I Know What You Did Last Summer (9 page)

"You know I don't mean that," Julie said sharply. "And I'm not
out of my mind at all. We've agreed that the people who have the
most right to hate us are the boy's mother and father. How are we
ever going to find out about them if we don't see them?"

"You said 'talk with them.'"

"Yes, talk, but not about this. I thought-oh, Ray, couldn't we
go up to the door and introduce ourselves and say we were having
car trouble? We could ask to use the phone. If they aren't the
ones, they would never know the difference. They'd just think we
were a couple of teenagers who had been up here parking and
couldn't get down again."

"A
nd if they
are
the ones who are
after us?"

"We'd know it," Julie said. "At least, I'm sure
I
would. When they saw us, when they heard our names, it would show
in their faces. The shock of seeing us appear like that on their
doorstep-"

"Could send them straight for their gun." Ray completed the
sentence for her. "If they are the people who shot Barry, don't you
imagine they'd like to add two more to the list?"

"In their own front yard?" Julie shook her head. "Be reasonable.
It's broad daylight, and there are sure to be neighbors. It's
different from the situation with Barry. Besides, I just can't
believe someone's out to kill us all. I still think it's a drug
freak, and that poor Barry happened into the wrong place at the
wrong time, just like-well, like little David Gregg did."

"I don't like it," Ray said. "Like I said, it's sick.
I
sure don't want to see them."

"But I do." Julie's voice was low and firm. It was the same
voice that had stated so flatly a year ago, "It's over, Ray.
Whatever it was that we had, it's over. I'm breaking free of you,
of the others, of everything that will ever remind me of that awful
night." She had meant that, and she meant this now.

"I want to see them," Julie said determinedly. "If we're facing
this, then let's really face it. Let's
know.
I'm going to
the house, and if you want to take me there, fine. If you don't,
I'll take Mom's car and drive up there myself."

chapter 10

The house was one of a cluster of little homes almost at the end
of the narrow, unpaved road which led off to the east from the
Mountain Highway. All the houses there were of masonry
construction, small and white with pitched roofs, half lost
in the shadow of the mountain, and set close to the road as though
happy for this slim connection with civilization.

They passed it once to check the house number. Then they drove
slowly back again and parked down the road, got out, and began the
walk back.

With every step, Julie felt her heart contracting. When they
finally came opposite the house again, she had reached the point of
feeling physically ill.

Ray reached out and touched her arm.

"Are you sure you want to go through with this?"

"ATM sure," Julie said firmly.

Actually, she was no longer sure at all. The plan which had
seemed so reasonable such a short time ago, now suddenly seemed
ridiculous. What if, as Ray suggested, the Greggs actually were the
people who had shot Barry and had mailed the insinuating notes and
clippings? What if they did recognize the two people named Julie
James and Raymond Bronson? What if their desire for revenge
was so great that they didn't care about the consequences and did
something violent?

Or, in a way, almost as bad, what if they simply stood there in
the doorway, shoulder to shoulder, with tears running down their
faces, and asked, "Why? Why did you run down our son and never even
come back to say you were sorry?"

This is his house, Julie thought, staring at it This is where
David Gregg lived.

It was an ordinary enough house, and the front yard had a
bedraggled, uncared-for look. The stubble of grass, not yet
green with summer, grew in patches with the earth showing hard and
bare in between, and the flower beds under the windows still held
brown stalks from last year's garden. Along one side of the roof
the faded trim showed a bright yellow, and a ladder leaned
against the wall as evidence that someone was in the process of
repainting.

"Come on," Ray said, "if you're coming." The words were
impatient, but the voice that spoke them was merely nervous.

"I'm coming," she said, and hurried to catch up with him.

They mounted the cement step, and Ray placed his finger hard on
the doorbell. The door stood half open, and through the screen they
could see the simple furnishings of a living room-a green chair
with doilies on the arms, the end of an over-stuffed couch, a
coffee table holding magazines. Across the room a portable TV set
stood on a stand.

Despite the fact of the open door, the place held the feeling of
emptiness.

Ray pressed the bell again, and they listened together as the
sound rang through the house.

