The Anatomy of Violence

by Charles Runyon

  “Would he rape her then?”

  “Might … if he was a little crazy.” He stood suddenly, knocking over the half-full bottle. He grabbed it and threw it. I heard it smash in Gwen’s rock garden. “Laurie, I am going to the ball park and get some plaster casts before the footprints—” He stopped and snapped his fingers. “Damn! I promised your dad I’d stick close to you.”

  I thought of the gun. “I can protect myself, Captain.”

  “Well, don’t you take chances. I’ll do all the detective work.”

  “If you find out who he is, Captain, will you tell me first?”

  He looked down at me and rubbed his chin. “I always wondered what would happen if Ben had a boy, and he’d turn up with his daddy’s brains and his momma’s will power. Never thought I’d see it in a girl.” He laughed. “All right, Laurie, I’ll tell you first. But I ain’t saying I’ll let you get to him.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  HEAT WRAPPED me in a stifling blanket as I left the doctor’s air-conditioned home. It was noon. My nose felt musty from too little sleep. An ache throbbed in my left buttock as I walked.

  Hip, the nurse had called it. “Don’t want to get sick, do we, honey? Roll over and I’ll give you a shot where it won’t show.”

  Doctor Field had been sympathetic. He’d said after the examination, “Internally, Laurie, there’s no serious damage. You’ll have some pain, but that’s normal.”

  Then I’d asked him about a baby. “I suggest, Laurie, we take up that problem if and when it arrives. Come back if anything develops. Your attitude may change.”

  Like hell. I shifted the purse, heavy with the gun, and looked behind me. The street lay empty beneath the tall elms. But I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched; the same crawly sensation I’d felt beneath the bleachers.

  That memory was disappearing though, like water spilled on sand. I’d asked the doctor about that, too. “Not too rare, Laurie. You thought you were dying; the shock could cause other incidents to fade. You wouldn’t necessarily realize you’d forgotten something if the memory seemed continuous—no more than you’d know where wallpaper joined if the pattern matched.”

  So I might have known who it was, then forgotten. I’d been probing my memory since then, but nothing had turned up. Now I opened the Sunday Clarion I’d borrowed from his doorstep. The headline slapped me across the eyes: BEAUTY QUEEN ASSAULTED.

  As I read it, I remembered Richard’s formula for a front page story: sex, violence, a pretty girl—and a slow day on the wire.

  The Clarion had rated me a “dark, lovely coed,” even though I’d already graduated from our junior college. Most of the story had come from Koch. He didn’t think my case and Eileen’s were connected. (Here the paper devoted a half-column to Eileen’s murder, but didn’t mention the man’s attempt to kill me.) A number of suspects had been rounded up. Those who couldn’t account for their whereabouts were being closely questioned and Koch expected an early arrest. (Who was covering for Richard, I wondered, Koch or the paper?) Captain Riemann, said the story as it dwindled into a sea of detail, had taken an indefinite leave for his health and couldn’t be reached for comment. (What was he doing now?) The girl’s father had no comment. The girl could not see reporters. Daddy must have said that.

  I was walking up our sidewalk when I heard a car stop on the street. I turned to see a man and a woman watching me from the car. The man wore a suit, the woman wore a straw hat; they looked as though they’d just come from church. They saw me watching and the man started to drive on.

  “Looking for someone?” I asked.

  “Just … driving by. Is this the Crewes residence?”

  Sightseers. “It was. They moved to Mexico this morning.”

  At the door I turned and watched them drive away slowly. The woman watched me through the rear window.

  The house was empty. I found Gwen out back working in shorts and halter. “Where’s daddy?”

  She finished rooting up a clump of crabgrass, then straightened and squinted over the freckles that sprinkled the bridge of her nose from one high cheekbone to the other. “Police station.”

  “I’ll go down.”

  “No. He wants you to stay away unless he calls.” Her tanned stomach wrinkled as she stooped to dig at a sickly rosebush, her heavy breasts swinging inside the red halter. “He was upset because you left without telling him.”

  “Worried?”

