by Robert Bloch
So, sooner or later, there’d be questions to answer. It might be several days, or even a week, the way it had been with that girl. But he knew what was coming. And this time he was going to be prepared.
He had it all figured out. No matter who showed up, the story would be perfectly straight. He’d memorize it, rehearse it, so there’d be no slip of the tongue the way he had slipped tonight. Nobody was going to get him excited or confused; not if he knew in advance what to expect. Already he was planning just what to say when the time came.
The girl had stayed at the motel, yes. He’d admit that right away, but of course he hadn’t suspected anything while she was here—not until Mr. Arbogast came, a week later. The girl had spent the night and driven away. There’d be no story about any conversation, and certainly nothing about eating together at the house.
What he would say, though, is that he’d told everything to Mr. Arbogast, and the only part which seemed to interest him was when he mentioned that the girl had asked him how far it was from here to Chicago, and could she make it in a single day?
That’s what interested Mr. Arbogast. And he’d thanked him very much and climbed back into his car and driven off. Period. No, he had no idea where he was headed for. Mr. Arbogast hadn’t said. He just drove off. What time had it been? A little after suppertime, Saturday.
There it was, just a simple little statement of fact. No special details, nothing elaborate to arouse anyone’s suspicions. A fugitive girl had passed this way and gone on. A week later a detective followed her trail, asked for and received information, then departed. Sorry, mister, that’s all I know about it.
Norman knew he could tell it that way, tell it calmly and easily this time, because he wouldn’t have to worry about Mother.
She wasn’t going to be looking out of the window. In fact, she wasn’t going to be in the house at all. Even if they came with one of those search warrants, they weren’t going to find Mother.
That would be the best protection of all. Protection for her, even more than for him. He’d made up his mind on it, and he was going to see that it worked out. There was no sense in even waiting until tomorrow.
Strange, now that it was actually over, he still felt fully confident. It wasn’t like the other time, when he’d gone to pieces and needed to know Mother was there. Now he needed to know she was not there. And he had the necessary gumption, for once, to tell her just that.
So he marched upstairs, in the dark, and went straight to her room. He switched on the light. She was in bed, of course, but not asleep; she hadn’t been sleeping at all, just playing possum.
“Norman, where on earth have you been? I was so worried—”
“You know where I’ve been, Mother. Don’t pretend.”
“Is everything all right?”
“Certainly.” He took a deep breath. “Mother, I’m going to ask you to give up sleeping in your room for the next week or so.”
“What’s that?”
“I said, I have to ask you not to sleep here for the next week or so.”
“Are you out of your mind? This is my room.”
“I know. And I’m not asking you to give it up permanently. Only for a little while.”
“But why on earth—”
“Mother, please listen and try to understand. We had a visitor here today.”
“Must you talk about that?”
“I must, for a moment. Because sooner or later, somebody will be around to inquire after him. And I’ll say he came and left.”
“Of course that’s what you’ll say, son. That’ll be the end of it.”
“Perhaps. I hope so. But I can’t take chances. Maybe they’ll want to search the house.”
“Let them. He won’t be here.”
“Neither will you.” He gulped a breath, then rushed on. “I mean it, Mother. It’s for your own protection. I can’t afford to let anyone see you, like that detective did today. I don’t want anyone to start asking you questions—you know why as well as I do. It’s just impossible. So the safest thing for both of us is to make sure you’re just not around.”
“What are you going to do—bury me in the swamp?”
“Mother—”
She started to laugh. It was more like a cackle, and he knew that once she really got started she wouldn’t stop. The only way to stop her was to outshout her. A week ago, Norman would never have dared. But this wasn’t a week ago, it was now, and things were different. It was now, and he had to face the truth. Mother was more than sick. She was psychotic, dangerously so. He had to control her, and he would.
“Shut up!” he said, and the cackling ceased. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “But you must listen to me. I’ve got it all figured out. I’m going to take you down into the fruit cellar.”
“The fruit cellar? Why, I can’t—”
“You can. And you will. You have to. I’ll see to it that you’re taken care of, there’s a light and I can put in a cot for you and—”
“I won’t!”
“I’m not asking you, Mother. I’m telling you. You’re going to stay in the fruit cellar until I think it’s safe for you to come upstairs again. And I’ll hang that old Indian blanket on the wall, so that it covers up the door. Nobody will notice a thing, even if they bother to go down into the cellar. It’s the only way we can both be sure that you’re going to be safe.”
“Norman, I refuse to even discuss it any further with you. I’m not going to budge from this room!”
“Then I’ll have to carry you.”
“Norman, you wouldn’t dare—”
But he did. Finally, that’s just what he did. He picked her up right off the bed and carried her, and she was light as a feather compared to Mr. Arbogast, and she smelled of perfume instead of stale cigarette smoke, the way he had. She was too astonished to put up a fight, just whimpered a little. Norman was startled at how easy it was, once he made up his mind to go through with it. Why, she was just a sick old lady, a frail, feeble thing! He didn’t have to be afraid of her, not really. She was afraid of him, now. Yes, she must be. Because not once, all through this, had she called him “son.”
