The Anatomy of Violence (8 page)

I lunged toward the door, twisting to avoid the shadow that moved to block me. My shoulder struck solid meat and I fell. I tried to scramble forward on my hands and knees. Something caught the tail of my pajamas and held me. I clawed for a grip on the hardwood, then somersaulted and threw my arms over my head. I wriggled free of the pajama top, jumped up, and ran into the lighted hall.

I stopped at the top of the stairs and looked back. The door to my room was closed and the hall was empty. I could hear the television blasting suspense music. Had I screamed? No, I’d forgotten. It had been a silent struggle.

I screamed now, and started down the stairs. Daddy opened the door when I was halfway down.

“There’s someone in my room! Where’s the gun?”

He backed away, then reappeared with the gun glinting in his hand. I met him as he came up. “I’ll watch for him outside.”

I said, trying to pass Daddy on the steps.

He pushed me roughly against the wall. “Stay here!” he hissed. He turned to Gwen, who stood at the bottom of the stairs. “Keep her here, Gwen!”

I listened to his feet pound down the hall and heard him open the door of my room. Then there was silence. I didn’t move, and neither did Gwen. She’d frozen with one hand on the doorknob and the other to her throat. Our eyes locked and we waited for the thunder of the gun.

Then daddy appeared at the head of the stairs and tossed me my pajama top. “He’s gone. Call the police, Gwen.”

I slipped the top over my head, thinking bitterly of a dozen better ways I could have handled it. “What now?” I asked as daddy passed me on the stairs.

“I’ll look around, but he’s probably reached the river by now.” He turned as I started to follow. “Wait in your room, Laurie. Please.”

He found nothing outside. Neither did the police. From my room I watched their flashlight beams spear the thickets up and down the river slope. They climbed the tree and searched the bark for bits of thread or hair. A man dusted my room and window sill then left looking bored.

At the end, Daddy stood in the door while Koch squatted by the window. His haunches seemed about to burst his trousers. He frowned as he fingered the edge of the torn screen. “You say he came in here, Miss Crewes?”

“I didn’t see him come in, but he must have.”

“Uh huh.” He picked up the two matches and held them between his thumb and forefinger. He looked at me through the “V” they formed. “You light his cigaret for him?”

My stomach tightened. “I was trying to see who he was, but-”

“But you didn’t.” He hung a cigaret in his mouth and lit it, squinting up at me through the smoke. Then he hoisted himself and lumbered over. “Would you hold out your hands, Miss Crewes?”

I did. His hands were cool and slightly damp. My stomach turned as he fingered them and studied the palms. “Noticed those stains on your fingertips, Miss Crewes. Rust, like you might get tearing out a window screen.”

I jerked my hands free and wiped them on my pajamas. “Naturally, I helped the man in, then ran for help.” My voice was heavy with sarcasm. “You’ve probably had these cases before, haven’t you?”

“Can’t say that I have.” He smiled at me, then turned to daddy. “You ready to sign that complaint, Mister Crewes? In five minutes I’ll have the whole force looking for Richard Farham.”

“Yes.” Daddy glanced at me and his jaw tightened. “I’ll sign it, but I want police protection for Laurie, even after you pick up Richard.”

Koch nodded. “Sergeant Johnson!”

The thin, bald sergeant appeared in the door.

Koch pointed to me. “You’re on watchdog duty, Johnson. If she leaves the house without you, off come your stripes.”

The sergeant scratched his jaw and smiled at me. I didn’t return it. He was just someone else who’d probably get in my way.

N
EXT MORING
I argued with daddy until my stomach ached.

The attack had hardened his belief that charging Richard would draw the man’s attention away from me. I told him the state department could probably use his ideas; meanwhile how about finding the man? He said that was being done without my amateur sleuthing; furthermore if I continued it he’d send me out of town.

Gwen who usually looked on our arguments with the air of an amused spectator, this time took my side, and daddy left the house with his jaw thrust forward and his mind as firm as set concrete. Gwen withdrew to her garden where she uprooted plants and reset them savagely, as though daring them to grow.

