The Running Man

by Ben Benson

  Chapter 28

  They held Billy Nesbit under police guard in Bellevue Hospital in New York. A month later, when he was well enough, he was brought into New York court on a fugitive complaint. He was then rendited back to Massachusetts. I was not one of the officers who went to fetch him. The Somers case was partly mine and I had the chance, but I declined it. There was nothing left to prove to Billy Nesbit or myself. It was over—finished for good. I was back in uniform then, and although there were times when I consulted with Newpole about the case, I was doing my share of patrols out of the Concord Barracks.

  In September, Billy Nesbit was indicted for murder by the Middlesex County Grand Jury, and the newspapers began to speculate about the trial. I had been back to Ashendon a number of times since, but not willingly. There was a tendency in me to avoid the place. But on this particular day I had to go into the Ashendon drugstore in regard to an investigation on some forged checks.

  It was when I came out of the drugstore and stepped toward the cruiser that I saw Karen Morgan. She had come out of the market next door and had not recognized me at first. I was opening the door of the cruiser when she started to cross the street away from me. Then something must have caught her attention because she turned back and called, “Ralph?”

  “Yes,” I said. I stood there and waited for her. When she came up, I touched my cap in salute.

  “I didn’t know it was you,” she said. “From the distance you all look alike. Why have you been avoiding me, Ralph?”

  “Have I?”

  “We haven’t seen you since it happened.”

  I presumed she meant since the capture of Billy Nesbit. I said, “They’ve been keeping me busy, Karen.”

  “Please,” she said. “One thing has been very important to me. I must clear it in my mind. Billy was running away from you in that alley. He was unarmed. He had faith in you that you’d give him a sporting chance. You didn’t. You deliberately shot him. Was there no other way, Ralph?”

  “What other way? He was an escaped murderer.”

  “An alleged murderer,” she said.

  “No, I knew he was a murderer,” I said. “He knew it, too. That made the difference.”

  “It’s only what a jury will decide that matters.”

  “Yes,” I said. “But if we hadn’t stopped him in that alley, there wouldn’t have been a trial. Billy was trying to avoid one, wasn’t he?”

  “Billy is not afraid of justice.”

  “You forget how he ran away from justice,” I said. My voice rose tautly. “What are you trying to do? Justify to me what he did?”

  Her eyes were surprised. “You’re very emotional about it, aren’t you? I didn’t expect it to upset you like that.”

  “It does. Now you know.”

  “You’ve never gone to see Billy since he’s been back. He’s asked for you.”

  “Has he?” I asked. “Have you gone to see Mrs. Somers and her two kids? Have you or Billy ever wondered about them? Or has your mind conveniently blotted them out?”

  And I whirled around and got into the cruiser. It was all very foolish, of course, entirely unprofessional of me, and entirely wasted. But I had needed to say it for a long time.

  I never saw her again, although I did speak with her once after that. Some weeks later she phoned the barracks and asked for me. When I came on the telephone she apologized for anything she had said the last time. She was at home and if I had the chance, she wished I would stop by and have a chat with her.

  “Does it have anything to do with Billy’s trial?” I asked.

  “In a way,” she said. “You know his counsel is going to plead temporary insanity.”

  “So I heard.”

  “It’s true. There was a trauma since infancy. When Billy saw that burned-down farmhouse, it brought him back to the horrible death of his mother. It triggered something in his mind. So perhaps you were a little unjust to him.”

  “Perhaps,” I said. “But he aimed the gun at Somers’ head long before they came to the ruined house, didn’t he?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “I don’t excuse Billy for that. You’ve been right about him in many ways.”

  “I hope I haven’t destroyed any ideals,” I said. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “Not at all,” she said. But from the tone of her voice I knew her loyalty to Nesbit had cooled considerably. Perhaps she felt there was nothing left for her to salvage.

  “Time has passed,” she continued. “I still have faith in Billy, but I’ve also had a chance to see things more objectively.” She sighed into the phone. “Could you come over and have coffee with me, Ralph? Please—for old times’ sake?”

  “Thanks,” I said. “But I don’t have the time right now. We’ve been very busy.”

  “Yes,” she said, “so you’ve told me.” And I think she understood then that I would never come by for that cup of coffee. “Good-by Ralph.”

  “Good-by, Karen,” I said.

  That was the end of it. As I said before, I never saw her again. It was ironical, too, because all those months I had been waiting for her so wistfully, hanging around the fringes, hoping for a chance with her. Now I had it, and had cast it aside. But there was an invisible chasm that could never be bridged. Part of it was her code of justice that was different from mine. The other part was the shadow of Billy Nesbit. I could never touch anything that had once belonged to him.

  Later, I did have some regrets about it. In spite of what she was in other respects, she was still a very beautiful girl. That was the hardest part. She was not easy to forget.

  M. S. Mill Co., Inc., and William Morrow & Co., Inc., 1957