The Anatomy of Violence (11 page)

I caught his arm and steered him toward a door. “Let’s go in here and talk.”

“That’s a poolroom.”

“I don’t care if it’s a slaughterhouse. I want to hear about Ann.”

We walked into the long, musty room. It was empty except for an owl-eyed man who ran the place. He held a wooden triangle in the crook of his arm and stared at me. Rich handed me a tapered stick he called a cue. “We’ll just slop a few balls around. He’ll never forget a beautiful girl who shoots pool at nine thirty in the morning.”

He broke open the triangle of balls with a loud crack. I waited while the ivory balls clicked softly, until I could wait no longer. “Rich, please, tell me about Ann. Is there something wrong?”

He straightened, rubbing his forehead beside the bandage. “Ann? Oh, yes. I’m sorry, it’s the damn jail. Destroys my will. I hear of guys writing books, devising theories in jail—I can’t even decide what kind of razor blades to buy for days after I get out. Ann.” His brow furrowed and he bent back to the table. “I never dreamed she had anything on her mind but sex.”

He’d run across her in the parking lot while he was waiting for me to come from the Barn, he said. Ann wanted him to come with her because she had something important to tell him; something that might make a story. Rich didn’t go, but by the time he learned there was no story, both Jules and I had left the club. Rich assumed I’d gone with Jules since my car was still there. But Ann said no, she could find me.

She’d jumped into the blond boy’s car and started driving. Ten miles out, she pulled off the road, lifted a quart jug of vodka and orange juice from the back seat and suggested a party. Rich told her to get in the back seat first. When she did, he handed her the jug, slid behind the wheel, and started driving back to town.

After some resistance, Ann had ridden quietly. They were going down Main Street when Ann leaned forward, bit Richard’s ear, and started pawing him.

“That’s when she could have slipped the rotor cap in my pocket. A set of molars in the earlobe always did distract me.” Rich paused to rub the end of his cue with a square of blue chalk. “She said, ‘I’m hot, Rich. Let’s go back to the country.’ I said I was driving myself home, then she could go find an ice-pack some place. She said if I didn’t go back she’d lean out the window and yell at everyone she saw. I told her I didn’t give a damn what she did, then her teeth sank into my ear like a pair of pliers. I swung my arm backwards and it landed, spiat! right on a bare posterior. I glanced back and damn if she hadn’t taken off all her clothes.”

He bent to the table and sank another ball. “I pulled into the first alley I saw and left both Ann and the car. I called Harry and quit my job, went home and started that letter to you. Then the cops walked in.”

He stepped back and motioned me to shoot. I aimed, the cue made a solid hit but the ball shot off at a weird tangent. “You have no idea where Ann is now?”

“No. But her dad must have been the guy she was trying to protect, the first time.” Rich put his arms around me from behind and held his hands over mine on the cue. “Was she close to him?”

“Used to be very close.” With his hands on mine, Rich shot in a ball.

“He’s the man to see first, then.”

“All right. Lend me your car keys.”

“I can drive.”

“You can’t leave town, Rich. Don’t be a hero.”

“Hero?” The butt of his cue struck the floor. “A hero thinks trouble is something other people have. I know trouble like a brother. I know the whole situation can get a lot dirtier than it is, too. Maybe you don’t realize how dirty.” He bent and slammed a ball in the pocket. “This is a rotten little town, Laurie. It’s worse than a rotten big town because people don’t like to join little crusades; only big ones. I learned that on the paper.” He slammed another ball into the pocket, harder than the last. “And this guy—whoever he is—has a preference for pretty girls just coming out of their teens. That’s why I’m staying with you. The hell with my alibi.”

I walked up to him and squeezed his arm, speaking softly. “I’d like to have you with me, Rich. But the last man who helped me was Captain Riemann, and he died because of it.”

“Riemann? I heard he had an accident.”

“He was murdered.”

Rich bent to the table thoughtfully, drew back his cue slowly, hit the ball hard. It went clattering down the floor and struck the wall at the other end of the room. The owl-eyed man swore and ran after it.

“Now he’ll remember
me.”
Rich tossed a coin on the table and hung up our cues. “Let’s go find Ann’s dad.”

