Guilt by Association

by Gilbert, Morris

  He studied her then shrugged. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I want to tell you something. Then maybe I’d like to ask you a question.”

  “All right.”

  “It’s about Sid. He never knew his father. His mother was a prostitute. She threw him out when he was nine years old. He grew up on the streets. He got his first conviction when he was ten and constantly went in and out of reform school.”

  He paused, and Dani looked up uncertainly. There was little expression on his face, but she knew he was leading up to something. Ben went on slowly, telling her Valentine’s totally bleak story. Finally he said, “Sid has been all that Stone said, I guess. He’s thirty-nine years old, and half of his life has been spent behind bars. He’s a thief and a murderer—and just about everything else you’d care to name.”

  When Dani saw that he was finished, she shook her head. “How terrible, Ben!”

  “Sure,” he nodded. “Now, about the question, boss.”

  “What is it?” she had no idea where he was going.

  “Well, I’ve been watching you. We all have. You’ve been doing a lot of preaching. I guess I was pretty impressed the way you jumped in and gave Morrow some kind of comfort.” He gave her a level stare. “And I like the way you’ve helped Candi. I can see she’s in better shape today.”

  Suddenly he shook his head and touched the scar on his forehead. He sat staring at her so long that Dani finally said, “Well, Ben, come out with it.”

  “All right.” He dropped his hand. “I haven’t seen you talking to Sid—or to Vince. So here’s my question: This brand of religion you’ve got, is it just for good people?”

  “Of course not!” she snapped, and a flush touched her cheeks. “If it were, I wouldn’t have talked to Candi!”

  “Come on,” Ben said in a hard voice. “Candi’s not like those two, and you know it! If they are, what’s kept you from trying to convert them? You ever talk to them like you did to Morrow or to Candi—one on one?”

  “Well, no.” Dani tried to speak, to explain, but could not find the words. As she struggled, to her discomfort, she realized he was right. She had excluded Sid and Vince because she had little compassion for them. Her exhilaration over Candi’s conversion faded, and the bitter doubt that came from his words caused her to lose her temper.

  “I think you’re being very unfair!” she said through clenched teeth. “Those two aren’t my responsibility!”

  Savage got to his feet and looked down at her with a thoughtful expression. “Oh?” he said quietly. “Guess I was wrong.” He cocked his head and murmured, “I always thought we were supposed to be our brothers’ keepers . . . ?”

  Then he walked away, and Dani bent over the desk, not knowing if the tears that came were produced by anger or guilt.

  12

  A Private Ghost

  * * *

  Hey, you know this game is gettin’ sort of interesting!” Bix looked up from where he sat across from Dani. The two of them had been going over Karl’s endless lists, trying to find connections. “But I don’t see that this is ever going to get us anywhere. Look here, for example, Dani. According to this list, all of us have been in a hospital at least once. Well, so what? Almost everybody’s been in a hospital, right?”

  “That’s the way investigations work, Bix. It would be nice if all you had to sort through was the relevant material, but the trouble is, you don’t know what’s relevant until you look at it.” Dani leaned back, put her hands behind her head, and stretched. “If we’d found that we’d all been in the same hospital, that would be important. But so far we’ve only come up with five things that all of us have in common.”

  “Yeah? What are they?”

  Dani smiled as she recited them. “We all own cars, have been in a courtroom for some reason, own a television set, have seen Gone With the Wind, and have owned or now own a pet.”

  Bix seemed disappointed. “Well, what about that being in court? Maybe some crazy judge is mad at us—trying to knock off a bunch of people he couldn’t nail in the courtroom.”

  “Nope. We were all in different courts, for different reasons. Some were just witnesses or doing jury duty.” She looked over to where Ben and Lonnie were installing the canopy and asked, “Do you think that thing will keep some heat in?”

  “What? Oh, sure, I guess so.” Bix was looking down at the stack of papers, still thinking about them. “How else are you and the commander sorting these things out?”

