Windchill Summer

by Norris Church Mailer

  “Cherry? How did you know I was in here? What did Bean say?”

  “Baby and I needed to talk to you, and we came up here looking for you. Bean said y’all took some acid and you ran off down here and got stuck. Is that right?”

  “Not exactly. Bean brought me out here late last night to get a couple bags of weed. He wanted to drop some acid, so we sat in that rock room of his with the skull and tripped out for a while.”

  “Oh, Tripp. I wish you wouldn’t take that LSD.”

  “I may have cured myself of it. But I do wish I had some pot right now. My leg is starting to really hurt.”

  “I can’t go back up there and get any. I don’t know the way. I’d never find you again. Just keep talking to me, and try not to think about it. So did you freak out and come all the way down here by yourself, or what?”

  “No. Even stoned, I wouldn’t be that crazy. Bean said he wanted to show me the cave, and fool that I was, I agreed. We were both still pretty far gone, but all the same, it was an incredible place, with all the formations and the bronze waterfall. I can’t tell you what it was like on acid. It was fairyland.”

  He stopped and groaned. I could tell how hard it was for him to talk.

  “Do you think I might be able to crawl down and help you get out?”

  “I don’t think so. We’ll have to chip some of this rock away. I just have to think about something else, and hope he comes back soon.”

  He groaned again but continued talking.

  “I was really enjoying the tour until we got to the room with the fish pond. Then all of a sudden, Bean started to flip out and began talking to somebody who wasn’t there, like he was angry. He was cussing at them. Then I looked at the rocks where he was standing, and it looked like they were coated in something dark that might have been blood. I have to say, it freaked me out, and I took my flashlight and started to go back out by myself. I didn’t know where I was going, though, and went the wrong way. Then I slipped and dropped my flashlight, which made me stumble and fall. I slammed into these rocks, hard, and my leg went right down between them. It’s been more or less numb, but the feeling is starting to come back, and I’m pretty sure it’s broken. I can’t move it.”

  “Just rest a minute. You don’t have to talk.”

  “No, I want to. You need to know this before Bean gets back.”

  “Well then, go on. Who was he talking to? Did he know you fell?”

  “He heard me calling him and he came, but instead of trying to get me out, he started crying and telling me about this girl in Vietnam and her baby that he had killed down in some tunnel, and the more he rambled on, the crazier it got. He seemed to think the baby was his. And then I realized after a while, when he said it happened here in the cave over by the fish pond, that it wasn’t a Vietnamese girl he was talking about. Cherry, I think it might have been Carlene.”

  “What are you saying, Tripp? Are you saying that Bean killed Carlene? That’s crazy!”

  “I know it is. But he took acid that night she and I were up here, and maybe he might have thought she was this Viet Cong girl, Nguyen, who had come back to get him. I think he must have brought Carlene here to the cave and killed her. It was all mixed up in his mind, but the details sounded so true I think it could have really happened.”

  “Wait a minute. Hold the phone. You were up here with Bean and Carlene the night she was murdered? I thought you never met her.”

  Waves of alarm were washing over me, but somehow I just kept concentrating on the rock wall in front of me and tried to make the ringing in my ears stop.

  “No, I lied to you, and I’m sorry. I did meet her. Just once. She introduced me to Bean and then left us up here at his house and drove away, and I had no idea that he got back together with her later.”

  “It seems like you have been telling a lot of lies, Tripp. Please don’t tell me any more.”

  “I had to lie about it. After I heard she had been killed, I couldn’t tell anybody I was with her that night. I’m a stranger in town. I would be the first one anybody would suspect. But I swear on anything you want me to—she walked away from that house alive, and I never saw her again, and I didn’t know anything about what happened later.”

  “That’s the real reason why you came here to Sweet Valley, isn’t it? To meet Carlene? You lied about that, so how do I know you aren’t lying now? How do I know youdidn’t kill her for the pictures?”

