The Campus Murders (17 page)

“I'm sorry, Katie. I'd take it back if I could.”

“I'll bet!” She tossed the flaming locks on his chest. “What I ought to do is jab you in that burn.”

“My God, no. You wouldn't.”

She shivered and tightened her arms. “Is this all there is to it, Mike?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you going to take the Nature Children's gentle hint and leave town and I'll never see you again?”

“A, I don't take hints. B, I have no intention of leaving town until my assignment is finished. C, even if I did, I'd see you again—if that's what's steaming around in that little old redhead.”

“Mike, they might hurt you again … worse the next time …”

He felt her convulse, protecting him with all her limbs, and he allowed himself to be consoled in the traditional way.

A taxi waited down in the street. They stood in the front doorway.

“I hate to leave you, Katie, but I'm dead for sleep. I want to check the hospital, too.”

“Take care of yourself, Mike.” She kissed the side of his jaw and gave him a hard push. “Get going, cowboy.”

“Cowboy?”

“You know what I mean, damn you!”

He grinned and trudged down to the cab. He had the man drive him to the garage where his Ford waited, gleaming and sweet inside. McCall gave the attendant a big tip and headed crosstown.

Tisquanto Memorial Hospital looked ominous in the spring night. The moon was down by now and the hulking place was largely a haunt of shadows. He hoped it was not prophetic.

He checked at the third floor desk, and the old blonde nurse with the withered lips said, “Still no change, Mr. McCall.”

“Could I look in on her?”

The nurse hesitated. “I suppose it's all right. Just for a second.”

“Her father still here?”

“No, he went back to his hotel. The poor man was exhausted. We had to practically force him to leave.”

“Where you going?” McCall demanded.

“Mr. McCall,” the old nurse said, “this is the way I get my exercise.”

“You don't trust me,” McCall said sadly.

“I just want to be able to say, if the doctor should question me, that nobody touched her.”

They were halfway up the hall when they heard a muffled shriek. It was cut off abruptly.

“What's that?” McCall demanded.

“Blessed if I know.” The nurse began to hurry. “It sounded like it came from … from Miss Thornton's room …”

So McCall ran, too. He burst through the door. A pale bedlight shadowed the unconscious girl. He saw a man's leg disappearing over a windowsill, and a young nurse sprawled on the floor, looking dazed. A bed screen had been overturned. There was a pillow on the floor.

The nurse scrambled to her feet, holding her throat.

“A man,” she said, swallowing. “He choked me—tried to smother Miss Thornton …”

“See if she's all right!”

McCall jumped for the window. “Call the police,” he said to the old nurse, and dived out.

The featureless figure of a man was speeding down the fire escape. As McCall started down after him the man reached the first floor. Running through McCall's head was the thought that he was chasing the man who had beaten Laura up. Had he left her for dead at the river? This attempt to kill her pointed to that—to kill her before she could regain consciousness and identify him.

The man dropped from the short stretch of ladder to the pavement below. He ran like a whippet toward the parking lot at the rear of the hospital. His running made hardly a sound; he was in sneakers.

McCall finally reached the ladder and dropped. It's a running night, he thought grimly, and sprinted with everything he had. He could no longer see his quarry.

He reached the lot. A few cars were parked there. McCall stood frozen, listening.

Nothing.

He had lost whoever it was.

McCall went over the lot and cars. A low wall surrounded the area. He found nothing.

Two special officers ran toward him wielding flashlights.

“Any sign of him?” one asked.

“He got away,” McCall said. “There's no sense searching.”

He went back to the third floor. The old nurse was standing in the doorway of Laura Thornton's room.

“How is she, nurse?”

“No damage. Apparently he'd just started when Miss Durham's scream panicked him and he beat it. Some doctors are in there with Laura now, but she's all right. At least she's no worse than she was. He got away?”

“Yes. Where's this Miss Durham now?”

“In the dispensary behind the desk.”