The little farm Gwen’s father had once lost to the Curtright’s was a cluster of sandy, gully-ribbed hills surrounded by lush wheatland. I convinced Rich I’d have better luck alone with Ann’s father, so he stayed in the car.

Nobody answered my knock on the front door. I walked to the rear of the house. I rattled the screen door and flies buzzed up from a sour-smelling milk bucket. A woman shuffled through the inside door, her feet encased in unlaced tennis shoes. She fingered a fold in her shapeless gray dress and eyed me through the screen door.

“Are you Ann’s mother?” I was shocked. The woman I remembered was neat, cheerful and portly; president of Gwen’s garden club and active in PTA.

She nodded, still fingering the dress. I could see her kinship with Ann in the blue eyes and round features, though it was almost hidden in doughy fat.

“Ann isn’t home, I guess.”

She shook her head slowly from side to side, many times. I had the feeling she wouldn’t stop until I asked another question. Her strangeness made my palms sweat. “Is her father here?”

She stopped nodding and opened the screen door just enough to point to a long, low shed near the ruins of the barn. “Cleaning out the cow barn.” Her voice dragged on. “Cleaning up after Curtright cows, forking Curtright cow-shit by the wagonload. Good enough I reckon to set on the dinner table since it’s a Curtright product…

Her voice began to rise. I turned away and hurried down a path through shoulder-high cockleburs. I peered through the door of the barn and called down the long row of stalls, “Anybody here?”

The only sound was the humming of flies. I went inside and picked my way among scattered cow piles, glancing into each stall. The stall on the end had sides reaching to the rafters, reinforced for dehorning. I looked in, then caught the stanchion to keep from falling.

Ann’s father hung by the neck from a hay rope tied to a rafter. His toes barely touched the muck in the bottom of the stall. I saw where his feet had kicked the stuff and spattered it against the wall.

Murder or suicide? I saw no sign of a struggle. His heavy hands hung from the sleeves of his blue shirt like clumps of bananas. I brushed my fingertips over his wrists, and felt the coldness of his body. I backed out of the stall and turned.

Anns’ mother was sitting on the high doorsill of the barn with a milk bucket between her feet. She eyed me as I approached her. “Did you find him?”

“I’m afraid—” I reached her and put a hand on her shoulder. “—Something terrible has happened to him.”

“I know.” She looked down at the bucket and sighed. “He’s drunk in town and I’m stuck with the milking. It’s happened before. He knows they’re Curtright cows and they have to be milked or they’ll go dry.”

“No, I’m afraid it’s worse than that. Your husband—” I stopped when I saw the bucket had no bottom in it. The woman was folding and unfolding a piece of paper. I took it gently from her hands. She began folding her dress without halting the movement of her fingers.

The paper was a penciled suicide note addressed to her. Most of it was the careful, reasoned argument of a suicide justifying himself to those who remained. He mentioned Ann only at the end. “Believe me, I did not know until this morning that Ann was being forced to pay for my errors. Now she’s gone away and she’s out of it. I shall be out of it, too, in a few minutes. I regret leaving you with burdens I couldn’t bear.”

I gave the note back to her. She resumed folding it as though she’d never been interrupted.

“Do you know what’s in the note?” I asked.

She looked up at me and her eyes were wide and bewildered. “All I know is that someone has to milk the cows. If the Curtright cows aren’t milked there’ll be trouble. Trouble for all of us.”

I bent and cupped her elbow. “Come on. We’ll take you back to town.”

She settled more firmly on the doorsill. “I can’t go. I’ll have to do the milking now.”

“We’ll send someone out from town.” I lifted gently. “Come on. It’ll be done.”

She sighed and rose. “Just so there’s no trouble.”

W
HILE RICH DROVE BACK
to town, I tried to talk to Ann’s mother. Only one fact turned up. Ann’s father had given Ann money for a ticket. The woman kept drifting into a world where only the Curtright cows mattered.

We left her with a sister, a gruff, huge woman who looked very capable. She said she’d take care of everything.

At the railroad depot, Rich wanted me to stay in the car and leave the leg work to him.

