The View from the Cherry Tree (11 page)

Once more he exhaled slowly, allowing his heartbeat to slow. Only one of those dressmaker dummy things. The room was a clutter of ancient treadle sewing machine, bags and
boxes of materials and buttons, and newspapers. Cripes, there must be ten years' worth of newspapers stacked up in the corners.

He moved into the tower room. From it he had a view up and down the street, both ways, and of all the houses on the other side of the road. He could well believe she hadn't missed much from here, even if she hadn't used the binoculars.

He came at last to the stairs. They weren't carpeted, like the ones at home, and they creaked beneath his weight. There was so much dust on the handrail that he couldn't think anyone had used it in years.

Yet someone had gone up there recently, someone had dropped the flowerpot in an attempt to hit him. Someone had shot at him.

There was a different aura about the second floor. At first he didn't know what it was, then he realized that the smell was no longer overpowering. It was musty and dusty, but the more unpleasant odors were all downstairs.

The room in which he was interested would be on the east side, toward the front, but not all the way. It ought to be that door, over there.

Rob stopped, unable to control the hammering in his chest. What if there were someone in there, the man who had shot at him . . .

It was silly, of course. The man hadn't stayed here. He'd gone downstairs and across the lawn and joined the wedding guests next door, waiting for another chance at the boy who'd been unlucky enough to be watching when Mrs. ­Calloway was pushed out the ­window.

Sonny strolled past him, unalarmed, stirring up the dust of years. Rob moved, more slowly now, and gave the door a tentative push.

It was a big room, empty of furniture, the floor showing where the rug had been taken up from its center, and spots in the faded floral wallpaper showed where pictures had once been.

The only things still there were the curtains of heavy lace. Rob made his way toward the window, wondering if Sonny shared his tension, for the cat had turned and was looking at him in an oddly alert way.

Rob didn't have to move the curtains aside to see that a man in this window would have a clear shot at anyone sitting on the Mallory steps.

There were scuff marks in the dust where
the man had knelt; and further evidence—the first real proof he could present to the police and his parents that he wasn't making things up—there were three spent .22 shells. In this room where nobody had lived for more than a quarter of a century!

His first impulse was to scoop them up to show his father, but he remembered in time that the police liked to collect their own evidence. They might not believe him, that he'd found the shells here. On the other hand, there was the possibility that the shooter might remember the shells and come back for them, and who would then take Rob's word for their existence?

He ended by picking up one of them and slipping it into his pocket, leaving the other two untouched. If there had previously been any doubts in his own mind, they were now gone. This was no wild imagining, no jumping to conclusions. It was true. Someone had tried to kill him. And that someone would try again, if he could, until he succeeded.

“Dad will come home pretty soon,” Rob said aloud, quietly. “When he does, I'll be all right.”

He had no interest in further exploration of the house. It was too big, too gloomy, too dark in the corners. If the guilty man came back to destroy the evidence, it was to this room he would come. There was no need to watch any of the rest of the house.

He'd always thought of Mrs. Calloway as a witch, an evil storybook sort of person. Here in her house, he began to see her as a human being. There was a bag of knitting beside a chair in her sitting room. Some mending on a low table. A Bible open beside it, a faded ­purple ribbon marking the place.

Mrs. Calloway reading the Bible? It seemed unlikely, yet when he stared down at the pages he could see that she'd underlined various passages, the same way his grandmother did in her Bible.

Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man hath nowhere to lay his head,
he read.

Bleakly, Rob turned away.
I know how he must have felt.

He wandered through into the kitchen, and then wished he hadn't. He'd never been in an
untidier room. There were dirty dishes in the sink . . . not just today's dishes, but stacks of them. The stench of garbage was overpowering. A wide trail of ants led along a counter to where some sugar had been spilled; they were carrying it, grain by grain, down the wall and into a crack in the floor.

There were the remains of breakfast on the table, egg drying on a plate, coffee staining the painted wooden surface. And there were newspapers. Hundreds of them, everywhere. On the chairs, on top of the refrigerator, in heaps on the floor. She must have saved every paper she got in the past twenty years.

The floor hadn't been swept in days. He avoided what looked like a finger bone (for the witch from Hansel and Gretel?) and began to retreat toward the less filthy part of the house.

It was twilight, now, at least inside the house. They ought to be coming back from the rehearsal pretty soon, and his father would surely be coming before long. All he had to do was stick it out until then, and he'd be all right.

