The Night People (21 page)

“I’ve come a long way,” Hardy said. “I need help. You are Maria Madrid?”

The old woman nodded. “I am Maria.”

“I need your husband. I need help from Sam Madrid. I was sent to him, because he’s the man at the top.” He looked at the other two, but they did not change expression.

“You want Sam Madrid?” the woman repeated.

“Yes.” His mouth was dry and his legs were growing weak.

“But you are too late,” the woman told him. “Sam Madrid is dead. Someone killed him with a knife tonight, in an alley by the Seaman’s Club.”

T
HE COUNTRY WAS STRANGE
to him after he’d turned off the main road. He’d entered it suddenly, unexpectedly, and marveled that such a place could rest undiscovered just a mile or so off the Turnpike. He slowed his little car, as much for the breathtaking view as for the sudden clanking that came from the motor.

The road had petered out into dust, and as soon as the car hit the unfamiliar surface it had begun its strange complaints. Hampton slowed almost to a stop, taking the rest of the dusty trail in low gear, heading downward into a sort of valley that seemed filled with lush fruit trees. Beyond the orchards he passed level pastures and gently grazing cows. Farther on, he came to an unmarked crossroad, and as he pondered the map he took from his glove compartment, a farmer’s truck slowed to a stop beside him.

“Having trouble, mister?”

“The car’s acting up. Is there a garage anywhere nearby?”

“Nearest garage would be in Random Corners. Go straight down this road for about three miles. You can’t miss it.”

“Thanks.” Hampton waved an arm at the helpful farmer and continued down the dusty road.

He probably would have driven right past the little general store that marked all there was of Random Corners, except that he caught sight of the battered twin gas pumps standing at the side of the building. The garage, he determined, must be around back, and he pulled in by the pumps.

“Want gas?” someone called from inside the store. A tired-looking man with a lantern jaw appeared in the doorway.

“Something’s wrong with the car. A farmer told me you had a garage here.”

“Sure.” The man came forward, down the steps to the little car. “Don’t work much on these foreign jobs, though.”

Hampton opened the hood for him and they puttered around together, working among the wires and spark plugs. After about a half-hour the tired-looking man brought some new plugs and parts from the little garage around the rear of the store. “That should fix you up,” he said. “Best I can do, anyway.” He wiped the grease from his hands and went back into the general store.

Hampton followed him up the rotting wooden steps and through a rusty screen door advertising a popular brand of bread. “What do I owe you?” he asked.

The man wet the stub of his pencil in his mouth and wrote some figures on a scrap of paper. “Comes to $11.95 for parts, and I guess another five dollars for labor. That sound all right?”

“Sure.” Hampton reached for his wallet.

“Got a special this week on charcoal. For picnics, you know.”

“Get many picnickers around here?”

“Not many,” the man answered sadly. “That’s why we got the special.”

“I see.” He paid the man for the auto repair.

“Don’t get much of anything around Random Corners. Except cows.”

“It seems a pleasant enough place,” Hampton said, making conversation.

“Nice in the summer. Turnpike keeps everybody away, though. They just pass us by. You visiting someone?”

“No. Just on vacation. Exploring some back roads.”

The man peered more intently in Hampton’s direction, adjusting his glasses for a better look. “Haven’t I seen you before? What’d you say your name was?”

Hampton smiled a bit. It always happened, sooner or later. “I didn’t, but it’s Steve Hampton. You’ve probably seen me on television.”

“You’re that news guy!”

“That’s right. But this month I’m just a vacation guy.”

“Wait till I tell folks you stopped here to get your car fixed!”

The screen door banged and another customer entered. She was a young blonde girl, with hair hanging loosely halfway down her back. She wore no makeup, and didn’t need any. Hampton guessed her to be about nineteen or twenty, though she might have been younger. The man’s shirt she wore was neat and tight, tucked into clean but well-worn jeans.

“Morning, Harry,” she said, ignoring Hampton at first.

“Morning, Janie. How’s things up in the woods?”

She flushed a bit as she noticed Hampton staring at her. “Same as down here, Harry. Got my order?”

