Hamilton, Donald - Novel 02 (18 page)

 
          
He
said, “But you miss the big point, Ann. What really got me going.”

 
          
“What?”
she asked. “That they were desperate to find me?”

 
          
“No,
that bottle she kept bringing into the conversation,” he said. “Presumably it
was just a red herring, something to talk about so I wouldn’t notice the funny
taste in my drink. Yet they kept worrying the damn thing to death. First Helene
Bethke wanted me to think you’d kept it to ruin her, dug it out of the
wastebasket, or something, and had it refilled so it would look as if she had
been careless. That did not make me look convinced enough, I guess; so then she
changed the story to admitting that she
had
been careless and let you swipe the bottle.”

 
          
“But
I didn’t!”

 
          
The
earth seemed to drop out of the beam of the headlights. He braked hastily and
watched the light swing down to pick up the road again, where it plunged down
the mountainside toward the town of
Summit
, visible in the canyon below them as a
cluster of lights. Emmett threw the gearshift into second, and let the car
begin to grind its way down the hill under easy control.

 
          
“I
know,” he said. “I know you didn’t. You never had it with you, did you?”

 
          
Emmett
said, “If they hadn’t felt guilty about it, and tried to over-explain it to me,
I’d probably never have thought about asking myself where the hell you’d been
keeping a one-ounce bottle, where I hadn’t seen it. But once the idea occurred
to me… He glanced at her, a little uncomfortable. “I mean, take that suit you
were wearing. And the blouse. I’m human. I’ll look. And if you had a bottle one
and a half by two and a half inches tacked to you somewhere under that outfit,
I’ll never whistle at another blonde as long as I live. I mean, after
twenty-four hours with somebody—” He cleared his throat. “—and I’d been through
your purse and jacket And I couldn’t quite see you keeping something like that
in the car, where anybody might find it. And after all, I didn’t have to trust
my lecherous eye; that
Nebraska
sheriff had searched you. You didn’t have it on you.”

 
          
The
convertible was noisy with the whine of gears, the engine spinning against
compression.

 
          
Emmett
went on, watching the road, “And why should you keep the bottle, anyway? She
said, to ruin her, but I didn’t happen to think you were that crazy. Say you
did swipe the bottle, to have the stuff in case it kind of got too much for
you. Would you want to keep that chunk of glass with you, when you’d know the
nurse would be after it like a bloodhound? If I were doing it, I’d keep the
pills and drop the bottle down the nearest sewer; maybe I’d even combine the
contents of the capsules into one slug and heave out the gelatine.” He shrugged
his shoulders. “I wondered why they were so anxious to explain that bottle,
when it seemed kind of irrelevant. After all, your father wasn’t in a position
to get tough with Helene Bethke, even if she had been careless. Why should they
worry about it? Unless that bottle had some significance I hadn’t thought of…
And then it occurred to me that, while there was no reason for you to want to
keep the bottle around, somebody who’d tried to kill you would want to make
sure there were no questions about where you’d got the stuff. It’s pretty hard
to get, particularly for a young lady with a record like yours. If the bottle
had been unmarked, or if there hadn’t been any bottle, somebody might have thought
it worth while to mention the fact to the police. But there you were, with your
own prescription bottle beside you. You’d tried to commit suicide before.”

 
          
Ann
shivered. He glanced at her. Still kneeling on the seat beside him, she had
buried her face in her folded arms. She looked up abruptly.

 
          
“…
so cold-blooded,” she breathed. “So clever and coldblooded, and inhuman. And
they don’t even really hate me. I would know if they hated me like that. If
they wanted revenge…”

 
          
“Revenge?”
he asked, startled. The possibility had not occurred to him.

 
          
“Yes,
for what happened in
France
. If… if they thought I’d done
that;
if they wanted to make me pay for
the life of somebody who’d been executed because I…”

 
          
Emmett
said, “What kind of maniacs would it take to kill two people, cripple a third,
and try for a fourth, all as a sort of preliminary to avenging themselves on
one sick girl?”

 
          
She
was quite still, beside him. “Kill two?”

 
          
He
glanced at her. “Well, we’ve got to assume that Stevens’ murder ties into it
somewhere, don’t we? And your nurse, Miss Lewis, makes two. And her boy friend,
you told me, was crippled…”

 
          
Ann
hesitated. “And… try for a fourth?”

 
          
“Yes.
Somebody’s taken a couple of cracks at Dr. Kissel. Didn’t I tell you? That’s
why the FBI is so concerned.”

 
          
“It’s
like a nightmare,” she said softly.

 
          
He
said, “I don’t think you realize how bad it is.”

 
          
“What
do you mean?”

 
          
He
said, “If your dad gets you, you wind up in the booby hatch, right? And what do
you think your chances are of getting out again, soon?” He took his eyes off
the twisting road to glance at her, and saw her answer in her shadowed face. “Right,”
he said. “You won’t. At least as long as he’s worrying about his war contracts
being investigated, which is apt to be some time. And then there’s a detective
from
Chicago
running around trying to get a warrant for
you. The FBI has headed him off for the time being, but he’ll be back if things
don’t clear up; and if
he
gets you,
you’ll stand trial for murder. And you haven’t got a chance there, either.”

 
          
“But
I didn’t do it,” she said.

 
          
Emmett
said, “They won’t worry about that. You’ll be convicted on the basis that the
murdered man accused you, with some corroboration, of having helped the Nazis.
Unless you can prove you didn’t, you’re sunk; and I don’t think you can, can
you?”