  “Oh, we’ve got them categorized another way. How many things have all of us except one done? For example, all of us except Lonnie have been outside the country at least once; and all of us except Rachel have been to Dallas.” She suddenly shook her head in a gesture of weariness. “It’s a pretty long shot, Bix, but it’s the only game in town.” She rose, saying, “Think I’ll see if Vince wants some lemonade.”

  Is it just for good people? As she brought Vince the drink Ben’s question floated again into Dani’s thoughts, and the unfairness of it pushed against her mind. Unconsciously she shook her head defiantly. What does he know? I can’t please everyone! Though she tried to push away her anger, it would not leave.

  “Hello.” She looked down, startled to find Vince was awake. He was looking at her with feverish eyes, and his voice sounded hollow and thin.

  “Why, hello, Vince.” She smiled at him. “Could you drink some nice cold lemonade?”

  “Guess so,” he murmured and struggled to sit up. Dani helped him and pushed an extra pillow behind his back for support. He took the glass and drank thirstily, she noticed that his hand trembled. “Thanks a lot.” His mouth turned up in a weak smile, and he shook his head. “Never been sick before. Sure is a drag, ain’t it, Dani?”

  “You’ll feel better soon,” she said. “When they get that canopy up, it’11 be warmer.”

  He nodded and suddenly broke out into a spasm of coughing that left him breathless.

  Dani could only sit there helplessly, watching him shiver. Why, he’s whipped! she realized with a sense of shock. He thinks he’s going to die! It came to her that the sickness was worse for him, because he’d never experienced anything like it. He was a man of great physical strength, strength he’d used to get the things he wanted.

  “Karen’s a good doctor,” she comforted, making her voice as hopeful as she could. “It takes time for antibiotics to work, but by tomorrow, you’ll feel better.” She forced herself to smile, reached out with her free hand, and grasped the clasped hands of the sick man, adding, “It’s rough, Vince, but you’ve been in rough spots before, I’d say.”

  He looked up at her, his eyes dulled by fever. “Yeah, sure I had a few bumps—but nothin’ like this! Always before I could fight my way out of a spot, but what’s a guy to do with a thing like this?” He bit his heavy underlip and dropped his eyes to her hand, then looked back at her, something in his expression that she couldn’t read.

  “All these ‘confessions’ that Stone’s been looking for give me a pain! But I guess I can make one right now, Dani—not to him, but to you.” She shook her head, but he continued, “I ain’t never been scared before, and I could tell you about a few times I was sure my number was up. But I’m scared now. I’m so scared I can’t see straight.”

  She tightened her grip on his hands, saying urgently, “Oh, Vince, we’re all scared. Anybody in a terrible trap like this would be scared. It’s just human. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “Savage ain’t scared,” Vince contradicted her quickly. “Neither is Holtz or Rachel. They’re pretty hard, those three—and I thought I was as tough as them, but that was before I went down.” He suddenly gave his big shoulders a shake and blinked his eyes. “Now don’t you come at me with your preaching, Dani, you hear me? I may have done a lot of bad things, but I’m not a whiner! Pretty small to live like the devil all your life, then go crawling to God when your number’s up,” he stated, trying to look tough. “Gimme some more of that lemonade and tell me what’s going on—but n
o preaching!”

  “All right, Vince.” While he sipped the lemonade, she described their efforts to find a common denominator that would furnish a key to their mystery. It helped him to have someone there, she saw, so she entertained him with a few of the blind alleys she had followed with their efforts, such as discovering that none of them had ever been in North Dakota. “Maybe the chamber of commerce there is out to get us for ignoring their great state!” She laughed. “If they’d let me out, I’d be happy to visit them!”

  She sat with him for over an hour, until Karen came in. “Time for your medicine, Vince.” Karen gave him two pills, took his pulse, and nodded. “It’ll be warm tomorrow, Ben says. You can get up and walk around some.”

  “Yeah, if I can walk—blasted legs are made of rubber!” He lay back and looked up at the two women, a thought stirring in his eyes. “One good thing about this—if anybody else gets knocked off, I’ll be clear!”

  He closed his eyes and seemed to go to sleep at once. When the two women had walked outside, Dani asked, “How is he?”

