I Know What You Did Last Summer (10 page)

"I had to try phoning a couple of places," Ray said. Julie could
see by his eyes that the lie did not come easily. "I finally got
somebody. He's on his way."

"There's a glass of ice tea for you over there on the table,"
Megan said.

"Thanks a lot, but I think we'd better get back to the car." He
turned to Julie. "Are you ready?"

"Yes." Oh, yes-she added silently-yes, yes, yes. "Megan, thank
you."

"Why, you're surely welcome. Selfishly, I'm just as glad you did
have car trouble. I've been dying for somebody to visit with."

"I hope your mother gets better soon," Julie said, thinking how
inadequate the words were.

"I believe she will. She has good doctors. And, of course, she
has Pop there with her." The girl smiled warmly. "Come to the Bon
Marche someday and let me do your hair for you. It's such a pretty
color, it would be fun to work with."

"Thank you. Maybe I will." She felt Ray's hand on her arm.
"Goodbye."

"Goodbye. I hope there's nothing
too
serious wrong with
your car!" Megan called after them as they started toward the
road.

They did not speak until they were in the car. Ray turned the
key in the ignition and started the engine.

"The two of you sure got chummy mighty quickly," he said in a
low voice. "What's the bit about her mother?"

"Megan's the Greggs' daughter," Julie told him, keeping her
voice low so that it could not possibly carry back to the girl in
the yard behind them. "Mrs. Gregg holds herself responsible for
David's accident. She's had a breakdown and is in a hospital south
of here."

"Oh, God," Ray said painfully. "It never ends, does it?"

"Mr. Gregg's down there with her," Julie continued. "And
Megan's here alone. Ray-" She fought to keep back the tears that
were just beneath the surface. "We didn't just kill a little boy.
We wrecked a whole family!"

"Every life is entwined with other people's," Ray muttered.
"Like Barry's is with his parents' and Helen's, and even with ours.
Are you sorry we came here?"

"Yes," Julie said. "I wish I didn't know. Before, these people
were just names in a newspaper article. Now they're real. I'll
never get Megan out of my mind, standing there, taking down
laundry, talking about her little brother and how he used to call
her 'Sissy.' " She raised her hand and wiped the back of it across
her eyes. "There's one thing, though. We can be sure now that the
Greggs didn't have anything to do with what happened to
Barry."

"How do you get that?" Ray asked.

"Well, Megan couldn't have-not and act the way she did with us.
And her parents aren't here. They've been down in Las Lunas for
several months now."

"She told you that?"

"Yes. That's why she acted so lonesome. She's living here all by
herself."

"That's funny," Ray said. "That house trim has been painted all
the way up to the peak of the roof. She's such a short little
thing, I don't see how she could reach that far."

"Perhaps a neighbor's helping her," Julie suggested. She
was surprised at his observation. "What difference does it
make?"

"None, I guess," Ray said. "But there's something else that
bothers me. If she's living there alone, why were a man's shirts
hanging on the line?"

"Maybe she wears them herself. A lot of girls wear their
father's shirts to mess around in. I don't, of course, because I
don't have a father, but a lot of my friends do."

"Okay," Ray said. "Okay, you've made your point."

Julie could see that her nervous chatter was begin-ing to
irritate him.

"I liked Megan," she said in a small voice. "I really did, Ray,
and I think that Megan liked me."

"That doesn't mean that her father isn't capable of picking up a
gun and shooting somebody. You've told me that David was Mr.
Gregg's only natural child. Megan and any other kids in the family
are children from Mrs. Gregg's previous marriage. A man in that
position would have a darned good reason for going off his
rocker."

"But, her father's not there! He hasn't been there for months!
Don't you believe that?"

"I don't know," Ray said wearily. "I honestly don't know what I
believe anymore."

chapter 11

They were on North Madison now, and with a practiced hand he
spun the wheel to turn the car into the parking lot of the Four
Seasons Apartments.

It was the first occasion he had had to call on anyone who lived
in this apartment complex. He had to admit to himself that he was
impressed as he followed Julie around the pool and up the steps to
the level of second-floor apartments.

