Site Unseen (36 page)

I was confused. "What about Oscar? What the hell are you talking about?"

"How humiliating for him, to have to put himself forward on your behalf in graduate school," Tony mused. "And I'm sure that it would have looked bad if Oscar's granddaughter and protegee wasn't capable of getting a position on her own. Even after he foisted you off on Coolidge, his reputation was at work--"

"Foisted?"
I interrupted angrily. "You don't know what you're talking about! And you forget, Oscar was gone long before I got the job at Caldwell!"

"I know, Emma. But doesn't that make it all the more macabre?" Tony reproved. "I mean, really, the poor man was
dead,
and he was still dragging you along on his coattails--"

"Shut up! You don't know what you're talking about!" It was a lie.

"I'm sorry, that's right, you don't need help from anyone, do you? You can do it all on your own. The fact that Pauline--"

"Don't you dare say her name!" It only came out in a whisper, though. My throat was too tight. "Just stop it!"

"--was so worried about you, felt she had to buy you a permanent place in the college, is just touching. Very nice for you, I'm sure. And you know, when Chairman Kellerman asked my advice about the Westlake chair, I reluctantly said yes. I was curious to see how anyone who had caused a friend's death--however inadvertently, I'm sure--would decide if she should also
profit
by it--"

My mind reeled. "Stop it! Stop it! That's disgusting!"

"Isn't it though?" Tony agreed severely. "And on top of that, you don't even have the guts to go after her killer--"

"He was dead before I--" I stammered. I couldn't
breathe, my chest felt like it had a chain and padlock around it. "I mean, I couldn't--"

"I really shouldn't have had to kill Grahame Tichnor, should I? Once again, you let someone else do your work for you. How does that feel, I wonder, to be so in debt with no way of paying it all back? Must feel a little like drowning, I should think."

Tony let me think about that for a minute. How could he know all this? He had to be wrong--but he spoke with too much authority, he knew too much. It did feel just like drowning, I couldn't catch a breath, I couldn't think; I could only wait for him to speak again.

"But, of course, you don't need help from anybody, do you?" he asked scornfully. "I don't know how you can cope with the knowledge of yourself. I withdraw my offer--I was a fool to imagine that I should do anything for you too--"

There it was--the lifeline! Something inside me clicked-- just the way it did that day on the site when all the data just snapped into place. Tony Markham might be smart enough to imagine the fears that drove me, even enough to play on them, but he didn't know anything of real truth at all. Much as I'd admired him, he didn't know
squat.
I laughed out loud and it was like breathing fresh air after being locked up in a tomb--Antigone with a reprieve. I suddenly heard the rain again and not just Tony's words.

And for the first time that afternoon, he looked disconcerted.

"Jesus, Tony, that was good! It was just like you'd been inside my head for the past ten years, playing me like a fiddle! And you were so close ..." I stopped to catch my breath. "So close. Damn, you nearly had me." I took another, steadying breath--if I hadn't been so exhausted, I would have laughed again, but the fact that I could feel the cold air again made that inconsequential. "I almost asked you how you could know. But you know, the last thing you should have done was compare yourself to Oscar and Pauline."

A look of relief flickered over his face. "Stupid of me. I
must curb this urge of mine to overdo the dramatic simply for the sake of it. Of course, it doesn't actually change things much, does it, Emma?" Tony smiled and nodded his head meaningfully at the pistol, which had never lowered during our exchange.

That sobered me. I'd won the battle but lost the war. "How do you think you'll get away with shooting me? You can't--" I tried weakly.

"But everyone knows how irrational you've been lately, jumping at shadows at the department, your insane accusations of me," Tony chided. "Yelling at poor Rick in the quad. Running away from dolls. Nothing easier. You called me in hysterics, I agreed to meet you--I was worried about you. But when you drew your gun, I attempted to wrestle it away from you, and shot you quite by accident. I, of course, was horrified to find out that it was the same one with which you killed your old nemesis, Billy Griggs. Who kindly provided me with it, by the way--stolen, of course."

