by Lois Duncan
CHAPTER 10
The house was one of a cluster of little homes almost at the end of the narrow, unpaved road which led off to the east from the Mountain Highway. All the houses there were of masonry construction, small and white with pitched roofs, half lost in the shadow of the mountain, and set close to the road as though happy for this slim connection with civilization.
They passed it once to check the house number. Then they drove slowly back again and parked down the road, got out, and began the walk back.
With every step, Julie felt her heart contracting. When they finally came opposite the house again, she had reached the point of feeling physically ill.
Ray reached out and touched her arm.
“Are you sure you want to go through with this?”
“I’m sure,” Julie said firmly.
Actually, she was no longer sure at all. The plan that had seemed so reasonable such a short time ago, now suddenly seemed ridiculous. What if, as Ray suggested, the Greggs actually were the people who had shot Barry and had mailed the insinuating notes and clippings? What if they did recognize the two people named Julie James and Raymond Bronson? What if their desire for revenge was so great that they didn’t care about the consequences and did something violent?
Or, in a way almost as bad, what if they simply stood there in the doorway, shoulder to shoulder, with tears running down their faces, and asked, “Why? Why did you run down our son and never even come back to say you were sorry?”
This is his house, Julie thought, staring at it. This is where Daniel Gregg lived.
It was an ordinary enough house, and the front yard had a bedraggled, uncared-for look. The stubble of grass, not yet green with summer, grew in patches with the earth showing hard and bare in between, and the flower beds under the windows still held brown stalks from last year’s garden. Along one side of the roof the faded trim showed a bright yellow, and a ladder leaned against the wall as evidence that someone was in the process of repainting.
“Come on,” Ray said, “if you’re coming.” The words were impatient, but the voice that spoke them was merely nervous.
“I’m coming,” she said, and hurried to catch up with him.
They mounted the cement step, and Ray placed his finger hard on the doorbell. The door stood half-open, and through the screen they could see the simple furnishings of a living room: a green chair, the end of an over-stuffed couch, a coffee table holding magazines. Across the room an old portable TV set stood on a stand.
Despite the fact of the open door, the place held the feeling of emptiness.
Ray pressed the bell again, and they listened together as the sound rang through the house.
“No answer.” He sounded relieved. “Nobody’s home.”
“Somebody has to be here,” Julie insisted. “People don’t just go off and leave their houses open like this.”
“Mr. Gregg is probably at work. We didn’t think about that. And maybe his wife works too or went next door.”
“Are you looking for me?” The voice, coming from directly behind them, caused them both to jump as though caught in some guilty enterprise. They turned simultaneously and found themselves gazing down at a short, plump, pretty girl no more than a few years older than Julie.
“I was around at the side of the house, taking down the wash. Our dryer’s conked out so we’re back to the old-fashioned clothesline. I thought I heard the bell but I wasn’t sure. Can I help you with something?”
“We were hoping to use your phone,” Julie said, and Ray began at the same time. “Our car, we’ve had some trouble with it. It’s back up the road a ways.”
“Come on in.” The girl joined them on the step and opened the door, motioning them inside ahead of her. “Don’t worry about the screen; there aren’t any flies yet, thank the Lord. During the summer we have to keep the door closed every minute or they swarm all over us. The phone’s right around the corner there in the hall, and there’s a directory hanging over to the side on a nail. Do you see it?”
“Yes,” Ray said, going into the hallway. “Thanks.”
“If Pa was here he could probably get the car started for you. He’s great with motors. I don’t know a carburetor from a battery myself, but then I guess most girls don’t, do they?” She smiled at Julie. It was a wide, sweet smile that lit up her face in such a familiar way that Julie found herself staring.
“Do I know you?” Julie asked. “I know this sounds silly, but I could swear I’ve seen you someplace.”
“Maybe you have,” the girl said easily. “I’m a hairdresser at the Bon Marche on Central. It seems like I’ve done the hair of half the people in town at one time or the other. My name’s Megan.”
