Desperate Measures

by David Morrell

  late to do anything about Kline himself. He died in the early fifties.

  By then he'd retired from Grollier and had a place here in Boston. My

  father said that one of the happiest days of his life was when he read

  Kline's obituary. Believe me, my father had very few happy days."

  Meecham finished his martini and frowned toward the pitcher as if he

  could use another drink. "I don't know what you've set out to prove,

  but if there were other instructors like Kline at Grollier and if their

  counterparts still teach there and if your book exposes them, we've both

  done some good.

  Suspecting something, Pittman asked, "Would you be willing to be

  quoted?"

  Meecham reacted sharply. "Of course not. Do you think I'd want that

  kind of public attention? I told you before, this conversation is

  stricly off the record. I'm just pointing you in the right direction.

  Surely someone else would be willing to substantiate what I've told you.

  Ask the grand counselors. " Meecham looked bitterly amused. "See how

  willing they'd be to go on record. "

  "When Jonathan Millgate was in intensive care, he told his nurse,

  'Duncan. The snow. Grollier.' What do you suppose he meant by the

  reference to snow?"

  "I have no idea. Certainly my father never mentioned anything that

  linked Duncan Kline with snow."

  "It's a slang expression for- Could it be a reference to cocaine?"

  "Again, I have no idea. Was that expression even used back in the early

  thirties? Would someone as distinguished as Jonathan Millgate reduce

  himself to that type of language?"

  Pittman shrugged in discouragement, then turned, hearing a knock on the

  door.

  Frederick stepped in. "Mr. Meecham, two policemen are at the door."

  Pittman felt a hot rush of adrenaline.

  Meecham looked surprised. "Policemen?"

  "Detectives," Frederick said. "They want to know if You've had any

  contact with someone named Matthew Pittman. He's traveling with a woman

  and Frederick's gaze settled on Pittman and Jill.

  Meecham frowned.

  "Where does that door lead?" Pittman stood unexpectedly and crossed the

  room toward a door in a wall that faced the rear of the house. The door

  was the only other wayout of the room, and since Pittman had no

  intention of using the door through which Frederick had come, of going

  out to the corridor where the detectives might see him, he had to take

  this route. He heard Jill's footsteps behind him.

  "What do You think you're doing?" Meecham demanded. By then, Pittman

  had pulled the door open and was lunging into a narrow hallway, Jill

  hurrying to follow. Pittman's steps quickened.

  "Stop!" Meecham said.

  On the left, Pittman passed the entrance to the mansion's kitchen. He

  had a glimpse of a male cook in a white uniform, who opened his mouth in

  surprise. Then Pittman, flanked rapidly by Jill, was out of sight,

  running farther down the hallway, reaching a door, the window of which

  revealed a cobblestone courtyard.

  Pittman jerked the door open and felt pressure in his chest as he

  realized that the dusky courtyard was bordered by a high barred gate, an

  even higher wall, and a carriage house turned into a garage. We'll

  never get out of here!

  Dismayed, he swung to look behind him. Frederick appeared at the

  opposite end of the hallway. The cook appeared at the entrance to the

  kitchen. Heavy footsteps pounded toward the hallway from the front of

  the house. To the right of the door, stairs led upward. Pittman

  suddenly thought of a way to escape and charged up, tugging Jill behind

  him. At a landing, the stairs veered up on another angle, and Pittman

  bounded higher, reaching a hallway on an upper level of the house.

  Closed doors lined the hallway. Meecham was making indignant demands to

  someone downstairs. He flinched as a door came open across from him.

  Meecham's elderly mother appeared, deceptively frail. "So much noise. I

  can barely hear the television."

  Pittman made a soothing gesture. "Mrs. Meecham, does your bedroom have

  a lock?"

  "of course it has a lock. Doesn't every bedroom have a lock? Do you

  think I want people barging in on me? What are you doing up here?"

  "Thanks." Pittman hurried with Jill, who didn't understand what Pittman

  was doing.

  "You can't go in there," Mrs. Meecham said.

  Pittman slammed and locked the door- From a television in the corner of

  the well-appointed lace-curtained room, complete with a four-poster bed,

  the opening theme music for a nature program almost obscured Mrs.

  Meecham's feeble pounding on the door. Jill swung toward Pittman. "What

  are we doing in here?" A look of sudden understanding crossed her face

  as Pittman rushed toward a window. It faced the back of the house,

  above the peaked roof of the garage. Pittman opened it. "Come on.

  Inexplicably Jill seemed frozen. "What's wrong?" Jill stared toward

  the door. She turned her head and stared at Pittman. "Come on!"

