by Orrie Hitt
Irene was quiet for a moment. “I was afraid of that, Nicky.”
“So was I.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Forget it.”
She took a deep breath and her breasts pushed up in the air. She turned her head sideways, her eyes tender, and smiled at me. “Was it my fault, Nicky?”
“No.”
“I think you’re lying.”
I sat down on the bed beside her. I put one arm across her, leaning down and touched her mouth with my lips.
“She just said it was off,” I told her. “She didn’t say why, and I didn’t ask her. After all, it’s her place and she can do with it what she wants.”
“I guess so.”
We lay there for a long time talking about it. We got it figured out that Bess Walters didn’t know what she was doing. We also agreed that it didn’t make any difference to us. And, then, we started talking about the other thing.
“He’s going to be wild,” Irene said. “I just know it.”
“That’s tough.”
“He’s got it coming.”
“More than that,” I agreed.
“Well, I’ll give it to him!” she said angrily. “What he did to me! God damn him!”
“After that we can forget about him,” I said. She kissed me warmly. “That’s what I want.”
Presently our hunger overshadowed our need for liquor and we went out and emptied the refrigerator. We ate tuna-fish salad, boiled eggs and cold meat. We flipped a coin to see if we would make coffee or go back to drinking. I opened another bottle.
“I feel like getting high, anyway,” Irene said.
I gave her a good start with a double shot, poured one for myself but let it set until after I’d taken a shower. I rubbed myself down hard, put on slippers, shorts and a robe and promised myself that I would shave in the morning.
“Gee, you smell good!” she told me.
I fixed some ice in a bowl and brought a jug of the whiskey and a couple of bottles of ginger ale in and parked them where they’d be handy by the bed.
“Nothing must ever happen to us, Nicky,” she said. “We’ve got to keep it this way always.”
I drank to that one.
We got into one of those toasting moods, drinking luck to some things twice and getting higher all the time. It got dark outside and the only light in the room came from the low hanging moon that crept in through the window at the end of the porch.
“Don’t turn on the light,” she whispered, as I reached for the lamp. “Okay.”
She lay there beside me on the bed, her robe wide apart, her flesh winking up at me. I bent to kiss her, but straightened quickly. “What was that?”
“I didn’t hear anything, Nicky.”
“That — noise.”
“Maybe it was the wind kicking up a storm.”
“Maybe,” I said.
The noise had come from outside. Of course it might have been the wind, but I doubted that. Skunks sometimes wandered around, seeking garbage. Or a guy with his doll. I laughed and forgot about it.
Her arms came up around my neck, pulling me down. I could feel her beneath me, yielding and swelling to my touch.
“Love me, Nicky! Love me all night!”
She met me with open mouth, her tongue hot and eager. My hands moved over her soft flesh, thrilling to her wild response. She pulled her head free and kissed me furiously on the cheek, on my neck, on my shoulders.
“No, Nicky! No! Let me love you!”
I tried to kiss her trembling lips.
“Like that night in the car,” she murmured. A tremor passed through her body. “Oh, Nicky, Nicky! I love you so much! And it’s wrong! I know it’s wrong! But I love you — love you — ”
“No!”
“Please, Nicky!”
I tried to roll away from her, but she ripped the robe open and flung herself on top of me, grasping and moaning.
Suddenly a brilliant light filled the room, blinding me. Then it was gone and the night was with us once more. Irene sat up in the bed, screaming. There was a terrific crash from outside and the cabin shuddered with the force of it.
Before I reached the door I could hear the voice of a man down over the edge of the cliff, pleading for help.
The kind of a voice that hurt me just to listen to it.
I grabbed up the flashlight as I bolted through the door. I went down the steps in one long jump. The sharp stones lashed at my feet through the thin soles on the slippers. I ran the short distance to the edge of the cliff, turned on the flashlight and looked down.
Shep Schofield’s white face reared back at me. He was down there about twenty feet, his thin fingers wound around a small hemlock tree. The tree bent and swayed with his weight. Beyond him was just the darkness and the long, long drop to death below. He blinked his eyes and stared into the light.
“Who are you?”
I turned the flash so that it revealed my face, then swung it back toward him. I heard soft footsteps behind me.
“Can you hang on?” I wanted to know.
“For Christ’s sake, hurry!” His voice was harsh and labored, like he was pulling the words up from the tops of his shoes. “I’m — not — strong.
“I’ll be right back,” I said.
As I spun away from the ledge she came up beside me. I noticed that she had taken time to put on a dress.
“Shep’s down there,” I said. “I’ll get something to pull him up.”
I moved off into the darkness, trying to think of some way I could reach him. Then I thought of the clothesline and went over and untied that. It seemed strong and it was long enough to stretch down there.
“Here,” I said to her when I got back. “You hold the light.”
I dropped the rope over the side, hanging onto one end of it. For the first time I noticed small pieces of wood from the porch hanging on the rocks near him. I glanced at the porch and saw that the whole end had collapsed.
“There’s a loop on the end of that,” I told him. “Get it over your head and under your shoulders. Let me know when you’re ready. But don’t put any weight onto it until I’ve dug myself in.”
