The View from the Cherry Tree (13 page)

Were
they still looking for him? Or had they decided he'd run off and was sulking, or hiding from the police? Cripes, what he'd give for a cop right now, he thought, sweat forming on his face and dust rising in his nostrils from the old carpet.

He felt a fleeting moment of curiosity about the success of his father's mission; had he been able to find Uncle Ray, to do something to keep him out of jail?

Well, even jail was better than being killed by some nut so you couldn't tell that he'd pushed his aunt out the window. If the police were looking for him because they were mad about him making what they thought was a crank phone call, what was the worst they would do to him when they caught up with him?

He didn't remember ever seeing a movie about just exactly his own problem. There had been one about a man who made prank phone calls. They didn't tell what the guy actually
said, which seemed like a cop-out, but when they caught the caller they sent him to jail. He must have said something really ­terrible to the people he called, and Rob had been very disappointed not to learn what it was.

Still, he hadn't done
that,
and besides, he thought now he could prove what he said was true. They might arrest him right at first, but his father would get it all straightened out. The District Attorney was an officer in the Lions Club, the same as his father, and they both played golf when they got a chance. They wouldn't railroad him into any jail term, not when they found out the truth about Derek.

The door of the room he was in was flung back against the wall so hard that something fell . . . maybe a picture off the wall, maybe some plaster. Rob was unable to keep from jerking at the sound.

“Where are you, you crummy little runt?”

In the movies that was sometimes good, when the bad guy got so mad and shook-up he didn't reason logically anymore. To Rob it seemed coldly terrifying, because now he could believe that Derek meant what he said; he
intended to kill Rob if he had to destroy the house to do it.

He could see Derek's feet; he wore size twelve sneakers, tan ones, and yellow socks. The wall switch crackled, but the light did not go on.

“All right,” Derek said in a low, deadly voice. “You want to make it difficult, we'll play it that way. And it's too late now to get any sympathy from me. I'm going to get you any way I can, boy.”

He turned, going away, feet sounding heavily as he moved toward the stairs. He'd turned out the lights as he passed the open rooms, so if nobody had noticed them they wouldn't now.

Rob listened, not trusting his senses that said Derek was going downstairs. Yet how could he make those sounds on the stairs unless he really did go?

In the silence that followed Rob lay for a little longer, listening. There went that same car . . . he could tell it was the same one because there was a slight miss in the engine. Hadn't it been around the block a couple of times already? It stopped, and he could hear nothing at all.

Had
Derek gone downstairs? All the way? Was he waiting down there now, listening, ready to pounce if Rob came out?

He didn't know, but he couldn't stay under the bed. If Derek set the house afire, the second floor was no place to be.

Slowly he began to inch his way out, not forward, toward the still-open door, but backward, just in case it was a trick and Derek would suddenly turn on a light and catch him halfway out, helpless.

He was free, and nothing had happened. He got slowly to his feet, his eyes quite used to the dark now. He was standing near a window that looked down on the side street, and he glanced down.

There was a car at the edge of the street. Hardly anybody ever parked there, because Mrs. Calloway always raised cain when anyone used what she considered her part of the curb.

A light glowed, briefly, through the windshield, and went out: the red pinprick of a cigarette.

There was someone down there, someone who might help him if he could contact them.

Rob pushed aside the lace curtains, inhaling more dust, and tugged at the window, but it didn't move. His fingers found the catch and twisted it easily enough, so it wasn't locked. The blamed thing was painted shut, and he had nothing to chip away the paint. And no time to do it, anyway. If he started anything that made any noise, old Derek would be down on him like Sonny on a helpless sparrow.

If he broke the window . . . which was unlikely unless he could find something small enough and heavy enough to throw through it . . . and the person below didn't respond immediately . . . Derek would know at once where he was and decide that waiting for a fire to consume him was too slow. As he'd pointed out, if they found Rob's burned body they wouldn't know whether he'd been strangled first or not.

Below, on the street side of the car, the door opened and a man got out. Rob caught his breath. It was darker here than on Saraday Street, but what light there was caught the glint of a badge on the man's chest.

A cop. The cops were out there. Still looking
for
him?
Cripes, he had to find some way to attract attention . . .

He groped around the room, trying to find something . . . anything . . . loose enough to pick up, a chair leg might do it . . .

