The Man in the Net (24 page)

Leroy’s eyes, tormented with shame, were fixed on John’s face.

“And it wasn’t my fault. I did what you said. Honest I did. But Timmie got scared. And they all crowded around him, saying, ‘John. What do you mean—John.’ And he cried. And he sat there and he cried and they went on and on and he told them. ‘It’s the cave,’ he said. ‘John’s in Angel’s cave.’ And they were all dashing about and old Mr. Carey went to the phone and he called Buck’s father. I heard him. Timmie was crying and Mr. Carey was saying on the phone, ‘Get a posse right away. John Hamilton’s in the woods … ’ and I didn’t wait. I just ran away. They didn’t think about me and I ran away and I got my bicycle and I came …”

Off in the woods a cry rang out again. Yes, the nightmare was back. Vickie was out of the picture. Steve and the village were on their way back to the cave, and in the cave they would find Angel, the Enemy. Angel would direct them here to the Fishers’.

But Gordon had heard the story. Surely then Gordon would slip off in the confusion and come anyway. And there was a witness. Leroy was a witness.

Yes, if Gordon came it might still …

The shouts were ringing around the woods. He dropped down to the floor and screwed the last screws in the recorder into place.

“Mr. Hamilton—did I do all right?”

“Yes, Leroy. It wasn’t your fault.”

He lifted the recorder up on to the piano again. As he bent to put the plug in the wall socket he suddenly stiffened.

A car was coming up the road outside.

HE RAN to the front window with Leroy and drew the boy back into the screen of the curtains.

“Watch what he does, Leroy. It’s terribly important.”

The sound of the oncoming car grew louder. Then the car itself appeared from behind the maples at the roadside. It was the Careys’ old convertible. It stopped and Vickie and Buck jumped out. Relief surging through him, he ran out of the front door toward them.

“I got her,” Buck said. “She’d gone to the Morelands’, but I got her.”

“John!” Vickie’s face was pinched with anxiety.

“Quick,” he said. “Park the car further up the road out of sight. And then come back.”

For a moment she stood looking at him searchingly, then she hurried to the car and drove off. He went with the two children into the house. Soon Vickie came running in through the front door, closing it behind her.

“I’ve hidden it up beyond the trees. John, they’ve gone to the cave.”

“I know. Leroy told me.”

“And you were there all the time with the children!”

He poured it all out to her while her eyes fixed on his face and the sound of the posse, nearer now, rang out in the woods beyond. Had they got to the cave yet? Had Angel redirected them?

“… so he’ll have to come for the box, Vickie. And with you as a witness …”

“Gordon!”

“It’s got to be Gordon. And once we’ve seen him …”

“Listen.” Her voice cut in sharply. “A car’s coming.”

He heard it too.

“Quick, Leroy, Buck, stay at the front window. Don’t let him see you. Quick.”

He hurried Vickie to the back window which looked out on to the porch steps. Excitement was balancing his panic fear of the men in the woods. Vickie had come. And Gordon was coming.

For a few more seconds he heard the drone of the car; then it stopped. So Gordon wasn’t driving right up to the house? No, of course he wouldn’t do that. He’d leave the car further down the road as if he’d come to join the posse; then he’d slip up through the trees. As they waited, frozen against the wall, the silence around the house made the noises in the woods sound like a tumult.

“Buck,” he whispered. “Can you see anything?”

“No, the car stopped.”

“Yes.” It was Leroy’s voice, high and wabbly. “He’s there. He’s coming through the trees down to the left. Oh, I can’t see him anymore. But I saw him. He’s gone. He’s gone around to the back.”

Tensely John moved away from Vickie to the other rear window and peered out behind the curtain. He could see the man clearly now. He was running up across the lawn toward them.

And it wasn’t Gordon; it was Brad.

Feeling faintly sick, he slipped back to the other window and put his arm around Vickie’s waist. She smiled up at him quickly. His mouth was dry. He tightened the pressure of his arm around her waist. Brad appeared then outside the window, only a few feet from them. He felt Vickie’s body go rigid. For one moment Brad hesitated, looking furtively from left to right; then he went straight to the porch steps, dropped down and felt behind them. His hand came out with the box. Standing there in the full sunlight, he opened the box, took out the decoy tape, put it in his pocket and, dropping down again, replaced the box behind the steps.

