Comes the Blind Fury (32 page)

He reached Billy at last and knelt by the boy’s limp
body. He glanced at Billy’s face, noted the broken neck, then automatically took the child’s wrist between his fingers.

There was a pulse.

Cal thought he was imagining it at first, but a moment later he knew: Billy Evans was still alive.

Why can’t he be dead?
Cal silently asked.
Why does he have to depend on me?

He leaned over Billy reluctantly, forcing himself to examine him.

He was going to have to move the boy.

He hesitated. Only a few weeks earlier he had gathered up his own child. Now she was crippled. Panic rose in him, and for a split second he felt paralyzed. Then, slowly, his mind began to reason.

When the ambulance arrived, the attendants would move Billy. Perhaps he should wait.

But he was a doctor. He
had
to do something.

Besides, if he didn’t, he was sure that Billy would be dead by the time the ambulance arrived—he could see the constriction in the boy’s neck, see him slowly strangling. If Billy was to survive, Cal had to straighten out his neck.

He began to move Billy’s head.

As the flow of air passed more freely into his lungs, Billy’s complexion began to change. The blueness faded. Then, as Cal watched, the child began to breathe more easily.

Cal began to let himself relax.

Billy Evans was going to live.

In the distance, the wail of the ambulance started up. To Cal, the sound was a symphony of hope.

As the sound of the ambulance grew louder, June stood up and went to the window. From where she stood, she could see nothing—only one corner of the backstop, ominously visible, the rest of it blocked from her view by the building.

“I can’t stand it,” she said. Tim, go see what’s happening. Please?”

Tim Hartwick nodded. He started out of the office, then paused at the door.

“I told Mrs. Evans to come here. You’re sure you don’t want me to wait with you?” He glanced pointedly at Michelle, who was sitting on a straight-backed chair, her gaze fixed in midair, her face frozen in an expression of shock.

“If she gets here before you get back, I’ll handle it,” June insisted. “Just find out—find out if he’s alive.”

Half an hour later, only Michelle, June, and Tim were left at the school. The ambulance, with Billy and Cal in the rear, had departed for the clinic, and Billy’s mother had followed, insisting she could drive herself once she was assured that her son was still alive. The small crowd that had gathered in the schoolyard had quickly dispersed, the people leaving in small groups, whispering among themselves, and occasionally glancing back toward the school, where they knew Michelle Pendleton was still sitting in Tim Hartwick’s office.

Tim signaled June to join him in the hall for a moment. When they were alone, he told her that he would like to talk to Michelle.

“So soon?” June asked. “But—she’s too upset!”

“We have to find out what happened. I think if I talk to her now, before she’s had much of a chance to
really think about it, I’ll get the closest thing to the truth.”

June’s maternal instincts leaped to her daughter’s defense. “You mean before she’s had a chance to make up a story?”

“That’s not what I said, and it’s not what I meant,” Tim said quickly. “I want to talk to her before her mind has had a chance to make whatever happened seem logical to her. And I want to find out why she was so sure Billy was dead.”

“All right,” June said at last, reluctantly. “But don’t push her. Please?”

“I never would,” Tim said gently. He left June alone in the hall while he returned to Michelle.

“Why did you think Billy was dead?” Tim asked gently. It had taken him ten minutes to convince Michelle that her friend hadn’t died, and he still wasn’t sure she believed him. “He didn’t fall very far—just a few feet, really.”

“I just knew it,” Michelle replied. “You can tell.”

“You can? How?”

“Just—just by—things. You know.”

Tim waited a moment, but when Michelle didn’t go on, he decided to ask her to tell him again what had happened. He listened without interrupting while she recited the story again.

“And that’s all?” he asked when she was finished.

Michelle nodded.

“Now I want you to think very carefully,” Tim said. “I want you to go over it all once more, and try to remember if you left anything out.”

Michelle began going over the story again. This
time Tim stopped her occasionally, trying to prod her memory for detail.