His muffled response came up to me. I could feel him working at the rope. I tied several knots in the line, making it easier to hold, and moved back as far as I could. I bent down and started digging a couple of holes with one hand. She had turned out the light, but the moon was high and now that I was getting accustomed to the shadows I could see very good.
I felt her hot breath on my cheek.
“Nicky!”
“Yes.”
“Let go of the rope!”
I kept on digging.
“God damn it, let go of the rope!”
“No!”
I had thought about that, the fix he was in, and what it might mean to us. But I hadn’t thought about it very much, in that way. He was a man and he was down there and he wanted to live. I was up on top of the cliff, where it was safe, and I was in a position to help him. It hadn’t been necessary for me to flip a coin to make a decision.
“Ready!” His voice trailed up to me.
“Just a second!” I shouted, digging harder. “I’ll tell you when!”
“Nicky!”
“Help me, Irene.”
“Let him go!”
The holes were about right. I straightened and jammed my feet into them. My arm muscles tightened as I brought the rope toward me.
“God damn you, Nicky!”
I saw the blow coming, but I couldn’t avoid it. She’d picked up a piece of wood from near-by and she’d thrown all of her weight behind it. A sharp knot ripped down the side of my face, opening up the blood jets. My left shoulder ached from the force of it, and my arm pained all the way down to the fingers.
“You dirty bastard!” she hissed, and came at me again. I could feel Shep’s weight bearing down on the rope, but I managed to get my aching arm free and clout her across the face with that. The stick missed me that time and she
reeled away, dropping it. She fell down on the ground and lay there sobbing.
“Now!” I shouted to him. “Come up fast!”
Slowly I started bringing him up. Every time I put my sore arm out front, pulling the rope in, I thought I’d have to let him go. But he was helping me on the other end, digging his toes in where he could, not fighting against the space that yawned below him.
I saw Irene move and get to her feet. She was swearing and crying. She started looking for that stick.
“Hurry!” I shouted to him, as she found something on the ground and grasped it in her hands. “Give it everything you’ve got!”
“You dirty, dirty bastard!”
She had a small stick this time, but I couldn’t defend myself. I had this guy on the other end of that rope and I needed both hands to keep him there. She just got alongside of me and whaled away, calling me all of the names she could find breath for. I hunched my shoulders down, trying to watch the edge of the cliff, and putting all of my strength onto that rope. Just as she started jabbing me with the stick where it could hurt the most I saw a white hand appear. And I saw something else. I saw the gleam of the gun in that hand.
“Let go!” she kept screaming hysterically. “Let go!”
His head and shoulders came into view. She knelt there beside me, hammering that stick into my crotch. The pain clutched at my insides and the blood dripped into my eyes. Through the haze I saw his one hand come up, the gun point. For just a second everything stood still — everything except the pain and that stick she had in her hands. Then the night opened up with the blast of the gun. The rope went slack in my hands. I heard his strangled cry as he slipped over the edge of the cliff and out of sight. And I heard her down there beside me, moaning, the blood running in a torrent down the front of her dress.
I bent carefully, shaking with the pain that shot through me, and examined her. She made no further sound. She was dead.
I wiped the tears and the blood out of my eyes and staggered over to the edge of the rocks. Down below there was nothing except a well of darkness, and beyond that the lights of the hotel. There were no sounds other than the laughter of the people in the casino, and the strains of the orchestra as it played “Sometime, Somewhere.” But he was down there and I knew that he was dead. There could be no question about that. The bullet meant for her had cut the rope and now they were back together again.
When I got to the cabin I cleaned up my face and examined the cut. It wasn’t very deep and had just about stopped bleeding. My shoulder was turning blue and it hurt like hell. I had some trouble getting my clothes on, but after I was dressed I felt better.
Thoughtfully, I walked down the path toward the hotel. Apparently no one had heard the disturbance, so I decided to go in and call the cops and let matters take their course.
I had almost reached the hotel entrance when I thought of something and went back across the lawn to the car. In those few minutes up on the cliff, and afterwards, a lot about what had happened had come out clear to me. There was more to it, of course — much more than I knew at the moment — but I was sure that I knew most of it.
And I was right.
The insurance policy on Shep Schofield was not in the glove compartment.
CHAPTER XX
A COUPLE OF DAYS LATER THEY SHIPPED the bodies out on a train going west. The police had contacted the sister-in-law in Chicago and she had agreed to foot the expenses. After I watched the train pull out I went down to the end of the platform and dropped the letter I had written to the sister-in-law in the mail slot. It was just a short letter, meant to be consoling. And a check for five hundred.
I’d left my car in the station parking lot, so I walked around the red brick station and got into that. For a while I just sat there, listening to the big diesel swinging up the valley. Then I stuck the key in the switch and got the motor going. When I reached the street I turned left, driving slowly in the direction of police headquarters.
The cops had been pretty decent about the whole thing. Of course, the deaths had occurred out in the country where the state police had jurisdiction, but they didn’t have any station out there and they used the local cell block for a maneuver area. That’s where they had brought me the night it had happened. I’d been there until almost morning, telling them how it came about and answering all the questions they asked. They’d had me down there a couple of more times after that, asking questions again, but still being nice about it. They’d told me to come back at ten-thirty this morning. They’d said that would be the last.