  “Just upset. He wasn’t worried because he figured Captain Riemann was with you.” She looked up sharply. “Was he?”

  Without answering, I slumped into a tree-shaded lawn chair. So many things to do—find Riemann, try to see Richard … Now I was tied to the house by a chance of news from daddy.

  “You had company,” said Gwen.

  “Who?”

  Slowly Gwen picked up the rosebush and carried it to another hole with one gloved hand holding the dirt to the roots. Then she crumbled black dirt into the hole from a basket. There was no hurrying Gwen. For ten years she’d been at war with the back yard, moving the withering plants from one spot to another, where they continued to wither.

  “Reporters,” she said finally. She stripped off her gloves and came toward me, pulling a plastic cigaret case from her pocket. Sweat stood in droplets on her stomach and legs. She was losing one war, I noticed. Her calves had thinned and the flesh had begun to ripple on the inner side of her thighs. Soon she’d be thirty-five.

  “Could I have a cigaret?” She shook one out, lit it, then lit her own. The cigaret gave me something to do. If the tension didn’t ease off soon, I’d get the habit. “I hope those reporters don’t come back.”

  “I told one of them not to.” Gwen sat on the arm of my chair and swung her leg. “He asked me if I was your mother.”

  I started up as the phone rang inside. Gwen put her hand on my shoulder. “Wait.”

  “But it might be daddy.”

  “If it is he’ll let it ring. He was here when we started geting nuisance calls.”

  The ringing stopped and I started to lean back. Suddenly a barb of pain twisted deep in my abdomen, doubling me over.

  “Hurt?” I felt her strong, stubby fingers kneading the small of my back. “If I remember that far back, it’s that way the first time.”

  I rested my cheek on my knee and felt the knot of pain slowly uncoil. “Then why do it?”

  “It’s like beer. You cultivate a taste for it.”

  “I tasted enough.” I heard the phone ring, then stop. “Reporters … detectives … tourists. I’d have had more privacy on the courthouse steps.”

  “My fault, Laurie. Have you thought of leaving town now, instead of next Saturday?”

  “I can’t leave until I know who did it.”

  “I’m not sure Ben will understand that, but I can.” She stopped kneading suddenly. “If you’re looking for Ben, Mister Curtright, he’s not—”

  “I didn’t come to see Ben,” said a liquid voice.

  I twisted my head and looked up at Jules Curtright. Black hair curled from the open neck of his knit shirt. His tanned neck gleamed with sweat. “I tried to call but couldn’t get through,” he said. “Are you ready?”

  “Ready?” I realized I was still doubled over and straightened. “You haven’t heard … anything?”

  He spread his fingers over his forehead. “I went to the State Line Club after you left. I just got up an hour ago.”

  Gwen had begun spraying the lawn with gentle, silent mist a few feet away. I stood up. “Come in the house, Jules.”

  Walking into the air-conditioned living room was like entering a cool lake. Jules folded himself onto the sofa and looked at me. “Now, what haven’t I heard?”

  I felt silly to ask, but I had to assure myself. “You said you went to the State Line Club after I left. Could you … prove it?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’m sure the bartender—” His eyes widened. “My God! What happened to your jaw?”

  A knot of tensi
on uncoiled inside me. Only a skilled actor could have faked surprise so well. “Right after I left the club I … was raped, Jules.”

  His expression didn’t change for a moment, then his eyes narrowed and seemed to grow darker. “Who was it, Laurie?”

  “I can’t remember—but the doctor said I might later. It happened under—”

  “I’ll get the story from someone else, Laurie. Just promise me one thing.” He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and stroked his heavy forearm. Behind his hand, the black curly hair sprang into place over corded muscle. “When you remember, tell me first.”

  The phone started ringing then and didn’t stop. I stood up. “That’s probably daddy.”

  But it was a high adolescent voice quavering with held-in laughter. “Laurie?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “An admirer.” I heard a boy giggle in the background. “I’ve got something for you.” I heard a different giggle, and pictured a large group jammed into the phone booth. “Something I know you’ll like. It’s big and—”

  I dropped the phone onto its cradle. My face must have showed disgust because Jules said: “Have the telephone company give you an unlisted number. No, I’ll do it—tonight.” He stood up and walked to the door. “Anything else I can do?”

