by John Lutz
“We’re not stopping,” Joleen said. “Her house must be farther down the road.”
“You should have kidnapped somebody who had a four-wheel drive,” Nudger said.
“Get out. I’ll drive. You push.”
Some determined woman, Nudger thought. He opened the door and stepped into the snow. By the time he reached the back of the car his shoes were full of it. He thought of running, but there was nowhere to go. So he planted his feet and placed his hands on the trunk.
“Now!” Joleen called.
He pushed. The rear wheels spat snow at him, and the car lurched forward. Joleen took it to the top of the rise and stopped. She got out and leveled the gun at him, beckoning to him with her free hand. There was gratitude for you. He trudged toward her. Just before he reached the car, he heard the dog at the first farm they’d passed, barking again.
Another car? Nudger wondered. Danny? But he didn’t really think so. He no longer believed Danny had seen them drive away or that the police were following them. He and Joleen were going to be left to play this out to the end.
They resumed their places and drove on. After ten minutes the Granada stopped again. Nudger got out and found that they’d blundered into a drift. The snow was up to the bumper. He leaned down to Joleen. “That’s it,” he said. “It won’t take us any farther.”
She got out. After seeing that Nudger was right, she peered down the road. It went into a wood just ahead of them. The trees looked black, the snow light-blue. Glancing up, he noticed that the overcast had broken into fleecy, drifting clouds. Black sky and bright stars showed through the rifts. Behind one cloud was a smudge of brightness: the moon.
Joleen turned to him. “It’s not far now.”
“How do you know that?”
“The river’s up ahead. Karen’s place will be near the river.”
“How do you know?”
“Never mind that. Let’s go. I want you in front of me.”
Nudger started walking. He fastened every button his London Fog raincoat had, but the cold still found a way in. His thin shoes and socks soaked through in no time, and he felt as if he were wading through an icy stream. His teeth began to chatter. He bit down to stop them. There wasn’t a sound, except for the crunch of their footfalls.
As they followed the road into the woods, the moon came out. The change was almost as marked as if it were day. Nudger hadn’t been in the country for a long time, and he’d forgotten how strong moonlight could be. The snow turned from washed-out blue to silver-gray. The long, tangled shadows of the trees became black and distinct. Joleen gave a gasp and stopped.
A cabin—Karen’s cabin?—stood directly before them. It was a foursquare, agreeable little place in gray clapboard, with brightly painted shutters; in the moonlight he couldn’t tell if they were red or blue. It had a stout chimney and a big front porch. The river must not be far away. He couldn’t see it but he could hear the faint rush of water.
“I knew it would be like this,” Joleen said breathlessly. “Karen’s refuge. It must have made her feel so much better, just to know she had this place.”
“How can you be positive this is it?” Nudger asked.
“I knew Karen. I can be positive.”
Before Nudger could say anything more, Joleen was off, running laboriously through the snow toward the house. She must have put the gun in her pocket. It didn’t occur to her that Nudger would try to escape now. It didn’t occur to Nudger either. Held by curiosity, he followed her toward the house.
When he reached her she was at the front door, scrabbling at the knob. The door was of course locked. She threw her shoulder against it, but it was a heavy piece of wood hung on strong hinges. It didn’t budge. She went over to the nearest window to examine the shutter. It was barred and padlocked. She turned to Nudger.
“Don’t just stand there. Get us in.”
So here was his first piece of detective work under the gun. He hoped he wouldn’t let Joleen down. Karen’s cabin or not, this was breaking and entering in the eyes of the law. Not proper professional behavior. Except for the gun.
Taking off his gloves and flexing his cold fingers, he stepped up to the door. From his wallet he drew his well-honed Visa card. He uttered a silent prayer that the door wouldn’t have a dead bolt lock. Then he grasped the cold knob in his bare hand and slipped the card into the crack.
After a few seconds’ struggle, the door opened. He was amazed. Usually he tried the card, failed, and had to kick doors open.
“All right!” Joleen said. Nudger had never been happier to please a client.
