Flight to Darkness (21 page)

I poured us each a drink, handed one to her.
She gulped it solemnly.

“
I’m going to call the sheriff,” I
said. “You coming?”

“
The sheriff?” she rose, faced me.
“Don’t be a fool, Eric. That’s the worst thing you can do. They’ll
pin this thing on you.”

I didn’t listen. Inside I cursed myself for
feeling any relief over Frank’s death. But it was there, wrong or
not wrong, and somehow I knew the dream was finished. But even with
the dream gone, as I somehow knew it had to be with death, the real
part of the dream was here with me now. I wondered how I’d get
through it. Frank was dead now, and I knew it. So there could be no
more dream. Only I knew the right thing to do, and I had to do
it.

“
Are you coming?” I said. There was
no phone in the barn, the nearest being at a gas station on the
main road. “Don’t forget,” I said. “If I’m in this, you are,
too.”

“
How can you say that?”

“
Just want you to know. We’re in
it, Leda. And it’s bad. It’s the worst of them all.” I stepped over
to the door. “Come on,” I said. “We’ve wasted enough time
already.”

“
You can say you just came in, just
found the body. We’ve got to think, Eric. You can’t go off without
a plan. We’ve got to think.”

“
I have.” I opened the door. “If
you want to stay here, all right.”

She came with me.

I didn’t tell Burkette what it was all about,
just said something had happened and I had to see him right away. I
told him to come alone. Maybe he was the wrong one to call, but I
knew him better than the police.

“
Be right out, Eric. Couldn’t you
tell me what’s up?”

“
You’ll know soon enough.” I hung
up and Leda and I went back to the barn.

“
What’re you going to tell him?”
she asked.

“
I don’t know.”

We stood outside, waiting. The sky was
overcast and the wind had come up some, fingering the palms against
the dark-drenched sky.

I tried to keep my mind away from the body
lying in there on the studio floor, away from all the crazy things
that had happened, and could happen.

I thought of the big neon sign downtown in
Cypress Landing and of how it blinked and flashed the name of a
dead man who, in some people’s minds, had got what he deserved. I
wished I had gone and talked to the Hewitts.

“
You still love me, Eric.” Leda
moved against me. She seemed tiny against the background of murder,
but as her fingers touched my face I knew I would always feel the
same about her. No matter what happened.

“
Yes,” I told her. “Nothing’ll
change that.”

She sighed. We didn’t kiss, we just stood
there, waiting, like two pawns in the hands of the gods.

The sheriff’s gray sedan rolled down the sand
road about twenty minutes from the time we called. Two men climbed
from the car. One was Clyde Burkette, his pale Stetson gleaming in
the car’s lights as he walked toward us. The other was a deputy,
quite young, and very grim.

“
Hello, Clyde. Come inside a
moment.”

He nodded, glanced at Leda, shrugged his
eyebrows, but didn’t say anything. The grim-faced deputy, who
somehow reminded me of Hartly up in Alabama, looking neither right
nor left, opened the door himself, preceded us inside. I lit the
lights.

“
Thought you were coming alone,” I
said.

Burkette shoved his hate on the back of his
head and picked at a front tooth with his thumb nail. “Gallagher
came along for the ride.”

Leda went over and sat by the kitchen table.
She still wore her coat and she looked very tired around the eyes.
Her lips were tense and she kept her hands clasped on the table.
Suddenly she leaped to her feet, ran out the kitchen door. I heard
her gagging outside.

“
What the hell is this?” Burkette
said.

“
Yeah,” Gallagher said. “What is
this?” He was very grim, very professional. His gray shirt and
trousers were creased immaculately, his sparse hair was combed flat
without a single strand astray, and his eyes were very
steady.

Leda stepped back into the kitchen. She was
even paler than before. Her eyes were watering and she clutched a
handkerchief to her lips and swallowed with regularity. It seemed
odd, seeing a nurse sick to her stomach. But I guess it can
happen.

