Authors: Ted Wood
Murder on Ice (18 page)
"So is that how come you beat his head in when you found him in the cottage on the island?"
He looked at me for perhaps half a minute. Then he laughed. "Hell, why not? You ain't going nowhere. What's to lose? Yeah. I found him there, where he couldn't do his pantywaist kickin' an' flickin' and I asked him about the broad and he said what happened an' I pounded him one or two with a log."
"Hear that, Elliot? That's what happens to old boyfriends on this circuit." I spoke to the kid but he still looked down at the floor, flushed and humiliated. If throwing a tantrum would help me get free, I could count on him. Otherwise I was still alone except for Valerie, and she seemed frozen with fear. I did not dare look at her, I didn't want to remind Tom of her presence.
I had no need to. He spoke again. "So, anyway, big shot. You know why I came up here?"
"No, Tom. I don't." Lull him, soften him, get him off guard. Maybe Val would make a grab for the gun. She didn't even have to reach it. All I needed was a clear kick. Two seconds!
"Tom!" he said jeeringly. "That's nice. You wanna be friends again. Kiss an' make up, right?"
I said nothing and he swung around suddenly, pointing the gun at Val. "I came up here because I was gonna get at you, an' I know the best way." I looked at Val. Her face had shriveled. She was frozen with fear. I knew she could not help me.
He turned back to me, smiling again from the cheekbones down. He came a little closer, but still out of range of a leg sweep. And he still had the gun in both hands, ready to aim and fire.
"You know what I'm gonna do? Big shot?"
He moved still another step toward me. His hatred was boiling up. I wondered how I could stoke it further, make him concentrate on me first. Then Val would have a chance, we both would. I'd been in places as bad as this before.
"I know you're a big-mouthed dip-stick and you'll talk it up first, whatever it is," I said, trying to sound bored.
It worked. A muscle jumped at the corner of his eye and he clenched his hands on the gun. "You think so? Is that what you think? Well, you'll see what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna bang this broad right here on the rug where you can watch. You made me miss a lotta tail. Now I'm gonna cut me a piece of yours. And when I'm done, Elliot can have her."
I did not look at Valerie. Her fear filled the room like white sound. She was helpless with fright.
"You're a gear box," I sneered. "You don't go for women. You ball punks like this one, pretty little Elliot with his dyed hair."
Elliot gasped with shock and strode toward me, but again he didn't take the final vital step in front of me. He stood off to one side and threw a light punch at the side of my head. I ducked and it grazed the top of my crazy, burned leather hat.
Tom said, "You'll see. You'll see if I'm a gear box. I've been saving this one. I could've screwed her an hour ago but I didn't. I wanted you watching."
"Takes you that long to get it up, does it?" It was working. Both of them were angry. Foam was balling in the corners of Tom's mouth. I spat at him. It didn't quite reach, but it angered him and he lost the rest of his control. He glared at me for a few seconds, then told Elliot, "Undo his belt and pull his pants down."
The kid jumped to do it. He was chuckling. I guess he thought there was some kind of sexual indignity to the action but I knew better. It's an old gypsy trick. With my pants around my ankles I couldn't kick, couldn't run. I would be immobilized.
I was right. When my heavy uniform trousers slid down past my knees, Tom turned and laid down the gun across the chair. He came up within arm's length of me, beyond the reach of my hampered feet. Without saying anything he slapped me, slamming my head left to right, right to left, perhaps a dozen times. It jangled my brain, but the leather cap saved my eardrums and I was able to keep control. "Still think I'm a faggot?" he asked, breathing heavily. He was out of shape. In a fair fight I could take him.
"Right." I spat again. It was the only thing to do. It might give Val the impetus she needed to go for the gun. If she did, we could win. Tom was the only one to fear. But she stayed on the couch, hunched back on it, making herself as small as she could.
"Tough guy," he said and slapped me again, but more contemptuously. It was lighter, easier to bear.
"You're a jailhouse punk," I told him. "I'll bet you put out for candy bars."