While John watched in an agony of bewilderment, he started running away down the lawn in the direction of the voices in the woods.

Brad! he thought. Of course, everything he’d reconstructed about Linda and Gordon could apply equally well, better maybe, to Linda and Brad. But Brad had been in New York with him all the time. It couldn’t be Brad. It. . .

He turned to Vickie, crippled with embarrassment for what he’d done to her. Her face was stricken. She looked crumpled and old. The boys had come running over to them, hovering, solemn and subdued.

In a sudden, fierce voice Vickie said, “Play the tape.” “But, Vickie …”

“Play the tape. Then we’ll know.”

He crossed to the recorder, plugged it into the wall socket and flicked on the player switch. The tubes lit up, the tape whirred, and then the serene opening bars of the Mendelssohn floated through the room. For a moment he stood returning Vickie’s haunted gaze, then, from the rear window, Buck cried:

“They’re coming. All of them, they’re coming up the lawn. It’s Pop and Mr. Carey and George Hatch … And, gee, they’ve got guns. They …”

John moved to switch off the recorder.

“No,” said Vickie. “Let it play.”

She grabbed his hand and together they ran to join the children behind the curtain at the window. Fifteen or twenty men were streaming up from the woods on to the lawn. In the van John saw Steve Ritter and old Mr. Carey and one of the men in blue jeans. All three of them carried rifles. Behind them in the group he made out Gordon Moreland and Brad and, yes, running among them, Emily. But none of it seemed to matter to him anymore. All that mattered was his new anguish for Vickie. The men were all on the lawn now; they were marshalling into a phalanx behind Steve and Mr. Carey.

“John Hamilton.” It was Steve Ritter who roared his name and then the others took it up, bringing a faint echo of the nightmare.

“John Hamilton … John Hamilton …”

He said, “I’m going out.”

“Are you crazy? They’ll shoot. Let me. Yes, John, stay there. Let me.”

Vickie’s fingers clutched into his arm; then she ran away from him out on to the screen-porch. He heard the door pushed open and then saw her running toward the men. Behind him the solo flute rippled, leading the orchestra into the bustling central section of the overture.

Vickie had gone straight to Steve and her father-in-law. Gordon Moreland hurried to join them and then, very slowly and casually, Brad strolled up.

“Gee, John.” It was Buck. “Are they gonna get you? Gee, John, what are we gonna do?”

“It’s okay, Buck.”

Vickie was talking rapidly to Steve. The “Prosperous Voyage” theme soared from the recorder. At length, glancing over her shoulder, Vickie started back toward the house. Steve, Mr. Carey, Gordon Moreland, Brad and a couple of the villagers came after her. John saw Emily run up, looking distractedly toward the house. Then she plunged after the others, but one of the men grabbed her and pulled her back.

Vickie and the men crowded into the room which was resounding now with the music. Gordon Moreland was avid, old Mr. Carey’s face was heavy with disapproval, Brad kept his eyes on the ground. Steve Ritter, smiling the old white sardonic smile, stood watching John.

“So you fooled us—you and the kids. What d’you know?” He jerked his head toward the recorder. “Is that the tape Vickie’s talking about?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the pay-off? Vickie says it proves you didn’t do it. I don’t get it. Music. What does music prove?”

The drums were thundering. The overture was building up to the finale. Any minute now … John’s eyes flashed to Vickie. Had she told about Brad? Wasn’t that expecting too much? She returned his gaze with a kind of dead intensity.

“Wait,” she said. “Let it play, Steve. Then we’ll know.” The full orchestra roared above the drums, then it subsided and a snatch of the “Prosperous Voyage” theme came again. John stood, digging his nails into his palms. There seemed to be nothing now but the music and the eyes, the bright, cautious eyes, watching him.

The music stopped. There was a whir of empty tape. John turned to Brad. He was by the window, his face a greyish white.

For a moment there was total silence except for the whir of the tape; then, suddenly, there was a little giggling laugh. It sounded so realistic that it could have been someone laughing in the room, but it was Linda’s laugh, and then, softly, caressingly, Linda’s voice said:

“Relax, darling. He won’t be back for hours. He never is when he’s out with the kids. Really, a retarded husband has his advantages … Oh, darling, the ring is so wonderful, but you shouldn’t. You’re mad to spend all that money.”