  “Worse than he looks,” Karen said. “His lungs are closing up. I’d put him on oxygen right now, if I had him in a hospital. Let’s go ask Ben when he’s going to get the roof on.” She led the way to where Savage was balancing precariously on top of two tables topped with a chair. “Good thing we have an acrobat with us, Ben,” she called up to him. “Anybody else would break his neck on a thing like that!”

  He looked down and gave her a slight grin. “Come on up, Doc. I can use a helper.”

  “No, thanks. When’s that thing going to be finished? We‘re all going to be down with something, if we don’t get warm.” She looked around the room and asked, “Couldn’t you fix the sleeping quarters first? We can manage, but I want Vince out of this cold.”

  He nodded and put the drill down. “Sure. I should have done that first.” He stood up and without warning stepped off into space. Both women gasped, and Dani cried out, “Ben . . . !” But he landed lightly on his feet, seemed to collapse and roll into a ball, and came to his feet lightly.

  “Don’t do that!” Karen said angrily. “All we need is for you to break both your legs!”

  He looked at her with surprise then grinned shamefacedly. “Well, it’s my only talent, Doc—and anyway, it’s safer than trying to climb down that shaky mess.” He pulled the cord, caught the drill as it fell, then said, “I was trying to get all the drilling done first, but we can put the canvas up in the other room now, then finish this one tomorrow. Come on, Sid. We’ll have to move these tables.”

  Dani and Karen offered to help but were refused. They got coffee and sat down to watch the two men move the table. “Rachel seems about the same,” Karen volunteered. “She’s not nearly as sick as Vince—but a thing like that can change fast.” They sat there, speaking quietly, and as Ben and Sid carried the last table into the sleeping area, Karen nodded, “I’m glad Ben thought of that. It might save some lives. He’s a pretty handy fellow.”

  “Yes.”

  Dani’s spare speech caused Karen to look at her sharply. “You two have a fight?”

  “No. Not a fight, but he—” Dani suddenly found that she could not tell the other woman. She shook her head, saying only, “I’m just edgy today, Karen. For one thing, I keep thinking that our killer hasn’t gone on vacation. He’s still here, and there’s no way we can defend ourselves. We can’t sit around in a circle and just watch one another all the time, can we?”

  “We only have one to watch, if you ask me!” Dani and Karen looked up to where Betty was rolling out dough on the serving table. With her head she motioned toward the sleeping area and continued sharply, “That Savage—he’s the one, I tell you!”

  Candi was watching her closely. She had asked the older woman to teach her to cook and had made but little progress. Now she shook her head. “Oh, Betty, I don’t think so! He was the one who thought of putting that tent up. If he wanted to hurt us, he wouldn’t have done that.”

  “Just a cover-up! He’s the only one who could climb that rope to get rid of that knife, and he’s learned to kill people in the marines. We ought to tie him up before he murders all of us in our beds!”

  Dani smiled slightly at this. “If he’s as deadly as you say, Betty, I doubt that all the rest of us put together could do that job.”

  Betty snorted, but Candi looked at her with a strange expression. “Betty, I spent most of my life hating people. Look what it got me.” She dropped her head, then raised it suddenly, and the smile on her lips was matched by the light in her eyes. “Being brought to this place was the best thing that ever happened to me. Like I told Dani, even if I don’t make it, I’ve found out there’s something better than what I had—better than anything I ever even dreamed of.”

  Karen gave her a steady look, then commented, “You’ve changed, Candi. I’ve never seen anyone change so fast.”

  Candi laughed self-consciously. “I’ve hated God most of my life—and now I come to find out that He loves me. Ain’t that something? Jesus loves me.”

  As the three women watched, their reactions differed. Dani felt a warm glow of satisfaction. Karen was glad, but with some reservations. Betty looked at Candi with a look of pure skepticism, but said only, “Well, the proof’s in the pudding, I always say. The Bible says the saved are those that hold out to the end.”

