The Hungry Dead (24 page)

Bert hung up the pay phone, satisfied that his lies had worked to confuse the issue, at the very least. If Nancy had run away from home—which is what he suspected, for he had found her suitcase and some of her belongings missing—then tomorrow when she still didn't show up he'd say that obviously her phone call of this evening had been a trick designed to throw him and her mother off the track. In the meantime Harriet would calm down and stop badgering him. If Nancy was merely staying with her girl friend, and had phoned him about it as he had indicated, then how could something bad have happened between them? Bert's only problem would be if Nancy chickened out and came back home, but by then he'd have strengthened his position and sown so much confusion that Harriet wouldn't know who to believe.

Bert hoped Nancy would stay away for good. That way his position would be safest. When he thought about what he had done he felt ashamed, threatened, and frightened. If Nancy ever brought charges, even if he were acquitted, the scandal and gossip would be enough to wreck him.

 

Not long after sunrise, Nancy awakened at the campsite. She had spent the night curled up in a sleeping bag Tom had loaned her. The morning was cold and damp, the nylon bag wet with dew. Tom and Hank were still asleep in their sleeping bags, not far from the now-dead campfire.

Nancy eased herself out of her bag and moved quietly away from the campsite, alone. She walked along the path for quite a ways, till she got to the edge of the stream where she and Tom were last night. She hunkered by the stream, contemplating her reflection in the water. Her hair was matted and damp; she wished she had brought a comb, brush, and towel along so she could wash her face and fix her hair. She still hadn't made up her mind whether to stay with Tom and Hank or chance it on her own. In a pensive, indecisive mood, she picked up a few pebbles and dropped them into the stream, letting them fall out of her hand slowly, one by one.

 

Back at the campsite, Tom and Hank were still sound asleep in their sleeping bags. They did not hear the footsteps sneaking up on them through the woods. Finally, both Tom and Hank were prodded in the ribs by heavy brown boots—and they jumped up, startled, to see gun barrels staring them in the face. They had been jarred out of slumber by two sheriff's deputies brandishing service revolvers.

“Hold it, fellows!” one of the deputies barked. “Don't make any foolish moves. Keep your hands visible.”

The second one said, “If either of you tries to reach into his sleeping bag for a gun, I won't wait to find out what you're reaching for. I'll just shoot.”

In a shaky voice, Tom asked, “What's this all about, Officer?” In the back of his mind he figured it must have something to do with the stolen groceries.

“Shut up!” the man covering Tom snapped, pointing his pistol at Tom's face.

The other deputy suddenly gave Hank a savage kick in the ribs. The boy screamed and writhed in agony, imprisoned in his sleeping bag, while both deputies chuckled. “A bug in a rug!” one of them sneered, and they both went on laughing. Tom stared up at them, wide-eyed and frightened. The deputy standing over him was tall and powerfully built, his tight lips and piercing black eyes set hard and mean. The second deputy was shorter and more wiry, with a perpetual scowl on his face. Both wore tan uniforms with heavy brown boots and wide-brimmed hats. The tall one had sergeant's stripes on his sleeve; the other was a corporal.

“Where's the girl?” the corporal demanded harshly. “You killed her, didn't you?”

“Filthy sadistic scum!” the sergeant added.

The short, wiry corporal lashed out with his boot, dealing Tom a kick to his ribs. Tom yelled in pain and terror as Hank continued to moan softly, staring up at the deputies in scared bewilderment.

The sergeant planted his boot squarely on Tom's chest and aimed his gun between Tom's eyes. Tom whimpered, still hurting badly from the kick in the ribs. “Shut up, goddamn you!” the deputy warned. “Stop making a spectacle of yourself, or I swear I'll blow your brains to bloody pieces!”

The corporal chuckled softly. “Maybe they think they can pin us with a police brutality rap. Niggers especially take the cake in that department,
don't
they?” Emphasizing his point, he prodded Hank with his boot in the sore spot where he had kicked him.