“Just a minute.” He checked over the list in front of him, penciled on a torn piece of gray cardboard. “Everything but the potatoes, Janie. Want to get them out of the storeroom yourself?”

“Sure.” She vanished into the back with a jaunty swing of her hips.

“Cute girl,” Hampton said. He still noticed cute girls, even at forty-one.

“Sure is,” the man agreed. “Her name’s Janie Mason. Lives up in the woods, all alone. Too bad about her.”

“What’s too bad?” Hampton asked, feeling the beginning of a chill on the back of his neck.

“Oh, she’s had a hard life. It’s left her a little bit … strange, you know. She lives in her own world, and nobody bothers much with her.”

“You mean she’s mentally retarded?”

“Retarded, mixed up. I don’t know what you call it back in the city. There were four of them up there ten years ago, and now she’s all alone. Her father, mother, and uncle all died.”

“Died?” He was about to pursue it when the girl returned, carrying a sack of potatoes.

“That’s everything, I think.” She took out some money and paid Harry.

“Can you manage it all right, Miss Janie?”

She nodded and lifted the two bags with difficulty.

“I’ll help,” Hampton said, for no good reason except that she was a cute girl.

She flashed him a grateful smile. “Thanks a lot.”

“Where’s your car?”

“I don’t have a car. I walk.”

He blinked and stared at her. “Well, I don’t. I’m afraid I didn’t realize …” But there was only one way out. “Well, I’ve got my car. I’ll give you a ride home if you’re not afraid of strangers.”

“Thanks. I stopped being afraid of anything a long time ago.” She followed him to the little car and waited while he piled the bags in the back seat. Then she said, “You’re Steve Hampton, aren’t you? I see you on television every night.”

“The price of fame,” he said with a smile. “I’m on vacation, really. I picked this little valley because I figured nobody would know me here.”

“We have television sets,” she said a bit indignantly. “Just like in the city.”

“I know. I stand corrected.” He gunned the engine and started off, pleased that it seemed to be running well again. “Now, which way is home?”

“Straight down this road. It isn’t far.”

“Do you live alone?”

“Yes.” The breeze from the open windows had caught at her hair. “I heard you and Harry talking about me, back at the store.”

It was his turn to blush, and he hoped she didn’t notice. “I’m sorry about that. I don’t usually talk about people behind their backs.”

She turned toward him in the front seat. “Why not? Everyone else does.”

He swerved the car a bit to avoid a cow at the side of the road. “How do you manage it, living alone out here?”

“I manage.”

“Don’t you want to get away, meet people your own age?”

“I promised I’d stay,” she said quietly. “When all the others left.”

There was a catch in her voice as she spoke the words, and he decided not to pursue the subject for the moment. After all, he was only giving her a ride home. “Are we nearly there?”

“Right up here on the left.”

They passed a patch of woods that suddenly ended to reveal a small plot of farmland and a shabby house and barn, both in need of painting. The television antenna seemed the only modern touch in sight, and even this was cocked at a precarious angle.

“How do you manage to take care of it all by yourself?” he asked, pulling the car up in front.

“It’s not easy. I’ve had to sell off all the cows and pigs. I guess maybe someday I’ll have to get rid of everything.” She’d grown serious, but suddenly her mood brightened. “Anyway, thanks for the ride. It’s nearly a mile’s walk, and these bags can get heavy.”

“Could I carry them into the house for you, as long as I’ve come this far?”

“Thanks.” Inside, she motioned him toward a table and said, “At least this calls for a cup of coffee.”

He hesitated, but knew he would accept. There was something about his first step over the threshold that had decided him. The place had a not-quite-right feeling about it that roused his curiosity. It was something like entering another world, a world he’d never known. “All right,” he told her. “A quick one.”

She went busily to work with the coffeepot on the somewhat primitive stove. “It’ll just be a minute.”

“You really do live here alone,” he said.

“I do now, for a while.”

“But this house is so strange. You have the shades pulled on all the windows.”

“The neighbors snoop,” she answered simply. “You really are a newsman, aren’t you? Curious about everything.”

“Not a snooper, I hope. Not while I’m on vacation.” He sipped the coffee. “This is very good.”