“No … let’s pool our assets. You talk to the women and I’ll talk to the men.” I stepped from the car. “The agent here is a man.”

But he hadn’t sold a ticket to Ann or her father. The next train came through at eight in the evening and he had to flag it to stop it.

A woman stood behind the wire mesh in the bus station. Rich went in; ran out two minutes later and jumped into the car. “She caught the eight-thirty bus to the city.” He squealed away from the curb. “It’s due in at one, so we’ll take a short cut and beat it there. If she gets into the city we’ve lost her.”

Miles passed as tires hummed on hot asphalt, echoing back from a succession of flat little towns baked from a single pattern: A grain elevator, a crude-oil tank battery, two service stations and a store. Sometimes I felt we weren’t even moving—though the speedometer stood at ninety and Rich gripped the wheel silently.

We reached the station at twelve-fifty and found the long concrete slot still empty. We sat down to wait, too keyed up to talk. Fifteen minutes had passed when the bus roared in spitting air. I started forward three times as the passengers filed out; each girl seemed to look like Ann. Each time I was disappointed, and at last the bus was empty.

I ran up to the driver, a tall young man with hair the color of a new penny. “Did you have a passenger from Curtright City? A blonde girl, sort of wild looking?”

He straightened from the baggage compartment and frowned at his clipboard. “Yeah, I did have. She got off at Batesville, our lunch stop.”

“But she bought a ticket to here!”

“Yeah, but she said she’d changed her mind and wanted her bag back.”

I put my hand on the driver’s arm. “Was anyone with her? Did she say where she was going?”

He ran a palm across his hair. “I’m sorry. I only remember she didn’t want a refund, just her bag. Wouldn’t wait for me to finish my lunch.”

“Wait, can you remember how she acted? Was she excited?”

He shuffled through the papers on his clipboard and wrinkled his brow. “No, she looked sick.”

“Scared sick?”

“Not scared. Her face was pasty, like she was sick to her stomach. I offered her the tablets I carry for motion sickness but she said, ‘The only pills I need are pure arsenic.’” He dropped the clipboard to his side and shrugged. “Funny deal.”

Richard’s hand fell on my shoulder. “Let’s hurry, Laurie. It’s sixty miles to Batesville.”

We made it in forty minutes. Batesville was a blistered, dust-gritted clot where two asphalt arteries crossed. We split up and checked the restaurant, store, service stations and motel, then met at the car. Nobody had boarded another bus from Batesville. Nobody resembling Ann had been seen to enter a car. She wasn’t staying at the motel.

“Was she kidnaped?” I asked as we started home.

Rich shook his head. “Nobody was twisting her arm when she got her bag.”

“Then she’d arranged to meet the man. The ticket business was meant to throw off anyone who followed.”

Rich frowned and ran a finger across his jaw. “Is she that devious?”

“The man is.”

“Yes.” Rich drummed his fingers on the wheel. “Or he could have followed her and told her to get off. Or she might have planned this to throw the man off the trail, then started hitchhiking.” He balled his fist and hit the wheel softly. “No matter how we stack it, she’s gone. We’ll have to start fresh in Curtright City.”

The wind rose as we drove back, and tons of sun-dried top-soil rose with it. The sun was low in the west when we reached Curtright City, shining like a pale egg yolk through a dust bank.

I wanted to get back to the house without being seen, so Rich stopped beside the river. I was walking along the bank ahead of him when he spoke thoughtfully: “You know, Ann’s dad and this man were the only two important men in her life. So her dad must have been the one she was protecting.”

“Probably.” I half-slid down the bank.

“And when she left, he knew his protection was gone. He couldn’t face life without it.”

I bent to pull off my shoes. “Not much of a life, a sand-hill farm and some scrawny cows.”

“Beats a penitentiary.” Rich sat on a rock and started untying his shoes. “That’s where Jules Curtright could have put him, just by signing a complaint. The way Ann’s mother acted, you could tell something was hanging over their heads.” He squinted up at me. “That puts the great benefactor number one on my suspect list.”

“Except that he was at the State Line Club when it happened.”