 
          
“No,”
she breathed. “I can’t I don’t even
know
whether I did it or not.”

 
          
“Exactly,”
he said, shifting gears as they came out on the relatively level ground of the
canyon floor. “And once they get that wartime background established, anybody
can convict you of anything from spitting on the sidewalk to high treason. A
lot of people who aren’t quite sure just how brave they’d be in a similar
situation will be howling for your blood just to reassure themselves that they
are potential heroes. You’ll be free game, Ann. It’ll be open season on you.
Anybody’ll be able to take a shot at you, unless you can prove that your
husband was mistaken in telling Stevens you betrayed him and the others, or
that Stevens was lying. They’ll convict you of murder as soon as look at you.
After that, it’ll be only a question of whether they’ll electrocute you, put
you in jail for life, or whether your dad can manage to get you off with
insanity and stick you into the asylum where he’s been trying to put you,
anyway.”

 
          
She
was silent beside him. The steam shovel was still working in the ravaged creek
bed as they passed through the town, but the saloons were closed. Ann waited to
speak until they had left the darkened buildings behind, as if afraid they
might overhear. There was a little anger in her voice.

 
          
“You
must have some reason for making it sound so hopeless. You must have some hope,
or you wouldn’t be here.”

 
          
He
said without looking at her, “I’m just trying to show you that everything hangs
on what happened in
France
. If you can prove you didn’t betray them,
your motive for killing Stevens becomes kind of uncertain. If you can prove you
weren’t a collaborator, willing or unwilling, you stand some sort of a chance
in court.” After a moment he went on, “That’s why I want to get you in to talk
to Dr. Kissel, regardless of what this FBI joker has up his sleeve. It’s a hell
of a gamble, but—”

 
          
“Dr.
Kissel?”

 
          
“Yes.
He’s got the dope, hasn’t he? He can tell you.”

 
          
Her
voice was strained. “But what if he should say the wrong thing? Then I’ll be…
The FBI will turn me over to Dad or the police, won’t they? It’s… just like
walking into prison, isn’t it?”

 
          
Emmett
said, “Sooner or later somebody’s going to catch you. You might as well trade your
freedom for an interview with Kissel, while you’ve got it to trade.”

 
          
He
was aware of her eyes studying his face for a moment before she answered; then
she laughed, a little sharply. “Well, after all, that’s what I came out here to
do, isn’t it? To see Dr. Kissel.” There was something defiant, almost strident,
in her voice, and he did not like it.

 
          
He
said, “I wish I were as sure you didn’t remember as I am of some other things.
That amnesia bothers me.”

 
          
She
said stiffly, “It bothers me, too.”

 
          
When
they had passed the first sharp turn in the winding canyon below the town,
Emmett cut the lights and backed the convertible quickly around the bend and
got out. He was aware of the girl getting out on the far side and coming around
to stand beside him.

 
          
“Now
we’ll make sure,” he said. “The road comes down just a little to the right of
the lights of the steam shovel. You can see the notch against the sky.”

 
          
He
felt her hand come to rest on his arm; the brief hostility that had been
between them was wiped away by the suspense of the moment. The fingers on his
arm tightened a little as twin headlights made an arc across the sky and then
dipped towards the town.

 
          
“He
waited at the top to see which way we’d go, I guess,” Emmett said. “Now he
knows we’re heading back toward
Denver
. He’s barreling along to close up with us
before we get out of the canyon to some place where we can turn off.” He
glanced at her face, dimly white in the darkness. “Exciting, ain’t it?” he said
dryly. He could feel the sudden pulse in his throat, belying the calmness of
his voice. They got back into the car.

 
          
“What
are you going to do?” she asked when they were driving again.

 
          
“Take
him,” Emmett said.

 
          
He
felt her look at him sharply. “What do you mean?”

 
          
He
said, feeling the tightness in his chest, “If I tried to shake him off, he’d be
warned; and I doubt if I could lose him. I haven’t driven in mountains for
years; he’s sure to be an expert at it. And we can’t afford to have him with
us. The only thing you’ve got to trade with is your freedom, and I expect he’s
just waiting to get help before he grabs us. So we have to put him out of
commission before he can get reinforcements.”

 
          
“Kill
him?”

 
          
He
glanced at her and did not say anything.

 
          
She
said, in the same tone, “I don’t want anybody killed, Mr. Emmett. I’d rather
give myself up.”

 
          
He
let out his breath slowly. “Well,” he said. “I’m glad you said that.”

 
          
He
was aware of her smiling at him, not quite happily. “It must be dreadful not to
know whether or not you’re riding with a homicidal maniac,” she murmured.

 
          
He
could see the headlights now in the mirror whenever the canyon opened up behind
them—either the lights themselves, or the beams striking out over the blackness
to the left, or the glare behind a wall of rock.
It shouldn’t be too hard,
he thought,
I’ve given the bastard no reason to think I know he’s following me.
Presently he stopped the convertible where the road was narrow.

 
          
“Take
over,” he said, getting out.

 
          
Ann
slid quickly behind the wheel. It occurred to him that she could easily drive
off and leave him there; then he remembered that, if that was what she wanted,
she could have left Mrs. Pruitt’s without him any time before he arrived; she
did not have to go there at all, in the first place. He took the ten-penny nail
he had picked up at the Lodge from his pocket, and propped it against the right
rear tire.

 
          
“Ahead
slow,” he said.

 
          
He
did not look around to see how close the headlights were. The wheel turned and
the nail snapped out.

 
          
“Hold
it,” he said.