Beware the Young Stranger (7 page)

“Stealing a car in the country wouldn't be like going into a car lot.”

“Or walking city streets until he finds a car with the keys in it,” Conway said.

“But he can still pull a switch.” Vallancourt read the question in their eyes, and he gave them the painful answer: “Nancy's car.”

Hibbs blinked. “Sure!”

“The sonofabitch,” Conway cried. “He may be three hundred miles from here by now!”

But Vallancourt shook his silvered head. “A switch occurred to me immediately. A description of Nancy's car was sent out by the police. The only thing is, neither car has been spotted, in use or abandoned. The odds are that Nancy and Keith are still in the net.”

“In an area covering about four counties,” Conway said.

“Parked on a side road waiting for night?” Hibbs suggested.

“Waiting for night,” Vallancourt nodded. “But not on a side road, tavern, even a motel. No public place. A private place where he would feel safer.”

“His father's apartment?”

“The police put Sam Rollins's place under surveillance the first thing,” Vallancourt said, “along with the homes of Nancy's friends.”

“He needs his attic room,” Conway said.

“His what?”

“Something Dorcas mentioned when she was planning to bring him here to live. One night at dinner she got pretty emotional about the poor darling's lot in life.”

“Let's get to this attic room, Howard.”

“It seems that Keith had a favorite spot back home, an attic room, where he would hide when his father decided to enforce his orders with a club, or life got too tough some other way.”

“We all occasionally need to close a door,” Ralph Hibbs said.

“Sure. Even a woman with the self-possession of a Dorcas Ferguson.”

Vallancourt came to quick attention. “She had such a place?”

“A cottage on the lake,” Conway said. “She never advertised the location. Would have defeated her purpose. It's a kind of lodge. Now and then she'd take a day there to dig in the garden, or lie in the sun, or get drunk. Depended on her mood.”

“Did Keith know about the lodge?”

Conway paused with a cigarette lighter half raised. “Come to think of it, yes.”

Vallancourt's eyes caught fire. “His
querencia
!”

Hibbs said blankly, “His what?”

“The other Sunday Nancy was talking to Keith on the phone. She laughed and said they'd picnic at ‘the
querencia
.' I dismissed it at the time as some sort of new catch-phrase among the college set.”

Conway remembered his cigarette and lit it with a triumphant drag. “You've got it, John! We'll corner the sonofabitch and make him sorry he ever walked through his aunt's front door!”

“We'll do nothing of the kind, Howard.”

Conway stared, and Hibbs sluiced moisture from his pale forehead with his finger. “We'd better call the police.”

Vallancourt caught him by the wrist. “We'll not do that, either, Ralph. With Nancy there, the last thing I want is a posse of armed men and a battery of searchlights. Anyway, we're not sure yet we've pinpointed the location.”

“All right,” Conway said on an unwilling note, “we'll play it your way. Approach him nice and friendly. Talk Nancy away. Then let him look out.” He glanced at Hibbs. “You in?”

“Certainly, if I can be of help.”

“On my terms and conditions,” Vallancourt said in an iron voice. “Otherwise I go alone.”

The other two men nodded.

They rode in silence, Vallancourt holding the Continental to a fast, steady clip. Howard Conway had shucked his boredom; there was a pleasurable excitement working up in the man. An occasional uneasy rustling in the back seat reminded Vallancourt of Hibbs's presence.

“Turn here,” Conway said intently.

The heavy car slued a trifle as it entered the right fork of the narrow county road. The countryside lay in a twilight hush through which the car's rushing passage was a whisper.

The twilight was instantly transformed to black night as the Continental swooped down through the timber.

A graveled driveway flicked into view. Vallancourt touched the brakes.

“Not this one,” said Conway. “It belongs to the Harkleroads. They never get up from Florida until midsummer. We're going to the upper end of the lake … Watch the curve when the road reaches the lake, John.”

The big car rocked. The lake was a limitless glass, unsilvered, mysterious. The hills made a broken black horizon against the deepening purple of the sky.

