John D MacDonald - The Executioners (aka Cape Fear)

by The Executioners (Aka Cape Fear)(Lit)

  "I don't blame you in any way."

  "I am finding it very hard to accept the fact this was intentional. Sheriff Kantz assures me it is."

  The sheriff was tossing a small object into the air and catching it.

  "This is the slug. Badly deformed.

  Thirty-caliber, I'd say. Mr. Menard here put a slew of kids to looking for it until they found it."

  "We're saying it was a stray bullet," Menard said.

  "Everybody is excited enough as it is. But I don't know what the parents are going to say when they get letters saying a stray bullet wounded a camper. I'm sorry, Mr. Bowden. I shouldn't be griping about my problems when yours is so much greater."

  "Did you find the place where the shot was fired from?" Sam asked.

  The deputy nodded.

  "Rock ledge. Prone position.

  About thirty feet from the road up there. He matted the moss on the rock. It was still springing back up.

  No car tracks, no empty cartridge case. Did find a chewed cigar butt. He'd rubbed it out on the rock.

  Mouth end still soggy."

  "If he'd killed the boy," the sheriff said, "we'd be sending it along to the lab to see if we could get a type on the saliva. But I don't see as how it does much good."

  "Cady smokes cigars."

  The sheriff looked blandly at Sam.

  "Hope you got a permit for that thing you're carrying?"

  "What? Oh, of course. Yes, I have a permit."

  "What do you plan to do now?"

  "We were going to take Jamie out of camp today anyway. I think I'll go over to the girls' camp and get Nancy's gear and check her out."

  "And go home?"

  "No. I'm going to leave my wife and children in the place where... she has been staying with the younger boy."

  "Any chance of this Cady knowing where that is?"

  "I don't see how he could."

  The sheriff pursed his lips.

  "Sounds okay to me.

  Leave them all there until he's picked up. But suppose he isn't picked up? How are you going to know when he gives up and goes away?"

  "I guess we won't know."

  "Can't keep your family hid out forever."

  "I know that. I've thought of that. But what else can I do? Do you have any ideas?"

  "The only one I got I'm not proud of, Mr. Bowden.

  Think of him like he's a tiger. You want to get him in out of the brush. So you stake out a goat and you hide in a tree."

  Sam stared at him.

  "If you could possibly think I'd use my wife or any of my kids as bait for " "I told you I wasn't proud of it. You can guess what a tiger will do, I've heard, but you can't guess about a crazy man. He tried sniping this time. Next time he might try something else. I guess it's best to keep them hid. It's the best you can do."

  Sam looked at his watch.

  "I'd like to collect Jamie's gear and pick up Bucky, Mr. Menard."

  "I've had his gear packed and brought up to the mess hall. Bucky is with my wife. I'll go get him. I'm sorry this was such a bad ending to Jamie's month."

  "I'm glad it wasn't worse."

  "We'll look forward to having him with us next year."

  Sam said goodbye to the sheriff and thanked him.

  The sheriff assured him there was a pretty good chance of Cady being picked up for questioning. But there was a hollow ring to his assurances.

  Sam was back at the hospital by quarter to five.

  Nancy was very surprised when she found he had checked her out of camp, and disappointed she would have no chance to say goodbye, but she soon accepted it as a logical and inevitable decision.

  She nodded slowly and said, "I know. There's so many hills. I couldn't be outdoors anywhere in daylight without wondering if..." And she shuddered.

  Sam phoned Bill Stetch from a booth in the hospital lobby and told him the situation and said he wouldn't be back in the office until Friday morning.

  After they saw Jamie again and said good night to him, they had dinner at the Hotel Aldermont. Sam suggested to Carol that she drive on back to Suffern with Nancy and Bucky and he would stay over and bring Jamie up the next day. But when he sensed how reluctant she was to be parted from him, he went to the hotel desk and took two rooms for the night.

  Tommy Kent tried to insist that he could get a bus back to camp, but Sam drove him back. Nancy had wanted to come along, but Sam told her to stay with her mother and Bucky. He was worried about Carol.

  She was entirely too reserved and subdued. During dinner she had joined in the conversation mechanically. She seemed far away from all of them.

  As he drove the MG west toward the afterglow of the sunset, he said to his quiet passenger, "Am I doing the right thing, Tommy?"

  "Sir?"

  "Try to put yourself in my shoes. What would you do?"

  "I... I guess I'd do what you're doing."

  "You sound as if you have reservations."

  "It's not that, exactly, but it seems so... you know, waiting instead of doing anything."

  "Passive."

  "That's what I mean. But I cant think of anything you can do."