That hurt him. He stepped in and slammed his knee at my groin, but I anticipated and turned. He bumped my thigh but not hard enough to paralyze the leg. And then, as he drew back his knee to try again, I head-smashed him full on the nose with my forehead. I knew it would buy me no more than a second. I ducked and grabbed the waistband of my pants, straightened up, legs free again, and swung a clean kick up between his legs into the testicles. He groaned and doubled over and I kneed him in the face, then turned on the kid. He backed off, holding his hands in front of him fearfully, but I roared the way that Parris Island instructor had taught me and followed him into the corner, kicking him in both knees. I was wearing heavy padded skidoo boots. A soldier would have ignored the kicks but he collapsed, more afraid than hurt, and I stamped on his left shin for good measure.
I didn't wait any longer. As I turned I could see Tom clawing for the shotgun and I covered the ground in two strides, putting the third stride into a kick square in his abdomen. He oomphed and fell backward, gagging for air. I sat down on the gun and shouted to Valerie, "Quick, unlock me. The key is on my belt."
She came alive at last, trembling and slow, far slower than I wanted, but she found the key still on its chain on my belt and unlocked me and I clipped one cuff over Tom's wrist. I rolled him onto his face and twisted the arm up his back. Then I turned and called the kid. "You, get here." He came like a whipped puppy, trembling, stooping to rub his shins. I cuffed him to his partner and then stood all the way up, opening my parka so I could tuck my shirt in and zip up my pants and fasten my belt.
Valerie was weeping helplessly and I held her for a moment, patting her on the back. "It's okay, Val, don't cry. You did well, we beat them." She still sobbed and my mind left the room and the present and raced in pursuit of the other two women. Where had they gone? How had they gotten there? What were they doing? They were the only missing pieces in the whole puzzle. With them in place, I could take Valerie back home and soothe her, slowly, calmly. She stopped sobbing, a sudden, conscious strength that made her straighten up and draw in her chin. "That's right," I told her. "It's all over. Don't worry any more."
I patted her a few times more until I could feel her straighten up, picking up the slack in her body. Then I let go of her shoulders. "Sit down a minute and then we'll go. I just have to talk to this kid."
She sat down and I bent to look Elliot in the face. He was sitting with his legs out straight in front of him, staring into the middle distance. He looked like a runner who has just finished a marathon without placing in the money. "Where did the two women go?"
He didn't answer, didn't appear to notice me. I snapped my fingers in front of him and he shook himself like an animal and looked at me. "The two women, Rachael and Margaret, where did they go?"
He sighed heavily, as if the air were thick and it was an effort to take it up. I told him, "Look, I'm not interested in your Mickey Mouse little slap at me. The only charges against you are for being involved in this plot to kidnap the girl. Tell me what you can and I'll do what I can for you at the trial." He looked at me through wide eyes and I went on with the part of the story he wanted to hear. "
If
you help me, you won't go to jail, you won't have to go through the kind of stuff Tom talks about."
That turned him on like a light. "They said they had business to finish." He paused for a moment. "I asked them where and they wouldn't say."
"They must have said something, given you some kind of hint."
Tom was beginning to stir. He tried to move but collapsed again, holding his stomach. I didn't know if he was injured. Even in the moment I was kicking him, I had been a policeman, not a Marine. Had I wanted, I could have killed him, but I had drawn the kick marginally, winding him rather than crushing his internal organs completely. I guessed he would be able to move within an hour. I was glad he was handcuffed to Elliot. He wouldn't go anywhere dragging the kid.
Elliot scrubbed his hair with the flat of his hand. "They didn't say much of anything."
"All right, try it another way. How did they get clothes to leave? I took all their parkas with me."
"When Tom came, he lent Margaret his parka and she went to another cottage and broke in and got clothes for her and Rachael. And she came back and said there was a skidoo there. Tom went and hot-wired it for her and brought it back."
"That means they had clothes and a machine. What did they say to one another when they went?"
Elliot looked at me, into my eyes, with an innocent, pleased grin. "I remember. Rachael was laughing. She said to Margaret, 'Come on, old lady, put on your dancing shoes and we'll go.'"
I stood up, grinning with him. "Well, I'm damned. They've gone back to the dance."