“The next driveway, John.”

“We'll park on the road.” He stopped the car, leaving the headlights burning. His glance made a rapid orientation, marking the boathouse and dock to his left, the driveway toward his right, the outlines of the lodge with its long open gallery crouching on the hillside.

The three got out. Vallancourt and Hibbs carried flashlights.

“We're making a social call,” the diplomat reminded them.

He was first up the driveway, keeping to its center. He held the flashlight steady.

“Keith,” he called in a clear, calm tone. “If you're here, we came alone. We'd like to talk to you. You may show yourself safely. We're not armed and we'll keep our distance.”

A breeze, surly with the last chill of spring, snapped through the pines. Gravel crunched beneath the footsteps of the three men.

“Nobody's here,” Hibbs whispered.

Vallancourt continued to climb toward the cottage. He raised his light to play the beam across the front of the building. The windows shone blackly. A hoseful of wind swept a shower of pine needles from the porch.

Vallancourt spoke over his shoulder. “Got a key, Howard?”

“Nope.”

“Does Keith?”

“I don't know.”

“Listen,” Ralph Hibbs said.

“What is it?”

“I heard something.”

They stood listening.

“You're hearing things,” Conway decided.

“No,” Hibbs insisted. “I tell you I heard movement up there. On the hill above the driveway.”

Unbidden, Vallancourt's mind created an imaginary scene, Nancy up on the dark hillside realizing now what a foolish and terrible mistake she had made … Nancy helpless against Keith's strength … Keith's arm locked about her throat, his breath hot against her ear as he warned her not to make a sound …

“I don't hear a thing,” said Conway.

“Neither do I, now,” Hibbs said. “But I know damned well I did a minute ago.”

“Probably a dead branch blowing off a tree.”

“We'll have to make sure,” Vallancourt said. He raised his voice again: “Keith, we're not armed. We have not brought the police. Let's have a word with you, that's all.”

“Hell, John,” Conway said, disgusted, “he isn't up here. He's probably getting wrapped up by a roadblock while we stand here like idiots talking to the wind.”

“We'll have to make sure, Howard.”

He walked quietly forward, then stopped with a jerk. His flashlight ray had fallen across the MG. The car sat empty. It looked like a toy.

The light probed, swung, stopped, swung back to the MG.

“At least we know he was here,” Hibbs said. “That means the two of them are in Nancy's car.”

Vallancourt crossed the driveway to the MG and aimed the light. The key was not in the ignition. A glint of gray metal in the farther seat caught his eye.

“Howard, Ralph, will you come here?”

His tone brought Conway and Hibbs lumbering over.

“Take a look.”

“Looks like a cashbox.”

“The one Dorcas kept in her study, Howard?” Vallancourt asked.

“Could be.”

“Its disappearance was discovered right after her murder. The city detective seemed to consider it an important find.”

“Don't you?” Conway asked.

“I'm not sure. We reached her place at about the same time, Howard. You were passing the MG when I pulled up. Did you get a look inside?”

Conway knuckled his chin. “I think I did. It's natural to glance inside a convertible when it passes with the top down.”

“Did you see the cashbox?”

“No, John, I think there was a coat or jacket lying on the seat. Trenchcoat, maybe.”

“The cashbox might have been under the coat,” Hibbs said. “Anyway, the police can lift fingerprints from the box and determine if it really is … was Dorcas's.”

“Yes,” Vallancourt said, “I'm sure they can. I'm sure they will.”

I'm equally sure, he thought, that Keith didn't have the cashbox with him when he went out the window of the Ferguson living room. He was in there with a murdered woman, and the box was outside, in his car.

Why didn't he keep going when he carried the box out? Why should he return to her lifeless body?

9.

From the advantage of the cottage porch, Keith watched Nancy's sedan crawl along the lake and disappear into the distant woodland.

It would be getting dark soon now. The lake was as peaceful as a church.

Keith told himself he should be feeling better. He knew the worst now. He knew what he had to do. Always in the past, when he realized the full extent of his predicament, a strange calm had come over him, an ability to crouch down within himself, watchful, ready.

