The View from the Cherry Tree (12 page)

Fourteen

Although only a few seconds had passed it seemed to Rob that he had been running for hours. This exit was blocked to him; he glanced back to see Derek picking himself up, kicking at the offending fishbowl.

The man was silhouetted against the lighted doorway into the kitchen, and clearly visible. Rob himself must be considerably harder to see, but there was nowhere to go that he couldn't be heard.

He took the stairs. There was no logic to it, because the upper floor was just as much a trap as where he was . . . more, perhaps, because he couldn't drop from one of those windows. But it would delay being cornered, to go up there, whereas if he entered any of these rooms, that would be the end. Right now, in seconds.

His sneaker-clad feet pounded on the stairs, and he flung himself upward into the darkness.

He stumbled and fell at the top, and crouched for a moment, listening. There were no heavier feet behind him on the stairs, not yet.

His breathing had quickened a little, but not so much as Derek's. He could hear it, ragged, rasping, from the lower hallway.

“It won't do you any good, Robbie. You can't get away.”

Robbie made a rude suggestion. He wasn't wholly sure what it meant, but he knew it was the ultimate in rude suggestions.

“We need to talk, Robbie.”

“So talk,” Rob said. Derek sounded in worse physical condition than he ought to be at his age. Old Max could run pretty good; he'd raced Rob and beat him a couple of weeks ago. Old Max . . . not guilty at all, and he and Teddi could have been trusted, if he'd only known. Then he wouldn't be in this predicament.

“What's your evidence? What have you got?”

Rob laughed.

He wouldn't have thought it possible, that he could laugh under such circumstances.

“Look, kid, you can make this easy or tough. It's up to you.”

“Easy or tough for you, you mean? What do I care how tough it is for you?”

“You know I can't let you tell anybody about me.” The voice rose up the stairway. By straining his eyes Rob could make out what he thought was a figure, but the front hallway was very dim. At least Derek couldn't get at him unexpectedly. The stairs would creak the minute he set foot on them.

“I won't have to,” Rob said, hoping he sounded more assured than he felt. “I told you, I hid the evidence. They may not find it tonight . . . but they will tomorrow, or the next day.” He was only exaggerating by a week or so. Or maybe if he died tonight, if Derek killed him or they just couldn't find him, they'd postpone the wedding, after all. They wouldn't want a wedding and a funeral all at once, would they? He was amazed that he could think of it so calmly.

“You're lying, Robbie. You don't have any evidence. I didn't leave any.”

“That's what they all think. What did you
come back here for, if not to check? You didn't know I was here.”

“No,” Derek confessed. “But there's nothing here to indicate to anybody that I pushed Aunt Bea out the window. And nobody else is going to know where I got the cat scratches. By the time I put on a short-sleeved shirt again they'll be healed up, and nobody will ever know anything about them.”

“So why did you come back?”

Derek's breathing was less ragged; he was catching his breath. “All right. I'll admit I came back to pick up the empty shells. I suppose you found them.”

“Yes.”

“They won't do you any good. The police will never see them.”

“They know I said somebody was trying to kill me. They might not have believed me then, but they will if I turn up dead or missing. They'll keep looking until they find you.”

“Oh, I don't think so.” Derek was regaining his confidence. “Everybody who's ever been in this place knows what a firetrap it is. All those newspapers everywhere.”

“Nobody ever came to see her.”

“Not to visit, no. But the meter readers came, and the paper boy, and the milkman, and the mailman. Everybody who ever looked in the door or a window knows what it's like. And there's this crazy kid with a bunch of wild ideas, afraid of being punished for making up lies and stirring up trouble, he comes over here and hides and he manages to burn the place down. That's an accident, that's not anything to hold anybody responsible for. They got no reason to come looking for me.”

“They will have, when they find the chicken.”

He wasn't sure he'd meant to say that; he couldn't judge if he'd been smart or stupid. For a few seconds Derek didn't say anything.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I hid it, with a note saying why, and where it came from, and what's the matter with it.” He lied boldly, willing Derek to believe him.