I
didn't crouch forward on my ride back to the station. I sat like a tired tourist, with Val behind me hanging on around my waist. She was still in shock, and to get her talking I asked her about the station. What had happened that Sam hadn't worked his customary protective trick? She explained that Tom had knocked at the back door. Sam barked at him and he had called out through the door that he had the girl with him, she had to be gotten inside out of the snow, she was cold. Too cold to speak, he said, and had pretended to try to persuade her. Val had been hesitant about opening the door but he had reminded her that Sam would protect her, this was an act of mercy, she had to open up. And when she did, he came in gently and calmly with a live grenade in his hand. He had warned her that if Sam attacked him they would all die. The two prisoners had screamed and she had been afraid and finally she had done what he asked and put Sam in the cell.
The girl from the Legion had offered to go with Tom, anxious to get back into the action, but Tom had told her, "Stay here. You can't do as much good as this one can," and had taken Val with him. She had struggled, but he hit her a couple of times and she gave up.
I listened, nodding back over my shoulder but wondering what had happened to the grenade. I had searched the clothes of the two men before we left them in their prison cottage, but they could have hidden a grenade anywhere in the place and I wouldn't have uncovered it without a metal detector. Perhaps Margaret and her last disciple had taken it with them to the Legion. This thing wasn't over yet. It wouldn't be until I had those two women in my cozy little bucket. I was tired enough to grin at the pun, a whole cell in my two cells.
I decided to go first to the station. I could leave Val there and go on alone to the Legion. If that was where the women had gone, it was the only danger spot in town. She would be safe at the station even without Sam. I planned to put him in the skidoo trailer and pack him with me.
I didn't mention any of this to Val. Instead, I nodded a lot and reached back once or twice to hold her arm. And I pointed out that the snowstorm was slowing down, the worst was over now, the wind had dropped, and what snow was still coming down had no viciousness to it, it was like a scene out of Dickens.
Sam barked when we got back to the station but stopped at once when I whistled reassurance. I stood for a moment, enjoying the silence of the night for the first time. With the wind calm, the air seemed almost warm and there was no sound but the pinging of the engine of the snow machine as it cooled. I knew the skies would clear by morning and we would have a perfect picture-postcard day, clean as the birth of the world, while I tied up all the paperwork and gathered up the bodies tonight had left scattered. I almost forgot about the two women and my mission at the Legion Hall.
We went in and Sam bounded up to me and I fussed him and Valerie let the Carmichael girl out of her cell. And I filled the coffee pot with water. Val shucked her coat, not speaking, and set about making the coffee while I sat for a moment, rubbing Sam's ears and working out what to do first. I decided to check the Legion. I phoned but there was no answer, the busy signal buzzed and buzzed in my ear. Probably the line was down, or snow had blown into one of the external connections and shorted the circuit. I swore mildly and put it down.
Almost immediately it rang. I looked around at Nancy Carmichael. "Has it rung much while I've been out?
"I didn't hear it. Not once."
I picked up the phone. "Police Department, Chief Bennett."
The voice was high and old and frightened. "Come at once, there's a dead man on the stairs."
I almost laughed. "If you're calling from the Lakeside Tavern, I know about it. Who's speaking, and where are you?"
"Carmichael, at the Tavern. How do you mean, you know about it?"
"I put the sonofabitch there. He's the guy who kidnapped your daughter. She's here now. She's safe." I didn't say safe and sound. She wasn't sound, not in her own mind, anyway. It would take months, perhaps years of therapy before she reconciled herself to what had happened and her own part in causing it. As a policeman, I'm lucky. I just pick up the pieces. Other people have to put them together again.
"Can I speak to her?"
"I'll ask her." I turned to Nancy, who was leaning against the corner of a desk. She looked vague, detached. "It's your father, Nancy. Can you talk to him?"
She looked out of sky-blue eyes for an eternity. Then she reached out her hand for the telephone.
I did the tactful thing, went back out to the space by the cells where the coffee was perking briskly. Val followed me, moving as if she were eighty years old. "Want some?"
She nodded. "Thank you."
"There's mugs under the counter out front and I've got some brandy in the stationery cupboard. I think a slug of that would help." I went and fetched them, carefully not listening to what Nancy was saying to her father. It seemed for the most part to be single words, followed by long pauses while that thin, old-man's squeak came out of the earpiece. "There's coffee when you're ready," I told her. "No cookies, but I might be able to find you one of Sam's dog biscuits if you like." I winked at her and left. I didn't like what the phone call was doing. It sounded to me as if her father was unloading a parcel of blame. That wouldn't help anything, least of all her attitude.