All the time I walked, I could see the estate house as a dim form broken by various tree parts. At the point where I planned to sneak across to the back door, I left the pitiful trail and battled my way through branches that were ready for the contest. By the time I reached the edge of the woods, I had cuts on my forehead, my cheek, and my throat. Something had ripped into my right sleeve and cut a hole in it. Sweat had filled the bottoms of my shoes again. Comedians called it flop sweat, but I didn’t like the implications of “flop.”
I crouched beneath a pine tree and gazed out past the heavy shadows to the estate grounds. I checked every window facing me. Empty. The rear of the place was static; it could have been a still photograph. The three-stall garage, the barn, the stable, and the black car William Hughes drove stood in the fading sunlight, their colors dimming now in the lingering plunge into dusk.
I took my handkerchief from my back pocket and tried to wipe myself dry, at least dry enough to hold off any more irritation about the weather. I needed to think clearly and act quickly. Without sweat in my eyes, I scanned the rear of the estate again and decided to make my move.
The run was simple. No problem at all. I stood at the back door, my hand on the knob. I checked the back yard in case somebody was watching from one of the buildings; but seeing nobody, I turned the knob. The door wasn’t locked.
I took a deep breath and eased my way inside. I closed the door behind me with exaggerated care, a pantomime of caution. Stairs led straight down to the basement. On my left were two steps. These led to another closed door that would open on, most likely, the kitchen area. I took the first one and leaned my head against the door. All I could hear was the chatter of the house itself. The plumbing was particularly noisy at the moment. No human noise.
I took the second step, turned the knob. Only then did I become aware of the air conditioning. My impulse was to just stand there and appreciate it.
The kitchen would have served a big-city hotel very well. Two large stoves, a wall of small appliances, a refrigerator that could hold a water buffalo, and a butcher block table running down the center of it all that resembled the deck of an aircraft carrier. Lou had taken his food very seriously.
A red sun was creeping down the window by the sink. A haze was settling across the land. In all those Hammer movies I saw at the drive-in, this is when we saw Dracula’s eyes come open in his coffin. My eyes were wide open now, too, because somewhere in the house somebody was speaking.
I pulled the. 38 from my belt. I moved forward one quiet step at a time, drawn by the voice. All I could tell from here was that a male was speaking.
The kitchen led me to a hallway that stretched from front to back of the place. Near the vestibule I could see the bottom of a staircase that curved out slightly. The voice was coming from a room in that area.
Getting in had been easy enough. This was where it became real work. I didn’t like the exposure that being in the hallway forced on me. If somebody peeked out of that room, I’d have no place to hide. I started walking on tiptoe.
When I got close enough to make sense of the words being spoken, I stopped and listened.
“You weren’t her friends. You said you were. But you lied. I was the only real friend she had. I tried to let it go. I took long trips to try and forget about it. I wanted to get on with my life, but I couldn’t. Then when her birthday came this year-
“I took care of Bennett and Davenport. I would’ve taken care of Raines, too, but the law got to him first.” Then: “You’re going to open that safe for me and you’re going to do it right now.”
I still couldn’t identify him. The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t put a name or a face to it. Not anybody I knew well.
A closet door on my right was open a few inches. Glancing inside, I saw her slumped against the wall. The gray maid’s uniform was distinctive.
I jammed the. 38 back down into my beltline and then tended to her as best I could.
This was used as a storage closet. Boxes lined the opposing walls. The center where she lay was open.
I knelt down next to her. When I touched her wrist, her eyes opened. I put a finger to my lips and shook my head. Recognition showed in the blue eyes. The smells were a mixture of perfume, talcum powder, and blood. Her pulse was stronger than I’d expected. She started to sit up, but her body spasmed with pain. She started to fall back against the wall, but I grabbed her before she hit. She didn’t need any more pain, and neither of us needed any noise. I still didn’t know who was ranting on in the living room.
She exhaled in a shaky burst, then began searching her skull with trained careful fingers. She found the wound. When she took her fingers away, they were stained with blood. She examined them without any emotion I could see, like a nurse assessing a patient’s injury. She scowled then. Anger. Good. Right now, that was the most appropriate emotion of all.
We reverted to pantomime. I jabbed my finger in the direction of the kitchen. She gave a slight nod. Even that caused her to wince. I pantomimed standing up. She gave me a shrug. Maybe, maybe not. I got to my feet and then reached down and took her hand. The flesh was callussed and very cold. We started her long, painful trip upward. She rose by a few inches at a time. When she was halfway up, she started to slump against the wall. I got my arm around her waist to steady her and kept it there for the rest of the journey. She was a thin woman of maybe fifty. I’d made the mistake of thinking she was frail. But as she rose, I could feel her strength pushing against the damage that had been done to her head and her senses. There were a lot of prairie people like her. They’d brought their strength out here from the East. Without that kind of backbone, they would never have survived the daily perils of the frontier.
I let her lean against me as we shuffled into the hallway. The man in the living room was still ranting. And ranting it was, a fuming harangue about how they’d betrayed Karen. The words filled the hall. I thought of the Boris Karloff picture Bedlam and how the asylum inmates screamed threats and curses as they flung themselves against the bars of their cages.
We had to stop halfway to the kitchen because she thought she was going to be sick. But she raised her head and opened her mouth, taking in gulps of air. She clutched my arm as she did this. The tough grasp got even tougher for a moment. Then she exhaled and took a step forward. We moved slowly on to the kitchen.
I got her seated in the breakfast nook and went to get her a glass of water. As she took her first sips, I yanked the. 38 from my belt. She’d been looking at it. I spoke in a voice a bit higher than a whisper.
“What happened?”
She set the glass down and wiped her mouth with her fingers, leaving a ghost of blood on her lower lip. “Mrs. Raines and William and Lynn Shanlon were in the living room talking about everything that had happened lately. They were wondering who killed Mr. Bennett and Roy Davenport. Lynn said all this had to have something to do with her sister’s murder. That’s what she called it this time. Murder. Somebody rang the front bell, and I opened the door and it was a man with a gun. He was standing right next to me when you called. He kept pushing the gun into my back. Then he knocked me out and put me in the closet.”
“Do you know him?”
“No. I’d never seen him before. But he looked-insane. Very crazy. His face. Even without his gun, he would have scared me.”
“So he’s got all three of them in the living room?”
Her answer was to grab the edge of the table for support. Her face had gone pale and her blue eyes had dimmed. I’d estimated her age at fifty. Right now she looked seventy.
“I think I need to see a doctor.”
“I think you’re right.” I was up and getting her more water. She’d drained the first glass. “Is there any whiskey around in the kitchen?”