He heaved a quick breath below. “How did you know about the chicken? Did it taste funny? I didn't think it would.”

Rob was silent. The more Derek had to worry about, the better.

“Where did you hide it?”

Rob cocked his head, listening. Another car . . . but this one, too, kept right on going. No, it was stopping, it was pulling up right in front of the house . . .

Derek heard it, too. The shadows at the foot of the stairs moved, blurred, stilled.

“It's Max. Coming back from the rehearsal. And Steve and Darcy, too.”

Was there any chance they'd hear him if he yelled?

“Go ahead,” Derek invited, reading his thoughts. “But you'd better make it a good one the first time, because I'll strangle you before you get out a second yell.”

“How you going to make that look accidental?” Rob demanded. He was pretty sure they wouldn't hear him, anyway. Their voices reached him, faintly. Doors slammed.

“When they find your body in a burned-down house, it will be hard to tell you were throttled first. I've wanted to throttle you for years, you know.”

“Why? What for?”

“Always sitting around somewhere, quiet,
listening. Behind the couch, up that tree, in the bushes alongside the porch. Always underfoot, popping up at awkward moments.”

“I couldn't help it if you came along and sat down next to where I was.” Had they all gone into the house next door already? He couldn't hear them anymore. Maybe he should have tried to yell, maybe he should have run to that window in the front bedroom, which could be opened easily, and called before they got inside. Derek wouldn't have dared do anything once he'd got their attention, would he?

But it was dark enough now so that he couldn't have run directly to it, and getting lost wouldn't have helped much. He tried to remember which door it was, the second or the third?

“What are you doing?”

The demand startled him; he'd been quiet too long.

“Nothing.”

“There's nothing you can do, you know. No way you can get away from me.”

Rob was aware of his dry mouth and his moist palms. The heat lingered in the upper
floor of the old house. He wondered if he could move more quietly if he took off his shoes, then decided that they were rubber-soled and probably as quiet as his sock feet would be. He tried to remember the layout of the house, from the outside. Was there anywhere a roof that he might drop to, a way to climb down?

He couldn't remember anything. It was a tall house, very high off the ground, with the second-floor level way above the same story in his own house. There was lots of fancy scrollwork and knobs and curlicues, but he didn't think any of it offered hand or footholds. There was no lower-roofed room like the Mallory service porch, either. If he went out any of these windows it would kill him, sure.

It might well kill him to stay in here, too.

Was Derek serious? Did he intend to burn the house? But if he tried to burn it now, before everyone in the neighborhood went to sleep, there was a good chance somebody would see the fire and call the fire department before it got very far. In spite of the newspapers, Rob didn't think it would burn to the ground in a few minutes.

Still, if he were on the inside, helpless . . . and Derek would see to it that he
was
helpless . . . it might burn enough to do what Derek wanted.

He heard another car. This time, when Derek moved to peer out the glass panes of the front door, he didn't say anything. Rob felt the pounding start in his throat. Was it his father finally coming home?

He had to know. He couldn't stand not knowing. He rose silently from his crouching position, moving toward what he thought was the room from which he had been fired upon.

“Rob?” The voice from the depths of the house was sharp, demanding.

He didn't wait, but opened the first door he encountered that was on the right side of the house.

It wasn't the same room . . . there was furniture in it. The streetlight allowed enough illumination to enable him to avoid the bed, and he reached the window as Derek again called, “Robbie?”

He thought it was his father's car at the front curb, but it was parked ahead of Steve's Mustang, and he couldn't see enough of it to be
sure. Somehow it gave him hope, though, just to think that his father had returned. Even if he couldn't think of any way to contact him. His father was there. He was available, only a short distance away.

He heard Derek starting up the stairs. He was coming slowly, cautiously. He must know something Rob didn't know about how to climb the stairs, because he wasn't making as much noise as Rob had, but he couldn't help being heard.