He seemed to consider the scenario for a moment. "I don't think I even need to wing myself. If I wrap your ... regrettably . . . lifeless hand around the stock and fire into the barn, my story would ring true enough."

His calculations chilled me, and I had no doubt that he could carry it off. I had one more question, however. "Why, Tony? When you've got everything anyone could want? Why get tangled up in robbing a site? You don't need the money, prestige, anything--"

"I told you before, it's not enough," he interrupted impatiently, then sighed. "This little lark, the wreck, just came along in time to rescue me from superlative boredom. A bit of amusing naughtiness, well away from my professional spheres, and I thought, away from everyone else's too. I don't even know whether it was even
illegal
according to Maine's historic preservation laws--"

"It is, actually," I muttered.

"--and then things took a rather exciting turn when
Tichnor's stupidity elevated this little adventure to something else altogether."

Now his eyes blazed with excitement. "I'm tremendously indebted to Grahame, actually, I'll always remember him fondly. This gives me a whole new outlook on life. I don't suppose that you might..." He looked at me hopefully, but now I could tell that he was ridiculing me.

I tried again, desperately, to provoke him. "Just how insane are you, Tony? The best thing for you to do is put the gun down--"

"Put the gun down?" Markham laughed. "I'm not that insane. Well, Emma, finally your desperation bores me. A shame, up till now, it's been ...
fun"

The bonhomie faded from his face, and he surveyed the situation for a moment. "Get up, my dear," he said finally. "I think the entry wound should be under the chin, close, but not too close to the skin. It needs to look like we were struggling, you see. Head wounds are notoriously dicey, but even if you don't die immediately, this angle will certainly still your tongue."

I felt the metal radiating coldness so close to my face, and felt the chill slink into every part of me that was not already frozen.

"Don't," I whispered hoarsely. "Please."

But Tony couldn't hear me, he was so focused. He paused for a long moment, considering. "I wonder what it will feel like this time. Tichnor was so indirect and Griggs was self-defense. This is something else entirely. . ." Tony's words trailed off as he lost himself in the experience.

He
caressed
my cheek with the end of the pistol, as another blast of wind shook the old shed to its beams. I prepared myself for the shot, wondering if I would live long enough to feel the pain of it. The calm that enveloped me was now quite complete, the kindly numbness that shocks a creature into immobility before inevitable death.

Chapter 28

THE INTIMACY OF THE MOMENT INSIDE THE BARN WAS broken by a dissonant, persistent blare of a car's horn breaking through the storm. Tony started from his concentration, and swore. "That stupid tart Amy will have the whole county down on us. Something's wrong, even she wouldn't make that racket." He grabbed me by the arm and shoved me out before him into the rain. "And whatever will I tell her about her poor Billy?"

A set of headlights accompanied the honking as a truck moved down the driveway. Unfortunately Tony recognized the driver a split second before I did, and the pistol swung up again.

"Jesus Christ, Neal! No!"

Awareness came to me too late, my warning too feeble against the fury of the storm. Two quick shots shattered the windshield and I could see Neal thrown back against the seat, then slump forward over the steering wheel. The truck slammed into the side of the burned-out house, and rested there motionless, the headlights illuminating the torrents of rain and low, dark clouds.

Even as Tony squeezed off the second round, I slammed into him, knocking us both into the mud. I managed to scramble away, kicking blindly at Tony as he grabbed for me. My foot connected with something solid and I heard a grunt behind me as I struggled to my feet.

I skidded down the slope, barely able to believe that I had freed myself, slipping in the mud and tripping over wind-tossed debris as I tried to avoid the tarps that marked the dangerous, still-open pits. With my hair plastered against my face and heavy raindrops slamming down unremittingly, it was more through memory than by sight that I located the stairs down to the cobble beach. I had nowhere to go but down.

With a sudden, gut-wrenching jerk, I found my progress violently arrested at the top of the stairs. My heart stopped beating and a scream tore from my throat, only to be sucked away by the wind. I whirled around and found nothing more sinister than my slicker caught on the rickety iron post that was all that was left of the staircase's railing. I impatiently ripped the coat loose, but in all that haste the momentum of the motion pitched me off the stairs and down onto the beach.