I sat down with a copy of
An Actor Prepares,
but the paragraphs formed solid blocks of gray which my mind refused to penetrate. Acting seemed a game I had once wanted to play. An hour passed like a fly crawling across a dusty window, then the phone rang.

Captain Riemann wasted no time on greetings. “Can you bring me a picture of Eileen?”

“Yes, where?”

“Bring it—you know where I live?”

“I’ll find out. Can you tell me anything?”

“Not on the phone. Not on the phone. And don’t let anyone see you come to my place. Got it?”

“I—” I remembered the watchdog Koch had assigned. “Yes, I’ll make it.” But he’d already hung up.

I pushed open the front door and it struck Johnson who grunted, swore and rose to his feet. He put his arm across the doorway just under my chin. “Sorry, little lady, you can’t go out.”

He gave off an odor of sweaty cotton, and dark crescents of perspiration spread from the armpits of his summer uniform. My face grew hot with anger. “Is this Koch’s idea?”

“Your old man’s,” he said without moving. “He told me not to let you out of the house or you’d break loose and do something foolish.” He smiled and ran a fingernail across his jaw. “Now if you need something from downtown, I’ll radio in and have somebody run it out in a three-wheeler.”

My mind raced, then I had an idea. “I’d rather go after it, Sergeant,” I mumbled, looking down.

“What’s the difference who gets it?”

“I … well, it’s a feminine thing. You’d have to say … what kind and everything on the radio.”

“Oh.” The sergeant looked both foolish and angry. “Get in the car,” he said. “We don’t have to tell your old man everything.”

I directed him to a drug store half a block from Riemann’s address. Inside, I suggested he have a cup of coffee while I have my prescription filled.

He tilted his head and studied me. “Just remember I lose my stripes if you run out on me. And I got a wife and four kids.”

“Sergeant—” I pointed to the front door. “I promise I won’t go through there without you.”

I saw him seated safely at the counter then hurried to the rear, hoping they hadn’t altered the building since I’d jerked sodas there four years before. I slipped behind the high prescription counter, pulled open the door of the storeroom, then paused while my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. Then I stepped into the alley, leaving the back door unlatched.

Riemann opened the door of his second-floor apartment. He wore slacks and a flowered sports shirt. He looked old and gray and somehow smaller without his uniform.

“Don’t look so disappointed, Laurie,” he said, smoothing the shirt self-consciously over his stomach. “I’m still workin’ even if I ain’t in harness.”

I handed him the picture of Eileen in her cheer-leader’s uniform. “Could you tell me why you want it?”

He shook his head slowly as he inserted the picture into his wallet. “It’s better if you’re not involved, Laurie. That’s why I wanted you to get here without being seen.”

“Captain …” I sat on the edge of the unmade bed. I didn’t intend to leave as ignorant as I’d arrived. “Koch says he doesn’t have Richard.”

Riemann put his wallet in his hip pocket. “He’s got him, all right. I don’t know where he’s got him but he’s got him.” He looked at me narrowly. “You been lookin’ for the rapist.”

“Naturally.”

“Laurie, you got to remember this guy’s a killer. Don’t go around drawing fire!”

“That seems to be out of our control now, Captain. He visited me again last night.”

Riemann was thoughtful as I told the story. When I finished he rubbed his chin. “Athletic character, climbs trees. Made his getaway on sand, so footprints are no good. Smart character.” He pulled a metal locker from beneath the bed. “I reckon you rate a peek at what I’ve got, after that.” He drew a key from his pocket and tried to insert it, but his hand began to tremble and jerk. I took the key from his fingers and he grinned apologetically. “Second day is the roughest, Laurie. By tomorrow I’ll be dried out and bright as a dollar.”

I opened the lid and he lifted out two plaster casts, each containing the print of a shoe. Both prints were the same size and shape.

“This one,” he pointed, “came from the soft ground under the bleachers. See how it deepens toward the toe? I figure he squatted there, maybe waitin’ to see if you was dead.” He squinted up at me.

I felt an urge to spit in the footprint and grind the plaster into dust, but I only nodded.

