Cape Fear (18 page)

He looked frequently in the rearview mirror to see how far behind Carol was. At approximately eleven o’clock, when they were forty miles south of Suffern, he glanced back at the precise moment when the station wagon made a wild swerve, swung back into a deep ditch and turned over. It seemed to happen in slow motion. He braked hard. Nancy looked back and screamed. He put the little car in reverse and shot backward and got out and ran to the car. He climbed up on the side of it and opened the door. Bucky was roaring with fright. He got Bucky out first and then Jamie and finally Carol. Nancy helped them down. There
was no traffic. Sam made the three of them sit down in the thick grass at the top of the ditch near the fence.

Bucky had a lump like a half walnut on his forehead. Carol’s mouth was bleeding. Jamie seemed unhurt. But Carol had gone to pieces. Completely. Her hysteria seemed more alarming to the children than the accident. He was unable to calm her. A small farm truck came rattling down the road. Sam ran out to hail it. A small, elderly, bitter-looking man was driving it. He looked directly ahead, jaw clamped shut, mouth working. Sam had to jump out of the way or be run down. He stood in the road, shaking with rage, yelling curses at the receding vehicle.

The next car stopped. It was a dusty sedan. The back was full of tools. Two big men in work clothes got out in a leisurely way and came over. Carol by that time had exhausted herself. She lay on her side, holding Sam’s handkerchief to her mouth.

“Anybody hurt bad?”

“A split lip and some bruises. They weren’t going fast. Where can I get help?”

“We’re on our way to town. We could send Charlie Hall back out with his wrecker for the car. Ed, if you want to wait here and ride back in with Charlie, I could take the lady and the kids in and leave them off at Doc Evans’.”

“I was shot in the arm yesterday,” Jamie announced.

The two men looked at him blankly. A large shiny car with an elderly couple in it slowed down and then speeded up.

Sam helped Carol across the ditch and put her in the sedan. She made no protest. There was just room for Bucky in back with the tools. Jamie sat on Nancy’s lap in front.
The driver got in and said, “Doc Evans is on the left-hand side in a white house just when you get inside the town limits.”

As they drove off Sam said to the man named Ed, “I didn’t even remember to thank him.”

“I don’t guess his feelings are hurt. I can’t get this straightened out. Who was driving what?”

“My wife was driving the station wagon and I was leading in the MG with my daughter. I happened to look back when it happened.”

“I get it. Pretty tricky thing to stay out of trouble when you lose a front wheel.”

“Front wheel? I didn’t even notice that. The front left wheel.”

“Ought to be around here someplace. Probably ran off the other side.” They found it after five minutes of search, fifty feet from the road. The chrome rim had glinted in the sun and Ed had spotted it. Three cars stopped and were waved on. Ed got down in the ditch and looked at the wheel bolts. He touched one gently with a thick finger.

“Funny,” he said.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing sheared. The threads got chewed up some. How far you come?”

“From Aldermont.”

“Well, I’d guess you had maybe only three nuts on here and each one of those turned just enough to catch the threads. Kids act crazy these days. Even if the nuts weren’t tightened down tight enough, they couldn’t all work off. Crazy kids, I’d say, playing a pretty nasty trick on you. Let’s see if we can find the hub cap.”

The wrecker arrived a few minutes after Sam found the hub cap in the ditch on the other side. The car was efficiently winched up onto its wheels and pulled out of the ditch. The right side of the station wagon was crumpled and two windows were cracked. Sam listened to directions about how to find the repair garage, thanked Ed, and drove in to the doctor’s. The small town was called Ellendon. The doctor’s name was Biscoe. He explained he was taking over the practice from Dr. Evans. He was small, dark, feline—with a black mustache and trace of unidentifiable accent. He wore a crisp white tunic.

He took Sam off into a small examination room, closed the door and offered Sam a cigarette. “Mr. Bowden, is your wife, would you say, a nervous woman? Tense?”

“No.”

“Then has she been under some great strain lately?”

“Yes. A very great strain indeed.”

