Blood Rites (17 page)

“Carrera has a job for you.”

The voices grew less distant as the men moved into the kitchen. Donna sat back on her heels wondering if she dared creep down the hall to listen, then decided on a better idea. Russ wouldn’t look in on her, she had a chance now to search his boxes and find a decent weapon. She opened the closet door and pulled the top one from the stack.

It held her knapsack. Inside the second were women’s hiking boots, jeans, a shirt, a can of hair spray, a pen, and a wallet belonging to someone named Beverly Fields. Confused, she opened a third box and found more clothing and another wallet, this time for Nancy Potts.

“Oh, Jesus,” Donna said, understanding finally that she wasn’t the first and probably wouldn’t be the last.

Mary Evans had been a smoker. Her lighter was missing but Donna found a full can of lighter fluid and a stale pack of Camels in her tapestry bag.

Donna suddenly had an idea on how to slow Russ down for a while. Now would be her best chance to carry it out. After returning the boxes to the closet, she slowly opened the bedroom door, listened to the distant sound of the men, and went into the bathroom. There she pulled out the lighter and the rest of her things. Terrified that Russ would hear her before she was ready, Donna set to work.

The voices grew louder again as the men walked into the front hall. Donna worked, frantic, silent, then waited, listening.

“Have Domie call me at this number on Saturday at noon. I know his voice. He knows mine. We’ll talk.”

“Just let me give you the details,” the man argued.

“No.”

“Why the hell not?”

“The price ain’t high enough for this job. Tell Domie to call me at this number on Saturday at noon his time. Give him the message.”

“All right. I’ll tell him. And one more thing, Lowell—get rid of the girl.”

She heard Russ laugh, the door close.

Then he came for her. She stood in the center of the bathroom, too nervous to even pray.

He kicked the door open and she attacked. The lit Zippo taped to the can of lighter fluid and hairspray threw a ball of fire that ignited his shirt. As his hands flew up to shield his face, she shoved him back into the hall and ran past him, emptying more of the lighter fluid on him and spilling a trail of it down the dark hall. A thin nearly invisible line of blue flame followed her as she ran. The alcohol-soaked carpet flared around Russ, and with a bellow of anger and pain, he bolted for the swimming pool in the backyard. As he surfaced in the water, he heard the window shatter in the kitchen. He was at it a moment later but Donna had vanished. He ran outside, circling the house, looking for her while smoke began to rise through the hole in the window.

The carpets were in flames, the kitchen curtains burning when Russ realized what Donna had done. He climbed the back fence and, keeping low, crawled into the house. As he expected, Donna was close to the patio door, lying facedown, her body covered by a wet towel. She screamed as he grabbed her, kept on screaming as he lifted her, then pushed her over the fence. She tried to run, but blinded and coughing from the smoke she inhaled, she couldn’t find the wind to escape.

“Please, Russ. I only wanted to get away. I’m sorry,” she said as he pulled her after him to the front of the house and ordered her into the back of the wagon. She stood beside it naked, her tears making tracks down her sooty face. “Since you’re going to kill me, do it now.”

Russ was missing part of one eyebrow and he’d need a crew cut to hide the damage she’d done to his hair. He laughed, not the cold, vicious laugh she’d come to hate but one warmer, admiring, sincere. “Nobody ever pulled a trick on me like you did in there,” he said. “Do you think I’d kill you after a stunt like that?”

“I heard the man order you to get rid of me.”

“That’s just one more reason to keep you with me. That bastard ain’t telling me what to do.”

They heard sirens in the distance. Russ pushed her into the back of the wagon and took off down the road in the direction that led away from town. “What’s your name?” Russ asked.

“Donna Harper.”

“Well, Donna Harper, we’d better see about getting you some clothes.”

Donna wrapped herself in Russ’s sleeping bag, rested her head on his knapsack, and considered the last hour. She wondered if she’d live long enough to ever figure Russ out.

Russ’s boxes survived the fire, and though the note Donna had hastily scrawled on the top one had been soaked by the fire hoses, it was still readable. By that evening, Russ Lowell’s picture was on the front page of every major newspaper in the country. And by that evening his hair was darker and shorter, his car newer. Late Saturday morning, he stopped at the diner in Sheridan where he’d picked up Beverly Fields. No one recognized him as he sat on the stool nearest the phone booth sipping coffee, reading about himself in the paper, and waiting for the noon bell.