“Now, when Billy started walking along the top of the backstop, where were you standing?”

“At the end of it, right where he climbed up it.”

“Were you touching it? Leaning on it?”

Michelle frowned a little, trying to remember. “No. I was using my cane. I was leaning on my cane.”

“All right,” Tim said “Now, tell me again what happened while Billy was walking the rail.”

She told it exactly as she had before.

“I was watching him,” Michelle said. “I was telling him to be careful, because I was afraid he might fall. And then he tripped—he just tripped, and fell. I tried to catch him, but I couldn’t—he was too far away, and I—well, I can’t move very fast anymore.”

“But what did he trip on?” Tim asked.

“I don’t know—I couldn’t see.”

“You couldn’t see? Why not?” A thought occurred to him. “Was it foggy? Did it get foggy?”

For a split second there was a flicker in Michelle’s eyes, but then she shook her head.

“No. I couldn’t see because I’m not tall enough. Maybe—maybe there was a nail sticking up.”

“Maybe so,” Tim agreed. Then: “What about Amanda? Was she there?”

Again, for just a split second, there was that flicker in Michelle’s eyes. But, again, she shook her head.

“No”

“You’re sure?” Tim urged her. “It could be very important.”

Now Michelle shook her head more definitely. “No!” she exclaimed. “There was no fog, and
Amanda wasn’t with me. Billy tripped! That’s all, he just tripped. Don’t you believe me?”

Tim could see that she was on the verge of tears.

“Of course I do,” he said, smiling at her. “You like Billy Evans, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Did he ever tease you?”

“Tease me?”

“You know—the way Susan Peterson did, and some of the other kids.”

“No.” Again, Tim thought he noticed a hesitation.

There was more to the story than Michelle was telling him, but he wasn’t sure that he would be able to get it out of her. Something was holding her back. It was as if she was protecting something. He thought he knew what it was.

Amanda.

Amanda, the dark side of Michelle, had done something, and Michelle was protecting her. Tim knew it would be a long time before he would be able to convince Michelle to abandon her “friend.”

As he was wondering what to say next, Michelle suddenly met his eyes.

“He’s going to die,” she said softly. Tim stared at her, not sure he had heard her right. Then, her voice still soft, but very definite, Michelle repeated the words.

“I know Billy’s going to die.”

June drove slowly, Cal beside her in the front seat, Michelle in the back. Each of them was in his own private world, although both Cal and June were thinking about Billy Evans, lying in a coma in the clinic. Josiah Carson had done as much for the boy as he could,
and had given Cal a light sedative. Tomorrow a neurologist would come from Boston. But Cal and Josiah were both sure that the specialist’s findings would only verify what they already knew—Billy’s strangulation had gone on too long; there was brain damage. How extensive the damage was wouldn’t be known until Billy came out of the coma.

If he came out of it.

The silence in the car was beginning to tell on June. She was relieved when she finally had an excuse to break it.

“I have to stop at the Bensons’ to pick up Jenny.”

Cal nodded once, but made no verbal reply. Only when she had turned in at the Bensons’ did he speak.

“I wish you wouldn’t leave Jenny like this.”

“Well, I couldn’t very well bring her with me, could I?”

“You could have called me. I’d have come out and driven you both in.”

“Frankly, I wasn’t sure you’d even be at the school,” June said. Then she remembered Michelle’s silent presence in the backseat. “Never mind. Next time I’ll either call you or bring Jenny with me.” She opened the car door and got out, then held the back door for Michelle. Cal was already on the Bensons’ porch as June and Michelle started up the steps.

Constance Benson must have been waiting for them, for the door opened just as Cal was about to knock. June thought she saw the woman’s lips tighten as she glanced at Michelle. When she said nothing, June decided to wait until they were inside to explain what had happened. But it soon became apparent that Constance Benson had already heard. “I just talked to Estelle Peterson,” she said. “A terrible thing—terrible.”
Again, she glanced at Michelle. This time, June was sure there was hostility in her eyes.