  "Society is well organized to protect me and my family from theft and arson and civil riot. The casual criminals are kept under reasonably good control. But it is not set up to deal with a man who is trying specifically and irrationally to kill us. I know I could put enough pressure to bear to get my family officially guarded around the clock. But it would merely give Cady pleasure in finding a way to outwit the guards.

  And if the police were pulled off, I could hire people as bodyguards. But that would be the same story, I'm afraid. And it would be a very artificial way to live.

  And it would be constant terror, especially since this has happened."

  "He won't be able to find out they're in Suffern?"

  "Not unless he can manage to follow us when we leave Aldermont. But I don't think he's in this area any more. I think he is always a half step ahead of me.

  I think he knows damn well I would immediately pull both kids out of camp. I have the feeling he's back up lear Harper. There's a lot of fairly wild country around there."

  "I sure wouldn't want anything to happen to Nancy."

  "Suffern doesn't sound as safe to me as it did before.

  I think I may move them again tomorrow."

  "I'd feel better about it, I think."

  Sam studied a road map for a long time before the two-car caravan started the hundred-mile trip from Aldermont north to Suffern. Jamie was in good spirits, and his color was back to normal. He had all the faintly patronizing nonchalance of a seasoned combat veteran. Carol was still peculiarly subdued and unresponsive. He led the way in the MG with Nancy, and Carol followed with the boys. He took a roundabout route over secondary roads, and after stopping twice to be certain they weren't followed, he continued with more confidence. It was a bright morning, with air so clear that every detail of far hills was sharp. The back roads went through beautiful country. It was the sort of day that raises the spirits. They were all together. He could be almost certain that Cady would be apprehended, and when that happened, maybe there would be some legal way he could be given tests to determine his sanity. Maybe some kind of pressure could be brought on Bessie McGowan to make her testify.

  He looked frequently in the rear-view mirror to see how far behind Carol was. At approximately eleven o'clock, when they were forty miles south of Suffern, he glanced back at the precise moment when the station wagon made a wild swerve, swung back into a deep ditch and turned over. It seemed to happen in slow motion. He braked hard. Nancy looked back and screamed. He put the little car in reverse and shot backward and got out and ran to the car. He climbed up on the side of it and opened the door. Bucky was roaring with fright. He got Bucky out first and then Jamie and finally Carol. Nancy helped them down.

  There was no traffic. Sam made the three of them sit down in the thick grass at the top of the ditch near the fence.

&nbs
p; Bucky had a lump like a half walnut on his forehead.

  Carol's mouth was bleeding. Jamie seemed unhurt.

  But Carol had gone to pieces. Completely. Her hysteria seemed more alarming to the children than the accident. He was unable to calm her. A small farm truck came rattling down the road. Sam ran out to hail it. A small, elderly, bitter-looking man was driving it.

  He looked directly ahead, jaw clamped shut, mouth working. Sam had to jump out of the way or be run down. He stood in the road, shaking with rage, yelling curses at the receding vehicle.

  The next car stopped. It was a dusty sedan. The back was full of tools. Two big men in work clothes got out in a leisurely way and came over. Carol by that time had exhausted herself. She lay on her side, holding Sam's handkerchief to her mouth.

  "Anybody hurt bad?"

  "A split lip and some bruises. They weren't going fast. Where can I get help?"

  "We're on our way to town. We could send Charlie Hall back out with his wrecker for the car. Ed, if you want to wait here and ride back in with Charlie, I could take the lady and the kids in and leave them off at Doc Evans'."

  "I was shot in the arm yesterday," Jamie announced.

  The two men looked at him blankly. A large shiny car with an elderly couple in it slowed down and then speeded up.

  Sam helped Carol across the ditch and put her in the sedan. She made no protest. There was just room for Bucky in back with the tools. Jamie sat on Nancy's lap in front. The driver got in and said, "Doc Evans is on the left-hand side in a white house just when you get inside the town limits."

  As they drove off Sam said to the man named Ed, "I didn't even remember to thank him."

  "I don't guess his feelings are hurt. I cant get this straightened out. Who was driving what?"

  "My wife was driving the station wagon and I was leading in the MG with my daughter. I happened to look back when it happened."

  "I get it. Pretty tricky thing to stay out of trouble when you lose a front wheel."

  "Front wheel? I didn't even notice that. The front left wheel."

  "Ought to be around here someplace. Probably ran off the other side." They found it after five minutes of search, fifty feet from the road. The chrome rim had glinted in the sun and Ed had spotted it. Three cars stopped and were waved on. Ed got down in the ditch and looked at the wheel bolts. He touched one gently with a thick finger.

  "Funny," he said.

  "What's the matter?"

  "Nothing sheared. The threads got chewed up some. How far you come?"

  "From Aldermont."