“
In here,” I said. I opened the
door to the studio, lit the lights, and motioned Burkette ahead of
me. Gallagher crowded right behind him. As they entered the room I
couldn’t tear my eyes off the butts of their revolvers, holstered
high on their left sides.

Deputy Gallagher saw the body right away. He
went over and knelt beside it. Burkette clicked loudly at his front
teeth with his thumbnail, then turned to me. His eyes were
squinted.

“
Your brother.”

“
Yes.”

He looked at Leda, who stood partially in the
doorway, then turned to me again. “You got around to it, finally,
eh?”

I’d expected something like this.

“
I didn’t do this. Why in the hell
would I kill my own brother?” The wooden mallet and the dream, you
fool, my mind said.

“
We’ll let that pass.”

Gallagher stood. “Been dead quite a while,” he
said. “Geez, look at his head.”

There was no excitement in them while I kept
burning out inside; burning out like a candle. Burkette kept
watching me all the time.

“
So this is Garth,” Gallagher said.
“This is the guy you told me about?”

Burkette nodded. “Reckon so. Listen, Eric. I
been expecting this. What’s your side?”

I told him exactly what had happened. That I
was modeling Leda. I told him that, too.

He kept looking at Leda and then me with those
infernal black-button eyes of his. I felt everything shredding out,
tightening up, weakening. Everything I said had a hollow ring to
it.

“
What about the Hewitts?” I
said.

“
What about ’em?” Burkette said. He
went over by the body and frowned at it for a while. “A fine job.
Wasn’t your mother buried today?”

“
Yes.”

“
What were you arguing with Frank
about out at the cemetery? Heard about that. He was making quite a
ruckus about something out there.”

Word got around fast. Burkette had told me
that.

“
Nothing,” I said. “It was
just—nothing.”

Leda hadn’t said a word. She leaned against
the doorjamb, not looking anywhere, just standing there with her
eyes blank and unseeing.

“
What you got to say, Mrs. Garth?”
Burkette said. “Looks like you led Frank a merry chase.”

“
Leave her out of it,” I said. “She
just happened by. I found him, like I said. She came along just
before I called you.”

Gallagher edged over until he was by the
kitchen door. He stood with his hands on his hips. We all stared at
each other. The room was very still and outside I could hear the
wind moaning against the barn.

Burkette clicked his teeth. “How about that,
Mrs. Garth? I asked you a question. You don’t have to answer.
Neither of you have to answer, I reckon, you don’t want to. You’ll
answer later, anyways.”

“
I don’t like it,” Gallagher
said.

Leda shifted in the doorway. “I—I don’t know,”
she said softly. She was still very pale, with the handkerchief in
her hand. She avoided looking at the body, she avoided looking at
anybody, even me. “I—it’s just as Eric, Mr. Garth—Eric
said.”

“
Eric’ll do, I reckon,” Burkette
said.

“
For God’s sake, Clyde!” I stepped
over to him. “Act decent, will you? We’ve known each other a long
while. You’ve got to help me.”

“
You’ll need help, all right.
Where’s your other dame, Eric?”

Gallagher looked very grim.

“
Sure,” Burkette said.
“Sure.”

Death was so commonplace to them. Burkette
eyed the body some more and said, “Reckon we’ll run to town. Me an’
you, an’ the girl. Gallagher, you stay here.”

Now it really began to get me. “Listen, Clyde.
We’re wasting time. Whoever did this is laughing someplace. Can’t
you see it’s a frame? I’m it?” I had to believe that, or I’d take a
mallet to my own head.

He nodded. “You’re it, all right. But I don’t
see any frame, Eric. None whatever. It’s right pat, I’d say.” He
cleared his throat. “We’ll have to hold you.”

“
I’m not going
anyplace.”

Gallagher grinned.

Leda said, “You’d better do like they say,
Eric.”