He had reached the threshold of the dining room when he heard the footsteps on the back porch. The boards creaked under a man's weight.

Rob froze, unable to complete his step into the other room, unable to think fast enough to hide. Paralysis held him there, breathing painfully suspended, as the door began to open.

Thirteen

It was Derek, still wearing his brown slacks and yellow shirt. He hesitated as his eyes adjusted to the dimness.

He seemed somewhat disconcerted at seeing Rob. “Well, there you are. I ought to have guessed you'd hide over here.” His hand groped for the wall switch, turning on a forty-watt bulb.

Rob couldn't have said anything if he'd tried.

Derek didn't seem to notice. “Boy, it sure stinks in here, doesn't it? Somebody'll have to come in and clean up the place.”

Sonny came through the doorway, brushing Rob's ankles. He saw Derek and meowed plaintively.

“You hungry? Missed your supper, didn't you? How about you, Rob? You had anything to eat?”

Rob swallowed, but that was all. If he decided to run, where could he run to? The window in the dining room was open but he couldn't get through it in a hurry, probably not before Derek could catch up with him.

Was it Derek he had to fear?
Was it?

“What are you hiding from?” Derek asked.

Was there malice in Derek's gaze, or was it only that the light from the small naked bulb cast his face into unaccustomed planes and shadows that made it seem so?

“For gosh sakes, Rob, you've got everybody thinking you're some kind of nut. Knocking babies around, calling the police with wild ­stories . . .” Derek's expression altered when he smiled. “What did you tell them that brought them roaring out here to talk to you?”

It was painful to swallow, but he kept having to do it or he couldn't seem to breathe. Rob forced his vocal cords to respond to his command.

“What did
they
say?”

“I didn't hear all of it. Just that you'd made some kind of phone call, and they were checking it out. Your mother's real upset with you.
So's Darcy. Poor Darcy, she doesn't want her wedding spoiled.”

“I
haven't spoiled her wedding.”

“Not yet,” Derek agreed. “You told me something kind of far out, earlier . . . about Aunt Bea being pushed out the window. Was that what you told the police?”

Rob didn't answer.

“Was it true, then? I mean, you're not just having a field day taking off on stuff you got from TV; you really saw something this morning? What did you see?”

“Just what I told you. Somebody pushed her. I saw his hands. That's all. Just his hands.”

“And you told that to the police?”

How dangerous was it to admit what he had said, if Derek was the one who was stalking him? Dangerous, indeed, to admit to a killer that you hadn't been able to pass along to anyone else the evidence that would incriminate him.

“I don't remember what all I told them. They didn't seem to think I was serious, anyway.”

“Was that why you ran away? Because of
the police? But why, if you just wanted to tell them something that was true?”

“I didn't have any proof, then. Now I've got it.”

Derek's features seemed to sharpen as he moved his head under the dangling light bulb. “You have? Proof of what? Proof against who?”

“I hid it . . . the evidence. Where they'll find it . . .” He almost said, “When Darcy comes back from her honeymoon,” but that would provide a clue to where it was.

“What evidence did you find? What kind of clues does a man leave behind when he pushes someone out a window?”

Was he worried about it? Rob couldn't tell. There was the sound of a car outside and for a moment he hoped that it was his father. He'd run to the window and yell and Derek couldn't stop him and wouldn't dare do anything once his father had heard him. But the car didn't slow; it went on past, and there was a bitter, acrid taste in Rob's mouth.

“What evidence?” Derek insisted, stepping closer.

Rob wanted to retreat, but his back was against the doorframe.

“Why should I tell you? I'll tell my dad when he comes.”

It was a touch of bravado not backed up by his hammering heart. Derek didn't take offense. In fact, he grinned a little. “Why did you run when the police came?”

“They didn't believe me, before. They will when they see the evidence.”

“But you're not going to tell me what it is?”

“No.”

Derek shrugged, suddenly backing away. “Whew, the smell in here is unbelievable. Maybe if I just got rid of that garbage sack . . .”

He left the door standing open while he hauled out three bags of it, to dump into the can out back. He seemed to be inspecting it, shaking everything out of each bag as if it might contain something of value. He didn't leave the porch, and at no time was there any way Rob could have gone past him to escape.

“There, that's some better, isn't it? Why do you suppose she kept all the newspapers?” It didn't seem to bother him that Rob didn't reply. “Real fire hazard. Look at the way she's
got them right next to the water heater. That's a gas heater, with a pilot light, and when the burner comes on . . . boy, the flame could shoot out and ignite those papers. This old place would go up like you wouldn't believe . . . I'll bet it would burn to the ground before they could even get the fire trucks here.”

