I Know What You Did Last Summer (4 page)

Elsa worked an eight-hour day at. Wards Department Store
and was a great believer that the only kind of work that counted
was the kind that made your back ache and sent you home
exhausted.

"Oh, there's more to it than that," Helen tried to tell her.
"You're at their beck and call whenever they need somebody to
represent the station for publicity reasons. And it can really kill
your evenings, having to give the weather reports on the ten
o'clock news broadcast."

Even to her own ears the statement sounded ludicrous. In
all honesty she knew that being selected as the Channel Five Golden
Girl was the culmination of almost every dream she had ever
had.

Helen's looks were the best thing she had going for her, and she
was born realistic enough to have recognized the fact early. At the
age of twelve she had sat down one day and examined herself in the
mirror.

What she had seen there had been pleasing, but not pleasing
enough. Cold-bloodedly she had analyzed her attributes-good
bones, even teeth, fine features. She had a good bust for her age
but too much weight in the hips. Her coloring was too pale, her
hair rather ordinary, but thick and healthy. Her hands were not
particularly small, but they were long-fingered and
artistic-looking, despite bitten fingernails.

She broke the fingernail habit immediately through sheer
willpower. The rest took more time, especially the weight loss.
Helen liked to eat, and the food that was served in her home was
usually of the inexpensive and starchy variety. A strenuous
diet had brought her figure under control, and
experimentation with rinses and make-up had brought out the
honey highlights in her hair and fringed her deep violet eyes, her
most unusual feature, with long, blue-black lashes.

"What do you think you are, a fairy princess?" Elsa had jibed at
her.

Helen had ignored her. It would have been nice, she had admitted
to herself, if such had been the case. As the second daughter in a
large family, she had no illusions about magic and fairy
godmothers. She had only to look at her own mother, haggard from
years of housework and budget-stretching and childbearing, and her
father, sweating out his days at construction work, to know that
her chances for a luxurious future were slim.

Still, she was pretty, and that could serve for something. It
would have to, she told herself, because she certainly had no
academic talents. Dropping out of school to accept the offer
of the Golden Girl job had been more of a relief than a sacrifice.
She had stuck through school that far for one reason only-she had
fallen in love.

She had loved Barry Cox from the first moment she had seen him.
Big and broad-shouldered, handsome and popular, he was as
close to perfect as any guy she could ever have imagined. As
captain of the city's winning high school football team, he could
have had his pick of any girl he wanted. His choosing her was
the surprising thing, the actual miracle.

It had happened so suddenly that she had never been able to
figure out the exact circumstances. She had been walking home from
school, when a bright red sports car had pulled up beside her, and
Barry had been in it.

"Hi, there," he had said. "Climb in and I'll drive you
home."

When he let her off, he had asked her for a date. It had
happened that simply, and her world had never been the same
again.

Now, stretched in the deck chair, letting the warmth of the
morning sun sink into her body, she thought, I shouldn't have
called him.

Barry didn't like to be pressured. She had learned that from his
mother. One time soon after they had started dating she had called
him at home to check on what time he was coming to pick her up.

Mrs. Cox had answered the phone.

"Let me give you some advice, dear," she had said in her cool,
sharp voice. "Barry is a boy who doesn't react well to being
chased. If he wants to talk with you, he will do the calling. Your
little affair will last longer that way, believe me."

Since then she had called him only when absolutely
necessary. Yesterday's call had seemed at the time to fall into
that category, but in retrospect she realized that it had not Barry
had been irritated; he did have exams to study for. Dragging him
away from his books to confront him with mat silly note had been
ridiculous. His explanation had been so reasonable that it now
seemed incredible that she and Julie could not have thought of it
themselves.

"Excuse me. Would it be all right if I sat down here?"

The voice came from directly beside her, startling her so that
she jumped. Her eyes flew open and for a moment she was blinded by
the sun.