"No answer." He sounded relieved. "Nobody's home."

"Somebody has to be here," Julie insisted, "People don't just go
off and leave their houses open like this."

"Mr. Gregg is probably at work. We didn't think about that. And
she-maybe she's gone next door or across the road."

"Are you looking for me?" The voice, coming from directly behind
them, caused them both to jump as though caught in some guilty
enterprise. They turned simultaneously and found themselves gazing
down at a short, plump, pretty girl no more than a few years older
than Julie.

"I was around at the side of the house taking in the wash, and I
thought I heard the bell but I wasn't sure. Can I help you with
something?"

"We were hoping to use your phone," Julie said, and Ray began at
the same time-"Our car-we've had some trouble with it. It's back up
the road a way."

"Come on in." The girl joined them on the step and opened the
door, motioning them inside ahead of her. "Don't worry about the
screen; there aren't any flies yet, thank goodness. During the
summer we have to keep the door closed every minute or they swarm
all over us. The phone's right around the corner there in the hall,
and there's a directory hanging over to the side on a nail. Do you
see it?"

"Yes," Ray said, going into the hallway. "Thanks."

"If Pop were here he could probably get the car started for you.
He's great with motors. I don't know a carburetor from a battery
myself, but then I guess most girls don't, do they?" She smiled at
Julie. It was a wide, sweet smile that lit up her face in such a
familiar way that Julie found herself staring.

"Do I know you?" Julie asked. "I know this sounds silly, but I
could swear I've seen you someplace."

"Maybe you have," the girl said easily, "I'm a hairdresser at
the Bon Marche on Central. It seems like I've done the hair of half
the people in town at one time or the other. The female half, of
course. My name's Megan."

"I'm Julie James," Julie told her, "and my friend is Ray
Bronson. It's nice of you to help us like this."

The girl's smile didn't change. Nothing altered in the
expression in the wide, dark eyes.

"Oh, I'm glad to have people drop by. Mum always says I can talk
the ears off a rabbit, which is probably why I like beauty work.
You get to talk to people all day long. But today was my regular
day off, and we didn't work yesterday because of it's being a
holiday, and then the day before that was a Sunday, and with my
folks out of town, I've been ready to climb the walls.

"Would you like some ice tea? You'll probably have a while to
wait before somebody can get out here to fool with the car. We're
pretty far out"

"Tea would taste good," Julie said. "Thank you."

She followed the girl from the living room into the small,
bright kitchen. The walls were a paler shade of yellow than the
newly painted trim outside, and there was a calendar with a picture
of Kittens on it hanging under a clock. A magazine on the kitchen
table lay open to a page of advertisements as though the recent
reader had been trying to while away the empty hours.

Megan opened the refrigerator and took out a plastic container
of tea and poured it into three tall glasses.

"Do you want sugar?" she asked. "Or do you think your friend
will?"

"No, thanks, I don't think so." Julie took the glass from the
girl's small, square hand.

There's one thing for sure, she thought. This girl isn't
involved in this thing in any way. She certainly couldn't have
anything to do with the attack on Barry and she doesn't recognize
our names at all. She's as open and friendly as she can be.

Megan picked up the remaining two glasses.

"Let's carry these outside while I finish taking down the wash.
That's one thing about being the only one at home now, with my
folks gone and my big brother out of the nest. There's nobody else
to do the laundry and cooking and things. I keep telling
myself that I'm going to lose weight this way- I just hate to cook
for myself, don't you?-but it doesn't really work out that way. The
foods with the most calories are the easiest things to fix."

"Where are your parents?" Julie asked as she followed Megan out
the kitchen door into the back yard. It was a pleasant yard with a
redwood picnic table and a charcoal grill and beyond that a
tool-shed, with a shaggy growth of trees enclosing it all.

To the left on a clothes line stretched between two trees,
blouses and slacks and a couple of bedsheets waved in the slight
breeze.

"They're in Las Lunas," Megan said, setting the glasses down on
the picnic table and crossing over to the line. "Mum's not well.
She's in a hospital down there, and Pop moved down to be near her.
He's staying in a boarding house so that he can see her every day.
The doctors say that's a good thing for her."