An intern was just concluding an examination of the young nurse's neck. “You'll live, Maggy,” he said, patted her fanny, and left.

“These damn interns,” she said angrily. “Oh, excuse me, Mr. McCall. You have to be dead before they get interested.”

“Drink some more of that coffee,” McCall said, “then tell me what happened.”

She took a sip and set the steaming cup down. “I was by the bed checking her pulse and respiration. I thought I heard the window open, decided I was hearing things, and didn't even turn around. I regretted it right away. He grabbed me from behind, got a stranglehold on my neck with both hands, shook me like a doll, and threw me down. He yanked the pillow from under Miss Thornton's head and started pressing it over her face. I heard myself scream, and he got scared or something and ran for the window. Then you and Mrs. Taliaferro came in, and that's all.”

“Did you get a good look at him?”

“Hardly, when he choked me from behind. He could have been Dracula for all I know.” She shuddered. “He was so fast. Going and coming … they ought to have posted a policeman in here.”

“I thought they had.”

“I wonder why they didn't.”

“They will from now on,” McCall said grimly. “Her father had better be notified.”

“Let the police do that, Mr. McCall. I'm not tangling with
him.
”

Neither am I, thought McCall.

Sergeant Oliver stepped out of the elevator. He looked ashen. He had three officers with him.

“What in God's name happened here, Mr. McCall?”

McCall told him. “He was a speedster, sergeant. He practically flew. I didn't have a chance to get him.”

“This thing's developing,” Oliver muttered. “And you seem to land in the middle of everything. What happened to your face?”

“A little accident,” McCall said. “How come you didn't post a guard over Miss Thornton?”

“The lieutenant didn't think it necessary.”

“As soon as Mr. Thornton gets here,” McCall said, “your lieutenant is going to have a change of heart. Good night, sergeant. I'm for some shuteye.”

Back in his room at the Red Harbor Inn, McCall undressed slowly, considering the events of the evening. None of it sounded rational. He slipped into bed and lay thinking about Katie Cohan. That banished sleep altogether. Finally, he sat on the edge of the bed and watched dawn pale the sky.

It had been a long and trying night.

Although—recalling Katie again—not without its compensations. What had she called him?

He grinned.

16

McCall—bleary of eye, heavy in the leg and brain-was at the Sigma Alpha Phi house early. The tall cool number he had seen there before stopped him downstairs.

“I don't care whom you want to see,” she said. “We have rules here, even if some of the girls don't stick to them. I'm on the House Committee and if you want to talk to somebody, tell me who and I'll get her down here in the drawing room. If she wants to see you, that is.”

“It's all right with me,” McCall said. “I don't get my kicks peeping into girls' bedrooms, if that's what's worrying you. I want to see Veronica Gale.”

“In that case,” the girl said, “go on up. Second door to your right.”

“Wait a minute,” McCall said. “You just said—”

The girl was laughing at him. “Talk about squares. Who gives a flying damn any more about Miss Peachy's Young Ladies' School rules? You can go up there and take an effing leap at her for all I care. I was putting you on;”

“Hadn't you better tell her I'm asking for her?”

“Tell her yourself.”

She strode away. She was in skintight pajamas and her strut was mocking.

The kook generation.

McCall went upstairs shaking his head.

He stood outside the door fighting his eyelids. He had taken half a bennie; it had not yet begun to work. Popping bennies! Even as he knocked he felt the first stirrings of the pill. His head shifted gears. He was thinking of Kathryn when the door opened.

“Miss Gale?”

“Veronica to you.”

“Already?” McCall smiled.

“How long does it take? Come in, Mr. McCall.”

“You know me.”

“You're famous around here.” She stood aside. She was brown-haired and very pretty, with a perky figure that challenged the male world. She was in silk pajamas and barefoot.

He went in.

“We're kind of rumply this morning,” Veronica Gale said. “Sit down, Mr. McC. How would you like to become a member?”

“Of what?”

“Of our sorority. Man, that would be boss.”

