Scare Tactics (39 page)

“Then, get going.”

Guthrie reached down and set the glass with its untouched whiskey on the rug. His hand was shaking.

“What the hell?” he said. “When she hears what I’ve done ...”

“She won’t let it hurt her. She may be shocked by Molly Kinsaker’s death and upset for a little while over Billie Charmian, but she’ll get over those things because she has to—for your sake.”

Guthrie rubbed his face, then let his hands fall into his lap. The glass in the window was gold from the setting sun.

“I never loved Billie,” he said. “I seduced her, pure and simple. It lasted three days. I wanted her and I had her. She didn’t resist. She cried after the first time, but then she wanted me as much as I did her.” His face contorted. “God! She was a sweet girl.”

“If it hadn’t been you ...”

“Don’t say that. I could have cared about poor Ted Croft, dying. But all I thought about was going to bed with Billie. I think she loved me, but she let me go without saying a word. I never went back.”

Guthrie rose from his chair and hurried into Dore’s bedroom. He was gone for a quarter of an hour, but when he returned, he looked better. He had shaved and changed his shirt. There was a little crawl of blood near his left earlobe, where he had nicked himself, and the shaved moon of his jaw was a pale blue.

He smiled wanly at Practice.

“Know what I’ve been thinking? The boy might be killed when Liles’s men try to arrest him.”

“It’s possible.”

Guthrie nodded, absorbed. “I want him dead and wiped out of my life, because I can’t face him.” He sat down at a writing desk and drew out a sheet of paper with the Governor’s letterhead, selected a pen, and sat staring at the paper with his fists clenched.

“All I want is to save something of myself.”

“Do you think you can accomplish that by resigning your office?”

Guthrie glanced up in annoyance.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I’ll do or where I’ll go when the boy tells his story.”

“
If
he tells it.”

“If he doesn’t, the Major will. All the Major has to do is plant a few notions with the right newspapermen, and they’ll dig up the rest.”

“Use your head. Suppose Val St. George does talk and someone without authority hears him. It’s going to sound like the ravings of an insane murderer with some imaginary grudge against you. Even the lowest type of newshound is going to think twice about accepting such a story, and proving it will be next to impossible. Without documented corroboration from Val St. George or Billie Charmian, there is no story, and I’m convinced only Billie’s word could damage you conclusively. She’d never admit it. No paper in the state hates you enough to print a story based on St. George’s confession, whatever it may be. Mike Liles will see to it that the boy’s signed confession doesn’t damage you. As for the Major, he’ll have only the wildest suspicions, enough for a rumor campaign if he chooses. Survival may take some gumption on your part, but it won’t be fatal.”

Guthrie’s face was bleak, but a hint of determination showed around the mouth. He sat straighter in his chair, staring down at the blank paper.

“Wherever he’s hiding, the boy still has his sword right at my throat. Because, Jim, the Major might get in touch with him first. And when he does, he’ll squeeze out every drop of information that’s in the boy. If he needs evidence, he’ll manufacture it and drop it right in the lap of an editor like Swenson. If the story sees print in just one edition, even if a retraction is forced later on and the whole shoddy affair hushed up, the boy will have realized his wish—he’ll have my head.”

The room had darkened and Practice switched on a table lamp, then drew the drapes across the high windows.

“The only way for the Major to get his hands on Val St. George is for Val to give himself up to him. That’s not even worth considering. John, I’m not even convinced that the Major would smear you if he had the boy in his pocket.”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

“Because he’s had other means of ruining you, these years, and he hasn’t done it.”

Guthrie looked up at him.

“You don’t understand the Major. He could never bring himself to use his daughter’s name for revenge against me.” His head dropped until his chin was nearly on his chest. “Jim, how did you know what happened to Molly Kinsaker?”

“I only learned about it today. Steppie told me. She’d seen the movie the Major has.”

“I’ve heard about that movie,” Guthrie muttered.

“Why did you go along with it, John? The accident wasn’t pleasant, but it wouldn’t necessarily have meant the end of your political career.”

