrendered them.
Burke placed the thick fur cap loosely over the muzzle of his Beretta and tied it in place with a dozen wraps of the
wool scarf.
“
Neat, huh?” Burke smiled. “It'll make it a little qui
eter.”
“
That's wonderful, Mr. Burke,” Dancer said dryly.
“
Let's go have a look.”
You're her, aren't you?” Ella's brother had not taken his
eyes off Gwen Leamas. He followed them across the porch
and through Corbin's front door, which he closed behind
him and pressed his back tight up against it. ”I saw you
with him yesterday.” His voice quaked badly. “You were
showing him the way the city is changed. You were show
ing him the things that were still the same.”