“I'm afraid the dean of women wouldn't allow it.”

The girl told him what he could do with the dean of women. “I can see you don't want to play. All right, why are you here? Why li'l ol' me?”

“A few questions.”

“Like what?”

“Like Damon Wilde.”

He watched the veil come down over the hazel eyes, bright little eyes in a bright little face as unreadable as a beach at high tide. She turned her back on him.

The walls were covered with wild posters, one showing a human phallus. There were two beds, unmade. A shreak of sunlight illuminated dust motes.

“Did I startle you?” McCall said.

She whirled. “Startle me? Certainly not!”

“Then why are you snapping at me?”

“I don't go for wit this early in the morning!”

“Sorry, Veronica.”

“Miss Gale!”

“A minute ago—skip it. You know Wilde?”

“Sure I know Wilde. Everybody at 'Squanto does. He's the head guru here. Or, as your generation would say, the big squeeze.”

“You like him?”

“That's my business.”

“And my business is getting answers. The only way I can do that is by asking questions. I asked you if you like Damon Wilde.”

“Sure I like Damon Wilde. Where did you pick up those scratches on your face, Mr. McCall? Out with a cat?”

“I'm asking the questions.”

Why was she on guard? What was she worried about? The room was much clearer now, and so was his head. He should have eaten breakfast. After no dinner the night before. Coffee wasn't enough. Especially that lousy coffee.

Could she have been one of the kids who jumped him in the buff?

“On second thought, we don't like you,” the girl said.

“Who's we?”

“All of us. Who directed you to my room?”

“A tall number. Knockout, but mannish.”

“Prissy. She's the biggest put-on in the world. We don't like you, McCall. Dig?”

“Why do you come on so hard?”

“You're part of the system. What's Governor Holland ever done for us?”

“I'm told you and Wilde are very close friends.”

“Get out of my room.”

She pointed to the door dramatically. “And don't come back!”

“All right, Miss Gale.”

She slammed the door after him.

Tall Prissy appeared from nowhere, sailing.

“Leaving?”

“Kicked out.”

“You poor man.” She laughed, preceding him downstairs. At the front door she touched his arm. “Veronica showed her pretty molars?”

“Very uncooperative, Prissy.”

“Damon put her up to it. Dig?”

“If that's the truth, thanks.”

“It's the truth.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I feel sorry for you. Because not all of us are … never mind. You'd better go.” Her stunning eyes were full on his.

He went. Prissy had salvaged the morning.

He drove to a freshly painted clapboard three-story with a broad porch, the address of Patricia Reed, Dennis Sullivan's girl. The house was painted pink and green, each a poisonous shade.

He checked the mailboxes, located the Reed girl's room number, and tried the door. It gave to his nudge and he went into a dark hall that smelled faintly of pine deodorizer.

McCall went upstairs to the second floor, down a short dark hall, and knocked at a door.

“Just a minute.”

The door opened a crack; a long-lashed topaz eye peered out at him. The eye blinked down at his shoes, then traveled slowly up his body until it reached his face again.

“Oh, wow. Who are you?”

“My name's McCall, Micah McCall. May I come in?”

The door swung slowly—he thought reluctantly—open.

She was a magazine illustration beauty of the Phoebe Zeitgeist class, tall, slim, big-breasted, with mathematically regular features that curiously made no impression. She was dressed entirely in black leather down to her high boots. Her hair was as black as her outfit; it hung glistening to well below her square shoulders, advertising its hundred brushings that morning. Huge onyx hoops dangled from her ears. Her lips were painted a pearly tone; her eyes were heavily made up. All she lacked was a bullwhip.

“You're Pat Reed, I take it,” McCall said.

“And you're the famous McCall.” She shut the door. “Sorry about the condition of this room. I wasn't expecting company.” It was, surprisingly, just a room, as featureless and unmemorable as her face. “You're here about the Laura Thornton thing and Dean Gunther, right?”

“Right.”