“You son of a bitch!” Carrera screamed into the phone as soon as Russ answered. “Three hours the police were here wanting to know where you were, trying to trip me up. Six girls in three years, you son . . .”

“Ten . . . and for you two crime bosses, a drug smuggler, a federal agent, and the police captain who murdered your son. He’ll feel the pain, I promise you. He’ll feel it . . .” Russ went on speaking with the lethal confidence Carrera knew he could always trust, giving Carrera the same sound advice he had given the boss’s father; suggesting, rather than ordering, everything that had to be done.

Russ left the diner a rich man and a desperate one.

If this job failed, Carrera would kill him. Carrera hadn’t said it but Russ knew his future was as simple as that.

III

The guard at the Canadian border had been busy since his shift had started that morning. He had one more hour to go when the new Ford pulled up to the gate. The driver was ready with his license and accompanying identification noting that he worked for the FBI.

While the guard examined the licenses, the driver took off his glasses and cleaned them with his handkerchief. Without them, he squinted and his eyes watered and crossed slightly. “Well, Mr. Winston, is this trip business or pleasure?” the guard asked.

“That’s not important, is it?”

“Not fora report. I was just wondering if you had anything to do with the Lowell hunt.”

“I can’t discuss our cases,” Winston replied in an even tone. He pronounced the “I” with an eastern “ah” and the guard, who prided himself on knowing American accents, decided the agent had been raised near Boston.

“Do you think you’ll catch him?”

“We’re trying.”

“Do you think he’s in Canada?”

“We’ve been after him over two weeks. By now he could be anywhere,” the agent commented with a weary sigh.

The guard gave Winston some friendly advice about the roads, then waved him on without checking the trunk or even asking if he had anything to declare. A careful man, Winston followed the route the guard had suggested, skirting Calgary, pursuing his quarry northwest toward Dawson.

IV

The phone in the Stoddard penthouse rang a little after two in the afternoon. Judy Wells answered and heard the familiar gravelly voice of John Corey. “I called to give you the good news,” Corey said. “Rumor has it that Carrera will be arrested in the next few days. Once it happens and Dick gives him a week or two for the consequences of a police assassination to settle into his small and nasty brain, you can abandon that lap of luxury you’ve been wallowing in and come home.”

Judy laughed. “How did you know I’ve been wallowing?”

“I called Stoddard Design. After I convinced Stoddard that ‘I yam who I yam,’ he said he was transferring me to
the
penthouse. Can I talk to Dick?”

“Dick didn’t come with me. He took Alan camping.”

“With some distant relations? No, don’t even try to answer that. Dick never does. When you talk to him, ask him to call me if he wants the details.”

“I will but he’s just as likely to turn up at the office. He’s anxious to get back to work.‘’

“So he’s coming back? Good.”

“Why wouldn’t he?” When Corey didn’t answer, she asked with a bit more urgency, “Cor, is anything wrong?”

Until now Corey had assumed Judy knew about Dick’s illness. He covered his stupidity with a quick lie. “No . . . no, nothing except that he was upset by the department’s shabby support of him after the shooting. How’s the novel coming?”

“All right even though it galls me to have to write under a pseudonym.”

“Give the world a little time to accept female Spillanes. Besides Chandler Wells is a great name for a mystery writer.”

They talked about her book and her weeks in New York until Elizabeth returned with Carol. The girl turned gracefully, showing off her white voile dress, the long layered haircut, the pale blue shoes and purse.

“She had to wear the outfit home. No wonder,
oui
?” Elizabeth said. She unpinned her broad-brimmed black hat and kicked off her heels before joining Judy on the sofa. Judy handed the phone to Carol, paying little attention to her conversation, her eyes sad and unfocused as she tried to make sense out of the lie Corey had just told her.

“I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said. “Perhaps I should have asked about the haircut but I’ve never had a young lady in my care before.”

“It isn’t that. It’s . . .” Judy glanced at Carol, gushing to Cor about her latest trip to Sak’s, the fabulous theaters, the incredible restaurants. “We’ll talk when the New York girl’s gone off to change,” she concluded softly.