Guthrie’s mouth twisted. “I was very, very drunk. By the time I sobered up enough to realize what had happened, the story was already out that Molly had fallen from her horse. Even then I wanted to admit the truth, but the Major wouldn’t let me do it. Only he and Fletcher Childs knew what had happened.”

“What did happen? Do you remember?”

“It was five years ago. Sometimes I only see the accident clearly in nightmares. What really happened, and what happens only in nightmares—it’s hard to say. Molly wanted to go jeeping. I felt fine when we started out ...”

“What were you drinking?”

“Beer. We had a long lunch and I ate practically nothing, but I drank about seven cans of beer. That wasn’t unusual, I could hold that much all right; but it was a boiling hot day and the jeep was bouncing all over the place; and before long I started feeling bad. I should have quit drinking, but I had just opened a can and I didn’t want to waste it. So I drank the beer down fast, and—that’s the last thing I remember, except for bits and flashes. The Major, with tears streaming down his face, forgiving me for killing his daughter.” Guthrie’s face was lugubrious. “I killed her all right, as surely as if I’d put a gun to her head. I was too drunk to drive. And yet ...”

“What is it, John?”

“In some of the dreams I’ve had, I wasn’t driving. Molly was.”

“Molly? Could she operate a jeep?”

“Sure. She loved to drive, and she could handle the wheel pretty well, although she’d just turned thirteen. Sometimes, when we went out jeeping, I let her drive. She was begging me to let her have the wheel that day, too.” Guthrie licked his dry lips. “That’s what I remember. Or was it a part of the dream, too?”

Practice felt a prickling of excitement, but he kept his voice level.

“It may not be a dream. What do you remember?”

“The sun, shining in my eyes. The river. Clear blue sky. And Molly’s voice. She was laughing and teasing me.”

“What did she say?”

“ ‘Old—drunk.’ ” Guthrie’s eyes were fixed in absorption on the carpet. “ ‘Move over, you old drunk, and let me ...’”

“Drive?”

Guthrie looked up slowly.

“She was driving, Jim. I remember clearly now—the motion of the jeep, the sun stunting in the sky, and the river down below. We were on a high bank ...” He swallowed and wiped his forehead where a film of perspiration had appeared. “And then Molly started screaming, and the jeep slid to one side. I almost pitched out. We were sliding out of control down the bank, and I—I ...”

“What happened?”

“This is the nightmare part. My hands are stuck, stuck tight somehow, and I can’t reach the wheel. I know something horrible is going to happen, but I can’t reach the wheel. Then the Major’s face and his terrible eyes, and I hear him saying, ‘I forgive you, I forgive you.’ ” Guthrie put his face down into his hands and sat quietly.

Practice looked at him abstractedly, thinking hard.

“According to Steppie,” he said slowly, “the films which Fletch Childs took show you behind the wheel of the car, with your arm caught in the wheel. Could that be what you remember, John, when you say your hands were stuck tight?”

“I don’t know,” Guthrie replied, his voice muffled. “I was drunk. Anything could have happened. Maybe Molly wasn’t driving. Maybe I only want to believe that she was.”

“Maybe,” Practice said. “At any rate, Fletch Childs saw the accident and filmed the aftermath. And in those films you’re behind the wheel of the jeep.” He fell silent, lost in thought.

The Governor raised his head and shook himself like a nervous horse.

“I—suppose I’d better be getting to the hospital,” he said. “Dore will be wondering ...”

“I’ll call down and have the car ready,” Practice said, and Guthrie nodded.

After the Governor had left, Practice sat alone in the apartment for some time, thinking about the death of Molly Kinsaker.