There was no chair in the room. Only the bed and a dresser that must have weighed two hundred pounds. All right, then, before the cop was gone, he'd try sticking his fist through the window. Maybe he'd cut himself all up, and take a chance on bleeding to death, but he didn't think it was as painful to bleed as it was to burn.

Maybe, he thought, hesitating a moment longer, he could stick his foot through it, instead. His tennis shoes might offer some protection from the breaking glass. The cop was still down there, smoking the last of his cigarette, just standing there. He wasn't paying any attention to Mrs. Calloway's house.

The trouble with kicking was that the window was so high off the ground.

It was then that he heard the sounds from the lower floor; frantic scrapings and hangings that indicated frenzied activity on Derek's part.

Whatever Derek was doing down there, he was putting everything he had into it. Maybe it would be possible to slip by him, after all, if he was really busy with something. It would be a lot easier than chancing a big cut and maybe bleeding to death by sticking a hand or a foot through a window.

Rob stuck his jar of spiders back into his pocket, further ripping the seam, and stepped to the doorway, straining to hear.

Fifteen

He was looking for something.

Rob wasn't sure how he knew that, that Derek was hunting for something. There was the slamming of a door and a muffled curse, making Rob more certain. Money? Maybe the old lady had a treasure hidden somewhere, and Derek hoped to find it before he fired the house. Maybe she had jewels that her nephew knew about.

Rob began to move cautiously toward the head of the stairs. There was a thumping sound, as if a drawer had been jerked all the way out of a dresser and fallen onto the floor.

Derek wasn't thinking about Rob right now, at least not with his full attention. Was there a chance? . . . No, not if he was wandering around, pulling out drawers and stuff.

He remembered that cop outside. Was it a stakeout, did they want Rob bad enough to have cops watching his house for him to come home? He'd thought they only did that with desperate criminals. Still, he was sure there was at least
one
cop out there. If he knew Mrs. Calloway had died this morning (only this morning?), would he investigate a light in her house if he saw one?

There was some risk in turning on the lights, because Derek might notice and come upstairs. Rob would be more easily captured if the lights were lit. On the other hand, lights could attract the attention of someone who would help him.

So Rob took the time to try all the switches, up and down the hall; he found four that worked.

One of the doors he opened squeaked so badly that he stood with the blood thundering in his ears, wondering if Derek had heard it.

It wasn't another bedroom, however, but a curving stairway.

The tower. It went up into the tower, three tall stories above the street.

His mind raced over the possibilities it offered. Were the tower windows, too, painted shut? Or could they be opened so that he could get out onto the roof?

Only a little of this roof was slanted, as opposed to his own at home. The very top of it was flat and had a little iron railing around it, a captain's walk sort of thing. If he could get onto that . . . he could yell bloody murder and surely someone would hear him . . . Derek wouldn't murder him in cold blood, with help coming on the run, would he?

He had a momentary vision of being shoved off that tremendously high roof, of plunging some forty feet to the ground.

This was followed at once by an even more vivid image: that of a burning house, with himself trapped above the flames. It was a few seconds before he realized that he could smell smoke.

Had Derek already fired all those newspapers?

Newspapers didn't burn awfully fast, he remembered from trying to dispose of them in the incinerator. Not unless you pulled the
pages apart so the air could get between them. So even if something was on fire now, he had a few minutes before it could get up here. If he could get his family, or the cop, to call the fire department, they could rescue him with one of those big ladders . . . he knew they had one that would reach the tower, because he'd seen them use it to paint a church steeple once. Still, his mouth was dry and he wiped sweaty palms on his jeans.

The stairway looked good. He wondered if the light worked up there.

He found the switch; it lit another of the forty-watt bulbs. Mrs. Calloway couldn't have had any money or she wouldn't have been so stingy with the light bulbs, he reasoned.

Rob took a step into the hall below the steps and nudged something with one foot. Pausing, he saw that it was a small packet wrapped in a brown paper bag.

He remembered that Derek had looked into the cupboards in the kitchen, opening a paper bag he saw there. And now it sounded like he was tearing the first floor apart, still looking for something.

Was
this
what he wanted? Something the old witch had hidden?

Unable to restrain his curiosity, even now, Rob picked it up and opened it, holding the bag under the hall light to examine its contents.