“I’ll fix the cot for you,” he told her. “And there’s a pot, too—”
“Norman must you talk that way?” For just an instant she flared up in the old way, then subsided. He bustled around, bringing blankets, arranging the curtains on the small window so that there’d be sufficient ventilation. She began whimpering again, not so much whimpering as muttering under her breath.
“It’s like a prison cell, that’s what it is; you’re trying to make a prisoner out of me. You don’t love me any more, Norman, you don’t love me or else you wouldn’t treat me this way.”
“If I didn’t love you, do you know where you’d be today?” He didn’t want to say it, but he had to. “The State Hospital for the Criminal Insane. That’s where you’d be.”
He snapped out the light, wondering if she’d heard him, wondering if his words had gotten through to her, even if she had.
Apparently she understood. Because just as he closed the door she answered. Her voice was deceptively soft in the darkness, but somehow the words cut into him; cut into him more deeply than the straight razor had cut into Mr. Arbogast’s throat.
“Yes, Norman, I suppose you’re right. That’s where I’d probably be. But I wouldn’t be there alone.”
Norman slammed the door, locked it, and turned away. He wasn’t quite sure, but as he ran up the cellar steps he thought he could still hear her chuckling gently in the dark.
— 11 —
Sam and Lila sat in the back room of the store, waiting for Arbogast to arrive. But all they heard were the sounds of Saturday night.
“You can tell when it’s Saturday night in a town like this,” Sam commented. “The noises are different. Take the traffic, for one thing. There’s more of it, and it moves faster. That’s because Saturday is the evening when the teenagers get the cars.
“And all that rattli
ng and squealing you hear—that’s parking. Farm families in their old jalopies, coming in to see the show. Hired hand in a hurry to head for the taverns.
“Notice the footsteps? They’re different, too. Hear that running. The kids are loose. Saturday’s the night they stay up late. No homework.” He shrugged. “Of course, I suppose it’s a lot more noisy in Fort Worth on any night of the week.”
“I suppose so,” Lila said. Then, “Sam, why doesn’t he get here? It’s almost nine.”
“You must be hungry.”
“It isn’t that. But why doesn’t he come?”
“Maybe he’s tied up, maybe he found out something important.”
“He could at least call. He knows how worried we are.”
“Just be patient a little while longer—”
“I’m sick of waiting!” Lila stood up, pushing back her chair. She began to pace back and forth across the narrow room. “I never should have waited in the first place. I should have gone straight to the police. Wait, wait, wait—that’s all I’ve heard, all week long? First Mr. Lowery, then Arbogast, and now you. Because you’re all thinking about the money, not about my sister. Nobody cares what happens to Mary, nobody but me!”
“That’s not true. You know how I feel about her.”
“Then how can you stand it? Why don’t you do something? What kind of a man are you, sitting here and handing out cracker-barrel philosophy at a time like this?”
She grasped her purse and pushed past him.
“Where are you going?” Sam asked.
“To see that sheriff of yours, right now.”
“It would be just as easy to call him. After all, we want to be here when Arbogast shows up.”
“If he shows up. Maybe he’s left town for good, if he’s found something. He wouldn’t have to come back.” Lila’s voice teetered along a thin, hysterical edge.
Sam took her arm. “Sit down,” he said. “I’ll phone the sheriff.”
She made no attempt to follow him as he walked out into the store. He went over to the rear counter, stood next to the cash register, and picked up the receiver.
“One-six-two, please. Hello, sheriff’s office? This is Sam Loomis, over at the hardware store. I’d like to speak to Sheriff Chambers …
“He’s what? No, I hadn’t heard anything about it. Where did you say—Fulton? When do you suppose he’ll be back? I see. No, nothing wrong. I just wanted to talk to him. Look, if he gets in any time before midnight, would you ask him to call me here at the store? I’ll be here all night. Yes. Thanks, I’d appreciate that.”
Sam hung up and walked back into the rear room.
“What did he say?”
“He wasn’t there.” Sam reported the conversation, watching her face as he spoke. “Seems somebody robbed the bank over at Fulton around suppertime this evening. Chambers and the whole State Highway Patrol gang are out setting up roadblocks. That’s what all the excitement’s about. I talked to old Peterson; he’s the only one left in the sheriff’s office. There’s two cops walking the beat here in town, but they wouldn’t be any use to us.”
“So now what you are going to do?”
“Why, wait, of course. Chances are, we won’t be able to talk to the sheriff until tomorrow morning.”
“But don’t you even care what happens to—”
“Of course I care.” He cut in on her sharply, deliberately. “Would it ease your mind any if I called the motel and found out what’s holding Arbogast up?”
She nodded.
Again he want back into the store. This time she accompanied him and stood waiting while he asked the operator for information. She finally located the name—Norman Bates—and found the number. Sam waited while she put the call through.
“Funny,” he said, hanging up. “Nobody answers.”
“Then I’m going out there.”
“No, you’re not.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m going out. You wait right here, in case Arbogast comes in.”
“Sam, what do you think happened?”
“I’ll tell you when I get back. Now you just relax. It shouldn’t take me more than three quarters of an hour.”