"Helen really seems to have hit the big time," he murmured as
Julie pressed the buzzer beside the door of number 215.

She nodded. "Wait until you see the inside!"

The interior of the apartment was done in blues and greens and
several shades of lavender. The cool colors were a perfect backdrop
for Helen herself who, unlike Julie, seemed to have changed little
during the past year except, perhaps, to have grown even
prettier.

She was glad to see them-almost too glad, grasping their
hands in greeting and giving Ray a quick, welcoming kiss on the
cheek.

"How great to see you! You look marvelous, Ray, all tanned and
shaggy. I just love men with beards."

She led the way through the foyer into the living room where a
pale, heavy-set girl was seated on the sofa.

"Elsa," Helen said, "this is Ray Bronson, a friend from high
school. I think you already know Julie James. Ray-my sister,
Elsa."

"Glad to meet you, Elsa," Ray said politely, privately
deciding just the opposite. He had seldom been introduced to anyone
whose appearance made her less pleasing to meet. It seemed
incredible on looking at her that this dumpy, sullen-faced girl
could be closely related to someone as attractive as Helen.

"Hi," Elsa said. "Hello, Julie. Have you been sick or something?
You sure don't look the same as you used to."

"I've lost a little weight, I guess," Julie said.

"Sit down," said Helen. "Let me get you a beer or a coke or
something."

"Thanks, but we didn't plan to stay very long." Julie made no
move to take a seat. "We just thought we'd stop by to see what
you'd heard about Barry. We didn't know you'd have company."

"Oh, don't worry about me," Elsa said. "I was just getting ready
to leave anyway." She spread her legs apart, shifted her weight
forward, and got heavily to her feet. "I came by for the same
reason. When I read that article in the morning paper, I just
couldn't believe it. I said to Mom, 'That's Barry Cox who got shot!
That's Helen's boyfriend!' I said, 'I'd better stop over after work
and see how Helen's taking it.' I thought she'd be a wreck."

"I was one last night," Helen said, "when Collie drove me down
to the hospital."

"Collie?" Elsa's sharp little eyes brightened with interest.
"Who in the world is that?"

"A nice guy who lives down the hall. He heard the report on TV
and knew how I'd take it, so he came down to the studio to get me.
The Coxes were there at the hospital, and Barry was in surgery, and
they didn't know if he was going to live or not. It was awful. But
today things are better."

"I called the hospital this morning," Ray said. "They wouldn't
tell me much, but they did say he was out of recovery."

"I called too, and then again this afternoon.''

"I'm surprised that you're not down there with him now," Elsa
commented. "After all, to hear you talk, you're practically engaged
to the guy."

"Barry needs his rest. I'll be going down to see him later."
There was a note of strain in Helen's voice. "Thanks for coming by,
Elsa. It was nice of you."

"Well, of course, I came! My sister's boyfriend, shot in the
stomach! It's like something out of a movie. You think of things
like this happening in New York and Chicago and places like that,
not in peaceful towns with normal people." Reluctantly, Elsa began
to move in the direction of the door.

Helen stepped ahead of her to open it

"Oh, by the way," Elsa paused again, "Mom says to ask you if you
want to come home for a couple of days. You know-move back into the
old homestead where she can feed you and give you hot tea and
stuff. She's afraid you won't eat over here by yourself."

"No. Tell her thank you, but I'm doing fine." Helen held the
door wider. "Goodbye. Give my love to the rest of the family, and
thanks again for coming over."

"That's okay. Like I said, it's just terrible. Mom will be
calling you tonight, I guess, since you don't want to come home.
She's sort of worried about how you're taking this. Goodbye,
Julie-you take care of yourself. It's nice to have met you,
Ray."

The words kept coming as Elsa moved through the door and out
onto the terraced hallway and only ended when Helen pushed the door
closed behind her and leaned against it with an expression of
exaggerated exhaustion.

"Thank heaven," she said with a sigh of relief. "I was never so
glad to see anybody in my life as I was when you two walked in. I
was afraid I'd be stuck with her here all night."