"I'm sorry," the young man said. "I didn't mean to scare
you."

"You didn't. I must have been half-asleep. I didn't hear you
come up."

Helen shaded her eyes with one hand to look up at him. Her
glance took in the brown eyes, brown hair, a strong, square-cut
face, a medium sort of build. He was wearing conservative olive
green swimming trunks, cut like shorts.

Helen was used to the faces around the apartments, and
this one was unfamiliar.

"You're new here?" she asked.

"Just moved in yesterday. Apartment 211. Will I bother you if I
sit down?"

"No, of course not." Helen leaned back in the chair and watched
idly as he settled himself into an identical chair beside her.
There were plenty of other seats around the pool and a number of
other people beside whom he could have sat.

"This is the heavy day for sunbathers," she told him. "Saturdays
most people are off from work and trying to build up their tans. My
name's Helen Rivers."

"Collingsworth Wilson, here, if you'll excuse the mouthful. Just
out of the service. I've been staying out at my folks' place in the
mountains and finally decided to cut loose and get my own
apartment. I think I'll be going to summer school at the
University."

"The guy I go with goes to the U," Helen said. She made a point
of working such a statement into the conversation as soon as
possible upon meeting new people. She had found that it allowed the
pleasure of harmless flirtation without presenting the
problem of having to turn down dates. " 'Collingsworth' is a
different sort of name. Do they call you 'Collie'?"

"I've got a family nickname that my kid brother stuck me with,"
the boy told her. "But Collie's okay too. A lot of people do call
me that. I'm like a well-trained puppy; I answer to anything."

"A well-trained
Collie?"
Helen said, smiling. She was
not usually much on puns, but this one had come easily. "I'm glad
to meet you. We're practically next-door neighbors. I'm on the
second level too, down the way from you in 215."

"And who's the boyfriend?" Collie asked. "So that I can be sure
to avoid him?"

"His name's Barry Cox. He lives on campus, but he comes over a
lot. You'll be meeting him. Every-body meets everybody here in the
summer." She closed her eyes again and rolled over onto her
stomach so that the sun could reach her shoulders. "The pool
area makes a wonderful meeting place. We all sit around and talk
and party. Four Seasons is a great place to live. I know you'll
like it"

"I like it already," Collie said simply. "But I'd prefer it if
the prettiest girl here wasn't all tied up to some lunk before I
can even get my bid in. Have you been going with this guy
long?"

"Almost two years. We were steadies back in high school, and
he's definitely not a lunk. Do you think I'm burning?"

"I don't know," Collie said. "I can't tell what's happening
under all that suntan oil."

"Well, I'd better get inside. I've been out here a couple of
hours already." Helen rolled over and sat up. "I can't afford to
start peeling. If I look a mess I might lose my job."

"What sort of work do you do where you can't get a sunburn?"
Collie asked. "Are you a model or something?"

"I'm the Channel Five Golden Girl." Despite herself, Helen could
not keep the pride from showing in her voice. It was still
such a new sensation to be able to make such a statement "Maybe
you've seen me on TV."

"If I had, I'm sure I'd remember it," the boy said seriously. "I
don't usually watch TV much, but I can see where I'm going to have
to start"

"There's a set down in the rec room," Helen told him.

She picked up the bottle of suntan lotion and got to her
feet

He'll be a nice addition to the men around here, she thought
objectively. He's not as handsome as Barry by a long shot but a lot
of girls are going to like him. Wait till those two icky
schoolteachers in 214 get a look at him. They'll tear each other to
shreds over who gets her hooks in first

"Cook well," she said. "But don't doze off the way I did or you
might find yourself turned into a lobster. This southwest sun can
really get to you when you're not used to it"

"Right on. Good luck on not peeling." Collingsworth Wilson
raised a hand in casual farewell.