Rob felt the goose bumps rise on his bare arms at the implied threat. Or was it? Was Derek just talking?

“The evidence isn't here,” Rob said. “It's . . . hidden. But where they'll find it, in a day or two.”

Derek's grin seemed friendly, the same as always. “Yeah? Why don't you tell me what it is, Robbie? Maybe I could help you . . . convincing the rest of them.” He spoke casually, opening cupboard doors, peering into a paper bag, replacing it.

Rob stiffened against the use of his name. Nobody but his mother and grandmother called him Robbie anymore, except Teddi, once in a while when she forgot. “I don't need any help.”

He did, though. Even if they found the
poisoned chicken, would they know what to do with it? Would it occur to anybody that it ought to be tested for poison? If he weren't around to explain, it might not count for anything at all. The .22 shell would, if he could deliver it to someone who would listen . . . but if Derek burned the house down the other shells . . . and their location . . . would be lost forever.

I have to be around to tell people the connections,
he thought.
And he knows it.

Still, he couldn't be absolutely sure about Derek. His eyes drifted to the long sleeves of the yellow shirt. He'd know for sure if he saw Derek's arms. When Sonny scratched, he did a good job of it. There would be marks.

Rob blinked, realizing that Derek was watching him very closely and that he was no longer smiling.

“What's the matter, Robbie?”

“I think I'll go home,” Rob said. “I'm getting hungry.”

Derek glanced around the dimly lit kitchen. “Yeah? Well, there's food here, if you want a snack.
She
won't be needing it.”

“I don't want any of her food.”

Derek nodded. “I guess I don't blame you. She wasn't very particular, was she? That's why my mother wouldn't come over here. Couldn't stand the smell and the mess. Poor Aunt Bea . . . she's probably better off dead. She was getting senile, and she didn't have much of a life.”

Rob made a tentative move toward the back door. “I'll eat at home.”

He wasn't sure whether Derek blocked his way by design or just happened to step in the same direction. At any rate, he occupied the space Rob would have to go through to get out.

“Don't you agree? She really isn't any great loss.”

Maybe she wasn't, Rob thought, but that wasn't the point, was it? The police wouldn't think so.

Rob tried to reach past Derek for the doorknob, only to find the way barred by one muscular arm.

He was no match for Derek, physically; he knew that. Yet the suspense was more than he could bear, and he had to know the truth. Before Derek had any inkling of his intentions,
Rob grabbed one yellow sleeve and ripped it upward. He used all his strength, and the button on the cuff popped off and rolled across the linoleum-covered floor.

Neither of them was aware of the button, however. They were looking at the exposed forearm, at the parallel red scratches made by a cat's claws.

Rob felt as if he couldn't breathe, and the need to swallow was uncontrollable. Derek's face was close, too close, above him.

His eyes had gone cold and peculiar in a way Rob couldn't have described, but instinct told him it was threatening. Derek's jaw showed dark, needing a shave, as it jutted ­dangerously.

“You shouldn't have done that, Robbie.” The words were no more than a whisper, but that was all that was necessary to reach him, only inches away. “You shouldn't have done it.”

It had been a calculated risk, and he had lost. If there had not been scratches, he might have found an ally; as it was, he had given away his own knowledge of the identity of a killer. And the killer knew he had not yet passed
along any information to the authorities.

Very slowly, Derek pulled down his sleeve, his eyes still on Rob's waiting face. “I think there are some things you're going to tell me, Robbie.”

He had never been more scared in his life, but he said the words that came, without thought, to his tongue. “Kiss off.”

Slowly Derek reached for him, and took the one necessary step in his direction. As his fingers began to close around Rob's upper arm, his heel came down . . . on Sonny's already injured tail.

The cat yowled and jumped; Derek staggered and loosened his hold, trying to regain his balance.

“That blasted cat! I'll kill it, too!”

Sonny streaked through the unlighted part of the house, disappearing into what was now almost full darkness.

As for Rob, the moment Derek's fingers let go, he stumbled backward, managed to turn, and fled. Through the dining room, snatching at the only thing he saw, the fishbowl that reflected the light from the kitchen. He flung
it behind him, into the path of the pursuing Derek, and heard the muffled oath as it caught him in the shins.

Derek was too close to allow him to go through the window. Rob pounded on toward the front of the house, flinging himself at the front door, only to find it locked.