Death Trap (10 page)

“Why not?”

“Let me tell him, Chief,” Quillan said. “I had the Landy kid alone. I had him alone for three hours. I didn’t leave a mark on him. Not one mark. And I got a confession. A nice juicy confession with all the details. But they didn’t want to use it. Milligan figured he had enough. He figured the confession would be repudiated, see? And he was afraid Tennant would bring up how I got in a little trouble a couple of times, getting people to talk free like. So we know he confessed and plenty of people in this town know he confessed. So, like the Chief says, you still got your choice. Get the hell out, or get tossed in the can. And nobody is going to give you a hard time about the Smith kid, except maybe his old man.”

“Hardesty Smith, Senior, is president of our bank here,” the Chief said. “He suffered certain minor injuries—his son did—while resisting arrest by Quillan. I managed to save Quillan’s job. We’re still waiting, Mr. MacReedy, sir.”

“I guess you better charge me, then. And get bail set.”

Chief Score looked uncomfortable. “You aren’t being reasonable. We’re fair people here. We expect you to be reasonable. Mr. Quillan, do you think you could persuade Mr. MacReedy to be reasonable?”

Quillan got up. “Come on along, pal. Come with Barney.”

When I tried to hold back, his big hand tightened on my arm. I looked back at the Chief. He looked flushed and pleased. He had a happy look of anticipation.

Quillan took me down a short hallway. “What are you going to do?”

“In here, pal.” He pushed me into a dark room, turned on an overhead light. There was a table, a frayed couch, two sagging chairs, a single window. He spun me around and released me. “The Chief is a nice guy. Everybody likes the Chief. You don’t like him.”

“I don’t like him or dislike him. I just don’t want to be run out—”

He moved without warning, without any preliminary tensing of muscles. He thudded the heel of his hand against my forehead. It dazed me, and my neck creaked as I went back, stumbling against one of the chairs.

“That doesn’t leave a mark,” he said. “We aren’t big time. But we don’t leave marks. We’re just village cops. We’re easy to get along with. We keep a nice clean town here.”

He moved slowly toward me as he spoke and I circled away from him. I wouldn’t have felt safe with an ax in my hands. I wouldn’t have felt safe with anything smaller than a Colt .45.

He grinned at me and said, “Now you’re supposed to tell me what a big shot you are, and all about how I’m going to be in all kinds of trouble. Come on. Tell me.” He blocked my way, moving me back toward a corner. I sensed what he wanted. He wanted me to fight back. I did a difficult thing. I stood absolutely still, my arms at my sides, and let him come up to me.

He moved slightly to the side and said, “Here’s another one.” He swung and hit me across the diaphragm with the flat of his hand. It was like being slapped with a plank. I doubled over slightly and he moved in front of me and snapped the cheek bruise with a heavy finger. “You had that one when you came in,” he said. He then banged the heel of his hand against my forehead. I hit the wall, bounced off, fell to both knees. I stayed there. He put a big foot against my chest and shoved. I hit the wall again.

I knew then that it wasn’t going to do any good. Passive acceptance didn’t slow him down. It made it easier for him. I got up very slowly and as he approached I started to turn away from him, and then turned back, letting the anger flare up, using the quickness and the violence that only anger can give. I hooked him in the stomach with a left as hard as I could. It was like hitting a padded tree. I crossed the right to his jaw. He went back two heavy steps. I repeated the combination and his knees sagged. When I swung for his face the third time, he pulled back away from the blow and hit me, one thunderous right hand under the heart that swept me off my feet. I came up as quickly as I could, my whole left side knotted with pain. As I tried to lead he caught my arm, pulled me half by him, and chopped down on my left kidney with the edge of his thick hand. I think I screamed. I twisted loose. I knew I could not lift my left arm. Pain kept it doubled against me. Everything in the room seemed to have misted out except his face. There was no expression there except a workmanlike concentration. I knew I had to hit him once more with my right hand, that I had to put everything into it and make the blow clean and certain. I swung and missed and he pushed me back as if I were a child.

“Wait a minute!” he said. His head was tilted. He was listening. He expected me to stop as though this were a kind of game we were playing. As I gathered myself to try again, he turned and opened the door and left the room. I staggered through the doorway, sick and dizzy. He walked to the entrance, massive against the light, seeming to fill the hall from side to side. I leaned against the wall, a great cramp in my left side, sucking air through clenched teeth. My vision was clearing slowly.

I saw him open the door, look down, lean over, pick someone up. The Chief came to the door of his office. I heard his shocked gasp. The two men went into his office. I saw one arm dangling, swinging loosely. The door was straight ahead. I shuffled toward it. I stopped when I came to the open office door I would have to pass, gathering my strength to move quickly.

I heard the Chief say, “I think it’s the Garson girl. Good God!”

And instead of trying to make my run for it, I walked woodenly into the Chief’s office. They had put her on a leather couch against the side wall. Quillan had lifted the phone. The Chief was bending over the couch. I moved close to him and looked down at her. Hard fists could have done that to her face. Hard fists or stones. One eye was swollen completely shut, the other nearly so. The tilted nose had been smashed utterly flat. The lips looked as though someone had gone over them with a wood rasp. One cheek was sickeningly indented where the cheek bone had given way. Her jaw sagged open at an unreal angle, and a sliver of bloody bone protruded through the flesh. Front teeth were broken off short. Her face and throat and clothing were torn and bloody. One heavy young breast was entirely exposed. Hands and knees were grimy. She had crawled a long way.