“I’m Julie James,” Julie told her, “and my friend is Ray Bronson. It’s nice of you to help us like this.”
The girl’s smile didn’t change. Nothing altered in the expression in the wide, dark eyes.
“Oh, I’m glad to have people drop by. Ma always says I can talk the ears off a rabbit, which is probably why I like beauty work. You get to talk to people all day long. But today was my regular day off, and we didn’t work yesterday because of it’s being a holiday, and then the day before that was a Sunday, and with my folks out of town, I’ve been ready to climb the walls. Would you like some iced tea? You’ll probably have a while to wait before somebody can get here to fool with the car. We’re pretty far out.”
“Tea would taste good,” Julie said. “Thank you.”
She followed the girl from the living room into the small, bright kitchen. The walls were a paler shade of yellow than the newly painted trim outside, and there was a calendar with a picture of kittens on it hanging under a clock. A magazine on the kitchen table lay open to a page of advertisements as though the recent reader had been trying to while away the empty hours. Megan opened the refrigerator and took out a plastic container of tea and poured it into three tall glasses.
“Do you want sugar?” she asked. “Or do you think your friend will?”
“No, thanks, I don’t think so.” Julie took the glass from the girl’s small, square hand.
There’s one thing for sure, she thought. This girl isn’t involved in this thing in any way. She certainly couldn’t have anything to do with the attack on Barry and she doesn’t recognize our names. She’s as open and friendly as she can be.
Megan picked up the remaining two glasses.
“Let’s carry these outside while I finish taking down the wash. That’s one thing about being the only one at home now, with my folks gone and my big brother out of the nest. There’s nobody else to do the laundry and cooking and stuff. I keep telling myself that I’m going to lose weight this way. I just hate to cook for myself, don’t you? But it doesn’t really work out like that. The foods with the most calories are the easiest things to fix.”
“Where are your parents?” Julie asked as she followed Megan out the kitchen door into the backyard. It was a pleasant yard with a redwood picnic table and a charcoal grill and beyond that a tool shed, with a shaggy growth of trees enclosing it all.
To the left, on a clothesline stretched between two trees, blouses and slacks and a couple of bed sheets waved in the slight breeze.
“They’re in Las Lunas,” Megan said, setting the glasses down on the picnic table and crossing over to the line. “Ma’s not well. She’s in a hospital down there, and Pa moved down to be near her. He’s staying in a boarding house so he can see her every day. The doctors say that’s a good thing for her.”
“What a shame!” Julie went over to stand beside her. “Here, let me help you fold that sheet. Has your mother been ill for long?”
“She’s been in the hospital about two months,” Megan said. “Actually it’s not exactly a hospital. It’s more a sort of rest home.”
“Then she’s not physically ill?”
“Oh, no. I mean, she’s thin and run-down and all, but she doesn’t have a disease or anything. It’s all emotional. My little brother w
as killed last July. You may have read about it and seen his picture in the paper. Daniel Gregg?”
“I think I did,” Julie told her, feeling the old, familiar sickness rising in her throat.
“Well, Ma blamed herself for that. Danny was spending the night with a friend a couple of miles from here, and he and the other boy had a fight. Danny called Ma and said he wanted to come home, and she said no, she wouldn’t go pick him up. She told him he’d just have to stay there and work things out with his friend. But he wouldn’t. He got on his bike and started home by himself. It was late at night, and the bike wasn’t fixed for night riding. Somebody came roaring around the bend and smacked right into him.”
“And you don’t know who it was?” Julie found that her hands were shaking. She gripped one of the clothespins hard and pulled it off the sheet.
“The police think it might have been teenagers coming down from the Silver Springs picnic ground. There were some kids up there partying that night; one of the rangers saw them. He said there were four of them, two boys and two girls, but he didn’t see them up close enough to begin to describe them. The emergency operator said the voice that called her sounded like a teenage boy, but she couldn’t be certain either.”