  "Well, I'd guess you had maybe only three nuts on here and each one of those turned just enough to catch the threads. Kids act crazy these days. Even if the nuts weren't tightened down tight enough, they couldn't all work off. Crazy kids, I'd say, playing a pretty nasty trick on you. Let's see if we can find the hub cap."

  The wrecker arrived a few minutes after Sam found the hub cap in the ditch on the other side. The car was efficiently winched up onto its wheels and pulled out of the ditch. The right side of the station wagon was crumpled and two windows were cracked. Sam listened to directions about how to find the repair garage, thanked Ed, and drove in to the doctor's. The small town was called Ellendon. The doctor's name was Biscoe. He explained he was taking over the practice from Dr. Evans. He was small, dark, feline with a black mustache and trace of unidentifiable accent. He wore a crisp white tunic.

  He took Sam off into a small examination room, closed the door and offered Sam a cigarette.

  "Mr. Bowden, is your wife, would you say, a nervous woman?

  Tense?"

  "No."

  "Then has she been under some great strain lately?"

  "Yes. A very great strain indeed."

  He waved his cigarette.

  "I sense you know undercurrents. The boy's bullet wound. I checked to see if the stitches held. This is none of my business.

  But were it my wife, I would take steps to see the strain is ended. Soon. It is like combat. She has committed all of her reserves. She is totally in action.

  She could be broken."

  "What would that mean?"

  "Who can say? Retreat from reality when reality becomes more than she wishes to bear, or can afford to bear."

  "But she's very stable."

  Biscoe smiled.

  "But not dull stable, stupid stable.

  No. Intelligent, sensitive, imaginative. She is frightened out of her wits, Mr. Bowden. I have given her a mild sedative. You can get this prescription filled for her, please."

  "How about her mouth?"

  "Not enough of a split to try a stitch. I stopped the bleeding. It will be puffed out for a few days. The small one is pleased with his bump. He admires it in the mirror. No other damage."

  "I have to go and see about the car. Would I be imposing too much if I asked to leave them here while I check?"

  "Not at all. Miss Walker will have your bill, Mr. Bowden. Your wife is resting and your well-behaved children are out in the back admiring my Belgian hares."

  The station wagon was on the alignment rack being worked on. The service manager said, "Not much damage. We had to use a file on a couple of those chewed threads before we could get the wheel back on. It's 'way out of alignment, but I don't think the frame is sprung. Neither right-hand door will open.

  We replaced the oil that ran out. Hammering it out would be a long job, of course. But I imagine you want to get back on the road."

  "I'd like to. I don't think my wife will want to drive.

  Can you people store my MG for a few days?"

  "Sure thing."

  "How soon will the car be ready?"

  "Give us another forty minutes."

  "Can I give you a check?"

  "Certainly."

  After he had got the prescription filled, he went back to the doctor's. The nurse showed him where Carol was resting. The shades were drawn and her eyes were shut, but she wasn't sleeping. She opened her eyes when he approached the bed. There were spatters of dried blood on her blouse. She smiled weakly and he sat down on the edge of the bed and took her hand.

  "I guess all my sawdust ran out," she said.

  "About time, wasn't it?"

  "I'm ashamed of myself. But it wasn't tipping over in the car. I guess you know that. It was Jamie. Ever since it happened. A little boy like that. Trying to kill him with a gun. Trying to shoot him to death, like killing a little animal."

  "I know."

  "I just couldn't stop thinking about it. Does my mouth look terrible?"

  "Horrible," he said, grinning at her.

  "You know, when I look down I can see my upper lip. It's cut on the inside. He packed something in there. He's very nice."

  "He gave you something."

  "I know. It takes the edges off everything. It makes me feel floaty. Is the car ruined?"

  "It'll be ready to roll in a half hour. It won't be pretty but it'll run."

  "That's wonderful! But... but I don't want to drive it any more today."

  "I'm storing the MG here and we'll all go in the wagon."

  "All right, dear."

  "How did it act?"

  "Right from the first it wasn't steering right. You know, it sort of wandered. I thought it was out of line again. I had to steer it every minute. And then, on curves, it would make a funny crunchy noise up in the front somewhere. Then, just before it happened, it got much worse. There was a terrible vibration. I was just starting to put my foot on the brake and blow the horn for you to stop when I saw the wheel go scooting out ahead of me. Just when I realized what it was, we were turning over and something hit me in the mouth.

  Do they know what happened?"

  "Somebody loosened the nuts."

  She looked up at him and then closed her eyes and shut her hand hard on his fingers.

  "Oh, God!" she whispered.

  "He knows the car. He would know the nearest hospital was in Aldermont. He could find that out.

  Alde
rmont isnt large. I don't imagine they have a night watchman on that lot across from the hotel. If we'd taken the main road with all that fast traffic, it might have been a different story."

  "When does all our luck run out? How long do we wait before that happens?"