Scare Tactics (41 page)

If they had been there, they were gone now.

In the lodge she put a pot of coffee on the stove. At least, she thought, shuddering, the gas was connected. When the coffee was ready she poured a cupful. Rain had begun again; it tapped lightly against the windows overlooking the terrace. There was a five-foot wall around the terrace, which blocked a view of the reservoir from inside the lodge, but on the outside, some hundred feet above the shore, the dam and many of the small islands dotting the water could be seen.

One of the doors to the terrace wasn’t securely shut and rain was filtering in. Lucy went to close it, looking abstractedly at the empty terrace. Then her shoulders trembled with shock.

At one corner of the terrace, near the wall, a pair of shattered glasses with thick horn rims lay as if they had been trampled on.

She knew they were Fletch’s even before she picked them up.

Her face was wet from the wind and rain coming out of the south. She wiped her cheeks and looked over the wall, at the steep slope that started just beneath the terrace.

When she saw the body tumbled among the rocks below she felt only a gradual slowing of her heartbeat and pulse, until she was scarcely aware of them. The tips of her lingers had gone numb. She had the odd sensation of being detached from her own body as she made her way down to the water’s edge, oblivious of pain even when she fell, twice, against the rocks. Her eyes were fixed on her brother, a part of her mind willed him to be alive, this
had
to be a mistake ...

“Fletch—Fletch—please—get up—!”

Her lips were numb, too; there was a droning in her ears louder than the wind as she reached him, tugged at a wet leaden shoulder. So still, so still—but she would wake him.

“
Fletch,
” she said again insistently, kneeling beside him.

And suddenly he raised himself from the dark rocky ground and stared at her, shuddering.

All she could see of his face were the tormented eyes, the bloody lacerated mouth; because he had literally been curved to pieces. His hands had no fingers. His nose, his cars,
gone.
He made a terrible wailing sound and blood came up. It spurted from his mouth and from gaping wounds in his cheeks, spilled over her helping hands.

He shuddered again and died as Lucy huddled against him in a last protective agony, though now there was nothing left that could harm him, only the dark, the wind, the cold seeping rain.

Practice followed the directions of a homemade map taped inside the door of the fuse box and located a switch box on a power-line pole down the road that provided electricity for several houses in the area. The influx of light in the lodge helped a little. Dry clothes, a couple of musty blankets, and hot coffee helped Lucy, although her face was still grim with fatigue. It was incredible that she had been able to carry, or drag, Fletcher Childs’s body up that slope, even though it had taken her nearly three hours to do so. Perhaps the extreme physical effort had been as beneficial as anesthesia to her, had helped absorb the shock to her mind and emotions.

She was able to answer Practice’s questions lucidly, and only at the end she looked at him with patient inattention and began to pick nervously at the fluff of the blanket and frame the unspeakable question with her lips: Why? Why had Val killed Fletch?

Practice had carried Fletch Childs into the bedroom as soon as he was able; moving Fletch once more wouldn’t matter and he couldn’t bear to have Lucy near the badly mutilated body. He had made all the necessary calls, and fortunately they didn’t have to wait long.

The troopers came in with rain dripping from the long black slickers they wore and the brims of their hats; not long after, county officers arrived and stood around idly, while reports were filled out and more questions asked. Lucy responded to the presence of the officers, to the cross-examination and the quiet voices, and was more alert. She told her story again in a firm low voice.

They were interrupted by another trooper with a message for Practice. “Captain Liles is on the radio, Mr. Practice.”

He dashed through the downpour and got into the front of the patrol car.

“Jim? I’m sorry as hell to hear about Fletcher Childs. How’s Lucy?”

“She’s going to make it all right. Quite a shock for her to take.” He was surprised by the confusion of feelings that rose to block his throat: tenderness, sympathy, admiration. She was going to be all right. She could take it.

“I thought you’d want to know this right away,” Liles said. “Val St. George was picked up an hour and a half ago.” Practice looked away from the glowing ruby of light on the radio receiver to the waves of rain on the windshield. “Where?” he asked tautly.

“About five miles east of the Kansas state line, on Forty-four. He was driving Fletch Childs’s Imperial.”

“Did he make any trouble when he was arrested?”

“No. As a matter of fact, he was discovered sound asleep on the front seat, pulled off on a country road not far from the highway. He’s being brought in now; should arrive in another hour.”

“Near the Kansas line?” Practice asked doubtfully. “Where was he going?”

“Who knows? The important thing is, we got him before he could murder anyone else. How was Fletch killed?”

“We’re waiting on the coroner. It looks to me as if he died from the fall. But he was pretty beat up, deliberately mutilated.”

“Like Hugh McAdams?”

“Yes. Were there any weapons in the car with St. George?”

“No mention made. We’ll check the car over thoroughly when it comes in. Why? What did you have in mind?” Practice hesitated. Something suddenly seemed odd and out of focus to him.

“I was wondering if Val St. George had a sword,” he said.

T
here was a gray band of light above the treeline of the Capitol grounds as Practice drove toward the old brick building on Center Hill which contained the headquarters of the state highway patrol. He went up the steps and an old man in a pin-striped vest unlocked one of the chrome and glass doors for him. Practice walked across the floor and took an elevator to the office of Captain Mike Liles.

Liles’s voice was gruff from three hours of interrogation. He looked up sourly, after inviting Practice in, and rubbed his eyes.

“Where do you have him?” Practice asked.

“Detention room in the basement. Lucy not with you?”

“Lucy’s asleep. What has he said?”

Liles made a circle with thumb and forefinger.