“These filthy scum don't deserve humane treatment,” said the sergeant. His foot still on Tom's chest, he applied pressure, demanding: “What did you do with the girl, you maniac? Where'd you hide her body?” He stepped up onto Tom, putting all his weight on the boot that was pressing into the boy's chest. Tom gritted his teeth to stop from crying out but let loose a slight whimper despite his efforts, making the sergeant angry. “Don't you scream, I told you! I'll blow your fuckin' brains out!” He jammed his revolver up against Tom's forehead, threatening to pull the trigger.

Grinning meaningfully, the corporal said, “Maybe we ought to drag them back in the woods one at a time, and question them separately.”

“Good idea. Which one should be first? Eeny, meeny, miny . . .” He waved the barrel of his weapon back and forth from Tom to Hank. “Catch a . . . nigger . . . by the . . .”

“Wait!” Hank cried. “Can't we talk about this? We didn't kill anybody. There was a girl
with
us, but she must've cut out in the middle of the night.”

Through his pain, Tom said, “All we're guilty of is stealing a few bags of groceries.”

The corporal chortled exuberantly. “Oh-ho! A confession! Trying to. get off lightly by admitting to a lighter offense, no doubt. Well, it won't work. We've heard that ploy before, right, sergeant?”

The sergeant pursed his lips thoughtfully. He said, “I'm tired of playing games with you two. We
know
you're guilty. Your van was spotted near the place where that poor girl was found raped and stabbed to death. You can't lie your way out of it. We have to make you pay, and we don't much care if we bring you in alive or dead.”

“We're entitled to a trial,” Hank insisted. “We're
innocent
!
”
He knew why they were picking on him, he thought, but it didn't make any sense for them to be so down on Tom.

The short, wiry one gestured with his revolver. “Get your asses up out of those sleeping bags—pronto! Which one are we going to question first, sergeant?”

Tom pleaded, talking desperately: “No! I just remembered—we saw a big heavy man in farmers' bibbed coveralls. I almost ran him down; he was standing right in the road. He was carrying a heavy bundle—it could've been a body. It
must've
been one. Is he the one who turned us in? If so, you can see he was trying to divert suspicion from himself. My father's a lawyer back in Boston. He—”

But neither deputy apparently believed Tom's story, for they both started chuckling. The chuckling turned into derisive laughter as Tom and Hank crawled out of their sleeping bags and stood in front of the dead campfire looking hurt and helpless.

Nancy, who had come back from the stream, was hiding behind some bushes about fifty yards away, observing what was going on. At first she had been alarmed by noises of scuffling and arguing coming from the direction of the campsite. Then when she saw the two policemen, she was afraid they were out to arrest her and bring her home. So she stayed in concealment, hoping to learn more about the situation. To her amazement, she saw Tom and Hank being handcuffed.

The corporal seized Hank's handcuffed wrists and yanked him in an about-face. Hank trembled, feeling totally at these unreasonable men's mercy and reaching a point of panic. All at once he started to run, trying with all his energy to get away. The corporal crouched, sighted, and fired twice. Hank crumpled and hit the turf, sliding on his chest and face, then lying very still.

Tom yelled, “You killed him, you stupid redneck! You didn't need to do that! We're innocent!
Innocent,
goddamn you!”

His face was a mask of rage and anguished helplessness, and bitter tears rolled down Tom's cheeks. He made a move to go to Hank, but the sergeant made him stay in one place by jabbing him severely with his revolver.

Standing over Hank's body, the corporal gave a long glance back at Tom, a faint wry smile on his face. Then he took careful aim at Hank's head and squeezed the trigger. The loud report all but blotted out Tom's scream. Then there was silence.

After a moment the corporal said, “I warned the spade he could get his head blown off. But he had to try me. Serves him right, the young punk.”

Dazed and rapidly going to pieces, Tom mumbled, “You must be crazy . . . crazy . . .”

“Come off it!” the sergeant barked in his loudest tone yet. “Your buddy was resisting arrest. You want to try the same? I guarantee you you'll end up the same way, too. You ready to confess to raping and killing that girl? I knew her and her family, see. I'm willing to go to any lengths to bring in her killers. People in this county will turn their heads to any irregularities, as long as they feel they got justice.”