And then, behind the faint surface scratch of the tape, Brad’s voice came:

“It wasn’t anything. You know that, Linda. If it helps to make you happy. My God, when I think of what you have to put up with.”

“It’s not too bad. Honestly it isn’t. Not now I’ve got you. Brad, if you knew how I need you.”

“Not as much as I need you.”

“Darling, do you mean that? Do you really mean that?”

“Of course I mean it.”

Linda laughed again. The laugh’s cozening intimacy was terrible. John was keeping his eyes from Vickie, looking straight past Steve at Brad.

“But it’s different with you. You’ve got Vickie. You …”

“Don’t talk about Vickie.”

“But how can I help it when you’re married to her?”

“Linda, please. I’ve told you the deal on Vickie.”

“Oh, I know I’m silly, but tell me again. Darling, it helps so much when you tell me; it’s the one thing that gives me strength. What you said was really true? You don’t love her?”

“Love her! Do you of all people have to be told that? I never loved her. From the first it was nothing—nothing at all. I told you. It was Dad. The mill was in a desperate way, debts, God knows what. Dad had done everything, straight and crooked, I guess. And then Vickie came along with all that money. Dad said she was a gift from heaven. If I married her, we could save the mill. If I didn’t, maybe we’d both end up in jail. Linda, you must believe me. I didn’t mind her. She was perfectly harmless and when it meant so much to …”

With a sudden violent movement Vickie had sprung across the room and snapped off the recorder switch. She spun around. Her eyes, bright in a dead white face, settled for a moment on Brad, then they moved to Steve Ritter.

“You heard. And now you know. John set a trap with another tape and he fell into the trap. I saw him. John saw him. He went to the box and took out the tape.”

She ran across the room, plunged her hand into Brad’s jacket pocket and brought out the decoy tape.

“There.” She threw it to Steve Ritter. “Now you know.”

As he watched, Linda was still obsessively in John’s mind; Linda, the cannibal, eating up the wretched Brad as she had tried to eat him up, never faltering in her devious plan, turning on the recorder, wheedling out of Brad an admission which would keep him tied to her for ever—the admission of a crooked company and an even more crooked marriage.

The men were all standing in transfixed silence, looking from Vickie to Brad. Finally Steve Ritter moistened his lips.

“So you say it’s that way, Vickie. Brad got kind of tangled up with Linda, out of his depth, and when it all got too much …”

It was then that Mr. Carey moved. He had been standing perfectly still. Now, his face thunderous, he turned to Steve.

“You heard the accusation she’s trying to make and you know it’s nonsense. How could my son possibly have killed Mrs. Hamilton and buried her under that cement floor. In the morning? When Hamilton was still there in the house. Preposterous. And after that he was in New York. I sent him there myself on business. He was there all the time and Hamilton here is a witness.” He glanced at John. “Isn’t that true? Wasn’t Brad with you all the time?’1

John was looking at Brad who stood by the window, his shoulders stooped, his eyes on the ground. So …

“Yes, Mr. Carey, he was in New York with me.”

“But he took the tape!” The words came explosively from Vickie.

“And you can tell them why.” Mr. Carey swung around, glaring at her with a malignity which was terrifying. “Can’t you, Vickie? You can tell them. Or do you want me to?”

The two of them stood watching each other, the antagonism crackling between them.

Then, in a very quiet voice, Vickie said, “I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

“No, you haven’t, because you didn’t realize I was listening at the Morelands’. You didn’t know that I heard when you drew Brad aside and said, ‘Go to the Fishers’ and get that box.’” Mr. Carey flung out an accusing finger at her. “You must have enjoyed that. It must have given you a very satisfactory sensation—not only to have killed the woman who came between you and your husband, but also, in the end when your first plan failed, to be able to incriminate my son in the murder …”

In the uproar that ensued, John felt excitement pulsing. So—it was all right. It was going to be all right.

Steve Ritter was staring at Vickie. She was standing very stiffly, her face scrawled with astonishment and anger.

“Steve.” When Steve Ritter turned to him, John said, “We might as well get this over.”

“Over? With Vickie … ?”

“Whoever called the hardware store to order cement, using my name, must be the murderer, mustn’t it?”