by Gil Brewer
He paused.
“Oh, God—Frank,” Mrs. Foster said.
He looked at me, unblinking and unchanged.
I kept my voice as calm as I could. Foster was mad all through his system, and hurt, and maybe as bad off in his mind right now as the killer of his daughter.
“I’m here to talk with Mr. Thayer,” I said. “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t try to use the phone. I have no gun, but I’ll sure raise some hell if you try anything.”
I looked particularly at Frank Foster during the time I spoke, because I knew how he felt. He wasn’t sure about things, either, not all the way. A spark of doubt kindled in his eyes, doubt about the whole business.
“What have you done with Eve?” Thayer said. His voice was peculiarly calm now.
“Please, Frank,” Mrs. Foster said, “Don’t try to do anything. The police will be here.”
“That’s very good advice, ma’am,” I said.
She looked at me, her shoulders hunching a little under a formless blue housedress. She looked as if she’d been running around the house all night and then as if somebody had taken her face and tried to stretch it down over her chin.
Foster stared at me, breathing rawly. He was having quite a battle with himself. He was the type of guy who usually fought it out with himself thoroughly before he took action, but he wanted to move in now. What I’d said to him had stopped him, but he still had a strong desire to see whether or not he could finish me off with his fists.
Thayer spoke. “I’ll break you,” he said. “I’m going to fix you in this town, Reddick—scandal around my name. My wife—”
“Watch what you say,” I told him lightly.
I kept my eye on Foster, who still stood rooted to the hall floor, his eyes touched with that deep glaze of thought. I hoped he wouldn’t break—for his sake and for mine, too.
“Please,” I said. “Let’s sit down.”
They looked at me, then turned suddenly, both of them, and went into the living room. They sat on the couch, watching me.
Thayer lumbered in and I looked at him, then at the chair by the bookcase. He frowned and hesitated, then went over and slumped down with a little groan, leaned back and fixed his gaze on me. I stood in front of him, my back to the Fosters. Then I moved a little so I could see the top of Frank Foster’s head in the mirror up over Thayer’s chair on the wall. There was no use pushing your opinion of a man too far.
“Now,” I said. “Tell me how you found out Eve was missing?”
“You’ve ruined me,” he said. “You’ve dragged my name through the mud. You son of a bitch.”
I didn’t speak.
Mrs. Foster made a small sound from behind me, but I could see in the mirror that she hadn’t moved.
“How did you find out Eve was missing?” I repeated.
“The police came. They wanted to talk with her again. I asked the maid to call her. When the maid went into the bedroom, Eve was gone.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. “You heard nothing last night?” I said.
“No.” He rose a little in the chair, then, and his mouth opened, the lips drawing back across the teeth. The tendons in his throat stood out. “You and her. I know, don’t think I don’t know all about it, can’t imagine every sordid, filthy—They’ll get you, Reddick—they’ll get you.”
“Why don’t you get me?”
Foster stood up. I saw him in the mirror and caught his eye. He stared at me.
“Sit down,” I told him. “I mean it.” I turned and looked at him quickly, heard Thayer move in his chair and turned back again. Then I talked to both of them. “If you try anything, I won’t be able to help myself,” I said.
Foster looked at me for a second, then sat down again. He was shaking.
Thayer said, “Don’t think they won’t get you. And I’m not finished, either—not with you, and not with her, either. I’ll do something, by God! I’ll have some satisfaction out of this. My way. Eve can stay away now. She can stay away—”
“Did you ever think she has no choice about it?” I said.
“You aren’t kidding me for a minute, Reddick.”
“That’s the trouble with you,” I said. “You have no imagination.”
“You can keep her wherever you took her,” Thayer said. “The police will take care of that. That’s not for me to decide and I wash my hands of her. She needn’t come back!”
“Ever think maybe she couldn’t come back?”
Mrs. Foster gasped, “Oh, no!”
“Hush, Martha,” her husband said.
Thayer chewed the corner of his lip. He cocked his head to one side and his eyes had that superior glint in them, as if he were trying somebody on the witness stand. “You aren’t fooling me, Reddick. I’ve seen your kind in court.”
I glanced at Frank Foster in the mirror. He was frowning at Thayer, now, puzzled.
“I’m going to divorce her now, by God,” Thayer said. “She’ll get what she asked for. She’ll never get you, because the cops will get you first. Let her—”
“I’m going to tell you something,” I said. “I didn’t take Eve away, and I had nothing to do with the Foster girl.” I turned and looked at them there on the couch and they looked at me, clinging to my words, as if that did any good. Maybe it helped them somehow, I don’t know. “That’s the truth,” I said. “You can believe that. I’m doing everything in my power to help you. I’ve got interest in this, too.’
“Liar!” Thayer said.
I looked at him, feeling sore now. He was beginning to get to me with that nasty mind of his, and he could step just so far.
“She’s no damned good anyway,” Thayer said. “I know all about you, what you two have been doing—”
“You said that.”
“You think you’ve been kidding me, Reddick. I’ve known all along.”
“We weren’t trying to kid you. Eve’s in danger; can’t you see that?”
“Serves her right. I’m sick and tired—”
“Stand up.”
