The Anatomy of Violence (7 page)

“Shooting range,” said Jules, waving at a flat area with a high bank at one end. “I learned to shoot here.”

I was still awed by the sight of so much neglected wealth. “Why did you ever close this, Jules?”

“I wouldn’t live here alone.” He got out and opened my door. “I’ll set up some targets.”

I watched him part the vines and winnow his way into the summerhouse. I felt rootless; as transitory as a fruit fly compared to Jules. How would it be, I wondered, to attach myself to those deep solid roots and provide an heir to all this? It would be nice to fall in love with Jules.

Later, I fired until the base of my thumb was swollen and red from recoil. When I could no longer hold the gun, Jules pulled a picnic basket from the trunk and we crawled into the summerhouse. I wanted to say no. I’d planned to find Riemann this afternoon. But I owed Jules something for helping me.

As we ate, I found myself relaxing. The vines shut out the world. Only birds interrupted Jules’ voice as he told how he’d grown up behind the walls of the estate with a domineering grandmother; ran away at sixteen to become an oil-field roughneck, been brought back; then left again two years later and joined the air force.

When he finished eating he lit a cigaret and squinted at the smoke curling up from it. “I’m glad I wasn’t the man.”

“So am I.” I lay back on the blanket and looked up at the vines.
I should leave now.

“I mean, you aren’t a bad shot.” He lay back beside me. “When you shoot, your eyes pull down at the corners like almonds speckled with fire, and you catch your lower lip between your teeth and stick your jaw out. I’ll bet you could hear the bullets hitting his flesh.”

“I thought you were watching the target.”

“No, but I got an idea while I was watching you.” I felt his left hand slip under my head. “We’ll go to New York. You can see the sights and start studying when you’re finished.”

“Not yet, Jules.” I felt his fingers caress the skin behind my ears. I tightened my stomach and resisted an urge to get up and run.

“You’ll have your own hotel suite. Simone can be a chaperone”

I thought of the girl with the red-gold hair. “You’d take Simone—for me?”

I could hear the grin in his voice. “After last night she isn’t for me. We can be there by midnight and you can start forgetting this mess.”

“Not until I … until they find the man.” I felt his leg touching mine. I edged away.

He turned on his side and faced me. “You said last night you were serious about acting.”

“Last night I—” I caught my breath as his right arm came to rest across my waist. I concentrated hard on the patches of blue sky which showed through the leaves above me. “Last night I wanted it more than anything else. Today I feel like a little girl who fell into a sewer on her way to a party. I’ve got to get the stink washed off.”

“Let Koch do it.” His fingers caressed my neck and sent a shiver down my back. “He has a personality like a sandbur, but he’s a good detective. I know. Grandmam hired him once to follow me.”

“He isn’t trying, Jules.” I felt his right hand move down onto my hip, and I put my hand over it. “Jules …”

He moved his hand lower. “You’ve got electricity in your hair, Laurie,” he said in a dreamy voice. “I can feel it tingle against my hand.” His arm slid under my neck and turned my face toward his. I saw his smoky gray eyes only an inch from mine; felt his right arm slide around my waist and pull me tightly against him. Our noses touched, then he found my lips.

For an instant I didn’t move. I felt his lips part slightly; his leg moved, forcing my knees apart. Suddenly my stomach churned as though a huge bird were trapped inside, flapping its wings and trying to fly up my throat. I twisted free and jumped up, clawing my way through the vines. Outside, I arched my back and threw up the picnic lunch.

When I returned to the car, Jules was sitting with his hands on the wheel. He didn’t look at me as I got in; and didn’t speak until we reached the highway. Then he spoke in a low, contrite voice. “I shouldn’t have tried that. For a minute there I forgot what happened to you last night.”

I watched him open a pack of cagarets with his teeth, then grip one between his lips. I stabbed the lighter. “I’d like one, Jules.”

We smoked and drove in silence the rest of the way to town. By the time we reached home the bitter taste had left my mouth. Jules stopped the car and spoke without looking at me. “I hope you get over that … illness.”