This was disappointing, because it seemed to be no more than little packets of some kind. Far too small to be money or jewels or any kind of treasure.

He remembered a show he'd seen on TV a couple of weeks ago. Drugs? Hadn't they packaged drugs something like this?

His breath escaped in an involuntary whistle. Cripes, he'd bet that's why Derek came over here tonight, to find this stuff! Derek hadn't gone into the other room and picked up the .22 shells, although he'd said that was what he came for.

If he burned the house, the shells would vanish, along with the one person who could identify Derek as a murderer. Naturally he wouldn't want to burn up the drugs, if that's what it was, not if he could save them. How much would they be worth, a little bundle like this? Heroin, he knew, was pretty valuable. A
million dollars worth, maybe? Boy, what he'd have to tell the guys . . . if he ever got out of here in one piece.

The angry sounds from below had stopped.

Suddenly chilled, Rob realized he hadn't been paying enough attention. Where was Derek?

“Robbie? Hey, Robbie, you hear me?”

Still downstairs, then, but just at the foot of them. The moment Derek put one of his size twelves on the bottom step Rob began to move, easing the squeaking door closed behind him, hoping it would be a few minutes before Derek realized which door it was. He climbed the curving stairs, the paper bag and its contents in his hand.

Why didn't anybody notice anything? That whole houseful of people next door, you'd think one of them would look out the window and realize there were lights in what was supposed to be an empty house, or that the cop would.

He came out into the tower room.

Any other time, he'd have been delighted with it. It was the only part of Mrs. Calloway's house that had ever interested him, but
he'd never planned to see it with a killer at his heels. By some miracle, the light here worked, too.

It was a larger room than he'd expected it to be, circular, some fifteen feet in diameter. It had windows all around, with no curtains on them, and the view was so spectacular he wondered why Mrs. Calloway hadn't sat up here even if she did have to climb the stairs.

You could see darned near the whole town, even without binoculars.

Not that it did him any good, because he didn't see any people to yell at. There were lights all over in his own house, and cars in front . . . yes, his father's car was there, too . . . but no people within shouting distance so far as he could tell. Of course if they had any windows open they might hear him, if he could get outside.

The one place he couldn't see was where the police car had been parked, up close to the other side of the Calloway house. Was the cop still there, smoking his cigarette? Would
he
hear if Rob yelled from the tower?

There was nothing in the tower except dust
and spiders. Cripes, he could have let his own go and got plenty more spiders up here, he thought. He supposed they'd lock the place up, though, so he wouldn't ever be able to get in here again . . . that is, of course, if he managed to get out of it now.

So far he didn't hear Derek behind him, but it didn't give him any false sense of confidence. It was only a matter of time before Derek figured out where he was, and not much time, at that.

The first window he tried stuck like it was never meant to open, and Rob felt the beginnings of panic. If Derek cornered him here, he was done for.

The second window, after a heart-stopping moment of resistance, opened. He put his head out to look straight down at the front yard below. It didn't make him dizzy, but he knew a fall would kill him. He could yell from here, but then Derek would know where he was . . . and he couldn't be sure the cop was still down there.

Better to open a window where he could get out onto the roof, if he could. Once he was out
there, he'd yell, and it would take Derek a few minutes to get to him. If he was brave enough to climb around out on the roof. Lots of grown-ups were really chicken about such things.

This window, then . . . it slid upward with a short creak. Rob looked out, testing the possibilities.

It wouldn't be quite as easy as he'd hoped. He'd have to climb some ten feet on the steeply sloping shingles to reach the flat part of the roof. It hadn't looked that far from below. But if he went straight up from here, Rob saw, if he slipped he'd end up against the base of the tower, not plunging over the edge in a forty-foot drop.

It was then he heard Derek on the stairs.

Only this time he wasn't coming cautiously, he was running for all he was worth, and Rob didn't have as much time as he needed to get over the sill and onto the slanting roof. He was straddling the sill, one foot in and one out, when Derek burst into the tower room. The door was left open below him, and Rob thought he could smell smoke, stronger now, frightening.

Derek stood panting, staring at him.

“What are you going to do, Robbie? Fly out of the cuckoo's nest?”