“No more than that. He says he won’t talk to anybody but Lucy.”

Practice slumped in a chair beside the desk and took his hat off.

“He won’t admit killing Hugh McAdams and Fletch Childs?”

“As I said, he won’t even talk about them. He did give us his address here in town. We shook the room clean and came up with nothing. There were no weapons in the car. He was carrying a switchblade knife with a six-inch blade on his person when arrested.”

“Where was he headed when your men spotted him?”

Liles spread his hands. “All he said was, ‘I knew there was going to be trouble, so I cut out.’ ”

“How does he look to you, Mike?”

Liles got up out of his chair and stretched, then kicked lightly at the side of his desk.

“He’s plenty scared, but damned if he’ll show it. He just sits and looks at the wall and questions bounce right off him.”

“How badly is he hurt?”

“As soon as he was brought in we had a physician examine his arm. Apparently Fletcher Childs did a good job. The wounds were probably painful, and it’s likely he lost quite a lot of blood, but none of them were deep. The worst was a slash on the forearm, which had been closed with five stitches.”

“Could he use the arm at all?”

“I know what you’re getting at. A one-armed man couldn’t have hung Hugh McAdams in that sack. According to the doctor, he could have used the arm as much as he wanted to, if he was willing to disregard the pain.”

“Then he could have killed Hugh McAdams.”

“Yes, it looks that way. He might have a good alibi from, say, eleven Tuesday night until six or so last night, but if he does, he hasn’t condescended to offer it.”

“Mike, do you think he killed Fletch and that little boy?” Liles reached for a cigar on his desk, studied it, then decided against smoking.

“It’s this way. Without any statement at all from St. George, we can prove he was at the mansion Tuesday night, killed one dog and seriously wounded another, and was bitten as he tried to get away. We can prove that he went to Fletch Childs for help and that Fletch dressed his wounds. After that I’m not sure what happened. Maybe Fletch took pity on the boy and drove him to the lodge at the reservoir to gain time to figure out a way of helping him. There, Val may have turned on Fletch and murdered him. He took Fletch’s car and drove back to Osage Bluff to carry out a plan he’d had in mind for a long time. His first try at killing Chris Guthrie failed three years ago. But with one murder behind him, he was primed to make another attempt on Chris’s life, the most natural form of revenge against Guthrie.”

“Up to that point you should be able to make a case. But how could he know Chris and Hugh would leave the school just when they did? If he was waiting in the vicinity of the school in hopes that he’d have a chance to pick Chris up during the day, one of your men would have spotted him.”

“Yes, they would have.” Liles looked pleased with himself. “The answer is, he didn’t have to hang around outside the school. He worked there.”

“I never thought of that. What did he do?”

“Assistant janitor.”

“How long had he been working there?”

“About six months. The way I see it, he took the job just to be near Chris. I think he went to the trouble of gaining the boy’s confidence, and planted the idea of a visit to the old prison in Chris’s mind. Chris will be able to tell us about that tomorrow. St. George returned to the school yesterday to murder Chris, and happened to arrive in time to see the boys sneaking away. From that point it was easy. He probably took a length of rope and a sack from the janitor’s storeroom, and followed them. Once the boys were inside the prison he made a move for Chris but scared them both, and they ran. Down below it’s very dark and the boys looked a lot alike, same height and coloring. St. George got the wrong boy, that’s all.”

“Chris will identify him, then. After that it doesn’t matter whether St. George has anything to say or not.”

“We’ll have a good case.” Liles frowned. “But I want a confession. That’s why I hoped Lucy would come; she might get him started.”

“What if I talked to him? Do you suppose it would do any good?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t like cops, that’s for sure.”

“Well, it couldn’t hurt. Besides, I’d like to meet him.”

—

Liles called downstairs to have the detention room cleared, and he and Practice went down to the basement in the elevator.

“There’ll be a man right outside the door in case he tries something,” Liles said. “Are you carrying a gun? Penknife?”

Practice shook his head and entered the room, which was windowless and empty except for a bunk bed bolted into one wall, a small table, and two chairs. Val St. George was sitting on the edge of the bunk; he looked up slowly as Practice entered, stared for a moment, and then looked down at the floor again.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Jim Practice.”

The boy’s lips tightened. He looked even younger than his twenty-four years, Practice thought. He was wearing jail denims and a white shirt that was too big for him. The cuffs were rolled back. His left arm was bandaged from wrist to elbow.

“That’s your name. I mean,
what
are you?”

“I’m a lawyer and a friend of Lucy’s.”

Val St. George looked up again. “Is Lucy here?”

“No.”

“She send you?”

“No.”

His lips curled slightly. “I guess she wrote me off. Why not?”

“I’d say she had good reason.”

The boy was silent for a while, his eyes fixed on the floor, his right hand curled around the steel underside of the bunk so that the knuckles were bled white. As Practice had expected, he was tall and much too thin, with the almost-white skin that had cursed him from birth. There were circles under his eyes. He looked tense, frightened, and a little baffled.

“I know you wanted to talk to Lucy,” Practice said.

“Just an idea I had,” he said bitterly.

Practice put his hat on the table and sat down on one of the chairs, looking at Val St. George. “Maybe you could tell me what you wanted to tell Lucy,” he suggested. “We’re alone. Nobody can hear what you have to say except me.”

Again the boy smirked, without any lessening of his tension.

“Just you and the cops in the next room, taking it all down on a tape recorder.” 

“That’s just in the movies,” Practice said, smiling.

Val shrugged. “I suppose I wanted to tell her I was sorry for what I did.”

“You mean for killing her brother.”