The old man used to say he had a streak of bulldog in him.

Maybe I do have, Keith thought.

He scuffed at the porch floor with his toe, remembering.

It was some consolation to know how many times he had denied his father victory. The experiences went as far back as Keith could recall. The old man would freeze him out, cut his allowance, humiliate him, pile ridiculous chores on him. Like the time he'd made Keith spend a Saturday carrying leaves from the front yard a bucketful at a time.

And then the resort to physical violence. Keith would vomit in private, but facing his father he was stolid, prepared for pain, knowing whose endurance was the greater. The ending was always the same, with his father sweating, backing away finally with a curse. And the boy carrying a heavier load of hatred and contempt.

Keith walked to the top of the porch steps and sat down.

Of course, it hadn't been uninterrupted war between him and the old man. Mother was an angel, he thought. Vague, helpless, unable to cope with the old man; but she was jake, george, and number one, all put indefinitely together in a little woman everybody called Maggie.

Elbows on knees, hands knotted, he rubbed his forehead against his knuckles.

Mom, I'm glad you don't have to wonder and worry. About this thing now … and that Cheryl Pemberton mess in Florida.

They thought they had me. But I knew I could stand it. The nerves all dissolved, leaving nothing for them to get to. Like with the old man. Sixty hours of it. One after another of them. I worked them in shifts, Mom. And there weren't enough of them …

He jerked his head up, jumped to his feet, grabbed the porch post. A fluttering went through his chest. Too soon for Nancy. She hadn't had time to get to the drive-in and back.

He stood listening. He was certain the breeze had carried the faintest sound of a car down the trough of the long, shallow valley.

He vaulted the porch rail, dropping like a cat to the yard. After a moment's hesitation, he ran toward the lake.

They've got her, he thought. They've made her talk. I should have gone myself, the way I wanted to. Why did I let her talk me into her going?

Far down the lake, twin shafts of light stabbed across the water.

Keith faded across the road into the shadows. He stood breathing hard, studying the dark hills behind him, the road ahead.

He had to decide quickly.

He jumped a drainage ditch with an easy flow of movement and started dog-padding parallel to the road, in the direction from which the car was coming.

He could hear it quite clearly now. Far ahead of him, the car's lights danced, closing the distance rapidly.

He reached a cave of darkness beneath a giant spreading oak. He dropped in a crouch, hands spread on the rough bark.

He recognized the Continental as it surged past. John Vallancourt was driving. He wasn't sure how many people were in the car. Three, he thought. At least one man in the suicide seat, and an impression of another in the rear.

Howard Conway and Ralph Hibbs, he decided.

Join you for golf, fellows? A smile twisted Keith's mouth as the taillights of the car dwindled.

His grim humor was brief. He was again in motion. Vallancourt and his cronies would go to the lodge, look around and, when they found the place deserted, return this way.

She'll meet them head on, he thought. I've got to reach her before that happens.

Off the road, underbrush and rough stony terrain impeded his progress. He slipped to the edge of the road, looked back. The taillights of the Continental were far down the lake, almost to the driveway, he judged. Even if they looked down the road from there, at this distance they wouldn't see him.

Keeping to the side of the road, he moved at a ground-eating pace, loose and loping, getting his second wind and breathing through his nose.

He reached the woodland, stumbled over a shallow pothole in the shoulder of the road. Still no sign of Nancy's compact. Had Vallancourt and the others left the cottage yet?

His lungs began to pain at last, and he had to stop for a brief rest. He gulped deeply. Then he saw giant fireflies through the trees. Up around the next curve.

He stepped out into the middle of the road, gambling that he had correctly identified the sewing machine-like whirr of the small sedan's engine.

He began waving his arms as the headlight glow enveloped him. The sedan stopped, and he ran over to it. Nancy's face was white mist under her blonde hair.

“Keith …”

“Move over,” he said, “quick.”

He opened the door of the car and threw himself under the wheel. His body slammed against hers. She slid over.