Practically screaming, Tom said, “But I tell you I'm innocent! What proof could you possibly have? This is all so cockeyed, I don't understand it. Let me call a lawyer.
Please/
One innocent life has already been lost.”

Still watching from her hiding place, Nancy was terribly frightened. Rooted there by fear, she was not about to show herself. She wanted to do something to help Tom, but she was powerless, at a total loss. And she hadn't heard enough of what was said to really understand the situation.

The corporal came over to Tom and jammed his gun into the boy's abdomen. “You ready to confess, or do we have to beat it out of you?”

Tom's dilemma was beyond his comprehension. He spoke weakly, in. a near-whisper. “You might as well kill me, too. That's what you're going to do, aren't you?”

The sergeant replied sternly. “Well, we know you're guilty, so actual confession is merely a formality. The fact that your partner tried to run doesn't make
you
look very innocent. Me and the corporal like to save the taxpayers money every place we can.”

“Yep,” agreed the corporal. Again he prodded Tom with his gun. He jammed the weapon hard, over and over, into the boy's ribs, making him cry out painfully. “Why don't you run, too?” he suggested diabolically. “How much of this kind of treatment could you take before you decide to run?”

The sergeant pointed his revolver at Tom, saying to the corporal, “Step aside. Gimme a clear shot.”

Tom trembled and closed his eyes. Without further ado, the sergeant pulled the trigger, shooting Tom in the chest. As the boy sagged and fell, the sergeant fired again . . . then again. Tom lay on the ground not far from Hank, both bodies bloody messes.

From her hiding place, Nancy screamed and started running in total hysterical panic. Both deputies wheeled and spotted her simultaneously. The corporal instantly crouched and aimed, ready to fire. But the sergeant stopped him, shouting, “No! Take the girl alive! We want
her
alive! Don't get carried away now! After her!”

The two deputies started running, trying to catch up with Nancy. She plunged into the woods on the far side of the clearing, running and running for all she was worth. The two deputies kept coming after her, at a steady trot, as if they were not particularly worried that there was any real chance of her getting away. They kept plodding after her relentlessly, waiting for her to tire herself out. Every time she looked back they appeared to be just over her shoulder; she couldn't seem to lose them, though she tried to put her last ounce of energy into it, out of fear and desperation.

Nancy broke out of the patch of woods onto a dirt road, a section of the one the van had traversed yesterday. She ran down the road, looking behind her now and then to see how close her pursuers were, screaming for help now and then and looking frantically for someplace to hide.

When the two deputies got out onto the road, Nancy seemed to have gained on them, but she had merely disappeared around a bend. For a moment this confused them as to which way she may have gone, and they halted, peering up and down. Then, realizing she couldn't have gone right or she'd be visible on the straightaway, they took off running to their left, toward the bend in the dirt road. They put on speed, loping along, making up lost distance. Both men were now breathing hard, but their pace was still relentless.

Nancy spotted a red brick house with white columns, set far back off the road. She ran across the vast lawn and up onto the veranda and beat fiercely on the front door and tried to open it. But it was locked. She yelled and yelled for someone to come and let her in. No one answered. She ran around the side of the house and up the steps of the back porch. In a panic, she yanked at the door, which was stuck, but it finally gave way and swung open. Nancy dashed into the house, slamming the door behind her and locking it with a sliding brass bolt.

She found herself in the kitchen. She looked all around, breathing hard, amazed at its vastness, taking in at a glance the enormous Colonial fireplace. Then her eyes fell on a huge mahogany highboy filling one corner of the kitchen. Taking quick strides toward the piece of furniture, she pulled open a drawer and in her haste overturned it. Silverware clattered out onto the floor, making a tremendous racket, hurting Nancy as it struck her on the legs and feet. She dropped the drawer with a loud, resounding crash. Nancy stooped and rummaged feverishly among the silverware on the floor—but to her dismay there were no knives, only forks and spoons. This was as odd at it was disappointing. She needed something with which to defend herself.