"She sure doesn't bear much resemblance to you," Ray commented.
"Are you sure you're really from the same family?"

"Too sure. Why do you think I was in such a hurry to move into
my own place? It wasn't to get away from my parents. I grew up
sharing a room with Elsa." Helen left the door and came back into
the living room to collapse onto the sofa that her sister had just
vacated. "She was waiting here for me when I came back from the
studio, and she's been here ever since, going over and over every
grim detail and asking the most awful questions. I actually think
she's enjoying the situation. She's never liked Barry anyway, and
she gets to brag to everybody in the store where she works that
he's practically her brother-in-law and shot down in cold
blood."

"Are you really going down to the hospital tonight?" Ray
asked her. "Are they allowing visitors?"

"Only family, and I don't qualify. At least, I didn't when I
asked about it this morning." Helen made a gesture of frustration.
"I just told that to Elsa to get her off my back. I
ought
to be able to see him."

"You certainly should," agreed Julie. "Can't the Coxes take you
in with them when they go?"

"Are you kidding?" Helen said ruefully. "That's the last way
I'll ever get in. You can't believe the things Mrs. Cox said to me
last night while Barry was in surgery. She practically ordered me
out of the waiting room. She even accused me of making the
telephone call that brought him out onto the athletic field."

"Then you
didn't
make it?" Ray asked her. "When the
paper said that he received a call from somebody-"

"I know. I read that too. But I wasn't the one."

"Then I guess you don't know anymore than we do," Ray said. "We
were hoping you could clear up a lot of things for us."

"I can't. The only thing-" Her voice fell off.

"What?"

"Well, there's that magazine picture that was on my door and the
note that somebody sent Julie."

"And the clipping that was sent to me," said Ray.

"A clipping?" Helen's eyes widened questioningly "The newspaper
account of the accident I got it in the mail on Saturday morning.
Somebody went to ail the trouble of cutting it out and saving it
and sending it to me."

"And you think there's a connection between that and what
happened to Barry?" Helen asked him. "Oh, there couldn't be! I
don't want to believe that."

"Neither does Julie," said Ray. "She's doing everything
she can to convince herself that it isn't so."

"No," Julie said in a low voice. "No-I'm finally convinced, now
that we know it wasn't Helen who made that call. Somebody had to
make it. But I don't believe it was one of the Greggs."

"Then who was it?" Ray demanded. "Can you come up with somebody
else?"

"Not right off, but that doesn't mean there isn't
somebody-someone who hated Barry for some other reason
entirely."

"That's impossible," Helen said. "Nobody could hate Barry."

"How do you know?" Julie asked her.

"I know Barry better than anybody. After all, I've been going
with him steadily for two full years. He doesn't have an enemy in
the world."

Julie opened her mouth as though to respond to the statement,
thought better of it, and closed it again. She turned to Ray.

"What do you think we ought to do?"

"I vote we go to the police," Ray said, "and tell them the whole
story. It's what we should have done in the very beginning."

"The police!" Helen exclaimed. "We can't do that, and you know
it. We made a pact."

"Well, we can dissolve the pact," Ray said, "if the three of us
agree to."

"I won't agree," Helen said. "Not ever. I think it's a rotten
thing for you to suggest Just because Barry's flat on his back in
the hospital where he can't stand up for himself, you want to throw
him to the wolves."

"That's not it at all!" Ray was beginning to get angry. "When we
made the pact we never guessed that anything like this was going to
happen. If the person who shot Barry did it as revenge for the
Gregg boy's death, why should he stop with shooting one of the four
of us? Next time it will be you or Julie or me."

"And if Barry wasn't shot for that reason, if it was just a
crazy accident because some college freak was high and walking
around waving a pistol, then you'd be reporting him for nothing.
Barry would get out of the hospital and find himself facing a jail
sentence. Hasn't he suffered enough without that?"

"Couldn't we talk to him?" Julie said.
"He's
bound to
know what happened."

"How do you propose to get into the hospital to do that?" Helen
asked bitterly. "If I can't see him, how can you?"