I fell precisely as I should not have, with one arm flung out ahead of me to break my fall. My full weight crushed the delicate bones in my left wrist against the anvil of the beach cobbles, the sound like walnuts being cracked in a vise. I completed the somersault by tumbling over onto my back, my full weight momentarily resting only on that broken hand. Landing forced the breath from my lungs at the same moment the excruciating pain in my wrist revealed itself and my head smashed against the wet stones.

The pain was so overwhelming that for a moment, the only comfort I had was that I was spared the trouble of trying to isolate the worst of it. Freezing water soaked every stitch of clothing that wasn't already wet and raced over the collar of my slicker, snaking its way down an icy path along my spine like a surprise attack. I lay there for a moment, the
rain pelting me in the face, unable to believe the encyclopedia of physical anguish currently revealing itself to me. At the same time I was dimly aware that I needed to move before worse things came to pass.

I almost regretted that I wasn't going to pass out when I tried to sit up. My throbbing head was not improved by uncontrollably chattering teeth, and my broken wrist was an arc-lamp of brilliant agony. I didn't dare imagine what the bruises on my back would look like. No doctor could prescribe a compress colder or heavier than my own clothing at this particular moment, I thought giddily as I struggled against the waves to stand up.

I noticed a faint light bobbing around up on the cliff, illuminating the raindrops, and realized that Tony was now looking for me. I sloshed through the water and hoped the storm's wrath would cover the sounds of my splashes. Cobbles clattered and rolled in the surf, the tide attempting to suck my feet out from under me. I tripped a half-dozen times trying to cover the minuscule distance between the site of my crash-landing and the relative cover of the staircase, but one of my stumbles brought with it a possible means of escape.

I staggered over the outstretched leg of Billy Griggs, who was now being rolled about by the waves as the water tried to pull him into the main current of the river. Another blast of pain almost knocked the eyes out of my head as I tried to break my fall with both hands, but after wrestling myself out of the snare of legs and lines, my good hand brushed across something hard against the resiliency of Billy's dry suit.

He had strapped a knife sheath to his leg, whether for show or some practical purpose, I would never know. But now if Markham wanted to get close enough to make my death look like an accident, I would have the means to make it difficult for him.

I spat salt water and gingerly examined the knife by touch. The blade was nine inches long with a serrated tip and an edge so sharp it could split
atoms. I wasn't altogether cer
tain I could actually use it, but I did know that I wanted every opportunity to get out of this alive.

I had only just concealed it up my left sleeve when I saw Tony's light shine onto the water over my shoulders. I turned around slowly, clutching my hurt arm to my chest with my good one, holding the blade up that sleeve with its handle close to hand.

The light passed over me and for a moment I believed that Tony hadn't seen me--it was getting darker by the minute--but those thin hopes were rent when the beam returned to rest squarely on my face. Markham obviously was no longer interested in creating the illusion of an accident, for a bullet whizzed past my head. I rushed to get out of the light and into the shadows on the beach side of the staircase when I heard a second and then third shot that seemed to come from another direction completely. The light played wildly across the water and up the slope, and either the wind was playing acoustical tricks or Tony was moving with supernatural speed. Neither thought cheered me much, and I decided to risk wading along the bluff's base, away from the stairs and the beach. The water was deeper there, and churned more violently with the steep drop-off of the river's bed very close to the shore. I was counting on Tony believing that I would be moving closer to the beach and toward relative safety from the storm.

Pausing to try and catch my breath, I hazarded a glance back toward the stairs, where the waves that accompanied the high tide smacked against the crumbling concrete. To my surprise Tony had started down the stairs, but did not appear to be looking for me. Instead he turned his attention back up the slope toward where the wreck of the house stood, drawn to someone or something that I could not see.

A beam from a flashlight lit him, and with a sigh of relief, I realized that Neal had succeeded in contacting the sheriff's department. If only he had listened to me and stayed away after that!