  “Because I didn’t! She gave them to me!” He stopped. “How do you know about the pictures?”

  “I know a lot of things, Tripp. I even know about Faye.”

  “Cherry, please. Tell me what’s going on. If you ever in your life had any love for me, please believe that I didn’t have anything to do with Carlene’s death, and tell me what is going on.”

  I was so confused. I wanted to believe him, but then I didn’t want to believe it was Bean who killed her, either. Bean was the only way I was going to get out of this cave.

  “It seems like your wife didn’t have a phone number for you, and she called the sheriff’s office to try to get hold of you and tell you that somebody from the army is looking for you. Ricky Don told me.”

  “I bet he enjoyed that.”

  “Not as much as you’d think. Anyhow, I went over to your place early this morning to talk to you, and when you weren’t there, I did some snooping around. I’m sorry, but I felt like I had to. I found the pictures in Catch-22and read Carlene’s letter. You should think of better hiding places.”

  “I guess I better.”

  “Do you want to tell me the truth about it now?”

  “I will. I’ll tell you all of it if you can get to my pocket and pull out the box of roaches I have in there. I really need it. Please. I don’t think I can stand this pain.”

  I was a little afraid to get that close to him, but he was hurting bad, and what could he really do to me, pinned down like that? I didn’t know what was real—or who to trust, or who was a murderer—but I couldn’t let him suffer like that, so I went for it. Somehow, I squirmed around and got the tin box and a pack of matches out of his pocket. I lit the marijuana butt for him and passed it down. He took a couple of deep tokes, then started to talk again.

  He got wound up and told me everything—about how he met Carlene, then how Bean had picked him up the next afternoon and took him to the pickle plant, where they heard about the murder. It really shook Bean up, and the two of them went back to his apartment, had a few beers, and talked about what a great girl Carlene was. They speculated, but couldn’t come up with anybody who might want to kill her. Then they had a few more beers and said they would never forgive themselves for not going home with her when she left, to make sure she was all right. They decided they should just keep between themselves the fact that they had been with her that night, so nobody would misunderstand.

  Tripp took a few more tokes, and started telling me about My Lai and Jerry and the punji trap and Faye. I tried not to breathe the smoke in. I wanted to have a clear head to hear it all.

  I really didn’t need to know all the details that he went into, but he needed to tell them, I guess. I made myself sit there with my mouth shut, and tried to fight the feeling that I wanted to run out of that dark underground place into the sunlight. Tripp talked until he was hoarse, and I believed him. If he wasn’t telling the truth, he should go to Hollywood and get an Oscar.

  When he was through, neither of us said anything for a while.

  There is no silence anyplace else like there is down in a cave. All I could hear was the drip of water echoing somewhere off in the dark. Finally, I stirred myself to speak.

  “Well, I see. I guess the only thing you didn’t tell me was where I fit into all this. And what you’re going to do now.”

  “I’m in love with you, Cherry. What I said is true—I never met anybody like you. I don’t want to lose you.” He reached his hand up as far as he could. I scooted down a little more. His hand was ice-cold. I tried to warm it up by rubbing
it.

  “I never met anybody like you either, Tripp. I don’t think there is anybody else like you.”

  Or at least anybody I had ever run across who could give me the feelings he did. Wasn’t that love?

  “I don’t need to wait six months. I’ve made up my mind to get a divorce from Faye—just as soon as she gets her citizenship.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll work to get it as fast as I can.”

  “Are you sure you want to break up a marriage that hasn’t hardly started? You must have thought you loved her when you married her.”

  I couldn’t believe I was trying to convince him to stay with his wife. What was the matter with me? I guess I just needed for him to be sure.

  “I hadn’t met you when I married her, or I wouldn’t have done it. Sometimes that happens. You just marry the wrong one, and the sooner you find out and end it, the better it is for everyone.”

  “What if you meet somebody you like better than me? You’d leave me, too.”