He held up the other cast. “A footprint tells a story, Laurie, but it don’t yell it out loud. This deep one came from the curb of the pool. Take into account the condition of the ground, and a hundred and twenty pounds of dead girl, and you got a man weighing around two hundred pounds. It ain’t fat, either; he’s strong as a bull. Didn’t even slip while he carried the girl. Nor an ordinary sex criminal type. They’re usually short and fat.”

I suddenly felt a confidence in Riemann I hadn’t had before. “So you’re looking for a strong, athletic man weighing around two hundred pounds. What else?” I hoped there’d be more; so far it sounded too much like Richard.

“Well …” He studied the casts, resting his chin on his hand. “See them pointy toes and slick soles on both prints? We look for a guy who gets dressed up on Stella Night.”

It still could be Richard. “Will you know more soon?”

“Maybe.” He put the casts tenderly into the locker and snapped it shut. Then he rose and patted the hip pocket containing his wallet and Eileen’s picture. “I’m takin’ this little girl on a trip today. When I get back tonight … Well, we’ll see. But by then Koch’ll have your phone tapped, so how’ll I get in touch with you?”

I rubbed my forehead. “If we had a signal, I could get past Sergeant Johnson, my watchdog!”

“That’s it! Listen.” He cupped his hands to his mouth and gave a low, mournful howl, followed by three short barks. Then he repeated it. “When you hear that you come down to the fence at the end of your garden.” He put his heavy hand on my shoulder and opened the door. “I meant what I said about this guy being a killer, so”—he squeezed my shoulder—“don’t take any chances today. Tomorrow it may be all over.”

The thought of learning who the man was tightened my throat with a mixture of dread and eagerness. I couldn’t speak, so I nodded and left Captain Riemann.

Back in the drug store, I found the sergeant flanked by chattering office girls on coffee break. He twisted on the stool and held out a glass. “I bought you a lemonade, but it’s probably warm. Look at this.” He held up a newspaper. “You made the big papers, Laurie!”

His last sentence rolled out into a sudden silence like a shout in a tomb. Faces turned toward me, and I felt as though I’d blundered into the men’s locker room. I took the lemonade and paper and walked stiffly to a booth hidden from the counter by a magazine rack.

The big city papers had no more information than the
Clarion
, but they’d run photos of Eileen and me under a caption:
BEAUTY QUEEN SECOND VICTIM OF SEX ATTACK
. Seeing my picture gave me a strange feeling of detachment, as though I were looking at a stranger. As I stood there staring at the paper I thought of Rich. I
had
to see him. One way or the other, I had to get to him at police headquarters!

Sergeant Johnson scratched his jaw when I told him what I wanted to do. He said he’d call first to save us a trip for nothing. He returned from the phone scratching his jaw even harder. “Let’s go. This’ll be something for the papers-victim visits attacker in jail.”

“He hasn’t been found guilty, Sergeant.” I said as I pushed out the door into the blistering sun. I could hear him chuckling behind me.

Johnson left me seated alone in the interrogation room. Fifteen minutes dragged by while I drummed nervously on the massive table. I was grinding out my second cigaret when Richard came in and closed the door behind him. He had the alert, defensive look of a deer approaching a strange water hole. His eyes were puffy, and a purple ridge began just above his right eye and disappeared into the matted hair on his scalp.

“Richard!” I jumped up and touched a fingertip to the welt. “What did they hit you with?”

“Later, Laurie.” He caught my wrist gently and stepped back. “Koch told me what I’m supposed to have done. Do you think I did?”

“No.” My eyes swept down his body and I saw the rounded toes of his shoes sticking out below his wrinkled trousers. He was dressed as he’d been Saturday night, except that his tie, belt and shoelaces were missing, and the white shirt was gray and webbed with tiny wrinkles. I put my arms around his chest and rested my forehead against his stubbled cheek. “I knew it wasn’t you.”

His arms went around me and I felt the strong beat of his heart. “Now maybe I can stand the place.” Then his lips brushed my ear and I barely heard his soft whisper. “Don’t look now, but Koch can see and hear us.” I stiffened and started to pull away. “Wait. He’ll let you stay as long as he thinks he’ll learn something. Now let’s sit down and act like fourth cousins.”