“And your mother?” Julie asked, taking her two corners of the sheet.
“She just sort of fell apart. It wasn’t so bad at first. I guess we were all in shock. Danny was the littlest one, you see, the only child of Ma’s second marriage and we all doted on him and kind of spoiled him. That’s why Ma wouldn’t pick him up that night. She and Pa had agreed they’d better stop giving in to him on everything he wanted. Then when he came on by himself and got killed, you can imagine how she felt. She blamed herself.”
“But she couldn’t have known what would happen!” Julie exclaimed.
“No, of course, she couldn’t. We kept telling her that. But she dwelled on it, and pretty soon she had herself convinced that she’d all but killed Danny herself by not going to get him when he wanted her to. Then, a couple of months ago, she snapped. I mean, a morning came, and she couldn’t get out of bed. She just lay there and she wouldn’t talk to Pa or me. We called a doctor and, well…I won’t go on with details. She’s away now where she can get help.”
“It’s awful,” Julie said. “Just awful.” Her voice trembled slightly. She glanced toward the house. Where was Ray? Why was he taking so long?
Come on, please, she begged him silently. Please come and get me out of this. I don’t want to listen anymore.
“Danny was a sweet kid,” Megan was saying as she folded a shirt and laid it neatly in the basket on top of the sheet. “Stubborn, sure, but nice. He’d do anything for you if you asked him. He called me ‘Sissy.’ He started that back when he couldn’t say ‘sister.’ I think about him a lot.”
She glanced at Julie and stopped suddenly at the sight of her face. “I’m upsetting you, aren’t I? Forgive me. Here you are, a perfect stranger, and I’m rattling on about all the family problems as though you were part of them.”
“I’m just so terribly sorry for you. For all of you.” Julie could hardly get the words out.
“It’s more than that.” Megan reached over and touched her hand. “I bet you’ve lost someone too, haven’t you? I can tell. A brother or sister?”
“I’m an only child,” Julie said. “But I did lose my father. It’s been many years now.”
“It does get easier, doesn’t it? It must.”
“It fades,” Julie told her. “You stop thinking about it all the time, but you never ever really forget. I was just a little girl when Daddy died, but even now, when it’s six o’clock and other fathers are coming home from work, I’ll find myself glancing at the front door. One evening Bud—this guy I date—stopped by around that time, and I was sitting in the living room and heard his footsteps coming up the walk. He has a walk like Daddy’s used to be, a kind of double-time stride—” She broke off as Ray appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Here! We’re out here.”
“I had to try calling a couple of places,” Ray said. Julie could see by his eyes that the lie did not come easily. “I finally got somebody. He’s on his way.”
“There’s a glass of iced tea for you over there on the table,” Megan said.
“Thanks a lot, but I think we’d better get back to the car.” He turned to Julie. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.” Oh, yes, she added silently, yes, yes, yes. “Megan, thank you.”
“Why, you’re welcome. Selfishly, I’m glad you did have car trouble. I’ve been dying for somebody to talk to.”
“I hope your mother gets better soon,” Julie said, thinking how inadequate the words were.
“I believe she will. She has good doctors. And, of course, she has Pa there with her.” The girl smiled warmly. “Come to the Bon Marche someday and let me do your hair for you. It’s such a pretty color, it would be fun to work with.”
“Thank you. Maybe I will.” She felt Ray’s hand on her arm. “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye. I hope there’s nothing too serious wrong with your car!” Megan called after them as they started toward the road.
They did not speak until they were in the car. Ray turned the key in the ignition and started the engine.
“The two of you sure got friendly fast,” he said in a low voice. “What’s the bit about her mother?”
“Megan’s the Greggs’ daughter,” Julie told him, keeping her voice low so that it could not possibly carry back to the girl in the yard behind them. “Mrs. Gregg holds herself responsible for Daniel’s accident. She’s had a breakdown and is in a hospital south of here.”