"What a shame!" Julie went over to stand beside her. "Here-let
me help you fold that sheet. Has your mother been ill for
long?"

"She's been in the hospital about two months now," Megan said.
"Actually it's not exactly a hospital. It's more a-a sort
of-rest home."

"Then she's not
physically
ill?"

"Oh, no. I mean, she's thin and run-down and all, but she
doesn't have a disease or anything. It's all emotional. My little
brother was killed last July. You may have read about it and seen
his picture in the paper-David Gregg?"

"I think I did," Julie told her, feeling the old, familiar
sickness rising in her throat.

"Well, Mum blamed herself for that. Davy was spending the night
with a friend a couple of miles from here, and he and the other boy
had a fight. Davy called Mum and said he wanted to come home, and
she said no, she wouldn't go pick him up. She told him he'd just
have to stay there and work things out with his friend. But he
wouldn't He got on his bike and started home by himself. It was
pretty late at night, and the bike wasn't fixed for night
riding. Somebody came roaring around the bend and smacked
right into him."

"And you don't know who it was?" Julie found to her surprise
that her hands were shaking. She gripped one of the clothespins
hard and pulled it off the sheet

The police think it might have been teenagers coming down from
the Silver Springs picnic ground. There were some kids up there
picnicking that night; one of the rangers saw them. He said there
were four of them, two boys and two girls, but he didn't see them
up close enough to begin to describe them. The emergency operator
said the voice that called her sounded like it belonged to a
teenage boy, but she couldn't be certain either."

"And your mother?" Julie asked, taking her two corners of the
sheet

"She just sort of fell all apart. It wasn't so bad at first. I
guess we were all in shock. Davy was the littlest one, you see-the
only child of Mum's second marriage-and we all doted on him
and kind of spoiled him. That's why Mum wouldn't pick him up that
night She and Pop had agreed they'd better stop giving in to him on
everything he wanted. Then when he came on by himself and got
killed, you can imagine how she felt. She blamed herself."

"But she couldn't have known what would happen!" Julie
exclaimed.

"No, of course, she couldn't. We kept telling her that. But she
dwelt on it, and pretty soon she had herself convinced that she'd
all but killed Davy herself by not going to get him when he
wanted her to. Then, a couple of months ago, she-snapped. I mean, a
morning came, and she couldn't get out of bed. She just lay there
and she wouldn't talk to Pop or me. We called a doctor and-well, I
won't go on with details. She's away now where she can get
help."

"It's awful," Julie said. "Just awful." Her voice trembled
slightly. She glanced toward the house. Where was Ray? Why was he
taking so long?

Come on, please, she begged him silently. Please come and get me
out of this. I don't want to listen to any more.

"Davy was a sweet kid," Megan was saying as she folded a shirt
and laid it neatly in the basket on top of the sheet. "Stubborn,
sure, but nice. He'd do anything for you if you asked him. He
called me 'Sissy.' He started that back when he couldn't say
'sister.' I think about him a lot."

She glanced at Julie and stopped suddenly at the sight of her
face.

"I'm upsetting you, aren't I? Forgive me. Here you are, a
perfect stranger, and I'm rattling on about all the family problems
as though you were part of them."

"I'm just so dreadfully sorry for you. For all of you." Julie
could hardly get the words out "It's more than that." Megan reached
over and touched her hand. "I bet you've lost someone too, haven't
you? I can tell. A brother or sister?"

"I'm an only child," Julie said. "But I did lose my father. It's
been many years now."

"It does get easier, doesn't it? It must."

"It-fades," Julie told her. "You stop thinking about it all the
time, but you never ever really forget. I was just a little
girl when Daddy died, but even now, when it's six o'clock and other
fathers are coming home from work, I'll find myself glancing at the
front door. One evening Bud-this guy I date- stopped by around that
time, and I was sitting in the living room and heard his footsteps
coming up the walk. He has a walk like Daddy's used to be, a kind
of double-time stride-" She broke off as Ray appeared in the
kitchen doorway. "Here! We're out here."