He waved his cigarette. “I sense—you know—undercurrents. The boy’s bullet wound. I checked to see if the stitches held. This is none of my business. But were it my wife, I would take steps to see the strain is ended. Soon. It is like combat. She has committed all of her reserves. She is totally in action. She could be broken.”

“What would that mean?”

“Who can say? Retreat from reality when reality becomes more than she wishes to bear, or can afford to bear.”

“But she’s very stable.”

Biscoe smiled. “But not dull stable, stupid stable. No. Intelligent, sensitive, imaginative. She is frightened out of her wits, Mr. Bowden. I have given her a mild sedative. You can get this prescription filled for her, please.”

“How about her mouth?”

“Not enough of a split to try a stitch. I stopped the bleeding. It will be puffed out for a few days. The small one is pleased with his bump. He admires it in the mirror. No other damage.”

“I have to go and see about the car. Would I be imposing too much if I asked to leave them here while I check?”

“Not at all. Miss Walker will have your bill, Mr. Bowden. Your wife is resting and your well-behaved children are out in the back admiring my Belgian hares.”

The station wagon was on the alignment rack being worked on. The service manager said, “Not much damage. We had to use a file on a couple of those chewed threads before we could get the wheel back on. It’s ‘way out of alignment, but I don’t think the frame is sprung. Neither right-hand door will open. We replaced the oil that ran out. Hammering it out would be a long job, of course. But I imagine you want to get back on the road.”

“I’d like to. I don’t think my wife will want to drive. Can you people store my MG for a few days?”

“Sure thing.”

“How soon will the car be ready?”

“Give us another forty minutes.”

“Can I give you a check?”

“Certainly.”

After he had got the prescription filled, he went back to the doctor’s. The nurse showed him where Carol was resting. The shades were drawn and her eyes were shut, but she wasn’t sleeping. She opened her eyes when he approached the bed. There were spatters of dried blood on her blouse.
She smiled weakly and he sat down on the edge of the bed and took her hand.

“I guess all my sawdust ran out,” she said.

“About time, wasn’t it?”

“I’m ashamed of myself. But it wasn’t tipping over in the car. I guess you know that. It was Jamie. Ever since it happened. A little boy like that. Trying to kill him with a gun. Trying to shoot him to death, like killing a little animal.”

“I know.”

“I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. Does my mouth look terrible?”

“Horrible,” he said, grinning at her.

“You know, when I look down I can see my upper lip. It’s cut on the inside. He packed something in there. He’s very nice.”

“He gave you something.”

“I know. It takes the edges off everything. It makes me feel floaty. Is the car ruined?”

“It’ll be ready to roll in a half hour. It won’t be pretty but it’ll run.”

“That’s wonderful! But … but I don’t want to drive it any more today.”

“I’m storing the MG here and we’ll all go in the wagon.”

“All right, dear.”

“How did it act?”

“Right from the first it wasn’t steering right. You know, it sort of wandered. I thought it was out of line again. I had to steer it every minute. And then, on curves, it would make a funny crunchy noise up in the front somewhere. Then, just before it happened, it got much worse. There was a terrible
vibration. I was just starting to put my foot on the brake and blow the horn for you to stop when I saw the wheel go scooting out ahead of me. Just when I realized what it was, we were turning over and something hit me in the mouth. Do they know what happened?”

“Somebody loosened the nuts.”

She looked up at him and then closed her eyes and shut her hand hard on his fingers. “Oh, God!” she whispered.

“He knows the car. He would know the nearest hospital was in Aldermont. He could find that out. Aldermont isn’t large. I don’t imagine they have a night watchman on that lot across from the hotel. If we’d taken the main road with all that fast traffic, it might have been a different story.”

“When does all our luck run out? How long do we wait before that happens?”

“They’ll pick him up.”

“They’ll never pick him up. You know that. I know that. And if they pick him up, they’ll let him go again the way they did last time.”

“Please, Carol.”