Later, as she sorted out her premonitions with Elizabeth, it seemed that she’d guessed the truth for weeks. Dick had seem more tired than usual, preoccupied, secretive. He hadn’t grumbled about his doctor’s appointment. Instead, he never mentioned it at all. And his agreement to take Alan north with him had been an abrupt change of heart.

With Elizabeth sitting beside her, she called the family doctor and asked how long it would take to have the results of Dick’s physical transferred to a specialist in Minnesota.

The nurse wasn’t surprised by the request. With a little crafty prodding, the woman told Judy everything she needed to know.

For the first time since she’d come here, Judy touched Elizabeth, gripping her as if there was a way to absorb her immortality and share it with the one she loved. But she didn’t cry. Tears were a sign of weakness and Judy, who could always be the strong one when she had to be, would fight even if Dick had already given up.

“Men are so stupid,
oui
?” Elizabeth said. “They are so afraid of being helpless that they forget how lonely we will be without them.”

Elizabeth, Judy knew, was speaking of Paul as well as Dick. She had seen the prescription medications in the master bath’s medicine chest and understood that while Dick’s problem was by far the more immediate, they both faced a similar loss. It occurred to her, as she sensed Elizabeth’s compassion, that for Elizabeth it would not be the first time nor the last. “What do you do to make them fight?” she asked.

“Nothing. They have to decide that on their own. Don’t be too anxious to have him back, Judy. Let him relax for a little while. The trip will give him time to accept what must be done.”

So instead of phoning Dawson, Judy sent Dick a letter about Carrera’s arrest, then waited for Dick’s call.

I

For the first time in his eleven years of life, Alan Wells was in love.

It took him two days before he did anything but answer Hillary’s questions, one more before he felt comfortable around her, and by then he never wanted to be anywhere but close to her.

Though she was older than his sister and would start college in January, Hillary actually paid attention when he talked, considering his opinions as if he were an equal, even quoting him for a social studies report she’d been writing over the summer on segregation in the American South. “You mean you don’t discuss this in your school?” she asked with frank amazement after listening to his reply.

“We pray sometimes . . . for peace in Alabama.” After Alan said this, he saw her anger, not at him but at his ignorance, and as she worked he read the articles and books Hillary used as references, absorbing ideas he never would have considered in the more hectic atmosphere of home.

That night at dinner, Alan asked his father about civil rights. His father responded with an evasive reply that Hillary would not tolerate. “I could understand you being neutral if you lived in a dictatorship like the one in Russia. But in America, can’t people speak what they believe?” she asked.

“You have to understand my position. Policemen are like FBI agents or government employees. If I take a political stand that runs too far against the majority, I could be fired.”

“Even when you are in agreement with the law?” Hillary asked, unwilling to believe what Dick was saying.

“They’d think up some valid reason to fire me. Everybody always makes a mistake sometime and the result would be the same.” Noticing that his son looked confused, Dick added, “Alan, remember when Mr. Lehr lost his job with the fire department? The city didn’t even bother to make up a reason. He’d been a member of the American Labor Party for a few years. That was enough.”

“That isn’t right,” Alan said.

“Of course it’s not but I’m not in any position to change the way people think. I do what I can and hope that when you grow up, you’ll be a just man and do the same.”

Before Hillary could raise another objection, Stephen made a point of changing the subject. Throughout the rest of the meal Alan said very little. Instead he thought about what it would be like to march with the workers in Alabama and Arkansas, to risk his life for a cause. When he was older, he would do this if it still needed to be done.

And for the first time in his life, adulthood seemed too many years away.

The days were more full than he’d imagined. Besides his hours studying with Hillary and reading Helen’s books on dreams, he hiked in the woods near the cabin, sensing through Stephen’s or Helen’s mind the life around him. He touched a young fox that Stephen had somehow called to him and looked into the eyes of the wolf that hunted with Helen. If any of this had happened at home, Alan would have been awed, but here Stephen and his cousin were no more extraordinary than the mountains, the clear icy water that flowed from them and seemed to glow in his cupped hands, the tall narrow pine trees, or the house filled with rainbows from its windows.