When Michael Calls

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When Michael Calls Page 13

by Farris, John


  For the third time he stopped, this time close to the side of the house, caught his breath there and had a good look around. From where he was standing Harry couldn't make out his car. The street was still empty. No one had driven past.

  He took the big jackknife out of his pocket and opened the five-inch blade. As he walked toward the side porch he held the blade down, near his right leg, so there could be no unexpected reflections of light. The weight of the knife in his hand was a small comfort, though he didn't feel particularly worried. He knew how it would go inside.

  The door of the porch was three steps above him. Nothing but glass in the door, he thought, with a touch of contempt. Even if he hadn't learned about the malfunctioning lock it would have been no trouble to get in . . . might have taken him a little longer.

  With the blade of his knife and a proper amount of pressure brought to bear on the weak lock at the right time, the door was open. Nothing to it. He was in, with hardly a sound. Just a quick snap.

  He thought of the woman asleep in her bed and for an instant he grinned, and wondered how it would be to wake her, to see the expression on her face. But that was not what he had come for. Harry felt a little sorry.

  The porch was so cluttered with cases and cabinets and "junk"—as he thought of it—that he was forced to feel his way step by step to the more spacious living room. He had decided it would be all right to use his light once he was inside the house, but now, for some reason, he hesitated to do so. By that time his night vision had improved considerably. He knew where he was going. Better not risk a light until it was necessary.

  Halfway through the living room he stopped to slow down his rate of breathing and to do some listening, but he was now impatient to finish and so he went on while blood was still throbbing in his temples. Because of diffused light from the street, the foyer was faintly visible. He could make out the curved railing of the stairway, and the two display cases against the front wall, next to the door.

  It seemed to him that he could smell cigar smoke, which puzzled him. But it wasn't a strong odor. Hours old, he thought, and shifted his attention to the display cases, drawing one hand lightly over a glass surface. He touched the small lock. He could almost open it with his little finger, Harry thought. Why bother to have a lock at all if—

  The foyer was suddenly filled with a shocking, glaring light that came from behind him, like a photographic flash, and Harry froze completely with both hands atop the case. But the light didn't vanish immediately, as it should have, instead, it seemed to be pushing through the back of his head.

  "Stay just like that," Doremus cautioned. "Move a finger and I'll put a bullet through the back of your knee, Michael."

  The opened knife was lying only a few inches from the spread fingers of his right hand. He glanced at the knife, hesitated, slid his hand a fraction toward it.

  "I mean what I say. Now take a step back and turn around—but be careful."

  There was no nervousness in the voice and no lack of authority, so Harry gave up and turned slowly, shielding his eyes from the potent light.

  "OK, OK, you're blinding me!"

  "Stand still!" Doremus moved sideways in the direction of the stairs, placed the 80,000 candlepower light on the Sheraton table, where it continued to envelop Harry Randle, and dialed a telephone number with one hand. After the phone had rung half a dozen times he said sharply, "Enoch? Sorry to get you up this time of night, but I've got him. . . . That's right, Michael Young."

  "What?" Harry said, scowling.

  "In the house; I think he was on his way upstairs." He listened for a few seconds. "Good. I'll meet you at your office, then."

  "What the hell . . ."

  "Shut up," Doremus said with a look of loathing at the knife.

  "Who's Michael Young? You mean that kid who—"

  Doremus turned on the foyer light and glanced up the steps as Helen Connelly appeared. She looked from Doremus to Harry Randle, and then at the Colt automatic Doremus was holding. "What's the matter? Why is Harry—"

  "Say hello to your Aunt Helen," Doremus instructed Harry.

  "Mrs. Connelly, is this guy crazy?"

  Helen just stared at them both, baffled. And then she ventured a closer look at Harry Randle, who stared back, sullen and a little frightened.

  "But Doremus . . . how could . . . are you sure . . . ?"

  "I'm sure he went to the trouble to break in here tonight. I'm sure he came with that knife there."

  "Listen," Harry said, rather desperately, "My name's Randle. Randle. I never heard of any Michael Young until Doc Britton—" A look of dismay came into Harry's eyes, and he studied Doremus incredulously. "What's going on here? Are you trying to . . . What do you keep calling me Michael for?"