She pushed past him, shining her flashlight around the dark interior. The place smelled musty and felt colder than outside. Joleen’s light settled on a camping lantern, resting on the floor. She got it burning and lifted it up.
Nudger’s first impression was of a beautifully furnished room, a sofa and chairs with plump, inviting cushions, a cheery and delicately patterned wallpaper, elaborate window treatments. Here was the same fine taste he’d noticed in the house in University City. It was what he expected of Karen’s refuge.
But as Joleen turned the flame up and held the lamp higher, he saw something else.
The place had been trashed. It didn’t look as if there had been a sudden outburst of destructive fury. Rather, it was as if someone who didn’t care about the house had been living in it. There were cigarette burns in the Persian rug, food stains on the arms of the sofa. The marks of muddy boots disfigured the ottoman.
Nudger walked on, into the dining area. There were more cigarette burns and scratches in the handsome, oval mahogany dining table. A breakfront cabinet in one corner stood open, and the shelves were bare. The tall plastic wastebasket from the kitchen had been moved next to the table. He looked into it. Broken and food-stained Wedgewood plates and cups filled it to overflowing. Someone had been using and discarding the fine china as if it were paper plates.
“Bastards,” Joleen hissed behind him. “What do you think—people from around here noticed the place was empty and broke in?”
“I don’t know,” Nudger headed for the kitchen. “Bring the lantern in here, would you?”
She followed and held the light up. She gasped. There were greasy bags and containers from various fast food outlets heaped up on the tables and counters. They were studded with the corpses of flies.
“All this food!” she said. “There must have been an army of them.”
“Or one man, who was here for a long time.” Nudger was beginning to suspect what had happened here. His stomach was churning.
He walked on to the back door. An open cardboard box rested on the floor. It was full of trash, including several empty bottles. Their labels said COLONEL’S HERITAGE. It was a cheap bourbon. He bent over and sniffed. He’d smelled that sickly sweet odor before, on Rolf Kling’s breath.
Turning to the counter, he began to open drawers. The third he tried held what he expected to find—bottles of pills, mostly tranquilizers, and syringes and ampules. They would be powerful sedatives.
So this was what Roger Dupont had done. It was a simple trick, but not one a normal human being would be likely to guess. To think of it you had to be more than clever and cruel. You had to be inhuman.
“Nudger,” Joleen whispered. “What is it? Your face looks . . .”
He took the lantern from her and went into the living room. He crossed it and followed a short hallway down to the bedroom. He had to make his way around what had been the bedroom furniture, a disassembled bed, a broken chair. Rolf had cleared out the room when he turned it into a prison cell.
Nudger opened the bedroom door. The window had been boarded up. There was nothing in the room but a cot. The bedding was gone, revealing that the thin mattress was foully stained. A radiator pipe ran up the wall beside the cot. Nudger knelt and peered. Around the pipe’s base was one ring of a handcuff. The other ring was open.
He hadn’t heard Joleen come in behind him. “Oh, my God,” she whispe
red. “Oh, no!”
“Seen more than you bargained for?” asked Rolf Kling.
Chapter Forty
Nudger swung around. The big man was standing in the front doorway. The floorboards creaked under his weight as he walked toward them. The sound of his labored breathing seemed to fill the house. He’d made the same strenuous walk they had. He’d been behind them all along.
Joleen turned to Nudger. “Who is—?”
“He’s Vella’s brother.”
Joleen’s features set into a fierce mask. Her right hand flew to her jacket pocket.
Rolf’s arm came up, leveling a small automatic pistol at her face. “Don’t,” he said mildly.
She let her arm fall to her side.
He gestured with his free hand. “Come on out here. I don’t like this room.”
He lowered the gun but kept it pointed at them. They followed as he backed into the living room. He said, “Now put the lantern on the floor and stand back.”
