Death Trap (19 page)

“I certainly appreciate your courtesy, Mrs. Hemsold.”

“Nancy is a lovely child and we all wish her all the best in life. I, for one, feel that what happened to Jane Ann was for the best. Had she lived, she would have given Dick and Myra nothing but heartbreak for the rest of their lives. Now they’ve got one lovely daughter left, and they can be proud of her, believe me. I’m not one to make any guesses without good reason, but I can see what’s ahead for that girl.”

“What do you mean?”

She made a little smacking sound with her lips and looked at me with great satisfaction. “Fate moves in mysterious ways, young man, and when you get older you’ll begin to see how there’s a pattern in everything. I don’t know if you’ve seen Angela Mackin over to the store or if you’d know who she was if you saw her. But if you saw her, you wouldn’t forget her in a hurry. That woman is walking death, believe me. She hasn’t got long to go, and there’s some say she doesn’t know it, but I’d wager she’s got a pretty good idea. She and Billy never had any children, and I guess now Billy is glad they didn’t, even though he wanted them so bad. There’s some who hold to the old fashioned ways, but I say the world is changing day by day and it’s up to us to change right along with it. You mark my words, young man, there’s going to be a wedding and I say Billy shouldn’t wait over six months after Angela is in her grave. Nancy’ll be nineteen soon and if I ever saw two people that need each other and are right for each other, those are the two. Nancy needs love and understanding and tenderness, and Billy is going to need a young and loving and pretty wife so’s he can forget watching Angela go down hill all these long months. It’ll be a good thing all around. Nancy can stay right in the neighborhood, practically next door, and that’ll be so much easier on her people than if she were to many and go away and leave them all alone. Maybe some would call it sinful for me to talk this way with Angela not even in her coffin yet, but a body has to face up to facts and do the best they can. Dick Paulson’s heart is in terrible bad shape and it would be a tragedy if Nancy were to go away now. You know, Billy Mackin even comes over and does Dick’s yard work for him, and he hasn’t got time left to take decent care of his own yard. I can see the handwriting on the wall and it’s going to work out for the best. Mr. Hemsold was eleven years older than me, and I must say we had a very happy life together until he died in nineteen thirty-eight on Friday the thirteenth at quarter to eight in the morning. I called him for breakfast and he always came down those front stairs there to get the paper and take it out to the kitchen. I heard the stairs squeaking and then there was all the thumping and I ran in and he was right there near that mat you can see from where you’re sitting. Dr. Farbon said it was a stroke and he never felt a thing, and you could well believe it from the peaceful look on his face. He left everything in perfect order, and I guess he died thinking I’d be well fixed for the rest of my life but he didn’t know how prices were going to go up out of sight. I think a husband should be older, and Billy will be a good steady husband for Nancy, better than some dreamy boy who thinks the world owes him a living. And, you know, I think Nancy will be happy to marry him. Don’t you get the idea they’ve been making up to each other or anything. Billy is too fine a young man to try and fiddle-de-dee with Angela dying on his hands. Nancy acts scairt of all men, but on account of Billy being such a good friend and knowing him so long, she’ll be easier with him than with anybody.”

“Has anybody mentioned it, or are you just guessing?”

She looked as if I had insulted her. “Guessing! When you get older you begin to see the pattern in things. Nobody has come right out and said it would happen, but I’ve got ears and eyes. Many a day Myra stops over and we have tea. Mr. Hemsold was born in Southampton, England, and he had tea every living day of his life and he taught me to like it too. From what she’s said, and understand she didn’t say anything
right out,
Dick has been thinking on Billy being a good match for Nancy later on. Now let me tell you I’ve known Dick Paulson since the time he used to deliver groceries right here to this same house, back when he was a raggedy, solemn little boy right down off the farm over near Bluebird after his folks died of the typhoid. That was back when it was Cal White’s market, and I bet Cal had no idea of Dickie Paulson taking over the place and a lot of other things besides. And I can tell you one thing about Dick. Anything he sets his mind to, it comes true sooner or later, you mark my words.”

