Death of a Tall Man (26 page)

Bill Weigand ran to the house. A man came out of the protection of the garage and joined him. Bill turned a flashlight on the face, recognized it. “Well?” he said.

“The lights went out,” the man said. “I came up. I thought I heard someone yelling.”

“Mullins,” Weigand told him.

“No,” the man said. “Before you came. And something might have been a shot. You can't hear anything with all this damned wind.”

“In the—” Weigand began, but the other was ahead of him. “Out back somewhere,” he said. “I'm supposed to watch the front. But I was on my way when I heard you coming.”

“Right,” Bill said. “Help Mullins.”

The man, his black slicker shining as the light from Bill's torch flicked it, ran the way Mullins had gone.

Bill pushed hard against the door, pounding on it. He twisted at the knob, and the door opened. He was halfway in when the lights of a car turned into the drive from the State road and came up it. He did not stop.

Evelyn Gordon stood in the doorway from the hall to the living room. She held a candle. Her face was pale in its small light.

“Weigand,” Bill said. “Where are they?”

“Outside,” she said.

“Who?” Bill said.

She told him, Debbie, Larry Westcott, Nick Smith.

“And somebody else,” she said. “I don't know who. Dan. I don't know. Nick saw him. Then he and Larry went out and then there was a shot and Debbie went.”

“And you didn't,” Bill told her.

She looked at him.

“No,” she said. “I didn't.” Her voice was flat.

Bill turned, leaving her standing there, and ran out the door again. He was running hard, turning toward the rear of the house. His head was low, and the rain almost blinded him. Two running strides outside the door he cannoned into someone—someone light, who said something that sounded like “umph!” and disappeared. Then Weigand himself was grabbed, swung around.

“Where the hell do you think—” a voice which sounded very angry said and then, “For God's sake! Bill!”

Jerry North pushed Bill away from him suddenly and, with the push and the wind, Bill staggered. He caught himself and turned. Already Jerry was down on his knees by the side of the path which led to the door.

Bill was beside him in an instant and bending down. Pam North was already getting to her feet; she was pawing rain and earth from her face. Her hat was gone, her hair clung in a tangle about her face. She looked at Bill through the hair and mud, while her hand held onto Jerry's.

“My!” Pam said. “You ought to look where you're going. You're as bad as an explosion.”

Debbie ran toward the voice which was calling her. She ran with the wind behind her. It came in gusts; sometimes it was so strong that she felt as if she were being thrown along; sometimes it slackened suddenly. As she ran she was conscious of voices behind her, near the garage at first and then coming nearer. The heavy voice of a man triumphed over the noise of the storm. He yelled “Hey! Hey you!” She thought that he must be shouting to her. But she did not stop.

Because the other voice, softer and nearer, called her name again. There was an urgency in the voice now, and a kind of caution, as if there were cause for alarm, for secrecy, in the growing confusion of voices and movement behind her. And now, although she realized that it was not the voice she wanted to hear, she realized, too, that it was a voice she knew. She was frightened and confused, and the voice—against the storm, against the shouting behind her—somehow offered reassurance.

Running, she reached the corner of the house. Beyond, in the shelter of the terrace, there was momentary protection from the wind. And then a hand took her arm, pressing it hard, decisively. There was a flash of lightning and, instantly, a crash of thunder. The hand tightened, convulsively.

“Quick,” the voice said. “No! Not there!”

The last was in answer to the involuntary movement she made toward the french door which would let them into quiet and safety. “Not there, Deborah.”

The voice sounded as if the man, too, had been running—running against the wind, from fears.

The hand—the strength behind the hand—took her across the terrace. In a moment they were beyond it and, as they drew away from the house, the wind caught them again. The pressure on her arm forced her into a run again, now away from the house, which was between them and the others—the pursuers.

“Dan,” the man said, as they ran. He spoke pantingly. “After Dan. He wants you.”

They ran across the lawn beyond the house, between fruit trees bending with the wind. The ground sloped down, here, to the stone wall which bounded the old field in which the house stood. They ran down the slope, the wind now more on their left than behind them. As they ran there was another flash of lightning; momentarily they could see the whole of the slope, down to the wall.