  “Yes.” I picked up the heavy purse. “Take me for that drive now—if you don’t mind a couple of stops.”

  His grin broke out like the sun coming from behind a cloud. He waved me through the door. “My car is yours.”

  His car was long and black and he put the top down. I tied a ribbon around my hair and let the breeze caress my neck while Jules threaded through elm-shaded streets, then stopped in front of the police station. “Be right back,” I said, getting out.

  Inside, I leaned against the waist-high counter separating visitors from the office area. It contained a desk, a radio, and five policemen. “I’m Laura Crewes. Is my father here?”

  Four policemen turned and looked without speaking. The fifth man spoke without turning from the set. “Your poppa’s busy in the back room, little lady. They’re interrogating people. You can’t go in.”

  Good. I’d asked only to make sure he wouldn’t find me here. “I want to see Richard Farham.”

  He stood up and walked over, leaning his elbows on the counter. It was the sergeant I’d seen last night—a thin, bald man. “Farham!” He twisted his mouth and scratched his cheek. “The name doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “You arrested him this morning.”

  He walked to a door and opened it a crack. “Hey, Lieutenant, we holding anyone named Farham? Richard Farham?”

  “Who’s there?” The door opened and Koch filled it, hiding the room behind. His right eye was black and a strip of tape adorned his upper lip. “You?” He drew in his chin, pushing out a roll of fat below it. “We don’t have Farham.”

  “Then let me look in that room.” I moved down the counter and fumbled for the latch on the gate.

  Koch closed the door until only his good eye glared through at me. “Get her out of here, Johnson.” The door clicked shut.

  I found the lock and opened the gate, but the sergeant came through, pushing me gently backwards. “Little lady,” he said in a fatherly tone, “go home. You got enough trouble without taking on Koch.”

  I stiffened. “I know Richard’s here some place. Captain Riemann saw him brought in.”

  The sergeant scratched his chin and smiled. “Riemann saw him? Last week old Riemann saw a mess of spiders crawling out of his telephone. Yelled they were coming through the cable. That’s why he’s in a sanitarium right now.”

  “Where?”

  “Didn’t say.” He took my elbow. “You better go home now, little lady. I’ll take you.”

  I jerked loose and walked out. I couldn’t make a scene with daddy there. And I wasn’t sure now that Riemann’s story hadn’t come out of his bottle.

  I climbed into the car. “To the Clarion.”

  The Clarion city room looked like a disaster area waiting for the Red Cross. Yellow copy paper and smudged page proofs littered the floor. At a desk sat a boy reading a comic book.

  He was in charge, he said, until the night man arrived. Yes, he knew Richard. A nice guy when he wanted to be—but he wasn’t with them any more. He showed me the mark through Richard’s name on the assignment sheet. No, there’d been no cops around looking for him.

  Back in the car, I directed Jules to the tourist camp and Rich’s peeling red trailer. The door was unlocked. As I opened it, his retriever, Goldie, met me. She was vibrating all over. I saw his card table lying on its side in front of a stuffed seat piled with books. Papers lay on the floor beside an overturned portable typewriter.

  Goldie was standing over her bowl beside the sink making little whining sounds. I emptied a can of dog food into it and filled another pan with water. Rich had left unwillingly, otherwise he’d have provided for Goldie.

  I set the card table on its feet and picked up the typewriter. A sheet of paper was in it:

  Dear Laurie,

  Decided no point hanging around this town with you leaving. Called the old man out of the sack and quit my job. He yelled, “Dammit, Farham, do you realize it’s four in the morning?” Then slammed down the phone. I hate those sloppy, sentimental farewells. Might head for New York if this overgrown orange crate holds together that far. I was kidding about the drama-critic caper but maybe we’ll see each other. Sorry about the lousy evening but I guess

  That was all. For some reason, his apology about the lousy evening made me want to cry. I folded the letter, stuck it in my purse, and returned to the car. If the police weren’t looking for Rich, it must mean they already knew where he was. But where did that leave me?