She turned her face away from him. Her voice was far away. “I think I was about seven years old. My mother was still alive. We went to a carnival. There was a merry-go-round and my father lifted me up onto a big white horse. It was wonderful for a while. I held the brass pole and the horse went up and down. I didn’t know until later that my father paid the man to make it a long, long ride. After a while the faces of the people began to blur. The music seemed to get louder. When I looked out all I could see was streaks. I wanted it to stop. When I shut my eyes I felt I was going to fall off. Nobody could hear me yell. I had the feeling
it was going faster and faster and the music was getting louder and louder, and I was going to be hurled off.”

“Honey, please.”

“I want it to stop, Sam. I want it to stop going around and around. I want to stop being scared.”

She looked at him with naked plea. He had never felt so helpless in his life. Or loved her so much.

WHEN THEY ARRIVED
at The West Wind in the later afternoon, the crickety little man clucked at the damage to the car, at Carol’s swollen lip, at Bucky’s forehead lump. Jamie had been given firm and explicit orders about talking about his dramatic wound. He looked as though he would pop open from the effort of restraining himself, but he managed it.

Once they had cleaned up, Sam phoned the office again and told Bill Stetch about the accident and then, on sudden impulse, heard himself say, “I know it will raise a certain amount of hell with the routine, but this is a sort of personal situation, Bill, and I’d like to take all of next week off.”

There was a silence on the line and then Bill said, “You haven’t been a ball of fire around here lately. Does Clara know what you’ve got lined up?”

“She’s got the complete schedule. And she’ll know what ones can be canceled and set up for later, and what ones should be handled. She can give you the background you’ll need. Johnny Karick can take on some of it himself.”

“Okay, partner. Hope you get everything straightened away.”

“I’m going to try, Bill. And thanks.”

After completing the call, he went back to Carol’s room and sat at the small desk. Using a pencil and paper to help his concentration, he tried to determine through a process of logic if Cady could have found out about the Suffern hideout. He made a short list of people who knew about it. He questioned Jamie and Nancy and they vowed most solemnly that they had told no one. Except Tommy. And Nancy was certain Tommy had told no one. He checked with the owner and by judicious use of a pair of white lies learned that there had been no inquiries about Mrs. Bowden. The phone calls had been made from the office, but he had placed them himself. Mail had been delivered directly to the office. He had posted his letters to Carol himself. The possibility of Cady tailing them to Suffern was remote. He thought back over the possible times and decided it was so remote as to be checked off entirely.

In the end he decided that Suffern was safe. With proper care it would remain safe. He knew he could not function efficiently if he based his moves on hunch and superstitious alarm. There had to be some starting place. Suffern was safe. So Suffern was an adequate base, a place to operate from.

On Friday and Saturday and Sunday they vegetated. Rest and the sedative improved Carol’s nerves. They swam in sunlight, and in a heavy rain, and once by moonlight. They
ate hugely and slept long hours. And slowly, hour by hour, the resolution grew in Sam’s mind. He found it almost impossible to face it at first. But it became easier and easier. The concept was so alien to his nature as to revolt him. It meant a reversal of all his values, of all the things he lived by. He knew that this inner combat made visible changes in his manner. Several times he saw Carol looking at him speculatively. He knew he seemed moody and absentminded.

In midmorning on Monday, on an oppressively hot day, he took Carol away from her tennis game and took her out in one of the yellow rowboats. The sky in the east had a coppery and ominous look. A moist infrequent wind would ripple the water and then die into a waiting stillness. Carol sat in the stern in white shorts and red halter and trailed her finger tips in the water as he rowed out into the middle of the mile-long lake.

He boated the dripping oars and the boat moved smoothly along until the momentum died. He lighted two cigarettes and handed one to her.

“Thank you. You’re acting weird, you know.”

“I know.”

“And this is the time to reveal all?”

“Yes. But questions first. How are you now?”

“Better, I think. I could go to pieces again if I made a good try at it. Since you convinced me we’re safe here, and because we’re all here together, I feel better. But not joyous. You say it’s safe, but my litter of three are over there, a half mile across the water, and I don’t feel really good unless I can see them and touch them.”

“I know.”

“Why do you want to know how I am? Outside of polite curiosity.”

“There’s something I want to do. I can’t do it alone.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been up one side of this and down the other. I want to kill Cady.”