We sat down with the wooden table between us, and the thought of Koch’s eyes kept me stiff and tense. I kept my hands on the table, though I ached to smooth Richard’s matted hair or press something cold to his forehead while he talked.

First, said Richard, he hadn’t stolen a car—but he’d have to explain that later. And he hadn’t taken a rotor cap. It had just been there when he’d emptied his pockets into a paper sack at the station. He remembered going for Koch—here he grinned—then the lights went out and didn’t come on again until midnight last night, when he woke up in a car on the way to the station. An hour ago he’d been charged with rape and bond set at twenty thousand dollars. And a lawyer had come to see him.

Here he rubbed a knuckle across his eyebrow. “He said your dad hired him for me, and that sounds screwy. Koch said your dad signed the complaint against me.”

It was like daddy, I thought, to hire a lawyer—but he’d never find twenty thousand. “It’s his own idea, Rich, and—” I thought of Koch listening. “I can’t explain now.”

Rich nodded and caught his lower lip between his teeth. “Can you keep Goldie until I get out of here? I don’t know how long that’ll be.”

“Yes. I’ll bring you some clean clothes too. And … what else?” I was suddenly eager to do something for him. “You have enough to eat?”

He grinned. “Stop looking so sad, Laurie. The place is clean; not even a cockroach for company. Food is edible. I would like some books, though.”

“I’ll bring some from your trailer, Rich.”

“Yeah, do that.” Rich was hunched over the table, wetting his finger and making marks idly on the table top as he talked. I noticed that a twitch had developed under his right eye. “You know, you hear stories about jail, about how hard it is not to get up and go out for a beer when you want, or raid the icebox for a midnight snack. But I’ve got freedom here. Nobody tells me whether to lie on my back or my stomach. I can close my eyes, or I can leave them open. I can wriggle my right big toe or my left big toe.” He looked at me, and I saw his eye still twitching. “So, I’m happy as a calf on green grass, and I don’t want you poking around trying to find some missing alibi for me.”

His eye was getting worse. Nerves … no, he was winking at me! The swollen eyes had made it hard to tell. Now I realized he’d been talking to distract the watcher from his marking on the table. Now the last mark was drying; I could only make out two bars of a capital “N.”

“I don’t understand, Rich. You have an alibi?”

“Never mind, just go home,” he said, making the marks again. “I’m not planning to spring my alibi until I get in court.” An “A” took shape as Richard wrote upside down. “I don’t want anyone to know what it is, particularly anyone connected with that fat-assed lieutenant.” An “N” appeared, then another. “And that’s all I have to say, Laurie.”

ANN.
She was his alibi. Ann knew where he’d been from the time I’d left the club until the police picked him up in his trailer. I felt a twist of jealousy, then pushed it away and stood up. “All right, Rich.” I put bitterness into my voice. “I’ll leave right now if that’s the way you feel.”

He laughed as he rubbed his sleeve across the table. “That’s right. And don’t worry about me. It’s not as though I’d committed a really heinous crime like hiding Jules Curtright’s toothbrush or slipping a diet chart into Koch’s mail.”

Richard was still talking as I went out the door. He asked if I’d noticed what a marked improvement had been made in the fat man’s face.

I was halfway down the hall when footsteps thudded behind me. I turned to see Koch jerk open the door of the interrogation room and step in, his face an angry purple. I felt a thrill of fear for Rich; but he’d baited Koch so I’d be free to find Ann without being seen. I swept past three policemen at the outer door and stepped into the street. Half a block away I cut into an alley.

Ann’s mother blew a tired, defeated sigh over the phone line. “Ann hasn’t been home since Saturday morning.”

“Where does she stay in town?”

“I don’t know.” She sighed again. “I never know anything, and her daddy’s no help. If I send him after her he goes to the tavern and gets drunk and I don’t see
him
for days. I can’t go. I’m a sick woman and the medicine they give me doesn’t help. I keep telling her she’ll wind up like Eileen or—”

I hung up on her plaintive voice. I’d have to pick up Ann’s trail in town. I’d start with the bars.