Rich stood up and tied his shoelaces together. “Another beautiful theory destroyed by facts.” He threw the shoes around his neck, then bent and picked me up. I started to protest, then put my arms around his neck and relaxed as he splashed through the water. “I’ve been taking Jules’ word that he was there,” I said against his shoulder. “Tonight I’ll check it. I’ll have him take me there.”

Richard’s arms tightened. “We’ll check it another way. That’s the roughest place in three states.”

“I promised to go out with him—so he’d put up your bond. And maybe I can learn some other things.”

“I’d rather stay in jail than have you trade favors with Curtright.”

“I didn’t ask you. And I’m not asking you about tonight.”

“I know.” He set me down on the bank and started putting on his shoes. “Unfortunately, it’s a good idea.” His brows furrowed while he tied the shoes. “I’ll follow and search his car.” He stood up and put his hands on my shoulders. “But don’t do any more trading with him, please. If he’s the man, he’s killed two people, maybe more. You can’t trade with a killer without trading off your life.”

He took my hand and scrambled up the bank, pulling me behind him. “I don’t plan to get beyond yelling distance. So don’t wait, just scream.”

“I’ll try to remember,” I said.

He went ahead of me through the willow thicket, holding back the branches. In the thickest part, he stopped. “Still, something might happen to me. Sit down a minute.”

“Here?” I lowered myself to a sandy mound and smoothed my skirt over my knees. “Why?”

“I’m giving you some insurance.” He kneeled beside me and raised his trouser leg. A sheath knife was strapped to his calf. “I was wearing this for Koch,” he said, unbuckling the straps. He slid out a knife that tapered from hilt to point. “It’s a stabbing knife. Up under the ribs if you’re in front of him. Or …” He shifted his grip and stabbed downward. “Straight down at the base of the neck. If you go in the back, you’ll have to slide it between the ribs—and that isn’t easy.”

I looked away from the glittering sliver of steel. “I couldn’t use that, Rich. Maybe—do you still have your gun?”

“Left it in the car. But I’ll feel better if you’re wearing this.” He held out his hand. “Give me your right leg.”

When I hesitated he grinned. “Want me to shut my eyes?”

I rested my weight back on my palms and put my leg across his knees. He slid back my skirt and began attaching the straps high on my thigh. His fingers were quick and deft and I felt my embarrassment recede. “Laurie, a gun is great for distance. But look at this guy—Eileen he kills with his hands, you he goes after with his hands. Riemann? He runs over him with a car, very impersonal. But he’s got a thing about women, has to get close to his work.”

He jerked the straps tight and put my skirt back in place. “Another thing, forget everything you ever learned about fighting fair. This isn’t a volleyball game.” He helped me up and brushed off my skirt. “A lovely girl’s best weapon is surprise; nobody expects to be pecked by a bird of paradise.”

We didn’t speak again until we neared the edge of our garden. “Coast is clear, Laurie. I’ll wait here until you leave.” He caught my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Remember what I’ve told you and you can handle Jules Curtright—but don’t forget to scream.”

Gwen was sitting at the kitchen table eating a lunch-meat sandwich and pork and beans from a can.

“Eat,” she said between bites. “Then start packing. We’re moving out of Curtright City.”

My hand froze, reaching for a slice of bread. “Are you serious?”

Gwen nodded and swallowed. “Your dad called. The attorney general couldn’t make a move without more evidence. Said they’d keep an eye on Koch, but that’s all they could do.”

“They’ll watch while someone else is killed?”

Gwen shrugged and poured a glass of milk. “I’m just relaying. Your dad said he’d see some more people, look for another job. But you and I have to be ready to leave when he gets back—sometime after midnight.”

I slapped a pimento slice on a piece of bread, thinking of Ann. “There’s nothing to keep the man from going where I go. I’m surprised daddy’s giving up.”

“He isn’t.” Gwen took a swallow of milk. “Said he could work better if you were out of danger. I didn’t tell him you were out today or he’d have torn up the phone.”

I spread mustard over the meat and capped it with bread. Daddy’s moves seemed slow and ponderous, remote from the real job of finding the man. “I’ll pack later, Gwen. I have a date tonight—remember?”

Her eyes followed me as I walked away but she said nothing.