  “I don’t mind watching you chew off your lipstick,” said Jules. “But you could do it as well en route. What’s the next stop?”

  Jules might be able to influence Koch, I thought, but I wasn’t quite ready to put myself in his hands. “Could we go out of town, Jules?”

  “That,” he said, pulling out of the court, “was my original idea.”

  A minute later we were rolling past the fast, rock-walled graveyard. I looked for Eileen’s grave, but the little flat stone was lost among acres of spires and granite blocks.

  “Time to choose,” said Jules. “I can offer a speedboat on the lake, a quiet, secluded drink at the State Line Club, or an equally secluded picnic.”

  “Here.” I opened the purse and showed him the gun lying along with my lipstick, tissues and coin purse. “I want to practice.”

  “Oh.” His eyes clouded a moment, then he grinned and the car shot forward. “I know a place.”

  I leaned back, listening to the tires whine on the asphalt causeway.

  Jules turned off and stopped before an iron gate with the name CURTRIGHT wrought into the pattern. An eight-foot rock wall stretched a quarter-mile in each direction. Above it I could see the roof of the Curtright mansion studded with a dozen windows. They had a glassy, empty look.

  “Nobody here but rats since Grandmam died,” said Jules, grunting as he forced open the iron gate. “You can fire at will.”

  Weeds scraped against the car as we drove inside, past the jumble of blackened concrete that had been the servants’ quarters, skirting the cocklebur jungle around the stables. Beyond the buildings the drive wound past ragged shrubs and flowerbeds that had spread and spoiled their neat patterns. We crackled through a wooded area matted with thick underbrush, and stopped beside a vine-crusted summerhouse.

  “Shooting range,” said Jules, waving at a flat area with a high bank at one end. “I learned to shoot here.”

  I was still awed by the sight of so much neglected wealth. “Why did you ever close this, Jules?”

  “I wouldn’t live here alone.” He got out and opened my door. “I’ll set up some targets.”

  I watched him part the vines and winnow his way into the summerhouse. I felt rootless; as transitory as a fruit fly c
ompared to Jules. How would it be, I wondered, to attach myself to those deep solid roots and provide an heir to all this? It would be nice to fall in love with Jules.

  Later, I fired until the base of my thumb was swollen and red from recoil. When I could no longer hold the gun, Jules pulled a picnic basket from the trunk and we crawled into the summerhouse. I wanted to say no. I’d planned to find Riemann this afternoon. But I owed Jules something for helping me.

  As we ate, I found myself relaxing. The vines shut out the world. Only birds interrupted Jules’ voice as he told how he’d grown up behind the walls of the estate with a domineering grandmother; ran away at sixteen to become an oil-field roughneck, been brought back; then left again two years later and joined the air force.

  When he finished eating he lit a cigaret and squinted at the smoke curling up from it. “I’m glad I wasn’t the man.”

  “So am I.” I lay back on the blanket and looked up at the vines. I should leave now.

  “I mean, you aren’t a bad shot.” He lay back beside me. “When you shoot, your eyes pull down at the corners like almonds speckled with fire, and you catch your lower lip between your teeth and stick your jaw out. I’ll bet you could hear the bullets hitting his flesh.”

  “I thought you were watching the target.”

  “No, but I got an idea while I was watching you.” I felt his left hand slip under my head. “We’ll go to New York. You can see the sights and start studying when you’re finished.”

  “Not yet, Jules.” I felt his fingers caress the skin behind my ears. I tightened my stomach and resisted an urge to get up and run.

  “You’ll have your own hotel suite. Simone can be a chaperone”

  I thought of the girl with the red-gold hair. “You’d take Simone—for me?”

  I could hear the grin in his voice. “After last night she isn’t for me. We can be there by midnight and you can start forgetting this mess.”

  “Not until I … until they find the man.” I felt his leg touching mine. I edged away.

  He turned on his side and faced me. “You said last night you were serious about acting.”