“What were you looking for, down there?” Rob countered. “Something in a brown paper bag?”

Derek's expression sharpened, then, taking in the sack on the sill in front of Rob.

“Have you got it? How did you know where it was?”

“Is it worth a lot of money?” Rob demanded. His heart was beating very rapidly, but so long as Derek made no move toward him, he wasn't any more scared than he'd been for the last couple of hours.

Derek licked his lips. “Yes, it's worth quite a bit.”

“Is it heroin?”

“Little mister know-it-all today, aren't you, Robbie?”

“I sure never thought my sister would fall for a drug addict . . . even if she did dump him after a while.”

Derek's laughter was harsh and unamused. “I'm not
that
stupid . . . I don't use the junk myself.”

Rob probed with one sneaker foot at the shingles, testing them for slipperiness. If they were, too bad, he was going to have a devil of a time getting up them. “But you were stupid enough to let Mrs. Calloway know you had the stuff.”

A dull flush swept over Derek's face. “The old bat. I had to have someplace to hide it . . . just for a couple of days. So I thought under her porch was a reasonable place; I never saw her on her front porch, before, let alone looking
under
it.”

“But she found it,” Rob reasoned. “And when you wanted it back, she wouldn't let you have it.”

“The old witch. That's all I needed, to get caught with . . . my scholarship, my job . . . it was bad enough losing Darcy, but I couldn't . . . I tried to reason with
her,
but there
wasn't
any reasoning with her! And all this talking isn't going to do you any good, either, Robbie, my friend, because the more you know the more important it is to shut you up.”

“Maybe the fire will keep you from getting out, too,” Rob pointed out. He shifted his
weight slightly, ready now to swing the other leg over the sill. He didn't think Derek was brave enough to follow him up the roof, but you never could tell. Desperate men did desperate things, and Derek was desperate, all right.

Derek gave another of those croaking barks that passed for laughter. “It's not easy to start a fire without using gas or kerosine or something, even all those papers don't want to burn . . . No, now that you've led me up here maybe this is a better, idea. You'll just fall out the window and break your stupid neck. Give me the bag.”

Rob stared at him. Why should Derek think he would do anything he didn't have to do? If he threw the package outside somebody might find it and put two and two together . . .

Suddenly Derek laughed. “Your own fingerprints are on it, Rob! How about that? If you pitch it out, like you're thinking about, they'll find your fingerprints on it! And they'll think that's why you panicked and ran! Not because you saw any murder, but because you were afraid the police would find the bag!”

Rob didn't much care what anybody thought,
if they thought it after he was dead. Besides, Mrs. Calloway's prints and Derek's must be on it, too, since they'd both handled it.

In a quick, deft motion Rob picked up the paper bag and threw it. Not to Derek, but toward the open window opposite him, the one that looked straight down to the front yard.

He wasn't first baseman for the Cubs for nothing; it was a clear, hard shot, and it served its purpose. Derek swore, diving to catch the bag, missing it, almost going out the window himself in his efforts.

Rob didn't wait to see what happened; his only interest was in getting out that window, out of Derek's reach. But the motion of throwing with all his strength had put enough strain on his bulging pocket so that the seam ripped the rest of the way, and the jar of spiders popped out.

He grabbed at it, although this was no time to worry about a few spiders. He didn't drop it, though, because he saw Derek's face.

Derek had missed the paper bag, but that wasn't what held his attention at the moment. He could still get out and get the bag before
anyone else found it, if he could keep Rob from getting to anyone.

Both of them stared at the other occupants of the tower room, driven out of their home in the light fixture by the heat of the bulb. Spiders, too many to count, fat black bodies bulging and shiny, dropped from the fixture to the floor between the two of them.

Fear rippled across Derek's face, but as the creatures scurried off toward darker corners, he took another step toward Rob.

Rob, for his part, had been brought to a halt, too, but not by fear of the spiders. Two shingles had broken loose when he put his full weight on them, and went slithering off over the edge of the roof. If they were all like that, he'd be committing suicide to try to climb them. A quick probe with one rubber-toed sneaker sent another shingle sliding away from him. Rotten. The whole crummy roof was rotten.

He couldn't risk the roof. He knew that now. He might fall through it, he might slide with the loose shingles over the edge, but he didn't have a chance of making it to the top.