He was crouched behind an oak on top of the grassy hill overlooking the shack.
He had caught up with Jimmy ten minutes ago and had simply followed him here.
Jimmy was now at the shack door, calling out Richie’s name. The only answer was the sound of some sheep in a nearby pasture.
Jimmy called his name a few more times, then pushed the door open and disappeared inside.
The first thing Arnette thought was: the root cellar. That’s where the son of a bitch is hiding.
The searchers would certainly look in the cabin... but most of them wouldn’t know about the cellar.
They’d be within a few feet of Richie... and walk right by him.
Arnette was still thinking about the money.
There were two considerations, the first being that he’d never killed a man before. Much as he got carried away sometimes with prisoners, breaking bones and sending some of them to the hospital, killing a man was another matter entirely. On TV, they made it look so easy. You just pulled the trigger a few times, and your man was dead. Then you just walked away and went on with your life.
But it never worked that way in reality. He knew only two cops who’d killed people. Their lives had been changed completely by the deaths. For one thing, unless it was a clear-cut case of self-defense, you got a reputation as a fast gun. This went on your record and stayed there. And people, particularly your superiors, remembered it for the rest of your career. Cops who killed people got promoted far fewer times. Cops who killed people had much higher incidence of divorce, alcoholism, and even impotence. There were statistics on all this. You didn’t kill a man and then just walk away. That was TV bullshit.
The second consideration, of course, was Susan. After seeing her an hour ago at her farm, he’d come to understand clearly that she really didn’t want anything to do with him. Whatever love they’d once had was gone. And gone forever.
Which was a kind of freedom.
Now that he wasn’t going to be silly enough to worry about Susan anymore... Susan who would never be his under any circumstances... he felt free to think about himself.
The kind of jack he could get for killing Richie...
That kind of jack, he could leave Crystal Falls... maybe try Chicago. He’d have money to just take it easy for a while. Of course he’d have to make some kind of financial arrangement with his wife but...
He wanted a new life.
He wanted to wake up one morning and feel good about himself and his future.
He’d get tough again, youthful. Maybe get a personal trainer and get toned again. A new car, definitely. And some women. Emphasis on the plural. He wanted to stand at a bar, a few drinks in him, and test himself again, see if he could score with a beautiful woman.
A part of him knew he was being silly... this was high school stuff... but another part of him didn’t give a damn.
In not too many years now, he’d have to start getting those annual checkups his older brothers were always bitching about. Heart. Prostate. Lungs. Digestive tract. Eyes. Reflexes.
...all the old-man shit that started about your thirty-fifth birthday.
...well, he had years before he reached that particular birthday... and he planned to raise a lot of hell in the interim. Someday, he wouldn’t even give a damn about Susan anymore... wouldn’t even think about her... He was still in love with her and maybe always would be... but his one fine dream was dead and was never to be... so he might as well have himself a good time...
His attention shifted back to the shack.
Ancillary noises. A state patrol chopper chugging through the air to the east. A yipping dog to the west. Hum and thrum of a bluebottle fly nearby.
No sound at all from the shack.
His palm was sweaty from holding the rifle so long. He wiped it off on the grass. Then sighted again.
All Richie had to do was walk out that door...
His finger touched the trigger.
Bam bam.
He could hear the sound of the rifle.
See the bullets striking Richie in the chest, see the blood blooming on his shirt.
See Richie falling over backward...
The bluebottle fly buzzed even closer. Arnette tried to swat it away.
He looked back at the shack. He wondered what Jimmy was doing inside...
There was one thing wrong with his fantasy of Richie walking out into the sunlight.
Richie wasn’t going to do it...
Why should he? For the time being at least, he was hiding in the root cellar, and there was a damned good chance none of the searchers would remember the cellar until it was too late...
Nightfall, Richie would for sure start moving again. And escape wouldn’t be all that difficult. There were trains he could hop, there were big eighteen-wheelers he could sneak aboard.
And then he’d be gone... and so would Arnette’s money.
No... getting Richie would take some risk.
He’d have to get up and sneak down to the shack and then get inside without being heard.
Then he’d have to open the trapdoor fast and poke his rifle down into the darkness and start firing... scare the hell out of Richie... the surprise of it all forcing Richie into surrender.
And then as Richie came up the steps of the ladder...
Bam bam.
Swatting the annoying bluebottle again, Arnette slowly got to his feet, brushing grass and prairie dust from his shirt and trousers.
He was still hidden behind the oak, just in case Richie wasn’t in the cellar... just in case Richie had the itch to do a little killing of his own...
The thing he’d have to do, if he wanted to make it to the cabin without getting picked off, was swing to the north, and walk a ways along the creek bed, then come upon the shack. He could take the creek until he was directly behind the shack. He could then easily belly crawl up to the front door and burst inside.
The thing was...
...could he really kill Richie... even after hating him all these years?
He put the thought from his mind, and gave himself over to action. He did that sometimes when he wasn’t sure of his feelings... just started doing things... almost as if his body was suddenly acting independent of his mind... just started doing things and watched him the way he’d watch some guy up on a movie screen.
He moved quickly through the dusty buffalo grass, down the sunbaked sand hill to the narrow but fast-moving creek.
A milk snake — pale and sickly white — lazed on a sun-drenched rock, paying him no attention whatsoever as he put his feet in the shallow water and broke into a crouch-run, barrel of his rifle gleaming in the sunlight.
3
Amy stood hesitantly at the rear door of Helen Cummings’s Land Rover, the brown suede jacket sleeve with the brass buttons angled out of the laundry bag.
Helen must have sensed something wrong because she called to Amy, “Are you all right, dear?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“I thought you were going into the house for a drink.”
“I am, I—”
Amy placed her hand against the back door, as if she needed help standing up. “I just feel a little dizzy is all.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Helen said, already on her way back. “I’ll walk inside with you.”
Damn.
She’d come back here and there’d be no hope of ever getting that jacket.
All Amy could do was open the door right now and reach inside and—
But Helen was already standing in front of her.
“You do look a little pale, dear.”
“Oh, I’m fine.”
Helen noticed where Amy was staring.