  "Because I think you are Michael Young. And you came here tonight to kill Helen."

  "God!" Harry said, and seemed on the verge of bolting for the nearest door.

  "I can fire twice for every step you take," Doremus reminded him. "This may be just a twenty-two, but I guarantee you'll gain some weight in a hurry if you try a break."

  "God!" Harry said again, almost collapsing, and he looked as pale as a night moth. He licked his lips and gestured with one hand and then said quickly, "I was on my way out of town—I was leaving this place for good! That's why . . . I got the idea a longtime ago. Hauling furniture around in here I had a chance to look over most of the good stuff she has—you know, all this jewelry here—and I figured . . . figured when the time came to move on I'd sort of stop off here first and load up. I've got a laundry sack under this sweater, see for yourself; I knew it wouldn't take me five minutes to fill it up, and I thought I could unload the stuff later on for a few hundred." He looked at Helen and seemed to be embarrassed momentarily, but then he glanced at Doremus, beseechingly. He pulled at his sweater and the laundry sack plopped to the floor.

  "There! See! I'm telling you the truth! My car's right across the street. The lock on the porch there is bad, it wasn't any work getting inside, just had to use the blade of my knife—but I didn't come to kill anybody! I don't even know her except to work for! Mister, my name's Harry Randle. Harry! Randle!"

  "Calm down, you'll wake Peggy," Doremus said, and as he considered Harry's defense of himself he began to have his first, instinctive, cop-wise doubts.

  "I'll put some coffee on," Helen murmured, because it was the only thing she could think of. She glided down the stairs, past Doremus with another searching apprehensive look at Randle.

  "You'll find out," Harry said darkly. "I'm not lying to you. You'll find out who I am. You're not making me out a killer."

  "You're right about one thing anyway. In the next twenty-four hours we're going to learn more about you than you know yourself. Ever take a polygraph test, Randle?"

  "No," Harry said, after a long moment. "But I don't have anything against taking it. I don't have anything to hide."

  They both heard the sheriff's patrol car pull up outside and Harry looked back over one shoulder, convulsively. Doremus had the notion he might try to run after all. But then Harry's shoulders drooped and he waited broodingly, eyes on the floor, until the deputies came to collect him.

  Enoch Mills, the undersheriff of Shades County, was a tall, powerfully built man with half his hair, sloping shoulders and ingenuous freckles around his normally placid, cool green eyes. Although Doremus hadn't known him long, he was aware that Mills was a competent policeman whose chief trait was thoroughness and who had the ability to work well with, and get the most out of, many types of men.

  Mills quickly secured the cooperation of the Highway Patrol in investigating the background of Harry Randle. Taking turns with Doremus, he questioned Harry until the young thief was groggy and speechless. As Doremus had promised, by six o'clock the following evening they had learned more about Harry than Harry knew himself. And they had proved to themselves that Harry Randle was nobody but Harry Randle after all, orphanage raised, street toughened, prison bred. The polygraph establi
shed that he was not a murderer, and he had not been anywhere near the scene of the shooting of Hap Washbrook.

  "Too bad he didn't turn out to be Michael Young," Mills said in his office as they were relaxing over acrid cups of restaurant coffee. "I liked your theory, Doremus. Now we're back to a lot of, well, we're back to ghosts, and things like that, and at least one murder hanging over our heads."

  "It's still a good theory, even if Harry was the wrong man," Doremus said stubbornly. "I don't think we can afford to let down now. If we didn't get Michael Young, then he's still around somewhere, waiting for his chance. Maybe he'll come tomorrow night." Doremus rubbed his tiring eyes. "Or maybe be won't."

  "Well, you could have it worse. I hear Mrs. Connelly is a right fine cook."

  Doremus grinned. "Oh, I don't know. I think I'm better."

  Chapter 12

  Although Doremus was considerably less trouble than the average house guest, Helen soon discovered that having a full-time bodyguard and watchman was a strain on her nerves. By Saturday she was ready to jump at any excuse to get out of the house for a couple of hours, without Doremus tagging along; a PTA get-together at The Shades School seemed to offer a perfect opportunity, but she had to argue for almost an hour before Doremus grudgingly conceded she ought to be safe there without him.