I paused with my hand on the door. “So do I, Jules.”

“It doesn’t change my offer, though. I’d still like to take you to New York.”

“The answer is still no, Jules.” I put my hand on his arm and felt the hard muscle slide beneath the skin. “But ask me again—after I find the man.” Then I got out and watched him drive away. I wondered what it would cost me if he took me to New York.

In our drive I saw the black car with the words
CURTRIGHT OILS
encircling a gushing oil derrick painted on the door. Daddy was home. I felt guilty and apprehensive.

He met me at the door with a frown on his drawn face. “Laurie—”

“Have you found out anything?” I asked quickly.

“Where’ve you been?” He sniffed, and I realized I must reek of gunpowder. I started past him, but he caught my arm and my heavy purse swung against him. “What have you been doing?”

“Shooting,” I said. I let go of the purse as he took it.

His face was pale and set as he took out the gun. “Laurie …” He sniffed the barrel and shook his head slowly. “Laurie, do you plan to do it all by yourself, including execution?”

I watched the gun disappear into his pocket. “I have to protect myself.”

“I tried to arrange for that.” He rubbed his hand over his face and ran his fingers through his hair. “But apparently he got drunk and wandered off.” His jaw knotted. “From now on you’ll stay home unless I’m with you. Is that clear?”

“Daddy, I’m nineteen years old—”

“And there’s a man trying to kill you!”

I was tired and sick and didn’t feel like arguing. I whirled and started pounding up the stairs. I heard him call from the bottom of the stairs. “Laurie, there’s something else. Koch wants me to sign a complaint against Richard.”

I stopped and turned. “Did you see Rich?”

“They haven’t found him. But they found the stolen car with Richard’s fingerprints all over it.”

My hand tightened on the banister. The case was beginning to look like the outline in Koch’s notebook. In the silence I could hear the clash of kitchenware as Gwen cooked supper. “If they haven’t found Rich, how’d they know they were his fingerprints?”

Daddy propped his leg on the step and leaned forward. “Rich was in the army, so they had his prints in Washington.”

“I suppose Koch got his shiner the same place—Washington.”

“He told me he was attacked by one of the drunks they brought in. Nothing to do with your case.”

“Koch is a liar.” I turned and walked down the hall to my room. No doubt Koch could find an explanation for everything. And daddy would believe him, unless I could get Captain Riemann to tell daddy what he’d told me. And I’d wasted the afternoon. Now I’d have to wait until daddy was asleep. I was kicking off my shoes when I heard his tap on the door.

“I’m tired, Daddy, I’m going to bed early.”

“All right. But please, let’s not work at cross purposes. You don’t think I should sign the complaint?”

I stripped off the blouse and stuffed it into the laundry bag. “No.”

“Well … give me a reason.”

“Koch is trying to railroad Richard.” I unclasped the bra, bent at the waist, and caught the straps as they slid off my arms. “He can probably do it without your help.”

His voice became clipped and precise—a sign he was angry. “Laurie, I am not a red-necked farmer, awed by the authority of a police lieutenant. All day I have listened while Koch questioned those downy lads you once dated. I’m convinced he’s making a sincere investigation.”

“Koch eats it up, that interrogation business.” I stepped out of my skirt and stood in my panties. It had been too hot for a slip. “He sincerely investigated that blond kid this morning, and he
knew
he wasn’t guilty.”

Daddy was silent a moment, and I knew I’d scored a point. I could argue well when I didn’t have to look at the person. I hooked my thumbs in my panties, slid them off my hips, and let them drift to the floor.

“That’s true,” he said finally. “Koch is something of a sadist. But he got an answer to one of his tracers. Richard has a record.”

“So did Francis Scott Key.” I bunched up my lingerie and stuffed it in the laundry bag. Heat and nerves—if something didn’t break I’d have to start changing twice a day. “A record of what? Double parking?”

“Here. Koch wanted you to see it.” A yellow rectangle of paper slid under the door. “He got it from the police at Richard’s last address.”