“What?”
I reached down and grabbed the front of his shirt and tie and mangled them up and lifted him to his feet and held him there.
“Now, Thayer—take off your glasses.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“I won’t do any such thing.”
“You’d damn well better.”
“No.”
I tightened my grip a little, twisting.
He didn’t move, his head shaking just a little on his shoulders. He looked perturbed.
I reached up and took his glasses off carefully, lifting them over his ears and nose and he did not move. He was like a board, standing there, his eyes shocked. I dropped the glasses into his breast pocket.
“Hold it right there,” Andy Leonard said from the hall.
Thayer’s eyes brightened.
Chapter Ninteen
THAYER broke away from me and sat down again. He smiled up at me, reaching for his glasses.
“All right, Cliff.”
Andy came into the room, followed by two uniformed cops. They were very young cops, with that fresh, pink look under their black-billed caps. Andy was wearing a sport jacket over the open throat of a white shirt. He looked sad and a little tired and he had coffee eyes.
“Sit down, Cliff,” he said. “Over there.”
He gestured toward a chair on the other side of the couch where the Fosters were. The Fosters sat there very stiffly and watched without speaking.
Andy turned to the two cops.
“You two run on back to headquarters and tell them I’ve got him,” he said. “Everything’s all right now.”
“So you’ve got me?” I said.
He ignored me, watching the two cops.
“Go ahead,” he said.
“Hadn’t we better stay here?” one of them said.
“Yeah,” the other said. “You better let us stay.”
“It’s all right,” Andy
said. He turned and looked at me. “Isn’t it, Cliff?”
“How the hell should I know? I’m not making any promises.”
He looked at me for a moment, then turned back to them again.
“Take off,” he said.
“But, look—”
The other one tilted his head and shrugged his shoulders. He glanced at Thayer quickly, and away. Andy gave them both the thumb toward the hall, and they left.
Andy turned back to me. His jacket was open and I could see his rovolver sheathed on his belt on the left side.
“Well, Cliff?”
Outside, through the window over the couch, I saw the police car streak past the house. They had parked down a couple of houses, playing it cagey.
“Well,” Thayer said. “You got him, Officer. The dirty no good son of a—”
Andy lifted his eyebrows at Thayer and Thayer stood up.
“Well?” Andy said again.
“Well what?”
He eyed me bitterly. There was no liking for any of this in his eyes, no satisfaction—nothing but bitterness. It wasn’t like him. Sad, yes; wretched, always; but bitter, never.
“What have you got to say, Cliff?”
“He’s said a lot of things,” Mr. Foster said.
“I understand,” Andy said.
I walked past him into the hallway. He followed me. We stood there and looked at each other. There wasn’t anything to say, that was the hell of it. He was doing his job. He would have to keep right on doing his job.
“We could talk about it,” he said.
“What’s the use?”
“I want to, before I take you downtown. That’s why I sent them away.”
“Nothing to say. What the hell can I say?”
“Say something, Cliff.”
“One thing I’d like to know. How did you locate me this morning at that rooming house?”
“You were there! I knew you were—you saw us?”
“Yeah. You nearly had me, Andy. Only how did you find me?”
“The old lady didn’t sleep all night, the way you acted, the way you looked. She was worried. She said she always got up early, and she was baking a cake, listening to the radio, and they put out your description. She still wasn’t sure, but she phoned in anyway. From what she said we knew it was you, Cliff.”
“You could be positive, couldn’t you. Me wearing your clothes.”
“Take it easy.”
“If you think I’m guilty how can I change your mind?”
He just stood there, watching me.
Mrs. Foster came through the hall, moving toward the rear of the house. Her husband followed her. He didn’t look at us.
I was watching Mrs. Foster. A moment later, she returned and brushed past us. She stood by the front door. The mailman was tinkling along on his bicycle. He turned up the walk, set the standard and climbed off. Then he rummaged through his bag and took out a packet of letters. Standing there, he ruffled through the mail, then walked up toward the porch, sorting letters, walking quietly, with his eyes turned down.
“Morning,” he said, handing Mrs. Foster something. Then he turned and walked back to his bike, and rode off down the sidewalk.
Mrs. Foster turned and stood quietly, looking at the mail in her hand. She sighed and laid it on a hall table.
“Library card,” she said. “Oh, Jinny!”
She began to cry. She hurried past us. Her husband poked his head out of the door at the end of the hall, and she ran and fell into his arms, sobbing. They closed the door and you could hear her in there. You could hear him speaking to her softly, trying to ease her. She became louder, then the sobs gradually faded and above that he kept on talking mildly to her in a steady, droning voice of explanation and appeasement.
“I wish you’d say something,” Andy said.
I was on my way to the hall table.
“Cliff, I’m asking you for the last time!”
I picked up the library card from the hall table. My palms were sweating and I began to get cold all over as I read the card:
First Notice. Just to remind you that your book—
THE MEDICAL ADVISOR
—is overdue. Please return this book at your earliest convenience, as there are others waiting who also desire this book.
Don’t be selfish!
Thank you kindly.
It was signed “Mary Robbins. Chief Librarian. Public Library.” It was postmarked this morning. It had been mailed only a few hours ago.
