Where Are the Children? (16 page)

'What did you do to my sister?' The belligerent tone made Courtney realize that the boy hadn't drunk all the milk with the sedative he'd given him just before the meddling fools came along.

'She's asleep.'

'Let us go home. We want to go home. I don't like you. I told my daddy I didn't like you, and Aunt Dorothy was here and you hid us.'

Courtney lifted his right hand, curved in to a mitt-like shape and slapped Michael across the cheek. Michael jerked back in pain and then rolled out from under the man's grasp. Courtney reached for him, lost his balance and fell clumsily across the bed. His mouth touched Missy's tangled yellow hair, and for an instant he was distracted. Pulling himself up, he turned and was on his feet, crouching to spring at Michael. But Michael was backing away towards the bedroom door. With a swift movement he opened it and raced through the adjoining sitting-room.

Courtney lunged after him, realizing that he hadn't locked the apartment door. He hadn't wanted Dorothy to hear the distinct ping of the lock as she went downstairs. Michael threw open the door and raced for the staircase. His shoes clattered on the uncarpeted stairs. He moved swiftly, a slim shadow that darted down into the protecting gloom of the third floor. Courtney hurried after him, but in his frantic rush lost his balance and fell. He hurtled down six steps before he managed to stop the fall by grasping the heavy wooden banister. Shaking his head to clear it, he picked himself up, aware of a sharp pain in his right ankle. He had to make sure the kitchen door was locked.

There was no further sound of footsteps. The boy was probably hiding in one of the third-floor bedrooms, but he had plenty of time to look for him. First the kitchen door. The windows were no problem. There were all double-locked, and too heavy anyhow. The double lock on the front door was too high for the child. He'd just secure the kitchen door, then search for the boy - room by room. He'd call to him and warn him. The boy was so frightened. His eyes had been so terrified and wary. He looked more than ever like Nancy this way. Oh, this was so unexpectedly wonderful. But he had to hurry. He had to make sure the boy couldn't get out of the house.

'I'll be right back, Michael,' he called. 'I'll find you. I'll find you, Michael. You're a very bad boy. You must be punished, Michael. Do you hear me, Michael?'

He thought he heard a noise in the bedroom on his right and rushed in, favouring his ankle. But the room was empty. Suppose the boy had run through this hallway and used the front stairs? Suddenly panicking, he lumbered down the remaining two flights. From outside he could hear the waves from the bay crashing against the rocks.

He raced into the kitchen and over to the door. This was the door he always used going into and out of the house. This one had not only a double lock but a high bolt. His breath came in quick, furious gasps. With thick, trembling fingers, he shoved the bolt into place. Then he pulled over a heavy wooden kitchen chair and wedged it under the knob. The boy would never be able to move this. There was no other way out of the house.

The heavy storm had almost obliterated the remaining daylight. Courtney switched on the overhead light, but an instant later it flickered and went off. He realized that the storm had probably pulled down some wires. It would make it harder to find the boy. All the upstairs bedrooms were fully furnished. They all had closets, too - deep ones - and cupboards that he might hide in.Courtney bit his lip in fury as he reached for the hurricane lamp on the table and lighted the wick. The glass was red, and the light cast an eerie reddish glow against the fireplace wall and faded planked floor and thick-beamed ceiling. The wind wailed against the shutters as Courtney called, 'Michael . . . it's all right, Michael. I'm not angry any more. Come out, Michael. I'll take you home to your mother.'

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The chance to blackmail Nancy Harmon was the break Rob Legler had been needing for over six years - from the day he'd got on a plane to Canada after carefully shredding his embarkation orders for Vietnam. During those years, he'd worked as a farmhand near Halifax. It was the only job he'd been able to get, and he loathed it. Not for a minute did he regret his decision to bolt the Army. Who in the hell wanted to go to a filthy, hot hole to be shot at by a bunch of pint-sized bastards? He didn't. He'd worked on the farm in Canada because he didn't have any alternative. He'd left San Francisco with sixty bucks in his pocket. If he went back home, he'd be tossed in jail. A conviction for desertion wasn't his idea of the way to spend the rest of his life. He needed a good stake to cut out for some place like Argentina. He wasn't just one of the thousands of deserters who eventually might be able to slip back into the States with faked identification. Thanks to that blasted Harmon case, he was a hunted man.

If only that conviction hadn't been upset . . . that case would be finished. But that bastard of a DA had said if he spent twenty years he'd re-try Nancy Harmon for the murder of those kids. And Rob was the witness, the witness who supplied the motive.

Rob couldn't let that scene happen again. As it was, the DA last time had told the jury that there was probably more to the killing than Nancy Harmon wanting to get out of a home situation. 'She was probably in love,' he'd said. 'We have here a very attractive young woman who since the age of eighteen has been married to an older man. Her life might well be the envy of many a young woman. Professor Harmon's devotion to his young wife and family was an example for the community. But is Nancy Harmon satisfied? No. When a student-repairman comes in, sent by her husband so that she will not have to endure even a few hours' discomfort, what does she do? She follows him around, insists he have coffee, says it's nice to talk to someone young . . . says she has to get away . . . responds passionately to his overtures . . . and then when he tells her that "raising kids isn't his bag" she calmly promises him that her children are going to be smothered.

'Now, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I despise Rob Legler. I believe that he toyed with this foolish young woman. I don't for a minute believe that their unholy passion ended with a few kisses . . . but I do believe him when he quotes the damning phrases that fell from Nancy Harmon's lips.' Frig him. Rob felt sick fear in the pit of his stomach whenever he remembered that speech. That bastard would have given anything to have made him an accessory to murder. All because he'd been in old Harmon's office the day his wife phoned to tell him the heater had gone off. Rob wasn't usually given to volunteering his services. But he'd never seen a machine or engine or piece of equipment he couldn't fix, and he'd heard some guys talk about what a doll that creepy old drag had for a wife.