Stripping for a shower, I saw that the straps on my leg had slipped. Rich must have been nervous, or he’d have seen it wouldn’t stay on a woman’s tapered thigh. After I showered, I taped the sheath firmly with adhesive tape.

I found a full white skirt that flared from the waist and hid the bulge of the knife. I slipped on a black jersey pullover and the pearls daddy had given me.

I fed George, giving him an extra helping for his aid that morning. Goldie wasn’t there but I filled her bowl and set it out. Then I sat on the back steps and listened to the angry sounds of Gwen’s packing while I waited for Jules.

The sun had been gone an hour when I heard the crunch of tires on the drive. I waved toward the clump of willows where Rich waited and walked out to Jules’ car. He looked fresh and neat in light gray trousers and an olive-colored Italian sport shirt.

“Have a busy day?” I asked, leaning an elbow on his door.

“The morning was busy—a board meeting. The afternoon was busier. The engineers on the new highway want to bypass my refinery.” He grinned up at me. “They’ll find it’s cheaper to come around the long way—my way.” He raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you going to get in? I did my part, you know.”

“Where would we go?”

Jules shrugged. “The Barn?”

“A tomb on week nights—even if you do own it.”

“A drive-in movie?”

“Tarzan and The Cat Queen?”

He named a half-dozen other possibilities and I rejected them. After I’d given Rich ten minutes, I climbed in. “Was there a policeman in front of the house?”

“A sergeant in a prowl car,” said Jules, backing down the drive.

“Wait.” I squeezed myself into a crouch beneath the dash. “All right.”

I felt the car move down the drive, then go forward. We were a block from home when I returned to the seat. Jules was smiling. “I never aided a fugitive before. I presume we’ll just drive around? You never did pick a place to go.”

“You didn’t mention the State Line Club. I’d like to go there.”

Jules threw back his head and laughed. “The one place I saw no point in suggesting. Do all your dates go through this?”

“Only the first time.” I watched in the rear-view mirror, but the street behind us remained empty. Just as we left town, Richard’s blue sedan pulled onto the highway a block behind us. I felt better. “Jules, where do you go when you want to get away from everything?”

“A lodge.” He leaned back. “On a lake not far from here. We could be there by ten o’clock.”

I felt him look at me, but kept my eyes on the lights of Richard’s car in the rear-view mirror. “Do you have many visitors?”

“Only the ones I bring. We have a reputation among the local citizens as people who like privacy.”

I leaned forward as we left the highway and entered a winding side road. After a long time, the twin beams appeared behind us. “We?”

“The Curtright family.” He stabbed open the glove compartment. “Grandad built it, oh, forty years ago as a hunting lodge. Primarily he was hunting a place to get away from Grandmam. Here.” He handed me a photograph. “It wasn’t originally on the water. That came after the dam was built.”

The photo showed a wooden pier. On it sat a glass-topped table with twisted metal legs flanked by two striped lounge chairs. Wooden steps wound up to a vast porch that resembled an old-fashioned hotel veranda. It looked like the kind of place a man might hide a girl. “How do you get there?”

“How? We drive.”

He hit the brakes and I had to brace myself against the dash. “Jules, not tonight!”

“You wouldn’t have to pack. There’s a closet full of clothes.”

“No, Jules. You move too fast for me.” Ann wouldn’t be there; not if he was willing to take me.

The car moved forward again. “How about tomorrow?” I asked.

“Tomorrow? We’ll see.”

The State Line Club lit the sky like a carnival midway. Most of the brilliance came from a parking light flooded with white fluorescent tubes. The club itself was a dark one-story structure that wandered like a domino game over half a city block.

As Jules parked, he told me the club straddled the state line and had forty doors, twenty opening into each state. “It’s a labyrinth inside,” he said, getting out and opening my door. “There’s a rumor that some prohibition agents are still inside, trying to find their way out.”

I squinted at the driveway and wondered what was keeping Rich. “Why are the lights so bright?”

Jules was still holding my door open. “According to policy, it’s to protect the patron’s cars.” He laughed. “Actually it’s to discourage lovemaking in the cars. They rent rooms inside for that—two dollars an hour.” His eyes crinkled with amusement. “Have you changed your mind about going in?”