Joleen obeyed. In the lamplight, Rolf’s face with its coarse-pored skin, drooping moustache, and doughy features looked weary. More than that, Nudger thought, he looked ill. The legs of his pants were soaked through to the knee, and he was wearing the same sort of inadequate raincoat as Nudger. He had no hat, and his ears were red with cold. Even confronted with the evidence of what he’d done for Dupont, Nudger could find something pathetic about Rolf.
Still breathing hard, Rolf sank down in the easy chair and put his feet up on the ottoman. His heels dug into the mudstains he’d made last summer.
Joleen said, “You held my sister prisoner here, didn’t you?”
Nudger had to give her credit. She wasn’t frightened by Rolf’s gun. In fact, he seemed to be the one who was intimidated.
“How long did you keep her locked up here?” Joleen asked.
Rolf didn’t answer.
“From the time she disappeared back in May, she was here,” Nudger said. “Rolf kidnapped her. And he held her here until Roger Dupont was acquitted of her murder. Until it was safe to kill her.”
Joleen gasped. She covered her mouth with her hand and shut her eyes tight. After a long moment she opened them and looked at Rolf. “Oh, you bastard,” she breathed. “You fucking creep. You kept her here for weeks.”
“It wasn’t so tough on her,” Rolf said. He seemed to find it easier to point his gun at Joleen than to look her in the eye. “See, the plan was, if Roger was found guilty, then I’d leave here and make an anonymous call to the police. They’d find Karen alive, and she’d tell them she’d been kidnapped.”
“You made her think she was being held for ransom,” Nudger said.
Rolf nodded, still catching his breath. “Yeah, right. She didn’t know me, and I made sure she didn’t get a good look at my face. I convinced her I was some guy from around here, I’d spotted her as a rich woman from St. Louis, and I was going to get big money from her husband to give her back.”
Joleen was shaking her head. “Karen would never fall for a story like that.”
“Sure, she believed it. It gave her hope. A person’ll believe anything that gives ’em hope. And anyway, she wasn’t thinking too clearly, because of the ... you know, the drugs I had to give her to keep her calm.”
“Fucking creep,” Joleen said again.
“I had to do it. For Vella.” Rolf looked appealingly to Nudger. “You’ve met Vella. You understand. She’s so pretty, so nice. She’s always cheerful. Going out of her way to make you smile. She’s like a TV star. She’s not like people in real life, is she?”
Nudger nodded. He figured Vella wasn’t like the sort of people Rolf had met in his life.
“You can’t blame Vella for wanting a guy like Roger. Real smooth, real handsome. When they’re walking down the street together people turn and look. They’re thinking, yeah, those two are perfect together. And they’re going to make big money with that antique shop. Vella really knows antiques and all that shit. All she’s ever needed was a backer. Now she won’t have to pull those cheap con tricks anymore. That kinda stuff was never right for her.”
“Was it Vella who wanted my sister dead?”
Rolf shook his head. “No way, lady. It was Roger. He followed Karen down here one time, found out about this cabin, and right away he started planning to kill her. He didn’t give Vella and me no choice. You want the truth, I was kind of hoping he’d lose that trial. That I’d get to let Karen go. Then she’d be found alive and they’d have to turn Roger loose and reverse his conviction.”
“But Roger didn’t lose,” Nudger said.
“Nope. Never does.”
Not at tennis, not at murder, Nudger thought. “What happened that night?”
Rolf didn’t answer. His breathing had settled down but was still stertorous. Despite the cold there was sweat on his brow. He unbuttoned his raincoat. “I’m not gonna talk about that,” he said. “Christ, it’s bad enough I should have to come here again, let alone—”
“Tell us what happened, damn you!” Joleen interrupted.
Rolf looked at her uneasily. His gunhand rested on his knee. With his free hand he fumbled in his coat pocket and brought out a flat bottle of Colonel’s Heritage. He unscrewed the cap with his left thumb and took a swig.
Joleen took a step toward him. He raised the gun and took the bottle away from his mouth so quickly that bourbon splashed all over the front of his shirt.
“You killed my sister, didn’t you?”