  Pittman said. At once Jill became animated, taking off her pumps. "Of

  all the times to be wearing a skirt." out the

  The hem tore as she raised her legs and climbed louder. window. The

  pounding on the bedroom door became

  Angry male voices were on the other side. The door shuddered as if

  shoulders were being heaved against it.

  Wincing from pain in his injured ribs, Pittman squirmed out the open

  window after Jill. The garage roof sloped down on each side, and

  Pittman tried to stay balanced while running along the peak. Behind

  him, something crashed in the bedroom. Jill reached the end of the roof

  and jumped down onto something, appearing to run on the shadowy air as

  she disappeared around the corner of another house.

  When Pittman came to the end of the garage, he saw that what Jill had

  jumped down onto was the foot-wide top of the high wall that enclosed

  the courtyard. That wall continued to the left, bordering the

  courtyards of other houses, bisecting the block. Hearing a shout behind

  him, Pittman climbed down as well and followed her, breathing so deeply

  and quickly that his lungs felt on fire.

  Then he, too, was out of sight from the window. He concentrated not to

  topple from the wall as he hurried after Jill, who clutched her shoes in

  one hand, her purse in the other, and scrambled in bare feet across the

  Peak Of another carriage house turned into a garage A shingle gave way

  beneath Jill, skittering off the roof, clattering onto cobblestones. She

  fell on her shoulder, beginning to roll . Pittman grabbed her arm. She

  dropped her shoes, which hit the cobblestones next to the shingle

  Pittman charged ahead with Jill and halted unexpectedly. The wall

  didn't continue beyond the garage. The courtyard was framed only by

  buildings. Below them, a red Jaguar was parked outside the garage.

  Pittman jumped down onto the car, feeling the roof protest but hold.

  Jill didn't need encouragement; she leapt down after him, the metal so

  smoothly waxed that her bare feet nearly slid out from under her.

  Pittman clutched her, kept her from her arm
s, lowered her toward the

  cobblestones, falling, held then jumped down next to her.

  The Jaguar Is owner must have been planning to leave soon. The gate to

  the street was open. Racing along the driveway, they reached a narrow,

  quiet, tree-lined, twilit street around the corner from Meecham's

  address.

  Their gray Duster was parked three spaces to their left.

  "Drive." Jill threw him the keys, then climbed into the backseat,

  ducking below the windows.

  As Pittman sped away from the curb, he heard her rummaging in the back.

  "What are you doing?"

  She was scrunched down out of sight, fumbling with some thing.

  "Jill, what are you-""

  This

  "Getting out of this damned skirt and into my jeans. skirt is ripped up

  to my backside. if I'm going to be arrested, there's no way it's going

  to be with myunderwear showing.

  Pittman couldn't help it. He was frightened, and he couldn't catch his

  breath, but she sounded so embarrassed, he started laughing.

  "I've had it with skirts. And those useless pumps," she said. "I don't

  care who I have to make an impression on. All this running. From now

  on, it's sneakers, a sweater, and jeans. And how the hell did the

  police know we were at Meecham's? Who could have .

  Pittman stared grimly ahead. "Yes. That's really been bothering me."

  He concentrated. "Who?"

  "Wait a minute. I think I- There's only one person who had that

  information. The man I phoned."

  "At the alumni association?"

  "Yes. This evening, he must have called my father to suck up to him by

  bragging how he'd done me a favor."

  "That's got to be it. Your father knows that the police are looking for

  you. As soon as he heard from the alumni association, he phoned the

  police and sent them to the address the man gave you.

  "We've got to be more careful."

  Pittman steered onto Charles Street, trying to keep his speed down, not

  to be conspicuous. As other cars switched on their headlights, so did

  he.

  "Exactly," Pittman said. "More careful. What were you doing back

  there?"

  "I told you, putting on my jeans."

  "No. I mean back at the house. In the bedroom. It looked as if you

  weren't going to leave with me."

  Jill didn't respond.

  "Don't tell me that's true," Pittman said. "You actually thought about

  staying behind?"

  "For a second Jill hesitated. "I told myself, I can't "keep running

  forever. The police don't want me. It's Mill gate's people who want to

  kill me. I thought I could end it right there. I could stay behind and

  give myself up, explain to the police why I've been running, make them

  understand you're innocent."

  "Yeah, sure. I bet that would have been good for a few laughs at the

  precinct." Although Pittman could understand Jill's motives, the

  thought that she would have left him caused his stomach to harden. "So

  what made you keep going? Why didn't you stay?"

  "The story you told me about how you'd been arrested when you were

  trying to get an interview with Millgate seven years ago."