“Let me snoop for a while. I know from the TV magazine that you’re married, with children and all. Where are they?”

“I’m married, yes. With children and all. But right now I’m vacationing from that, too.”

“You’ve left your wife?”

He took another swallow of coffee. “It’s a long, dull story. Just like my marriage. Let’s talk about something more pleasant, like you.”

She smiled, enjoying the compliment, enjoying the perhaps unaccustomed role of being a woman. “What brought you to Random Corners, though? People don’t come here much on vacation. Are you after a story?”

“Are there any here to find?”

Her expression was suddenly conspiratorial, as if the young woman of a moment ago had been replaced by a little girl. “I could show you something,” she confided. “I could show you where they’re buried.”

“Who? Your family?”

“Yes.”

“And where is that?”

“Near here, back in the woods.”

He was beginning to think the man in the store might have been right about her. “Do you want to show me?”

“I could. If you promise not to use it on television.”

“I promise.”

“Then we’ll go. So come on.”

Go,
he thought.
Down the rabbit hole with Alice, along the yellow brick road with Dorothy, into the woods with Janie Mason.

Outside, the clouds of a possible storm were gathering on the western horizon, a blot on the perfect summer’s day. “Is it far?” he asked the girl as they started back across the fields. He didn’t want to be caught in the rain.

“Not far.”

She led him through knee-high grass that looked as if it had gone untended for years, and suddenly he felt transported to the past, to some long-forgotten afternoon of his own youth. Was it only chance that had led him to Random Corners and this girl?

“What happened to your family, Janie?” he asked her as they reached the edge of the woods. “How did they die?” They were questions he had to ask, though he almost feared the answers.

She paused by a tree, running her fingers over the rough bark as if she’d never felt it before. “How did they die? I thought you knew. I thought Harry told you. They were murdered. All of them were murdered.”

They went farther into the woods, and now Hampton could barely make out the sky with its thickening clouds. Occasionally the pace forced him to pause and catch his breath, but Janie Mason seemed as fresh as when they’d started.

Finally she stopped and held up a finger for silence, like someone entering a great cathedral. “We’re here,” she announced in a whisper.

Ahead, in a little clearing, he could make out the tops of three crude gravestones among the weeds. He walked a bit closer, with reverence to match her mood, until he could read the names scratched upon the stone:

Henry Mason, devoted father

Anna Mason, loving mother

Robert Mason, loyal uncle

The year of their deaths was scratched on the stones too, and it was the same for each of them—three years earlier. Both father and mother had been in their early forties. The uncle had been a few years younger.

“Who killed them?” he asked her.

“Me,” she answered simply, but then went on: “Or you. Or all of us. Did you ever think that a crime as personal as murder could be the product of so many hands?” The child Janie had gone, and she was an adult once more, a lovely young lady standing in a clearing in the woods.

“You sound like a philosopher,” he said. “All I asked was who killed them.”

“It was a member of the family.” She turned her face away as she spoke.

“How old were you then, Janie?”

“Seventeen. I was seventeen that summer.”

“And a member of the family killed them?”

“Yes.”

“But there were only the four of you?”

“Yes. No others.”

“Was it a double murder and a suicide?”

“In a way you could call it that, yes.”

“Who buried them here?”

“I did.”

“Yourself? Alone?”

“Yes.”

“But wasn’t there a funeral?”

She smiled slightly. “There was a funeral, but nobody came to it. I brought them back here in the wheelbarrow, one at a time, and said some prayers over them. Then I buried them.”

“Yes,” he said quietly; and then, “We’d better be getting back soon. It’s going to rain.”

She glanced up at the sky, seeing the filtered gray light through the curtain of leaves. “I know a place where we can go. Over here.”

She led him to the opposite side of the clearing, to a low flat rock that protruded from a hillside. She scurried beneath the rock as the wind began to come up, and motioned for him to follow.

“It’s a cave!” he said, surprised.

“Not really, just a little shelter. It only goes back about ten feet into the hill. I built it the first year, when I used to come here and sit by the graves. I scooped it out myself with a shovel. You’re dry in here when it rains, and you can see the three graves.”