  “No. This is different with you. I know it is. This is for keeps.”

  I didn’t know what to say. If he divorced Faye, would he expect me to marry him? I hadn’t even done my practice teaching yet. It was all well and good to think about getting married one day, in the future, but when it actually came down to it, I wasn’t so sure.

  Especially in light of what happened last night with Ricky Don. I started to tell him about that—because to tell the truth, being in the dark of that cave and not being able to look each other in the eye had sort of taken down whatever defenses we might have had with each other, and made us tell things that we normally wouldn’t have—but something stopped me and I held back. It is always better to keep a little mystery in the relationship.

  “Cherry? Am I in this all by myself? Did I read you wrong?”

  “No. I love you too, Tripp. I really do. I just don’t know if I’m ready to get married or not.”

  “We don’t have to get married right away. But you do want to be with me, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do.” But for the first time since I met him, the words sounded like a lie to my own ears. If I loved Tripp like I was supposed to, then why did I do what I did with Ricky Don? I sure didn’t love or even want to be with Ricky Don at all. The last thing in the world I wanted was to stay in Sweet Valley my whole life and be married to the deputy sheriff. I’d have to join the Jaycettes and organize the craft fair. Right now, I didn’t know what I wanted except to get out of this cave. All these plans might be for nothing if we couldn’t get out.

  I tried not to think of the Indian with the wax wig, but I couldn’t help it. It had been a really long time since Bean had left and there was no sign of him. I didn’t want to think that he had left us down there to die. And I was worried about Baby. If he had done something to Baby, that would be all she wrote, for all of us.

  I tried to pray to God to get us out of there, but it felt like the prayer didn’t rise above the ground. It was trapped, like us, down in this cave.

  —

  The flashlight started to get dim. I watched it flicker, then go out.

  “Tripp? Oh my God. The light went out. What are we going to do?”

  You have never in your life been in dark like there is in a cave. You don’t know if your eyes are open or shut. It’s the kind of dark that could suck the sanity out of you if you were in it long enough. In a flash, it gave me a whole new respect for blind people, and a taste of what it might have been like for Bean in the tunnels in Vietnam. It was a miracle that Tripp hadn’t gone crazy this morning before we got to him.

  There were only three matches left in the pack in the tin box, and we needed to save those for the roaches in case Tripp’s pain got worse. The only thing we could do was hold tight to each other’s hand, and wait in the dark for whatever was going to happen next.

  65.Carlene

  Frank couldn’t sleep. He had been in bed for more than an hour, tossing and turning. He was disturbed by what Carlene had said about the Oriental girl. If she was really fourteen, it could be real trouble. Worse, it was a really stupid mistake to have said anything about Judge Greer seeing her pictures, or to have told her that he sold them. He had lost his head when she threatened to go to the police. Now there was no telling what she might do. Probably, he tried to convince himself, she would do nothing. Tomorrow, he would pack her pictures up and give them to her, and she would keep her mouth shut. She would be too embarrassed, and he knew she wouldn’t want her mother to see them. She was a decent girl, and he liked her a lot, but she never should have been so jealous; she never should have spied on him. He wasn’t going to settle down and marry some little waitress with an illegitimate kid. He thought she knew that.

  She looked great in the pictures, though. He certainly went through enough to get her to do them. Most of the girls he had were eager to pose, but Carlene had been a tough one. That was part of her attraction. He liked a challenge. She was like a game. He knew she never would have done it if he had asked her head-on; he’d had to wine and dine her and pretend to be in love with her, but the results were worth it. And it wasn’t all pretending. He always had a good time with her, and her pictures were some of his best-sellers. She had a real quality—earthy and sexy and wise and innocent all at the same time. It reminded him a little of what Marilyn Monroe had. The film was good, too. The boys in Memphis would take the raw footage and cut it in with several others and make a film worth several thousand dollars. There were always girls who had stars in their eyes and wanted to be in films, even this kind, and plenty of men who paid good money to see them.