  "That's right. Two prisoners, probably working for Millgate, beat me up

  while I was in a holding cell."

  "The police weren't quick enough to help you," Jill said.

  "Or maybe the guards were bribed to take a long coffee break." Pittman

  continued to feel bitter that she might have left him. "There's no way

  the authorities could guarantee your safety . So that's why you came

  with me? Your common sense took over? You listened to your survival

  instincts?"

  "No," Jill said.

  "Self-preservation.

  "No. That's not why I came with you. It had nothing to do with

  worrying whether the police could protect me."

  "Then ... ?"

  "I was worried about you. I couldn't imagine what you'd be like on your

  own."

  "Hey, I could have managed."

  "You don't realize how vulnerable you are."

  "No kidding, every time somebody shoots at me, I get the idea.

  ,Emotionally vulnerable. Last Wednesday, you were going to do the

  shooting."

  "I don't need to be reminded. It would have saved a lot of people a lot

  of trouble."

  Jill squirmed from the back into the passenger seat. "You just proved

  my point. I think the only reason you've managed to get this far is you

  had somebody cheering for you. I've never met anybody more lonely. Why

  would you want to keep going if you didn't have anything to live for,

  anybody to care?" Pittman felt as if ice had been placed on his chest.

  Unable to speak, he drove through the shadows of Boston Common, reaching

  Columbus Avenue, using the reverse of the route Jill had taken.

  "The reason I decided to stay with you," Jill said, "is that I didn't

  want to be apart from you.", Pittman had trouble speaking. "You sure

  did a lot of thinking in a couple of seconds."

  "I've been thinking about this for a while," Jill said. "I want to see

  how we get along when life gets normal.

  "If," Pittman said. "If it ever does get normal. If we can ever get

  through this."

  "This is a new feeling for me," Jill said. "It kind of snuck up on me.

  When you introduced me as your wife .

  "What?"

  "I liked it." Pittman was so amazed that he couldn't react for a

  moment. He reached over, touching her hand.

  A car horn blared behind him as he steered from traffic and stopped at

  the curb. His throat feeling tighter, he studied Jill, her beguiling

  oval face, her long corn-silk hair, her sapphire eyes glinting from the

  reflection of passing headlights.

  He leaned close and gently kissed her, the softness of her lips making

  him tingle. When she put her arms around his neck, he felt ripples of

  sensation. The kiss went on and on. She parted her lips. He tasted

  her.

  He felt a swirling sensation and slowly leaned back, pleasantly out of

  breath, studying her more intensely. "I didn't think I'd ever feel this

  way again."

  "You've got a lot of good feelings to catch up on," Jill said.

  Pittman kissed her again, this time with a hunger that startled him.

  Shaking, he had to stop. "My hart's beating so fast.

  "I know," Jill said. "I feel light-headed."

  Another car horn blared, passing them. Pittman turned to look out his

  side window. Where he'd stopped was in a no parking zone - "The last

  thing we need is a traffic ticket."

  He pulled from the curb.

  Immediately he noticed a police car at the corner of the next street. He

  tried to keep his speed constant, to peer straight ahead. It seemed to

  take him forever to pass the cruiser. In his rearview mirror, he saw

  the police car move forward not in his direction, but along the

  continuation of the side street.

  He loosened his tight grip on the steering wheel. His brow felt clammy.

  He was more afraid than usual.

  "Where are we going?"

  Pittman shook his head, squinting at the painful glare of headlights on

  the crowded Massachusetts Turnpike. For several minutes, he'd been

 
pensively quiet, trying to adjust-as he assumed Jill was-to the powerful

  change in their relationship. "We're heading out of Boston. But where

  we're going, I have no idea. I don't know what to do next, We've

  learned a lot. But we really haven't learned anything. I can't believe

  that Millgate's people would want to kill us because we'd found out what

  happened to him in prep school. "Suppose he wasn't molested."

  "The circumstantial evidence indicates-"

  "No, what I mean is, suppose he'd been willing," Jill said. "Maybe

  Millgate's people believe that the old man's reputation would have been

  ruined if-"

  "You think that's what his people were afraid of?"

  "Well, he confessed something to you about Grollier, and they killed him

  for it. Then you had to be stopped. And me because they have to

  believe you've told me what you know.

  "Killed him to protect his reputation? I just can't There's something

  more," Pittman said. "I don't think we've learned the whole truth yet.

  Maybe the other grand counselors are trying to protect their reputations

  . They don't want anyone to know what happened to them at Grollier. "

  "But what exactly? And how do we prove it?" Jill asked. She rubbed her