“Oh, god,” Ray said painfully. “It never ends, does it?”
“Mr. Gregg’s down there with her,” Julie continued. “And Megan’s here alone. Ray—” She fought to keep back the tears that were just beneath the surface. “We didn’t just kill a little boy. We wrecked a whole family!”
“Every life is entwined with other people’s,” Ray muttered. “Like Barry’s is with his parents’ and Helen’s, and even with ours. Are you sorry we came here?”
“Yes,” Julie said. “I wish I didn’t know. Before, these people were just names in a newspaper article. Now they’re real. I’ll never get Megan out of my mind, standing there, taking down laundry, talking about her little brother and how he used to call her ‘Sissy.’ ” She raised her hand and wiped the back of it across her eyes. “There’s one thing, though. We can be sure now that the Greggs didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Barry.”
“How do you get that?” Ray asked.
“Well, Megan couldn’t have, not the way she acted with us. And her parents aren’t here. They’ve been down in Las Lunas for months now.”
“She told you that?”
“Yes. That’s why she acted so lonesome. She’s living here all by herself.”
“That’s funny,” Ray said. “That house trim has been painted all the way up to the peak of the roof. She’s such a short little thing, I don’t see how she could reach that far.”
“Perhaps a neighbor’s helping her,” Julie suggested. She was surprised at his observation. “What difference does it make?”
“None, I guess,” Ray said. “But there’s something else that bothers me. If she’s living there alone, why were a man’s shirts hanging on the line?”
“Maybe she wears them herself. A lot of girls wear their father’s shirts to mess around in. I don’t, of course, because I don’t have a father, but a lot of my friends do.”
“Okay,” Ray said. “Okay, you’ve made your point.” Julie could see that her nervous chatter was beginning to irritate him.
“I liked Megan,” she said in a small voice. “I really did, Ray, and I think that Megan liked me.”
“That doesn’t mean that her father isn’t capable of picking up a gun and shooting somebody. You’ve told me that Daniel was Mr. Gregg’s only natural child. Megan and any other kids in the family are children from Mrs. Gregg’s
previous marriage. A man in that position would have a damned good reason for going off his rocker.”
“But, her father’s not there! He hasn’t been there for months! Don’t you believe that?”
“I don’t know,” Ray said wearily. “I honestly don’t know what I believe anymore.”
CHAPTER 11
They were on North Madison now, and with a practiced hand Ray spun the wheel to turn the car into the parking lot of the Four Seasons Apartments.
It was the first occasion he had had to call on anyone who lived in this apartment complex. He had to admit to himself that he was impressed as he followed Julie around the pool and up the steps to the level of second-floor apartments.
“Helen really seems to have hit the big time,” he murmured as Julie pressed the buzzer beside the door of number 215.
She nodded. “Wait until you see the inside!”
The interior of the apartment was done in blues and greens and several shades of lavender. The cool colors were a perfect backdrop for Helen herself, who, unlike Julie, seemed to have changed little during the past year except, perhaps, to have grown even prettier.
She was glad to see them, almost too glad, grasping their hands in greeting and giving Ray a quick, welcoming kiss on the cheek.
“How great to see you! You look fantastic, Ray, all tanned and shaggy. I love men with beards.”
She led the way through the foyer into the living room where a pale, heavy-set girl was seated on the sofa.
“Elsa,” Helen said, “this is Ray Bronson, a friend from high school. I think you already know Julie James. Ray, my sister, Elsa.”
“Glad to meet you, Elsa,” Ray said politely, privately deciding just the opposite. He had seldom been introduced to anyone whose appearance made her less pleasing to meet. It seemed incredible on looking at her that this dumpy, sullen-faced girl could be closely related to someone as attractive as Helen.
“Hi,” Elsa said. “Hello, Julie. Have you been sick or something? You sure don’t look like you used to.”