Keech said, “They haven’t found Wade yet, I take it?”
I shook my head.
Keech’s gaze got distant. “That’s got to be a special hell.”
“What’s that?”
“Being stalked the way he is.”
I nodded. Then I said, “There’s a cabin out by the town of Brackett.” Both of them visibly stiffened.
“You were both out there this afternoon. Keech with Evelyn, Anne with her husband. I think you know a lot more about Michael’s death than you’ve let on.”
Keech’s face took on a look of misery that made him look like a very haggard boy. “Were you following us?”
“No. It was a coincidence.” I waited. Neither of them said anything. “After visiting this acting class and hearing about how Michael conducted it, I’m starting to put certain things together. Probably not too long from now, I’m going to go to the police with what I know.”
“You think one of us killed him?” Keech asked.
“I think it’s at least a good possibility.”
Anne said nothing. Just put her eyes to the floor and kept them there.
“Somehow, Lockhart figures in all this, doesn’t he?” I waited for my words to unnerve Keech a little more.
“Tell me about Lockhart, Keech.”
“What about him?”
“How old is he?”
He shrugged. “Thirty, I guess. Why?”
“Is he bright?”
“Sort of, I suppose.”
“What’s he like to do?”
For the first time recognition shone in his eyes. He understood that I was going to force him to reveal something he probably didn’t want to reveal.
“Just the usual stuff.”
“What would that be?”
“Well, he always talked about girls a lot, so I guess it’s safe to say that he liked girls.”
“All right. What else?”
“And he always talked about baseball a lot, so I guess you could call him a baseball freak.”
“Did you know him in prison?”
“Yeah, but not real well.”
“What was your job in prison?”
“I worked in the prison library. I have a B.A., so they figured I’d be comfortable around books.” He smiled at the irony of institutional wrongheadedness. “My B.A. was in physical education.”
“What was Lockhart’s job in prison?”
He did not look happy about telling me. “He worked in the infirmary.”
“What did he do there?”
Again, the words seemed reluctant. “Oh, he was kind of a paramedic, I guess you’d say.”
He was making me curious. Why wouldn’t he want to tell me that Lockhart had been a paramedic?
“Was he good at it?”
“I guess so.”
“What kind of things did he do in the infirmary?”
“Oh, he’d give you cold tablets and things like that.”
“Anything else?”
“Shots. I guess.”
“Shots?”
“Yeah, you know, injections.” He glanced at Anne uncomfortably.
Anne said, “We give the men rides back to the halfway house and we’re late already. Do you mind?”
So my conversation was ending. “Sure,” I said. I’d learned something, but I wasn’t sure what.
Anne turned to the men. “If you’ll go downstairs and get in my car, I’ll be right down.”
When they were gone, she said, “Dwyer, I’d like to speak to you alone, if that’s all right.”
“Of course.”
I smiled at Donna. Keech seemed agitated about the whole prospect. He gulped very loudly.
We went over to the corner by the register that Karl had tried to demolish. She said, “Wade killed him.”
“I’m not sure of that.”
“I love Stephen. I really do. But he killed him. Stephen’s a drunk with a violent temper, and he knew that getting fired from a job out here would ruin what was left of his reputation.”
“Anne, what are you trying to tell me?”
She looked as if she were trying very hard not to cry. “There’s no point in digging around in all this. Wade killed him. He really did.”
“What were you and your husband doing at the cabin this afternoon?”
Now the tears came. “It has nothing to do with Michael’s death. Nothing.”
“I’m not so sure of that.”
Keech called out. “We’ve got to go, Anne!” The agitation was still obvious in his voice.
Anne said, “Please, please, Dwyer. Please just leave things alone.” Then she was gone, over to Keech and down the stairs and into the rainy night.
For a long time Donna and I stood just holding each other, saying nothing. Finally, she whispered, “There’s something down at the end of the corridor.”
“What?”
“Sssh. Not so loud.” She leaned closer again. “There’s somebody down by the end of the corridor.”
Now I whispered, too. “How do you know?”
“I heard something sneak up the corridor and then sneak back.”
“Shit,” I said.
“What?”
“I wish I had my gun.”
Her grip stiffened on me. “God, I didn’t even think of that.”
“What?”
“Maybe he has a gun.”
“Well,” I whispered.
“Well, what?”
“Well, I guess there’s only one way to find out.”
15
He was down there, all right.
At first, as I moved into the hall, it was almost like being blind. Moisture from the night and my nerves stuck my shirt to my back. In my hand I carried a piece of plumbing pipe I’d found in a storage closet. I’d made Donna stay behind.
He moved.
From what I could gather, as my eyes began to adjust, he was behind several big packing crates. The noise was his jacket scraping against the rough boards of the crates. A rasping, like rats in walls.
I knew he might be any sort of vandal or vagrant, but I didn’t think he was. There were plenty of hiding places on the first floor. He had chosen to be near the classroom because the acting class interested him. I was beginning to form an impression of who he might be.
The pipe in my hand was rusting from my sweat as I saw him dart across the hall from one big crate to another.
“Stop!” I yelled. Maybe he’d think I was a cop. But you couldn’t say I impressed him much. The mildewed air was silent except for my breathing. No sign of anybody ambling out with his hands up. He wasn’t going to make it easy. For either of us.
Toward the opposite end of the hall, in the muzzy light spilling from the classroom, I saw Donna peek out. Exactly what I told her not to do, in case the guy had a weapon and fired at me.
I turned back toward the packing crates, and that’s when he jumped me.
He came at me in an awkward tackle, getting me around the waist and putting me hard up against the wall. The pipe dropped from my hand, clattering in the darkness on the floor. Just before he kicked me in the side of the face, I heard Donna start screaming. He got me one more time in the face and took off. Now I yelled, warning Donna, and tried to get to my feet.
What happened next, there in the spill of light from the classroom doorway, was not without a comic aspect. Donna stuck one of her long legs out, sort of like a confused chorus girl who didn’t quite know the dance routine, and the man was obliging enough to stumble over it. He wore a shabby overcoat, which made the windmilling motions of his arms look even more cartoonish. By the time he reached the floor, sprawling and sliding, he had sworn so many times it was quite impressive. That was when she jumped on him, the way you jump on a trampoline, with your bottom leading and your arms outstretched. “Hurry, Dwyer! I don’t know what to do next!” she said on the way down.