  Too bad about the kid, Pilar. She was a natural. A wild one. She had told him she was eighteen, and he had no reason not to believe her. Her sister looked young, too, and she was twenty-one when he met her a year ago. He needed an Oriental girl. Since the war had started, there was a high demand for them.

  He hated to give Pilar up, but Judge Greer was only one judge and another one wouldn’t wink an eye. If Carlene pursued this, she might be able to really do him some damage. He would have to find a way to keep her quiet. He would call her in the morning and offer the pictures. Maybe he would take her on another trip. He could handle Carlene.

  He heard a noise, like something falling with a thud, on the deck. It might be a dog, but Frank didn’t think so. Someone was out there. He pushed back the covers and crossed to the window. Although the moon was bright, it was beginning to get foggy, and the light was fading in and out. He crouched low and crept from one window to another, peering into the dark, but saw nothing. Cautiously, he opened the door, stepped outside, and stumbled over a bundle lying on the deck. It was soft but solid, like a person. He pulled back the tarp and gasped. Feeling weak, he leaned against the railing. Carlene’s long red hair trailed out of the wrapping.

  He looked up toward the restaurant, but there was no one around. A motor started somewhere in the distance, and soon it grew fainter. Whoever had left her was gone. This had to be some kind of message. Obviously, someone wanted to frame him for murder. Carlene had been with him only a few hours ago. He cringed at the thought that he had worried over what to do about her. Could someone have been listening outside the window during their fight?

  He paced around the boat, but there were no lights anywhere, no fisherman within sight of the marina. If he called the police, they would never believe his story. Besides, he couldn’t afford to have the cops poking around in his business. They would search his boat and find the pictures and the films. Not to mention his marijuana. There was no way to dispose of everything so quickly. His only choice was to get rid of the body, and soon.

  The body. A living person becomes a body when she dies, a thing. He squatted beside the bundle and pulled back the tarp. This was a woman who had cared for him. She had been warm and funny and spunky, and he had hurt her horribly. He felt a pang, as if this were his doing. The sheet was soaked in blood. Carlene’s face was so white in
the moonlight. He brushed a lock of hair off her eye. Oh, Carlene, you should have been at home with your son. For the first time, maybe, in his life, he felt remorse. But that didn’t solve his problem.

  —

  Frank wrestled the bundle into the bottom of the dinghy and pushed away from the pier. The fog had gotten thicker, and while that was good news in case anyone might be out fishing this late at night, as people tended to do around here in July, it didn’t help him see where he was going. Frank had never been much of a fisherman. He just liked the gypsy quality of living on a houseboat; he could pull up and move on when a place got too familiar. But he didn’t want to leave Sweet Valley if he didn’t have to. This town had been good to him. He liked Jackie Lim, who let him do his business without asking too many questions, and he had made a lot of contacts here, like the judge. And with DuVall University, there were a lot of willing girls who always needed cash and helped him earn the bulk of his money. He should have never gotten so involved with Carlene. He would have to watch that in the future. If he got out of this in one piece.

  Now, though, he had to concentrate on the task at hand. He kept rowing.

  —

  Frank had gone far enough, he figured. The water was deep here and the body would sink, even though he couldn’t find anything to weigh it down except a few rocks. No one would find it for days, if ever. There was nothing to connect him to the murder. The tarp had protected his deck and his boat from the blood. He would have to keep his ears open, though. At least one person knew who he was if the body had been left at his place. He would have to be careful.

  He wrestled the body up, and as it hung over the edge of the boat, it moved. Carlene wasn’t dead. He cursed as she let out a moan. Too late to do anything about it now. He pushed her on over the side, and she floated for a moment, then started to sink. He just hoped nobody was out there to hear. She probably wouldn’t have lived long anyhow, with all the blood she had lost, so it wasn’t like he was killing her. Even if he had taken her the minute he found her, she would more than likely have died before he could get her to the hospital.