  “But, Betty, it’s Jesus who holds onto us—that’s why I feel so—so safe!” Candi suddenly put her arm around the cook and squeezed her, giving a happy laugh. “All my life, I’ve tried to hold on to things, and I lost everything I ever wanted! Now I’ve lost everything, but I know somehow Jesus is holding on to me, and I don’t care about the rest!” Suddenly she gave an embarrassed laugh, then turned and left the kitchen, saying, “I’ll see if Rachel wants anything.”

  Karen grunted. “She’d better not try to spread Christian cheer around Rachel. Might get her head knocked off.” She looked at Dani and said with a trace of concern, “Now don’t you get this bug, Dani! I might be the killer, but you’re not.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Too squeamish.” Karen nodded wisely. “You threw up after just one look at poor Rosie’s head! Nope, it’s not you, so you stay well and take care of the rest of us prime suspects.” Then she sobered, asking directly, “Dani, do you have any ideas at all about who it is?”

  “No. I’m a flop on my biggest case, Karen. Sherlock Holmes would have had this thing sewn up by now!” She got up and took a final sip of coffee, saying wearily, “They never told us it’d be like this in Miss Wing’s Finishing School for Girls!”

  By ten o’clock the men had strung all the ropes in the sleeping quarters then installed the nylon over it.

  “I can tell the difference right off!” Lonnie exclaimed joyfully. “Now maybe I’ll thaw out!”

  They were all tired, and most of them went to bed at once. Ben claimed the shower, since he’d done most of the work, and Karen said, “I’ll take my bath tomorrow.” The rest of them agreed, but Dani commented, “Everybody will be lined up tomorrow. I’ll take my shower after Ben is finished.”

  She left the sleeping area, noting as soon as she entered the rec room that Lonnie was right—the insulated ceiling had made a difference. She fixed a cup of steaming tea, carried it over to the desk, and tried to work, but the frigid air numbed her fingers, so she moved to the couch. She tucked her feet under, pulled a woolly blanket up to her ears, and lay back to wait. The hot tea had warmed her, and she lay there, thinking, until she drifted off into a fitful sleep.

  Restlessly she moved as the thoughts became dreams—mostly about her family. At first, they were just memories, but gradually they became terribly real. She dreamed that they were sinking into the earth and calling for her to help. She saw her parents, Rob, and Allison, their faces contorted with fear and pain. Beginning to whimper, trying to get to them, she seemed to be trapped, unable to move. With a violent movement, she attempted to break loose and gave a helples
s cry—

  “Dani! Wake up!”

  She felt someone touching her shoulder and came awake instantly. The dream’s fear clung to her, and at first she tried to break away, fighting at the hand.

  “You okay?” Ben’s face was sober, and only his strong hand kept her from falling off the couch.

  “Y-yes,” she stammered and sat up suddenly. He stood there watching her, and she tried to smile. “Bad dream,” she explained. “I was dreaming about my family.”

  He nodded, saying, “Yeah, I know. I’ve thought a lot about them, myself. If I’d handled this thing better—”

  “Oh, don’t start on that, Ben!” She got up and found that her feet were asleep, for she pitched forward helplessly. He caught her and helped her to sit down. Conscious of his hands, suddenly Dani felt a wave of embarrassment sweep over her. She swallowed hard. “Ben, sit down. I—want to tell you something.”

  He regarded her suspiciously but sat down and turned to watch her. Watchfulness sparked his hazel eyes, and she thought it would be impossible to break through his tough facade, but she had to try. “I’ve been having a hard time with what you asked me yesterday—” she began, and haltingly she told him about her anger. She shook her head. “It’s been like a dagger, what you said, ‘Is it only for good people?’ But I should have been angry at myself, Ben, not you. Because I guess that’s what I’ve been doing, trying to stay with the ‘good’ people. Avoiding the tough ones, because they might hurt my feelings. So I’m sorry that I got angry with you.”

  He said suddenly, “I had a talk with Vince today. It meant a lot to him, the way you sat and talked to him.”

  She shook her head, and her mouth was firm. “That’s not the same thing, Ben. Vince is no threat to me. He’s so sick he’s pitiful. But you’ve made me see what I’ve been doing. I—I’m going to work on it some, and you’ll have to understand, God isn’t finished with me yet.”