She stood up abruptly. “I’ve done my Christian duty and you might as well go now, young man, or I’ll start saying things you’ll have no liking to hear. I hear the Landy woman has gone clean away from town but if you see her you can tell her for me and the other decent folks around here that she won’t be welcome if she tries to come back.”

When I turned and tried to thank her she slammed the door. The porch light went off before I was down the steps. I walked slowly back to the Inn. Many things had fallen into place. I felt that I could understand Jane Ann a little more. She would have been nine when that happened to her sister. And all of a sudden her sister seemed to be getting all of the love and attention in the household. It would not be impossible for Jane Ann to have gotten some distorted idea of what had happened. And that could account for her waywardness, her experimentations. They had been not only a protest but a curious way to try to regain the love and attention that was all being given to the sister.

I did not go into the Inn. I went around to get into my car. There was no outside light at the small parking area. Some light came through the back windows of the Inn. At first he was a shadow that detached itself from a dark car parked near mine.

And then he was a breath in my face, tainted with whisky and vomit.

“Still meddling around, you son of a bitch,” he said thickly.

“You’re drunk, Quillan.”

“Not too drunk, you bastard. You and Perry. Both bastards. He smells trouble. So he cuts himself loose. He fires me. Your fault, you big-mouth bastard. I think I’m going to kill you.”

And if he had hit me with that first punch, hit me where he wanted to hit me, he might have killed me right then. I got my left arm up barely in time. His fist numbed my arm. I turned from the expected knee, and it caught me on the thigh, knocking me back against my car.

He rushed me, and I tried to slip free. He caught me on the forehead with a wild swing. Liquor had dulled his reflexes. For a moment he was silhouetted against the light. I hit him as hard and as fast and as cleanly as I could, three blows to the face, right, left, right. I put meat into the last one. I’ve hit people that hard before. They’ve gone down. He rushed me again and I backed up fast, backed out from between the cars to where I had more room.

He came heavily out into the open. I circled him slowly. There was the sound of our shoes on the gravel, our breathing, a distant sound of music. I hit him twice more, but not as hard, because I was trying to stay away from him. He did not try to hit back. At the second blow, his fingers slipped off my wrist before he could get a good grip. In the faint light the blood on his mouth looked black. I knew he wanted to get hold of me. And I knew I wouldn’t stand much chance if he did. Discretion said turn and run like hell. But it isn’t pretty to run from a man.

“Kill you,” he said indistinctly.

He dived for my legs. I skipped sideways and he rolled over and over. When he came up to his feet, I had slipped around behind him. I clasped my fists together and struck him on the nape of the neck as hard as I could. I expected him to go down again, but he whirled with agility I hadn’t expected, and I was too off balance to skitter back. He got my arm. I hit him twice around the eyes with my left fist, but he pulled me close, locked his arms around me, fists on the small of my back, his shoulder pressing against my throat.

We were motionless for a moment, and then he increased the pressure. I heard the audible creak of my ribs. All the air was pushed out of my lungs. He bent me, and the sky grew darker, and I knew he was crazy enough to keep it up until my back snapped. I tried to get hold of his hair but it was too short. I got one hand up and around and down to his face. He tried to snuggle his face into my neck, but I got the tips of my first and second fingers into his nostrils and pulled up and back. The pressure didn’t cease. I pulled until I felt the sickening rip of tissue. He grunted with pain and the pressure went and I could breathe. As I sucked air in, he hit me. There was no sense of falling. I did not feel myself hit the ground, but I recovered almost at once. He was on me, knee like a keg smashing my stomach with his entire weight. There was enough light there so that when he stabbed at my eye with a thumbnail, I turned and took a gash on the side of my face. I knew he meant to blind me. I struck at his face. He locked his hands on my throat. I had an instant of time in which to tighten all the muscles of my throat. Had I not done so, the first violent pressure would have mashed my throat, killed me in that instant. I flailed my arms, writhed, tried to get enough leverage to buck and throw, him off. But his knee pinned me. My hand struck something, turned, curled around it. I pulled it free of the ground. The edge of the parking lot was marked by bricks set cornerwise into the ground and whitewashed.