Their first speed diminished; they were walking now—a walk which was still so hurried as to be almost a run. And still the compelling hand was on her arm.

With the flash of lightning, Debbie slowed her movement, involuntarily. The grasp on her arm tightened.

“Hurry!” the man said. “They're after him.”

“Dan?” the girl said. “After Dan?”

“Of course,” the man said. “What did you think?”

“But—” Debbie said. The hand tightened, roughly.

“Keep your voice down,” he said. “Do you want to take them to him? Kill his chance?”

“But Dan,” the girl said. “Why Dan?”

“Later,” he said. “He'll tell you. Just beyond the wall.”

He turned back as he hurried her on, looking over his shoulder. There were flashlights now, dim in the rain. They seemed to be veering off toward the other side of the field.

The two ran on. The wall was close, now. The lawn on this side was mowed up to it, but beyond there was a tangle of bushes. They came to the wall. It was breast high.

“Over,” the man said. “Keep low, for God's sake.”

She reached out for the top of the wall, felt with a foot for a crevice, found one and lifted herself.

“Keep down as much as you can,” he said.

She hesitated a moment.

“Go on,” he said. His voice was harsh, commanding. “Dan's just beyond. He has to see you.”

She went up, then, with a quick swing of her body; lay for a moment on top of the wall, twisted herself over. As she went down, something caught her suit coat and for a moment held her. She tore at it, and it held. She turned in the darkness, brush pulling at her skirt, and freed herself from the coat. It made no difference—she had been as cold and wet with the coat on as she was now. But the driving rain stung a little through the thin blouse.

The man was beside her in a moment. They stood for a second close together. Then, as she started to move, he reached out with both hands and took her shoulders.

“Wait!” he said. “He's here.” He was silent for a moment. Then he called, very softly: “Dan?”

It seemed to the girl that his voice was too low—that nobody could hear it through the noise.

“Dan!” she called, her own voice higher and clearer. “D—” She did not finish. One of the hands left her shoulder and clamped hard on her mouth.

“Shut up, you little fool!” the man said, and his voice was harsh. “Want to lead them here?”

There was a lightning flash. It was not so sharp, so hard as the one before. But for a moment it lighted the thicket in which they were standing—and the field beyond, with tall grass bending in the wind, beaten by the rain. And there was nobody anywhere!

She turned on him then—on the darker shadow which was her companion in a world of darkness and shadows.

“He's not here!” she said. “Dan's not here!”

And the man laughed.

The lightning wasn't bad. The lightning didn't matter. It was the thunder with it; the sharp, explosive thunder. He fought against an almost uncontrollable impulse to throw himself on the ground, to burrow into the ground, convulsively, desperately. But he couldn't! He couldn't let himself! Not again. By God, he couldn't.

It had been too much, that once. Coming across the lawn toward the house, nearing it on his cross-field return from the side road, he had heard that voice and heard Debbie answer. Then, when he was tense with the implication of that, concentrating anxiously, the sudden explosion of thunder had beaten him. He had, then, thrown himself on the wet grass, clutching at it—trying to dig himself in with his fingers. Only for a moment—only for the time it took for consciousness to triumph over reflex. But it had been long enough—too long. Because when he was on his feet they were gone. And he could not tell where they had gone. He ran the few feet to the french doors of the living room; they would still be crossing the room. But there was no one moving inside; there was a woman at the far end, standing in the firelight, listening. But it was Eve, not Debbie.

He whirled around, trying to force his eyes to see through the darkness. Then there was another flash of lightning and he saw them. And with the thunder this time he started—for an instant he was shaking—but he did not drop to the ground.

They were halfway across the field, running away from the house toward the wall beyond. The man was holding the girl, forcing her along.

There were people running behind him. He was conscious of flashlight beams bouncing on the ground; of some man yelling through the storm. He did not know who these people were. Something was happening, but he did not know what it was. But he knew that Debbie was being forced across the lawn, among the fruit trees, away from the others.