  "It's in the gym; there'll be three hundred people there!"

  "That's what I don't like about it."

  "One of them could be Michael, is that what you're thinking? He wouldn't dare try anything." Doremus looked gloomily at the stub of his cigar. "I said you could go. Keep Peggy with you at all times"

  "Of course I will."

  "Park your car as close to the gym as you can, and it would be a good idea if you asked one of your friends to follow you home after the party; you don't have to explain why."

  "All right," Helen said resignedly, wondering if she was going to enjoy her night out as much as she had anticipated.

  "Call me if—"

  "You remind me of my father!"

  "I'll shut up," Doremus said, with a sardonic grin.

  With the house to himself, Doremus took a leisurely hot shower, put on fresh Levi's and a favorite Pendleton shirt and walked outside. The night was just cool enough for a heavy accumulation of ground mist: the light of the village center four blocks away looked nebulous and there were belt-high pockets of mist in the sloping backyard. He strolled around the house, paused for a time by the thick trunk of a hickory, blended with the trunk. A cat came out of the mist, hurrying; it stopped, looked the way it had come, and trotted on. Doremus waited to see what else might be coming out of the mist.

  After five minutes or so he became convinced that he was alone, and so he returned to the house, turned off the porch light and settled down in the office with an exemplary western novel. He was thoroughly absorbed in the fortunes of the Zachary family when the telephone rang.

  Doremus looked up without much interest, then went back to The Unforgiven. The phone continued ringing. When he counted eight rings Doremus put the book down and rose. By the tenth ring he was certain that whoever was calling expected him to answer.

  "Connellys'," he said gruffly.

  "You want to see me, don't you?"

  Several seconds passed before Doremus answered; there was a chilly grin on his face. "That's right, kid."

  "You can see me half an hour from now at the gristmill on Hawke's farm."

  "Half hour. Is that when you materialize, or whatever it is you do?"

  "And you'd better come alone, or you won't see me."

  The connection was broken, before Doremus could think of some way to keep him talking. He replaced the receiver and looked thoughtfully at his wristwatch. The time was a few minutes after nine. The boy had spoken quickly and sharply, as if he were as tired of waiting for a confrontation as Doremus himself. "That old gristmill?" Doremus said, half-aloud. "Don't you think you're stacking the odds, kid?" He reached for the telephone again, and dialed the home of Enoch Mills.

  "This is Doremus," he said, when he had the undersheriff of The Shades on the line. "I just heard from Michael Young." He remembered then that the boy had not identified himself, but he went on: "I'm being set up for something, but I'm not sure what. . . . Yes, I probably could use some help. Helen Connelly took Peggy to some sort of school affair about an hour ago; I think it would be smart to send one of your deputies down there to keep an eye on her, without attracting a lot of attention. Now, I'm supposed to be at the gristmill on Hawke's farm in . . . approximately twenty-five minutes, and I'll be there all right. No, I don't want that. Give me, say, an hour, and then come in full throttle. I can stay alive that long no matter what, and I want him to feel secure enough to show himself."

  The gristmill on Ironwall Creek had been built in the 1840s and was still operable, although it now served primarily as an out-of-the-way attraction for tourists with cameras looking for picturesque antiquities, and as a subject for local painters. It was located a hundred feet upstream from an unpaved farm road and at night was all but invisible, surrounded by massed trees at the water's edge.

  Doremus had visited the area on several occasions, casting for bronze-backer in the weedy waters of the creek, and he remembered the high-walled, slightly out-of-kilter building well. There was an easy downhill approach from the pasture on the north side of the mill. He could see moonlit mist on the broad pasture through the ranks of trees at the water's edge. And there was a more difficult approach, beginning at the foot of the bridge, continuing below the steep bank. He had chosen this path, not for secrecy—anyone with half an ear could hear his motor scooter for miles on a still night—but because it offered maximum concealment until he was ready to show himself. After pulling his scooter off the road Doremus found a creekside path with the beam of his flashlight and started toward the mill. In his left hand he carried the nine-shot automatic.