The sky had darkened again and I could not see him. I struck and felt the brick hit. I struck five times, and though I was trying to use all my strength, I felt as though my arm were a tube of cotton, the brick a sponge. The big hands turned slack without warning. He collapsed onto me. I felt his blood on my face. I had to wait until I could move. I pushed him off. He rolled onto his back. I sat up and buried my face against my knees. Each deep breath made a whistling sound. The left side of my face felt numb. When I tried to swallow, my throat felt full of those metal jacks little girls play games with. When I got up I wavered and went down to one knee and got up again. I found my lighter. I squatted beside him and lit it. His face was spoiled. Blood ran from his ear. I did not like the look of that. It was not a good thing. I tried to find his pulse. His wrist was too meaty. I put my ear on his chest. It sounded much too thin and fast and sharp. His heart sounded as if it were trying to peck its way out of his chest.

By luck I managed to get to my room without being seen. I washed the blood off. I changed my suit and shirt. I put tape on the ragged gouge near my eye. There was no other mark. It seemed miraculous. I looked at a stranger in the mirror. I felt as if I were in seven pieces, and the man in the mirror looked calm. I got the revolver, took it out of the holster, put it and a box of shells in my side pocket. I went down to the phone booth in the back of the entrance hall. I found the number for Dr. Higel. I paused, changed my mind, called John Tennant first.

“I’ve got no time to chat,” I said. “Quillan jumped me behind the Inn. Nobody saw it. I don’t know whether I killed him. I may have. Let Arma know.”

“Have you called a doctor?”

“I called you first.”

“Call a doctor. Wait by Quillan until he comes. Turn yourself in. I’ll be there in fifty minutes.”

“I’ll call the doctor. Then I’m leaving. I’ve got things to do.”

“Hugh, don’t be a damn—”

I didn’t hear the rest because I had hung up. I phoned Dr. Don Higel at his home. His voice was brisk and alert when he answered. “This is MacReedy,” I said.

“What now?”

“Quillan is in back of the Inn, in the parking lot. He jumped me. He may be dying. He may be dead by now.”

“Wait there,” he said.

I hung up on him. I hurried out and got into the car. When I swung around my headlights stopped on Quillan. He hadn’t moved. I had an impulse to run the car over him. It was so strong it frightened me. I wanted to feel the car jounce over him. I missed him. I was ten miles from town in ten minutes.

WHEN VICKY OPENED THE DOOR I had every intention of being calm, factual, controlled. She opened the door and I opened my mouth but no words came. When I stepped inside, my knees sagged, but I caught myself. I felt faint. I leaned too heavily on her. She helped me to the bed. I sat down and looked up at her and tried to smile. Her face was vivid with concern, anxiety.

“What’s happened, Hugh? What has happened? Tell me, darling.”

It was a few moments before I could speak. I was ashamed of my own weakness. I’ve been in bad spots before. It is always the same. The trembles come later. And they don’t last long. I’ve been in a tunnel when some of the roof came down and the shoring began to creak and shift. I’ve been on a mountain road when the master cylinder quit and there were no more brakes. But Quillan had been something else—bare-handed murder, undeviating intent. Maybe when he sobered up after killing me, he would have been very sorry about the whole thing, very remorseful. And if that brick had been six inches further away, I would have already begun my share of eternity.

I told her. She insisted on bathing and rebandaging the thumbnail gouge near my eye. She did not work gingerly or tentatively. She did it with the quickness of a good nurse. Then she got a cold damp towel and I held it against the numbed side of my face. She insisted that I stretch out. She unlaced my shoes and pulled them off. She wanted to know if I had told anyone where she was, so they could come after me. I had told no one.

After she had fixed the light so it didn’t shine in my eyes, and after she had hung the jacket of my suit on a hanger in the closet, she sat on the bed, one knee akimbo, ankle resting on her other knee, and said, “Now tell me all the rest, Hugh.”

I didn’t talk for a moment. I just looked at her. There was enough light behind her to halo her dark hair. She wore some kind of lounging slacks, tightfitting, flared at the low slung ankles. They were a burnt orange hue. She wore a white shiny shirt with a Chinese collar, full sleeves, tight cuffs. She wore flat sandals with narrow white straps.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, looking uncomfortable.