God, now her! Like back in Alabama. A cold
deadly repetition. I looked at her and realized right away she was
all I had in the world. She smiled at me. It was something to have
somebody, let me tell you. Because the world all went apart around
me. I couldn’t understand it. Why in hell should I be framed for
murder, and by whom? It had to be that. It had to.

“
Shall we go?” Burkette said. He
glanced at the deputy. “Just sit tight here, till I get back. Don’t
touch anything.”

He guided me toward the doorway. Leda moved
ahead of us into the kitchen and right then I knew I wasn’t going
anyplace with Burkette, for sure. Everything was working too
smoothly and I was it without any trouble at all.

There’s a moment that comes in every man’s
life when he’s got to act. If the moment slips by, he’s a goner for
sure, and it’s unlikely he’ll get the chance to act again. Anyway,
he either acts or he doesn’t and sometimes his life can hang on
that instant of decision. It isn’t even decision. It’s
instinct.

I knew if I walked out that door with
Burkette, life might not be very sweet, or very long. Somehow
things were mapped out for me, had been ever since I’d left
California. I had to find out who did this myself, and I had to do
it quickly. But before that, I had to get by myself and
start.

So instinct led me by the cupboard door just
as Burkette paused to look in the other room beyond the kitchen.
Leda was at the outside door and the deputy was in the studio. His
footsteps came toward the kitchen, and my hand moved toward the
forty-five on the cupboard shelf by the coffee can.

Leda saw what I was doing and her eyes opened
wide. I grabbed the gun, snaked it down, and Burkette turned as I
rode the slide. He didn’t move. But somehow I wasn’t as worried
about him as I was about Gallagher who had just entered the
kitchen.

He pulled his gun. I didn’t want to fire, but
I did. And the forty-five bucked and thundered. The slug tore into
the wall next to the young deputy and his gun clattered to the
floor.

“
Get over next to him!” I told
Burkette.

Burkette grimaced at Gallagher. “You fool!” he
snapped. “You goddamned fool! Why didn’t you fire?” Gallagher
didn’t say anything. He stared at his gun on the floor.

“
Kick it over here,” I said. “Hurry
up!”

“
Eric,” Leda said. “Don’t do this—
Can’t you see it’s wrong, Eric?”

“
Quiet,” I said. “Start Frank’s
car. Frank’s. Mine’s no good and your heap’s too light. Pull up by
the door.”

I looked at Gallagher. “Take the gun out of
Burkette’s holster and drop it. Drop it right away
quick.”

Burkette was very plain. “Now, damn you,” he
said over his shoulder to Gallagher. “Here’s your chance. Take it,
you fool! You’ve got as much chance as he has. You’ll have a gun in
your hand.”

Gallagher hesitated. Burkette was right and
I’d never given him credit for that kind of courage. He goaded
Gallagher on.

“
Go on,” he said. “You
yellow-bellied son-of-a-bitch! You’ll have a gun right in your
hand. All you got to do is shoot!” He lowered his voice, pointed
with meaning. “If you don’t shoot, by God I’ll break you clean back
into diapers. Get me?” He paused. Still Gallagher waited, sweat
glistened on his face and all the grimness was gone now. He looked
like a lost kid, worried to death, scared stiff.

I knew this was the only way, now. If I tried
to get that gun from Burkette, he’d pull something. I knew he
would. He was mad clear through, and busting out all over. His face
was dark red, his eyes snapping.

Gallagher looked at me and his hand moved
toward Burkette’s left hip.

“
If you do,” I said. “I’ll kill
you.”

The words seemed to hang there in the
room.

Gallagher drew the gun from the holster very
slowly.

“
Now!” Burkette yelled. “Get ’im!”
He dropped to his knees.

Gallagher stood there a moment with the gun
dangling in his hand. It was his moment, just as it had been
mine.

He started to shake all over. The gun
clattered to the floor. He looked as if somebody had hit him with a
hammer right behind the ear. I thought he was going to
bawl.

“
Now, get back in that other room,
both of you!”