“It was an accident,” June said quickly. “Billy was trying to walk the backstop, and he fell. Michelle tried to catch him.”

“Did she?” Constance Benson’s voice was carefully neutral, but June was sure she could hear a hint of sarcasm in it. “I’ll get the baby. She’s upstairs, asleep.”

“I can’t thank you enough for taking care of her,” June said gratefully. Constance was already on the stairs, but she turned back to face June as she spoke.

“Babies aren’t any trouble at all,” she said. “It’s only when they start growing up that the problems come.”

Michelle was standing just inside the door. She took a step toward her father.

“She thinks I did something, doesn’t she?” she asked, when Constance continued up the stairs.

Cal shook his head but said nothing. Michelle turned to her mother.

“Doesn’t she?” she repeated.

“Of course not,” June replied. She went to Michelle, and slipped an arm protectively around her daughter’s shoulders. When Constance reappeared a moment later with Jennifer cradled in her arms, she paused, as if unwilling to deliver the baby to June while she was so close to Michelle. There was a silence, broken at last by Michelle.

“I didn’t hurt Billy,” she said. “It was an accident.”

“What happened to Susan Peterson was an accident, too,” Constance replied. “But I wouldn’t want to try to convince her mother of it.”

June felt herself becoming angry, and decided, quite consciously, not to suppress it.

“That’s a cruel thing to say, Mrs. Benson. You saw what happened to Susan Peterson, and you know perfectly well that Michelle had nothing to do with it. And today, she tried to help Billy Evans. If she could move faster, she would have.”

“Well, all I know is that ‘accidents’ don’t just happen. Something causes them, and you can’t tell me any different!” She handed Jennifer to June, but her eyes suddenly moved to Michelle.

“If I were you, I’d be careful with this baby,” she said. She was still staring at Michelle. “It doesn’t take much of a fall to kill a child this age.”

June’s mouth dropped open in astonishment as she realized the implication of what Constance Benson had said. She searched for a suitable reply. When no words came, she simply handed Jenny to Michelle.

“Take her out to the car, will you, darling?” she asked.

Michelle carefully took the baby in one arm while she used the other to balance herself with the cane. June kept her eyes on Constance Benson, as if challenging her to say anything further. Michelle, cradling the baby in her left arm, started shakily toward the door.

“Will you go with her?” June asked Cal. “I don’t see how she’ll be able to get the car door open, too. But I imagine she could do it if she had to.”

Cal, sensing the tension between the two women, quickly followed Michelle out to the porch. Left alone with Constance Benson, June struggled to control her voice.

“Thank you for looking after Jennifer,” she said at last. “Now that I’ve said that, I have to tell you that I
think you’re the most cruel and ignorant person it has ever been my misfortune to meet. In the future, neither I nor my family will bother you again. I’ll find someone else to sit with Jenny, or do it myself. Good-bye.”

She started toward the door but was stopped cold by Constance Benson’s voice.

“I won’t hold that against you, Mrs. Pendleton,” Constance said. “You don’t know what’s happening. You just don’t know.”

Michelle started down the steps, holding Jenny tight against her chest while she used the cane to find her footing. She stayed close to the bannister, so that if she slipped she could lean against it. When she got to the bottom she stopped, and slowly released the breath she had been holding as she made her way down from the Bensons’ porch. “We made it,” she whispered, smiling down at Jenny’s little face. Seeming to understand her, Jenny looked up at her, gurgling happily. A tiny trickle of spittle dribbled from one corner of her mouth. Michelle dabbed it away with a corner of the blanket.

And then, suddenly, the fog started closing around her. She glanced up quickly, seeing the mists coming fast, and hearing the first faint whispers of Amanda’s voice. She saw her father, standing next to the car, watching her.