And he ran after Debbie. He ran carefully, cautiously. He was still some distance from the wall when another flash of lightning showed him the man going over. He thought Debbie was beyond. He could not be sure.

But they had taken a bad place to cross. The old wall was uneven in height. Here and there the stones, piled artfully many years before to hold their place by weight and contour, had weathered loose and fallen. Above the high wall they had crossed there was a gap where the wall had fallen; fallen down to the lowest tier of stones. He remembered it; the picture of it was sharp in his mind. And beyond the gap there was a path through the brush. He saw that, too.

He veered from direct pursuit, heading toward the gap.

“How do I know where Dan is?” the man said, when he was no longer laughing. “Hiding from the thunder some place, I suppose. Getting under something and pulling it down on top of him.”

“But you said—” Debbie began, and there was, in that first moment, only surprise and bewilderment in her voice. Then she stopped speaking, because the man laughed again.

They were sheltered behind the wall, in the brush. She could hear his laughter plainly. She could hear him when he spoke, although he did not raise his voice.

“Tough luck,” the man said. “Mine. As a result—yours. How did I know he was a freak?”

It was clear, then. It was utterly clear—hopelessly clear. Because the man had a gun.

“Damned tough luck,” he said, reasonably—somewhat regretfully. “Just because a man was seven feet tall. And, of course, because I'm not.”

“Oakes,” she said. She looked at the man. “Morning not afternoon. I remember him.”

“Naturally,” the man said. “Who wouldn't? As soon as I read about it, I knew you would. It was worse than the nurse. She just guessed something was wrong. You knew it. Or would know it.”

“The radio,” the girl said. “When they described him I knew he wasn't—wasn't the right man. It was you?”

“With dark glasses,” the man said. “With stuff to flatten my hair. Naturally. I could have been anybody.” He paused and then spoke bitterly. “Anybody except that bloody freak,” he said. He looked at her. She could not see his face clearly, but she could feel the hatred in it—the anger.

She tried to move, then. She wrenched herself to free the hands on her shoulders; the wet fabric of her blouse gave under the hands. But they bit into her shoulders. The hands did not slip. And then one of them moved—to her throat. She tried to scream and the other hand bruised her mouth. She had never thought hands could be so powerful. Or so cruel.

The area to his right, as he looked down the side lawn toward the rear of the house, was covered. Mullins was there, and the State trooper—and, apparently, someone else, who seemed to be helping them. Weigand, running with a flashlight in his hand, veered toward the left, around the rear of the house. He ran across the flags of the terrace, and, as he went out onto the grass again, heard feet running behind him. One pair of feet clocked on the flagstones. That would be Pam North—wet and muddy and, Bill imagined, mad. Very mad. That, however, would be Jerry's problem.

Weigand's flashlight beam, swinging in arcs as he ran, at first picked up nothing. Then it picked up a shadow—a moving shadow—at the wall. The shadow seemed to go through the wall.

And then, distant, faint in the rushing of the wind through the trees, he heard a woman's scream. It was broken off almost as it began.

“Bill!” Pam called, her voice gasping. “Hear her! He's—got her!”

The hands closed on her throat. Pain shot through her throat where they touched. She writhed in the hands, but they only tightened. She tried to breathe, and breath was stopped by the hands. She fought; she tore at the hands with her own. Desperately—futilely—she tried to kick at the man who was holding her. But the brush caught her legs; the brush was helping him. Blackness began to circle in from the sides—she was looking down a narrowing channel, which was suddenly lurid with red light. And then she was falling. But even as she fell, she knew that something happened. There were two men, now. They were holding on to each other, swaying. And one of them was shouting.

Dan Gordon knew a good many tricks. But it was hard to play tricks when you were fighting a man knee deep—shoulder deep, almost—in bushes which grabbed at you, hampered you. He tried to bring his knee up, and missed. He swung with his right fist and it stopped, bruisingly, against the other man's jaw—and slid off. It was difficult, futile fighting. And the man was trying to get one hand into a pocket. Dan grabbed the hand, got the wrist, felt it slipping in his wet fingers. He struck again for the face—and missed, and floundered in the bushes momentarily from the swinging blow.