And it didn’t because Sam drove fast. In exactly forty-two minutes he unlocked the front door, came into the store again. Lila was waiting for him.
“Well?” she asked.
“Funny. The place was closed up. No lights in the office. No lights in the house behind the motel. I went up there and banged on the door for five minutes straight, and nothing happened. The garage next to the house was open and empty. Looks like this Bates went away for the evening.”
“What about Mr. Arbogast?”
“His car wasn’t there. Just two parked down at the motel—I looked at the licenses. Alabama and Illinois.”
“But where could—”
“The way I figure it,” Sam said, “is that Arbogast did find out something. Maybe something important. It could be that he and Bates both went off together. And that’s why we haven’t gotten any word.”
“Sam, I can’t take much more of this. I’ve got to know!”
“You’ve got to eat, too.” He displayed a bulging paper bag. “Stopped in at the drive-in on my way back, brought us some hamburgers and coffee. Let’s take the stuff into the back room.”
By the time they finished eating it was after eleven.
“Look,” Sam said. “Why don’t you go back to the hotel and get some rest? If anyone calls or comes in, I’ll phone you. No sense in us both sitting around like this.”
“But—”
“Come on. Worrying isn’t going to help. Chances are, I’ve figured it right. Arbogast has located Mary and we’ll get news by morning. Good news.”
But there was no good news on Sunday morning.
By nine o’clock, Lila was rattling the front door of the hardware store.
“Hear anything?” she asked. And when Sam shook his head, she frowned. “Well, I found out something, Arbogast checked out over at the hotel yesterday morning—before he even started to look around.”
Sam didn’t say anything. He picked up his hat and walked out of the store with her.
The streets of Fairvale were empty on Sunday morning. The courthouse was set back in a square on Main Street, surrounded by a lawn on all four sides. One side contained a statue of a Civil War veteran—the kind cast up by thousands back in the eighties to occupy courthouse lawns all over the country. The other three sides displayed, respectively, a Spanish-American War trench mortar, a World War I cannon, and a granite shaft bearing the names of fourteen Fairvale citizens who had died in World War II. Benches lined the sidewalks all around the square, but they were vacant at this hour.
The courthouse itself was closed, but the sheriff’s office was over in the annex—Fairvale citizens still spoke of it as the “new” annex, though it had been added back in 1946. The side door was open. They entered, climbed the stairs, walked down the hall to the office.
Old Peterson was doing duty at the outer desk, all alone.
“Morning, Sam.”
“Good morning, Mr. Peterson. Sheriff around?”
“Nope. Hear about them bank robbers? Busted right through the roadblock down at Parnassus. FBI’s after ’em now. Sent an alert—”
“Where is he?”
“Well, he got in pretty late last night—early this morning, I should say.”
“Did you give him my message?”
The old man hesitated. “I—I guess I forgot. All this excitement around here.” He wiped his mouth. “ ’Course I intended to, today, when he comes in.”
“What time will that be?”
“Right after lunch, I guess. Sunday mornings he’s over to the church.”
“What church?”
“First Baptist.”
“Thanks.”
“You wouldn’t go pulling him out of—”
Sam turned away without answering. Lila’s high heels clattered hollowly beside him in the hall.
&
nbsp; “What kind of a hick town is this, anyway?” she murmured. “A bank is held up and the sheriff is in church. What’s he doing, praying that somebody will catch the robbers for him?” Sam didn’t answer. When they reached the street she turned to him again. “Where are we going now?”
“First Baptist Church, of course.”
But it turned out that they didn’t have to interrupt Sheriff Chambers at his devotions. As they turned down the side street it was apparent that the services had just ended; people were beginning to emerge from the steepled structure.
“There he is,” Sam muttered. “Come on.”
He led her over to a couple who stood near the curbing. The woman was a short, gray-haired nonentity in a mail-order print dress; the man was tall, broad across the shoulders and paunchily protruding at the waistline. He wore a blue serge suit and his red, seamed neck twisted in rebellion against the restraint of a white, starched collar. He had curly graying hair and curly black eyebrows.
“Hold on a minute, Sheriff,” said Sam. “I’d like to talk to you.”
“Sam Loomis. How are you?” Sheriff Chambers held out a large red hand. “Ma, you know Sam, here.”
“I’d like you to met Lila Crane. Miss Crane is visiting here from Fort Worth.”
“Pleased to meet you. Say, you aren’t the one old Sam keeps talking about, are you? Never let on you were so pretty—”
“It’s my sister you’re thinking of,” Lila told him. “That’s why we’re here to see you.”
“I wonder if we could go over to your office for a minute,” Sam broke in. “Then we can explain the situation.”
“Sure, why not?” Jud Chambers turned to his wife. “Ma, why don’t you take the car and go along home? I’ll be over in a little while, soon’s I’m finished with these folks.”
But it wasn’t a little while. Once settled in Sheriff Chamber’s office, Sam told his story. Even without interruptions, that took a good twenty minutes. And the Sheriff interrupted frequently.
“Now let me get this straight here,” he said, at the conclusion. “This fella who came to you, this Arbogast. Why didn’t he check with me?”