“No!” Rolf shouted. “It was Roger. Vella called that evening to say Roger’d been acquitted. So I knew right then Karen was a goner. It was weird having to be here with her. I started feeling kind of bad. But Roger made me wait all night. Didn’t get here till dawn. He said the media people wouldn’t let him alone after the verdict and he had to make sure he wasn’t followed.”
“And then he killed her,” Joleen murmured.
“Not right away.” Rolf looked into the darkness of the room beyond. “He went in there. Tore off her blindfold. He wanted her to see him and know what was going to happen. He told her he’d just been acquitted of her murder. The double jeopardy law meant he couldn’t be tried again for the same crime, and after a little time had passed and her body’d decomposed enough, there’d be no way for the police to prove she hadn’t been killed before his trial. She didn’t like hearing any of that. She knew Roger’d won again. She screamed and cried and begged till I couldn’t take it listening to her. Had to get out of there. When I came back she was lying on the floor with her head beaten in with a hammer Roger brought.”
He looked up at Joleen, meeting her eye for the first time. “I had to do what I did,” he said in a voice that begged for absolution. “For Vella.”
Joleen’s features were set in a mask of cold hatred. Rolf went on looking at her. He seemed to know what was going to happen next. So did Nudger. There was nothing anyone could do to stop it, not even Joleen.
Her hand flew to her coat pocket.
The muzzle of the target pistol hadn’t cleared the pocket when Rolf fired. The noise was a light, hollow pop. Joleen’s head snapped back. Her cap fell off. She crumpled to the floor.
Rolf swung the pistol to cover Nudger. When Nudger made no move, he smiled sadly and said, “Not gonna make it easy for me, are you?”
Nudger said nothing. He looked down at Joleen. She lay still. Now that her cap was gone the loosely piled up locks of her red hair were coming undone, sliding down to cover her face.
The room reeked of cordite. It was a smell that always made Nudger sick. His stomach was heaving from the odor and from fear.
Rolf sighed heavily and stood up. He bent and took the gun from Joleen’s hand, glanced at it before putting it in his pocket. “A twenty-two target pistol,” he said, “like mine.”
Nudger said nothing.
“A lot of guys, they use those big-caliber guns. There’s no call for that. They just want to blow a hole in a person’s face. Blow the back of his head off and splash his brains all over th
e wall. With my kinda gun you get just the one small hole, the entry wound. And the bullet bounces around inside the skull, fucks up the brain good, kills a person plenty dead. But without making a mess.”
He looked at Nudger, as if he genuinely wanted to hear his comment.
Nudger said, “You killed Blaumveldt.”
Rolf nodded. “Had to. It’s this fucking cabin again. Can’t afford to let anybody see it.”
He kept his eyes on Nudger’s as he picked up the Colonel’s Heritage from the sofa, took another swig, and held out the bottle to Nudger. Nudger shook his head.
“You sure? You understand what I gotta do now. This is gonna make it easier for me. Might make it easier for you, too.”
Nudger tried to swallow his fear. It came back up and tried to choke off his voice. He said, “All this so your sister can have Roger Dupont.”
“It’s what she wants. She looks after me and I look after her. Keep her safe. That’s why I’m gonna get rid of this goddamn cabin right now. There’s enough evidence here to hang both of us.”
“Why didn’t you take care of that months ago?”
Rolf shook his head with annoyance. “Roger couldn’t make up his mind. He wouldn’t let me burn it, said that’d only call attention to it. He said what we had to do was clean it out, get rid of the furniture, paint the walls, scrub the floors. Get rid of all the evidence. But he kept stalling. He said it didn’t matter, nobody was ever gonna find the place anyway. Nobody’d even be looking.”
Nudger thought about Blaumveldt. “He was wrong.”
Rolf looked around the cabin grimly. “Well, enough of that. I’m gonna burn the place right now. Before the sky gets light. Maybe nobody’ll notice the smoke. But even if they do, they won’t get here till it’s too late.”
“It won’t work, Rolf. They’ll find bones in the ashes. Teeth.”