  Buckbrush slowed him down, but he was not overanxious to begin with. When he was sure he could find his way without falling into the water, he continued without a light until the mill wheel rose above him. There he paused, listening to the mill race, studying the packed-earth clearing in front of the mill entrance. Distantly the hilly pasture shimmered, faintly yellow. There was moonlight enough to show him the heights and angles of the mill, the boarded upper windows. He clipped the lightweight lamp to his belt and climbed up the slope, keeping low. Then he drew a breath, dashed for the doorway, kneeled there, pressed against the wall.

  There was a padlock on the door but it hung oddly from the hasp, as if sheared by bolt cutters. Doremus, feeling cold and naked in the clearing, lifted one foot and kicked the door in. A moment later he went inside like a snake, rolled clear of the visible doorway, rose to his knees in the protective blackness, his lungs aching, his hands steady. He could see nothing at all. The mill smelled old, it smelled like rotting grain and rats. He moved cautiously and silently to his right.

  Somewhere in the darkness a child giggled, muffling the sound with his hands, or his sleeve. Doremus froze, his thumb on the push button of the flashlight.

  "All right," he said, not loudly, "I'm ready to talk, and I'd like to see you." He moved again, swiftly this time, on hands and knees. There was no flooring, at least where he was. He heard a tentative scurrying close by, in the loose dirt, but ignored it. He was listening for the sound of something human.

  The child giggled again, openly, delightedly.

  Doremus scrambled up, switching on the full beam of the light. The beam traveled in a wide blinding arc, past rough cut wooden columns over a grinding stone, and pinned the sneaker-clad boy on the landing of a flight of stairs.

  The startled boy lifted his hands, trying to shut out the glare, which was equal to that of a locomotive's headlight at short range. Doremus shielded his own eyes with an upthrust arm and began closing in. But the boy recovered quickly, turned his back and bounded up the stairs, too fast for Doremus, who tried to track him with the light.

  At the foot o
f the stairs, Doremus stopped, aimed the beam upward. He heard no sound, but dust was drifting down, as if someone was walking cautiously just above.

  "Michael!"

  He began climbing, pausing on every other step. The light was a powerful weapon, but he had lost his advantage and knew it. The sight of the boy had astonished him; he had expected almost anything else. . . . "I don't want to play games, Michael!" Doremus called. "I just want to talk to you." He reached the landing, where the stairs made a sharp angle to the left. Here the advantage became Michael's. But there was no choice except to go on.

  He was halfway to the second floor of the mill when the heavy pitchfork came down, almost straight down, dropped but apparently not thrown. It struck Doremus's right wrist, and he let go of the light. He was not quick enough to seize the light before it fell through a space between steps and dropped to the ground below. Doremus recovered and fired three shots in a random pattern, intended to frighten and not to wound the boy he was chasing. Then he stumbled up on the last of the steps in the dark, ran into a wall, stopped there and waited, breathing harshly.

  "Your turn," he said, when he had caught his breath.

  The boy giggled, sounding a little short of breath himself.

  Doremus flexed the fingers of his right hand, reached into the pocket of his shirt and withdrew a pencil flashlight. He heard the giggling again; this time the boy seemed closer, but the sound was muffled and it was impossible to be certain. Doremus was tempted to use the tiny light immediately, but he had no more surprises to offer and he didn't want to waste that one.

  While he waited his eyes adjusted to the dark. A little moonlight seemed to be filtering in, perhaps through cracks in the roof or the plank walls. Doremus edged forward, fingertips on the rough wall. The floor under his feet creaked and he stopped. A few seconds later the floor creaked again, but not from his weight. He reached out with his right hand; the wall ended, and there was a space. He felt a chill at the nape of his neck. Door space? he wondered. Was there a room beyond, and was the boy hiding there? He thought about the pitchfork that had come heavily down inches from his head, and he suppressed a shudder. But he took no more time to consider the possible danger; instead he switched on the pencil flashlight, stepped boldly into the space and pointed the beam.

 

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