That piece of intriguing information had made him volunteer his services. At first Harmon had turned him down, but then when he couldn't get his regular maintenance man he'd said okay. He said he didn't want his wife taking the kids to a motel. That was what she'd suggested.

So Rob had gone over. Everything the guys had said about Nancy Harmon was true. She was a real looker. But she sure didn't seem to know it. She was kind of hesitant . . . unsure of herself. He'd got over about noon. She was just feeding the two little kids ... a boy and a girl. Quiet kids, both of them. She didn't pay much attention to him, just thanked him for coming and turned back to the kids.

He realized that the only way to get her attention was through the kids and started talking to them. It was always easy for Rob to turn on the charm. He liked gals older than himself, too. Not that this one was older by much. But he'd learned from the time he was sixteen and screwing his next-door neighbour's wife that if you're nice to a woman's kids, she thinks you're A-okay and all the guilt goes down the drain. Boy, Rob could write a book on the whole mother-complex rationalization.

In a couple of minutes he'd had the kids laughing and Nancy laughing, and then he'd invited the little boy down to be his helper fixing the furnace. Just as he expected, the little girl asked to go too, and then Nancy said she'd come along to make sure they didn't get in the way. There wasn't much wrong with the furnace - just a clogged filter - but he said it needed a part and he could get it working but he'd be back and do the job right.

He got out fast the first day. No point in getting old

Harmon upset. Went straight back to his office. Harmon looked annoyed and worried when he opened the door, but when he saw Rob he gave a big, relieved smile. 'So soon? You must be a whiz. Or couldn't you take care of it?'

Rob said, 'I got it going. But you need a new part, sir, that I'll be glad to pick up. It's one of those little things that if you call in a regular service, they'll make a big production over. I can get the part for a couple of bucks. Be glad to do it.'

Harmon fell for it, of course. Probably glad to save the money. And Rob went back the next day and the next day. Harmon warned him that his wife was very nervous and rested a lot and to please keep out of her way. But Rob didn't see where she acted nervous. Timid, maybe, and scared. He got her talking. She told him that she'd had a nervous breakdown after her mother died. 'I guess I've been terribly depressed,' she said. 'But I'm sure I'm getting better. I've even stopped taking most of my medicine. My husband doesn't realize that. He'd probably be annoyed. But I feel better without it.'

Rob had told her how pretty she was, kind of feeling his way. He'd begun to suspect that she might be a pushover. It was obvious she was pretty bored with old Harmon and getting restless. He said maybe she should get out more. She'd said, 'My husband doesn't believe in company. He feels that at the end of the day he doesn't need to see any more people - not after all the students he has to contend with.'

That was when he'd known he'd try to make a pass at her.

Rob had an airtight alibi for that morning the Harmon kids had disappeared. He'd been in a class of only six students. But the DA had told him that if he could find one shred of evidence that would help him hang an accessory charge on Rob, it would be his pleasure to do it. Rob had hired a lawyer. Plenty scared, he didn't want the DA poking into his background and finding out about the time he'd been named in a paternity suit in Cooperstown. The lawyer had told him that his posture had to be that he was the respectful student of a distinguished professor; had been anxious to do a favour for him; had tried to stay away from the wife, but she had kept following him around. That he never took it seriously when she talked about the children being smothered. Actually, he'd thought she was just nervous and sick, the way the Professor had warned him.

But on the stand it didn't work like that. 'Were you attracted to this young woman?' the DA asked smoothly.

Rob looked at Nancy sitting at the defendant's table next to her lawyer, looking at him through blank, unseeing eyes. 'I didn't think in those terms, sir,' he replied. 'To me Mrs Harmon was the wife of a teacher I admired greatly. I simply wanted to fix the furnace as I'd volunteered to do and get back to my room. I had a paper to write and anyhow a sick woman with two children simply isn't my bag.' It was that elaboration, that last damned phrase, that the DA had pounced on. By the time he was finished with him, Rob was wringing with perspiration.

Yes, he'd heard the Professor's wife was a doll . . . No, he wasn't given to volunteering his help . . . Yes, he'd been curious to get a look at her . . . Yes, he had made a pass at her . . .

'But it stopped there!' Rob had shouted from the stand. 'With two thousand co-eds on campus, I didn't need problems.' Then he'd admitted that he had told Nancy that she turned him on and he'd like to hustle her.

The DA had looked at him contemptuously, then read into the record the time Rob had been beaten up by an irate husband - the episode in Cooperstown when he'd been named in the paternity suit.

The DA said, 'This philanderer was no willing volunteer. He went into that house to size up a beautiful young woman whom he'd heard about. He made a play for her. It succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I am not suggesting that Rob

Legler was part of the scheme to murder Nancy Harmon's children. At least, in the legal sense he wasn't. But I am convinced that morally, before God, he is guilty. He let this gullible, ungrateful young woman know that he'd -and I use his words - "hustle her" if she were free, and she chose a freedom that is repugnant to the basic instincts of mankind. She murdered her children to be free of them.'

After Nancy Harmon was sentenced to die in the gas chamber, Professor Harmon had committed suicide. He drove his car to the same beach where one of the kids had been found and left it by the shore. He pinned a note to the wheel saying that it was all his fault. He should have realized how sick his wife was. He should have taken his children from her. He was responsible for their deaths and her action. 'I tried to play God,' he wrote. 'I loved her so dearly that I thought I could cure her. I thought bearing children would turn her mind from the grief of her mother's death. I thought love and care would heal her, but I was wrong; I meddled beyond my depth. Forgive me, Nancy.'