He's nice, Helen thought again as she skirted the pool and
climbed the stairs to the second level. The doors to the
second-floor apartments all opened onto a narrow balcony. She
walked slowly along it, wondering how red she really was. It
had been a foolish thing, she knew, to have lain out like that
right in the middle of the day. A tan could look great on camera,
but it had to be picked up carefully at no more than an hour at a
time.

If I do peel, she told herself, maybe I can work it into the
weather report. "It was good and hot today. I hope you viewers
showed better sense than I did." That was the sort of thing she was
beginning to learn to do-to toss out ad libs. As she kept telling
Elsa, there was more to television work than just looking pretty
and smiling. You had to think under stress and seem natural and
come out with occasional personality-type remarks so you
didn't come across as a mechanical doll.

There was a paper taped to the door of her apartment. She
didn't see it until she reached it, and then she could only stand
and stare.

It was a picture cut from a magazine advertisement. The
written message was cut away, and what remained was a drawing of a
little boy on a bicycle.

chapter 5

When the envelope arrived in the morning mail, Ray Bronson was
not surprised. He opened it and drew out the newspaper clipping. He
knew what it contained, for he had read it many times before. Now
he did so again and felt all the old sensations:

"A ten-year-old boy was killed last night in a hit-and-run
accident on Mountain Road, two miles south of the Silver Springs
picnic area. Dead is David Gregg, son of Mr. and Mrs. Michael Gregg
of 1279 Morningside Road Northeast. David was riding his bicycle
when he was struck by the unidentified automobile.

"A phone call from one of the occupants of the car informed
authorities of the accident. A police car and an ambulance
immediately departed for the scene. The boy was conscious
upon arrival of the rescue crew but died en route to St. Joseph's
Hospital.

"Mr. Gregg informed reporters that his son had been spending the
night at the home of a friend in the Mountain Road area and had
evidently decided to return home during the evening. The
bicycle did not have a light or reflectors.

"Police are looking for the car that struck young Gregg. Paint
deposits on the bicycle show it to have been light blue in
color.

"David is survived by his parents ...
a
half
brother ... a half sister... a maternal grandfather ... two
aunts ... an uncle...."

Ray folded the article and put it back into the envelope. His
own address stared up at him in the same black, hand-printed
letters that had formed the message to Julie.

It's not a joke, he told himself quietly. It's not a joke at
all.

Not that he had ever really believed that it was. Since Julie
had thought so, there had seemed little sense in pursuing the
matter. It was
possible.
It might have been a joke. And
she had managed to convince herself.

In his heart, even then, he had been pretty sure that it
wasn't.

So it's caught up with us, he thought, finally. His own lack of
surprise was the thing that surprised him. It was as though he had
known all along, somewhere deep within himself, that this was
going to happen. It was why he had come home, and a year ago it was
why he had gone away.

Raymond Bronson of a year ago had been
a
pretty
spineless individual. He had always been small, which was part of
it It wasn't so much that he was short-five-foot-eight was a
passable height -as the fact that he was lean and light-boned and
not particularly well-muscled. In some families this would not have
mattered. When you were the only son of a man who had once been a
professional football player, it mattered a lot.

Herb Bronson, Ray's father, had been known in his youth as The
Booter. Friends from early days still called him that, and he
sometimes referred to himself that way in a half-joking manner.

"Dinner ready yet?" he would call out as he came in the door in
the evening. "The Booter's hungry enough to eat a bull!"

And Mrs. Bronson, busy in the kitchen, would laugh and call
back, "How lucky for me! Braised bull is just what I'd planned to
serve!"

The Booter had not had a particularly long or glorious career.
He had received a knee injury in his second year as a defensive
halfback and had reluctantly retired from professional
athletics. He was, however, a highly successful businessman.
Morrison's Sporting Goods Store had been the first of what
eventually became a small chain of stores in two southwestern
states.

Ray's build had been a disappointment to the Booter, and he had
always known it. At the same time, he had known that his father
loved him. Teasing comments were tempered with affection.