I had no idea what they were going to do to me.
I parked around the corner from city hall and walked back there. It wasn’t a large building, just big enough for the city clerk’s office, a cubbyhole for the mayor and a dismal-looking room where the city and state cops hung out.
“You must be Weaver?” a big, gray-haired state cop said as I entered the police quarters.
“Yeah.”
“Mine’s Sloan.”
He held out his hand. I noticed the sergeant’s stripes on his arms. I hadn’t seen him before.
“Let’s go in the back room, Mr. Weaver.”
We went back to the same little room with the round table where they’d asked me all the questions.
“We can talk better in here,” the sergeant said.
I was surprised to see Austin in there. I’d only seen him twice since things had blown up in my face. Once, that first day, when I’d gone into the office to tell him the whole story, and later, that same day, when he’d driven out to the hotel to pick up my debit book.
“Hello, Nicky,” he said.
“Yeah.”
The two state police who had been on the case were also in there. They merely nodded and went back to writing out their reports.
“Sit down, Mr. Weaver.”
I sat. The sergeant passed cigarettes around and allowed the silence to build up to uncomfortable proportions. After that he sat there for a while reading some stuff which I had an idea he could almost recite from memory.
“I could ask you to tell the whole thing again, Mr. Weaver,” he said.
“I expected that.”
He looked up and grinned.
“But I won’t,” he said. “What’s to be gained by that?” He pushed the papers aside and looked at me straight, a slight smile playing at his lips. “How’d you ever get into such a mess, Mr. Weaver?”
I merely shrugged.
“You don’t have to tell me.” He laughed. “I saw her too. She was beautiful, Mr. Weaver — even in death. And she was dangerous. You are, I think, very fortunate to be alive.”
He wasn’t telling me anything new. I’d formed that opinion up there on that cliff.
The sergeant glanced at Austin, as though just realizing that he was present.
“I asked Mr. Austin down here, Mr. Weaver, because much of what I have to say will be of interest to him. You were — ah, finagling with his company, to put it bluntly. I am sure he will want to hear our version, as well as the one which you gave him. Fair enough?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I want to talk to you later, Nicky,” Austin said. “Later. After we get out of here.”
“All right.”
“You gave us a lot of facts,” the sergeant went on, speaking directly to me. “But there was much that you didn’t tell us, simply because you did not know. We had to learn some things for ourselves. We went into that house from top to bottom, we have checked their fingerprints with the FBI, sent telegrams to Christ knows where. Out of it we have formed some pretty definite conclusions. We don’t know the whole story, Mr. Weaver. We never will. Much of it went over the cliff that night with the man, and the rest of it died when the bullet entered Mrs. Schofield’s body.”
I could see her again, lying there with the warm blood all over her, still grasping that stick in her hands. I shuddered inwardly.
“I talked with the hotel owner, Mr. Weaver, and he told me that he had heard p
ounding up there at the cabin that day. I suppose that is when she was putting up those boards on the porch. That part of it is all right. But what I found underneath the end of that porch is something else again. She had sawed the supports off so that they would give way under very little weight.”
“Jesus!” I breathed.
“You have been told about the note that was discovered in the house, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” I answered thickly. “She knew that Shep was coming back from New York on Monday, and not on Tuesday as she had told me.”
“The reason for that was so that you wouldn’t be prompted to go and talk to him as soon as he got back. Had you seen him, Mr. Weaver, and had you two talked sensibly this would never have happened.”
“I guess you’re right,” I admitted.
“Her note told him when to come to the cabin, and that she would have you in a compromising position when he got there. She told him just where to stand to take the picture. She said that you had money and that you would pay to buy the picture back. He fell for it because he was a louse. If he hadn’t been a louse he’d never have pulled the kind of tricks on the girl at the hotel — Sally — that he did. But he was never meant to use that picture, Mr. Weaver. He was meant to go through that porch and down there to his death.”
The two cops continued to write their reports. Austin sighed and jiggled the change in his pocket.
“I don’t know,” the sergeant said. “Like I told you, there are many things about this which we will never know. Perhaps both of you were supposed to die. Maybe she thought you’d race out there to the porch and go down with him. Maybe she wanted it to look as though you had set the trap yourself. Your answer to the hotel owner about the pounding — something about the termites — wouldn’t have helped you in a deal like that, although she had no way of knowing what you said to him. And maybe,” he went on, his voice low, deadly, “she meant for you to kill him, Mr. Weaver!”
The ice water froze in my veins. I tried to think about what I might have done had I found him, safe and alive, out there that night. Something inside me rebelled against it and the sweat poured down my face.
“We have gone at this from all angles,” the sergeant said. “At first I assumed that you had purposely let go of the rope. But that didn’t make sense because had you wanted him to die all you had to do was leave him there and let him fall when he got ready. Besides, we have confirmed that the rope was shot off by the same bullet that killed his wife. We have not confirmed, and we never will, whether it was an accident — or deliberate.”