Jinny Foster never went to the library. If she had started for the library, she’d never made it.
I laid the card down and looked at Andy. Somehow, I knew he wasn’t going to believe this. He wouldn’t listen and there was no time to lose, because I could see it and it was bad. He had wanted me to talk. I knew that if I did, he’d think I was lying.
Andy’s face was expressionless, his eyes coldly accusing.
Andy,” I said. “There’s something—Listen—”
He stepped up to me. “I had you pegged for a friend,” he said softly. “But you’re a rat.”
“Fine.”
“I’ve been watching you, and I don’t like you. You almost got away with this, in my mind. But pulling this stunt with the Thayer woman touches off the spark, Cliff. I just want you to know how I feel.” He didn’t change expression, except that his eyes narrowed very slightly. He did this for effect and I wanted to laugh at him, but there wasn’t even time for that. We’d always joked about narrowing your eyes.
“All right, Andy.”
Thayer stretched around in his chair. “Tell him, Officer,” he said.
I hit Andy on the jaw with everything I had. He stood there looking at me, his eyes glazing, and I hit him again, still harder; I felt it all the way to the shoulder, like white-hot wire along my arm. My knuckles were bright with pain as he went down. He just dropped, like a dead man.
Thayer started to rise from his chair, then thought better of it, watching me.
“Come on,” I said. “Come ahead.”
He didn’t move.
I went over to the telephone on a stand by the wall and ripped the wires out.
“Reddick!” Thayer said.
I glanced at him. The Fosters apparently hadn’t heard me.
I ran out, heading for Eve’s red convertible.
As I drop off, I heard Thayer yell inside the house. He came out on the porch, waving his arms. Then he went back inside and Frank Foster came out. Then I couldn’t see them any more.
I parked the car in front of the Roberson home on Lowell Court, got out and started up the walk. The big crystal ball on the cement pedestal gleamed in the sunlight. The flamingoes were still staring off at endless nothing. They always would. I rang the bell.
“Hello,” a woman called. “Yes? Who is it?”
I grunted loudly.
There was a sharp thump-thump of footsteps. Mrs. Roberson came down the hall, drying her hands on a towel. She craned her neck to see who it was. The sun shone in across my shoulders and she couldn’t make me out. She tossed the towel over the stair railing and came on to the door.
When she saw Reddick the Killer, she gave a little gasp and tried to close the door.
“I just want to ask a question,” I said. “Where’s your son?”
“Go away!”
“Your husband isn’t home?”
“Go away,” she pleaded, pushing the door. I gave it a hard thrust and it slammed open. She turned and ran off down the hall.
“Mrs. Roberson—wait!”
I ran after her and caught her by the stairs. She had tremendous, very soft arms, and her eyes were frightened. There was a morning newspaper spread on the bottom step of the stairs by a little alcove in the wall where a phone stood. I saw my picture on the front page of the paper.
The caption beneath it read: WATCH FOR THIS MAN!
There were large headlines and a story, but I couldn’t stop to read it now.
“My husband will be right
back,” she warned me, trying to get a grip on herself, her face white. “He just went to the store. He’ll be right back, so you better not—”
“Where’s your son?”
She shivered slightly and her eyes glistened.
“Come on,” I said. “It’s a matter of life and death, Mrs. Roberson. I’ll leave, if you’ll just tell me where he is. He upstairs?”
She shook her head. Her voice was a whisper. “He went up to the lake, to the fishing camp. He took the bags up. We can’t go up till tonight.”
“When did he leave?”
She twisted herself free.
“Please,” I said. “It’s very important, believe me.”
“The police told us who you are,” she said. Her voice was shrill. She glanced down toward the newspaper on the floor, then back at me.
“When did your son leave the house, Mrs. Roberson?”
“He left a note. We found it this morning. He must have left very early. Now—will you please go away?”
“Yes.”
I left her standing in the hall. As I came down onto the sidewalk, the front door slammed.
I had to take a big gamble. But if what I had figured about that library card was true, then young Sam Roberson had killed Jinny Foster and might even now be preparing to do the same thing to Eve—or perhaps it had already been done.
I climbed into the Buick and drove away from Lowell Court, down onto Sixteenth. I took it easy through town, watching for prowl cars. When I reached U. S. 19, I thought I’d been lucky. I opened Eve’s car up and let it do whatever it would. It did plenty.
Chapter Twenty
LAKE OKLAWATCHI lay inland, far from the main northern route, more than an hour’s drive from town. I wound in and out on dirt roads, and because I had never before been over this way, had difficulty in finding the place. Eventually I came along a stretch of macadam and saw a string of signs advertising a hamburger stand on the lake.
The country was wild; the hamburger stand no longer existed. The lake nestled in the midst of dark, thriving jungle, the black waters reflecting the sky as brightly as a mirror. Long gray festoons of Spanish moss dribbled and waved from tremendous oaks along the road, brushing the car’s top as I drove along.
Then I spotted a cabin near the lake shore. It nestled in a grove of cedar and oaks. The oaks were very large, the cedars very old. The cabin was built of cypress planks, gray and weathered.