So Koch wanted me to see it? He must be trying to show how pointless it is to fight him. I picked up the paper. It was a carbon copy of a teletype message:

There were two more lines of jobs—a record of restless wandering. I slid it back under the door. “A tavern brawl isn’t rape. Richard doesn’t feel right for the part.”

“Is that all you’re going on? Your feelings?”

I unfolded my shorty pajamas, pulled on the bottoms and let the elastic snap around my waist. Then I took Richard’s unfinished letter from my purse and slid it under the door. “Would he write me afterward if he’d done it?”

He was silent a moment, and I pictured him running his knobby fingers through the gray bush of hair while he read. Then: “I’m sure of one thing, signing a complaint would protect you.”

I had my arms through the pajama tops, pulling it over my head. My voice was muffled as I said, “Protect me?”

“Yes. As long as the man thinks you can identify him, you’ll be in danger. When I sign a complaint against Richard, the man will realize you don’t know him.”

I pulled the top down. “Koch won’t look any further than Richard once you sign a complaint. So who’ll find the real man?” I opened the door and saw daddy standing there, pulling at his lower lip. “Daddy, Richard can’t even sit through a movie. You can’t have him spend weeks in a cell on a chance of protecting me.”

“He might be willing, on those terms.”

“They aren’t my terms.” I walked past him and entered the bathroom, closing the door behind me. I heard Gwen call that supper was ready and my stomach jumped at the thought of food. “I’m skipping supper, Daddy.”

“All right, Laurie. I appreciate your views, but you’ll be protected whether you like it or not.” Then I heard his steps on the stairs.

Maybe he’d change his mind if I learned something tonight. Arguing with daddy was like beating myself with a stick. But I believed Riemann, and I had a deep, physical certainty that those hands under the bleachers hadn’t belonged to Richard.

The sour taste had returned to my mouth. I spread toothpaste and brushed hard. My reaction in the summerhouse, I thought, had been a strange response to a caress, particularly since I’d begun to feel so warm toward Jules.
Until he touched me.
Maybe it was just too soon for the touch of a man’s hand. Less than twenty hours. I rinsed my mouth and spat into the washbowl.

I relaxed under the warm water of the shower and then went back to my room. For a long time I lay on the bed and watched the ceiling. It darkened as the day edged into dusk, then brightened into the chartreuse of the after glow. I closed my eyes. When I opened them, the room was dark.

How long had I slept? I jumped out of bed and knelt by the window with my elbows on the sill. It was at least ten o’clock. The slope was bathed in moonlight. Beside the river, the woolly shadow of the trees twisted like a black caterpillar.

He’s out there somewhere, I thought. I leaned forward and rested my forehead against the screen. It gave with a rasping sound, any my heart stopped. I pushed against it with my palms and it gave no resistance. The screen had been torn from the frame and fitted back into place.

I looked at the thick branch just outside my window. I felt the skin draw tight on the back of my neck. I listened and heard the chirr of tree frogs. The sound of the television floated up from the living room. A breeze whistled faintly through the screen and caressed my face. I closed my ears to the frogs and the breeze and the TV and caught the soft whisper of breathing. I held my breath and the sound went on.

“Daddy?” I whispered.

No answer. The breathing continued. Without getting up, I stretched out a hand and groped for my purse on the vanity. My fingers touched it and found the clasp. I spoke aloud to cover the sound as I twisted it open. “I didn’t recognize you last night. Wouldn’t I tell if I had?”

There was no answer, but it didn’t matter. My hand was inside, groping for the gun. Then I went cold. Daddy had taken the gun. My fingers touched a match book and I drew it out. At least I could learn who he was. My hands were sweating as I opened the book. I spoke as I tore out the match. “Why did you come back? Wasn’t last night enough?”

Then I whirled, raking the match across the cover. It sizzled and went out. Damn my sweaty hands! I tore out another match, heard a thudding footstep, then the match was knocked from my hand.