“Who did it?” the Chief was demanding insistently. “Who did this to you?”

She was breathing deeply, her breath wet and ragged in her throat. One hand stirred, and my stomach turned over as I saw a broken finger bent back at an impossible angle. The Chief must have realized as I did that she could not possibly speak. Her hand lifted. He scurried to the desk, came back with pad and pencil. He held it where she could see it, and he supported her hand.

She scrawled the name. “Smith.”

Quillan came over. “The doc is on the way. She’s hospital. He’ll take her into Warrentown.”

The Chief showed him the note. “Go get that kid.”

“No kid, Chief. He hasn’t been a kid for a long time.”

“I don’t care what the hell he is. Bring him in here. Maybe he’s running. Give the license and the car description to the state boys.”

Quillan made another phone call and left. I heard his tires shriek and spin as he swung out. The Chief fussed over the girl. She lay slack, breathing and bleeding. I moved over and sat down cautiously. The sharpness of the pain was leaving, settling into a thick ache.

The doctor arrived. He was ridiculously young. The heavy, ragged artillery mustache did not serve its purpose. It made him look like a high school boy on Halloween. He gave me an absent nod and went directly to the girl, gently moving the Chief aside. From what I could see of his examination, he was quick and deft. He mopped up the blood, took a hypo from his bag, filled it, injected her in the upper arm. Her breathing changed quickly, becoming slower, deeper, more regular.

“I’ll have to take her into Warrentown. Shell need X rays. I can’t tell how badly she’s hurt. There may be a skull fracture. Who is she and who did it?”

“Virginia Garson. Young Hardesty Smith did it.”

He fingered her lips and said, “Can’t use clamps here.” He threaded a curved needle and began to sew her lips. “I’d say he knocked her down and then kicked her in the face repeatedly. Who brought her here?”

“She crawled, Don. Quillan heard her scratching on the door. He’s got ears like a rabbit.”

He nodded. He took gauze and bound up the sagging lower jaw. He examined her hand, fingering it lightly, and said. “Some small bones broken here. We’ll save this for X ray.” He turned toward me. “Please get the stretcher out of the back of my wagon.”

I went out. It was a new station wagon with the seats folded down and a cot installed. I opened the tail gate and took out the rolled-up stretcher and took it in. “Put it on the floor and we’ll lift her down.” I unrolled the canvas stretcher on the floor beside the couch. Her face looked like nothing human. It was sexless, ageless, speaking only of violence. As the doctor reached for her shoulders she took a deeper breath and let it out slowly, shudderingly. He took her wrist quickly, fingers on her pulse. He dived for his bag, snapped it open, took out a hypodermic. She breathed that way again. For long desperate seconds she did not breathe at all. He injected her directly over the heart. There was one last thready, sighing wheeze and then silence. He worked over her for perhaps ten minutes while we stood and watched him. Then he straightened up slowly, took out a handkerchief and wiped his face.

“You’ll want an autopsy,” he said.

“What did she—die of?” Chief Score asked.

The young doctor shrugged. “Shock. Brain damage.”

Chief Score sat down. “This is a terrible thing,” he said. “These kids. I can’t understand them.”

The young doctor’s voice was soft. “I’ve sewed up some ugly knife wounds. One kid got stabbed right in the corridor in the high school. They roar through the town without mufflers. I’ve tried to put them back together after the automobiles have ripped them apart. Teen-age girls expect me to be able to tell them where they can get a cut-rate abortion. They drink hard and they beat up strangers just for the kicks. People are getting tired of it, Chief. People are doing a lot of talking about it. The town is beginning to think you spend too much time shaking hands, and playing poker with Sheriff Turnbull. The parents can’t control these kids. You could put the lid on. But it’s too much trouble. You might make enemies, and then you couldn’t deliver the vote for Turnbull. I think you and Quillan are a sorry excuse for a village police force, Chief.”

“You have no call to talk to me like that, Don.”

“The Landy case and now this. You’re in trouble, Chief.”

“Am I supposed to lock up every kid in town?”

The doctor stared at him. “No comment, Chief. Suppose you call the girl’s folks. That’ll give you something to do. I’ll get hold of Hillman and have him send somebody for the body. Hooker can come over from Warrentown and do the autopsy over there.”

He picked up his bag and left and we were alone with the body. The Chief picked up the pad and looked at it. He looked at me. “You were here. You heard me ask her. You saw her write it.”

“I’ll co-operate with you.”

“You can go. Don’t leave town.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“Just go. Don’t keep talking. Go.”

I went out into the night. I was stiff and sore. I walked slowly back to the Inn. I felt that I was, in a sense, to blame. I had humiliated Smith. And, in memory, I heard her raw young voice, heavy with scorn,
Okay, little bunny rabbit. You can come out now. It’s safe.”

So he had come out and kicked her to death.