Rob tugged helplessly at the window, finding it sealed. There wasn't time to search for anything to break it with. He moved back toward the hallway, afraid of being trapped in this room with no exit and no open window.

The stool was so low he didn't see it, but he didn't pause to moan about the bruises it made on his legs.

He scooped it up and ran with it, careless now of sound, flinging the stool as hard as he could down the stairs.

Derek was still far enough down to be caught in the face and chest, and he wasn't expecting it.

He fell backward, swearing, tangling again with the stool before he could bring himself to a stop.

“That kind of thing won't get you anywhere, Robbie. I didn't want to hurt you, but you're making me mad.”

Rob said nothing. He had learned that he could move about much more quietly than Derek. Maybe Derek knew the house better . . . and again, maybe he'd never been up here before this afternoon, either . . . but right this minute he couldn't be sure where Rob was.

Again Derek started up, again slowly, but Rob didn't have anything more to throw. He began to edge away, toward the front of the house, trying not to make any sound at all. He went into the first bedroom he came to, on the opposite side of the hall from the rooms where he'd been before. Maybe Derek would look for him in the wrong place, maybe he'd turn his back long enough so Rob could slip past him and get back down the stairs . . .

It wasn't totally dark in any of the upper rooms that faced the street, because of the streetlights. They didn't show much, but
enough so that Rob could move without fear of maiming himself, unless there were more low stools.

Miraculously, the door opened without sound. The heat was more intense here; the room faced the west and had taken the brunt of the afternoon sun, and the smell of dust and mildew were strong.

He didn't close the door because he wanted to see where Derek went and try to get past him. The interior hall, however, was much darker than the rooms themselves. He wasn't sure he could see anything.

Rob paused just inside the room, uncertain what to do next.

The house was on the corner, and there were houses directly across the street both north and west, but he didn't think he could make anyone hear him if he got a window open and yelled. The Dunbartons lived in one of the houses, and they'd already gone to bed, or were out, because there were no lights. In the other direction, the Millers had their entire house lit up, but he knew they always played a couple of TVs and a stereo.

Derek had reached the top of the stairs. Rob heard a board creak and stopped breathing. There was a clicking sound; it took Rob a moment, until Derek swore under his breath, to realize he'd tried a light switch and found that it didn't work.

“You might as well come out, Rob. You can't get away.”

Rob began to inch across the room. If he could get behind something, so that he wouldn't be seen unless Derek came all the way into the room, he had a better chance. Not that Rob thought his chances were very good, no matter what he did. All the advantages seemed to be on Derek's side. But as long as he was still living, there was reason to try.

He bumped into a bed. Dust rose in nose-tickling clouds. The bed seemed very high; Rob bent over to see if it was really so much further off the floor than usual, if there was room to get underneath it.

Out in the hall Derek was mouthing obscenities. Rob scarcely heard them, wriggling under the old-fashioned bed, concentrating on not bumping anything that would produce a sound.
He had to take the jar of spiders out of his pocket, and he held it, slippery with the sweat from his palm.

A car moved in the street below, slowly, then passed by; Rob heard it without thinking about it, straining to hear any sound Derek might make.

The click of another light switch carried clearly to him, and a band of pale light appeared. Derek had found a bulb that still worked.

This seemed to give him more confidence. He moved along the hall, opening doors one after the other, making no secret of his whereabouts.

He hopes he's going to scare me so bad I won't be able to think,
Rob decided.

He was getting awfully uncomfortable; he had to go to the bathroom, and it kept him from concentrating on his escape. Still, the fact that he wasn't witless with fear was good, in a way.

Derek threw open yet another door, turned on another light. So far the light was all on the far side of the house, the side facing the Mallory home. Maybe somebody would notice it,
especially if they were still looking for him. If they did, somebody'd investigate. There hadn't been a light on the second floor of this house for as long as Rob could remember.