He tried to picture the girl in his mind as she must have been on the last day of her life: an exuberant, high-spirited girl, strong-willed, perhaps with a saving grace of humor. He saw Molly and John riding across the rough meadows in the jeep, going toward the river, following a familiar trail that Molly knew well. It was reasonable that she would be eager to take a turn at the wheel. And it would be reasonable that Guthrie, feeling the impact of the beer and the heat, would allow her to drive. Then—too much speed, the wheels slipping over the edge of a sandy embankment, the girl frantically struggling to keep the jeep upright as they skidded down. Perhaps at a crucial moment the inexperienced Molly had placed her foot upon the gas pedal instead of the brake and hurtled them into the midst of the trees.

“My hands are stuck, stuck tight somehow
...”

Stuck where? Between the seats? So that at the moment of impact only Molly Kinsaker was flung from the jeep, across the windshield, headfirst into the wall of trees?

After the crash, silence. The birds have flown from the trees and are circling in fright high in the cloudless sky. Far away, perhaps, undisturbed by the noise, other birds are twittering on a perfect summer’s day.

And across the field a man comes walking, slowly at first, as the impact of the tragedy he has witnessed drags after him. Then perhaps he breaks into a run and makes his way breathlessly to the periphery of tree shadow, where the hot odor of the jeep engine slowly escapes into the broad air and a dead girl lies faceup across the crumpled hood, staring sightlessly at the sky.

Practice squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. And after, for reasons known only to himself, Fletcher Childs rearranges the unconscious form of John Guthrie so that it appears as if Guthrie was behind the wheel of the jeep at the time of the accident, and then methodically films every gruesome detail to substantiate the lie he is going to tell.

A
s Practice sat in edgy contemplation, the telephone on the table beside him rang, and then rang again. It was the Governor’s private line; the ring wouldn’t be answered below. Probably Dore, he thought, wanting her husband, and picked up the receiver.

At first he heard nothing on the wire. Then, little by little, human sounds reached his ears, the sounds of someone at the limits of physical endurance trying to speak or to scream, to find relief in human contact, in any manner at all.

“Who is it?” he said sharply, with a sudden icy tautness from the nape of his neck to the small of his back.

“Jim—I need—you ...”

“Lucy?” He hunched forward, pressing the receiver of the telephone closer to his ear, as if by sheer concentration he could bring her voice more strongly from the void in which she seemed to be speaking. “Where are you?”

“Lake Road,” he heard indistinctly. “The Mill—then—Baldtree. Fletch ...”

“Talk louder, Lucy, for God’s ...”

“Can’t—say any more. Help—Jim ...”

There was a plastic clatter in his ear, then the click followed by an instant’s nothingness, and the long droning of an empty line.

He sat for a few moments with a grimace chiseled on his face, then got up quickly.
The Lake Road.
Apparently she had called him from the big reservoir forty miles south of the city, and Baldtree—that would be Fletcher Childs’s summer place. Practice had heard them both talk about it, but had never been there. So that’s where Lucy had gone after leaving the mansion earlier in the day. To be alone, or to meet ...

He borrowed one of the mansion Cadillacs for the trip to the reservoir. It was an almost new, midnight-blue behemoth, with all the power he could ask for on the highway and plenty of weight for negotiating the narrow, precipitous roads in the woods above the reservoir shores.

He drove with only a part of his mind alert to the still-wet highway and the oncoming traffic. The feeling of oppression that had begun earlier in Billie Charmian’s antiseptic room in the warehouse had settled on him again. The shadow of
a
boy whom he had never met raced through his mind, and he withdrew in glum horror from its touch. Because the boy wanted revenge against a man who hadn’t known he existed, Practice’s own life was involved beyond his control. For several years he had lived in a thin, dry atmosphere, in the midst of people, but without acknowledging their humanity. Whenever their personal failings had seemed to threaten him in some obscure way, he had withdrawn deep inside himself.

During the months at Doc Merrill’s, he had attempted to strengthen his personality by simplifying it, and in gaining strength he had discarded all those emotions that make life unpredictable, confusing, and sometimes unpleasant. He had tried to make a simple equation of himself, so that each day would be a mathematical certainty, with only the variables of his work to provide stimulation. But those variables had nothing to do with him; they were pertinent only to John Guthrie and his career.