Death Qualified (60 page)

    "I'll get it," Frank said.

    "We'll work at our end," Sheriff LeMans said, "but I don't feel hopeful, Ms. Holloway. Not at all."

    She nodded, listening to Frank at the front door. Nell and Clive?

    "We wanted to tell you first," Clive was saying.

    She felt a knot of fury gathering in her chest and held up her hand to the sheriff to silence him. Clive was going on.

    "... don't want to interrupt if you have company."

    She stepped into the hall then and called, "Hey, come on in, you two." Then she turned to the sheriff and motioned him back to his chair.

    "Please," she whispered.

    He did not look pleased, but he sat down again and picked up his glass.

    "Hi, Nell, Clive," she said when they entered the room.

    Nell looked miserable and cold; she evaded Barbara's eyes.

    Clive was smiling broadly.

    "You remember Sheriff LeMans, don't you?" She waited until they all said the expected greetings, then asked, "By the way, where are the kids?" If they were tagging along, this would be just another little social hour.

    "Tawna's letting Carol paint jewelry, and Travis and Celsy are playing a game or something," Nell said.

    "Celsy's home for the holiday."

    Barbara nodded.

    "Why don't you take that chair close to the fire. You look frozen. That damn fog's impossible."

    Nell went to the chair and huddled in it, holding her hands out toward the fireplace.

    "Actually," Barbara said then, "we were just talking about you two. Nell, this is a terribly impertinent question, but I have to ask. Have you had sex with Clive?"

    Nell gasped, and Clive made a deep-throated noise.

    "No!" Nell said.

    "Of all the damn busybody--" Clive started, but Barbara cut him off.

    "Oh, shut up. And sit down. You have to hear this, too.

    You see, that girl in the woods, Janet Moseley, had AIDS, and whoever raped her was possibly infected."

    "Nell, let's get the hell out of here." Clive was on his feet, reaching for Nell's arm.

    "Why don't you sit down?" Barbara said.

    "I repeat, you should hear this, too. Even if the guy used a condom, or even if he didn't penetrate her, if he so much as scratched his hand on her jaw, it's possible that her blood was enough to infect him."

    Clive jerked his hand back as if it were scalded. His left hand cradled his right hand for an instant.

    "You're crazy," he said.

    "What the hell is this all about? What does it have to do with us?"

    Sheriff LeMans had set his glass down softly; he was tense, poised. Frank was still standing near the door. Nell stared wide-eyed at Barbara, very pale, transfixed.

    Deliberately Barbara said, "I think all sexual partners should be told if there is any danger of infection, however remote. In Nell's case, I think she should be aware before she announces any wedding plans that her future husband is gay and quite likely infected with AIDS. And I think his other sexual partners should also be told. Bill, for example."

    Clive lunged at her; she jumped aside as the sheriff leaped up, grabbed dive's arm, and swung him away.

    Clive turned to him.

    "She's a crazy bitch! What's she saying?

    This is crazy!" He was livid, and shaking.

    "Let's just sit down and discuss it," Sheriff LeMans said almost soothingly.

    Clive jerked free of his grasp and yelled at Barbara, "You can't do this to me! You're crazy!"

    "Maybe. But who tells Bill? You or me?"

    "There's nothing to tell! I don't know who you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about."

    "Or," Barbara said coolly, "we can leave him out of it altogether, never mention his name again, and you just tell us what happened. Someone very discreetly can advise him to get a medical test. Routine checkup, that's all anyone would know. Maybe he would appreciate that you kept his name out of it, maybe he'd wait for you, the way you offered to wait for Nell."

    "This is blackmail," Clive said hoarsely.

    "No, it's plea bargaining before the fact. It happens all the time. It's how the system works."

    Clive turned to the sheriff.

    "You're a party to this kind of blackmail?"

    "I'm an interested spectator," Sheriff LeMans said.

    "Listening."

    "He doesn't know the last name," Barbara said.

    "And there's no reason to tell him, unless we have to string out an investigation."

    "Let me think," Clive muttered; he put his hands over his face.

    "God, this is crazy."

    Suddenly his arm lashed out at the sheriff, caught him across the chest, and threw him back onto the chair. Clive spun around and ran; he hit Frank in passing and knocked him down, and then he ran out into the hall, slammed the door behind him, on out the front door, and slammed it shut. Sheriff LeMans ran out after him, but before he even reached the door, there was the sound of a car engine, tires spinning on gravel, and the roar of acceleration.

    Sheriff LeMans returned grim-faced. He scowled at Barbara.

    "Where's the phone?"

    She pointed; she was on one knee at Frank's side, helping him up.

    "Are you all right?"

    "Sure, sure. Nothing broken, I think. Good God, Bobby, why didn't you warn a fellow?"

    "What kind of car is he driving?" Sheriff LeMans asked at the phone.

    "We walked over," Nell said.

    "Jesus Christ," the sheriff snarled.

    "He left in a car.

    Whose?"

    They had to go out to see that he had taken Barbara's car. She remembered that the man who had delivered it earlier had said the key was in the ignition. She described it to the sheriff, and gave him the license number. Nell was sitting as if stunned.

    After the sheriff was finished phoning, Nell asked, "Can I go now? I want to go home to my kids."

    "Sure, honey," Frank said.

    "I'll drive you over. I won't be more than a few minutes," he added to Barbara.

    "Hold the fort."

    "I'd better go collect Mike," she said.

    The phone rang; the sheriff scooped it up and began to talk again. He waved them all out.

    On the deck outside, Barbara pulled on her cap and turned up her jacket collar. The fog had crept up the riverbanks to create a new earth form, joining the land that the river had bisected. The fog appeared solid enough to walk on. She began to walk toward the woods, toward Doc's house, benumbed by the last half hour, not elated over dive's collapse, not jubilant at beating him, not at all victorious. Benumbed described it, but even with the word in her throat, she knew it was wrong. Soiled, dirty, that was how she felt.

    In the Buick, Nell huddled, staring straight ahead. Frank glanced at her, back at the road, at her again, stymied for anything to say to her. She broke the silence when he turned into her long driveway.

    "He wanted me to go to his house, after we saw you and Barbara. He said he had champagne that he's been saving for months, for this day. We would have .. . would have...."

    "Honey, it's over. You can relax. It's really over," Frank said, and then he caught his breath. Barbara's car was in the driveway near the little house.

    Nell choked back a cry; her voice was like a sob, "He's gone. He took his truck. That's all, he just came for his truck." Then she looked at Frank and whispered, "He keeps a rifle in his truck. He'll have that, too."

    THIRTY-EIGHT

    entering the deep woods was like stepping out of time, Barbara thought as she walked slowly. The trail here was so narrow that too little light penetrated for undergrowth to take hold; the trees closed overhead, creating a perpetual twilight out of time. Ten thousand years ago, it was like this: Trees grew, died, fell; and new trees rose, always the same in the midst of change. Moss was on everything, hanging from lower limbs, layer upon layer on tree trunks and rocks, velvety, moist, deeply green, fragrant. Even the silence was uncanny, unworldly; distance, trees, fog muted the voice of the river, turned it into a ghost river, also out of time, frozen under the spectral robes of fog.

    Then she heard a sound on the trail ahead somewhere.

    "Mike? Is that you?"

    The silence returned, more profound than before. She strained to hear anything and had to give up. Nothing.

    The trail was crooked; no trail in the deep woods was straight. Trails twisted around living trees, snaked around fallen tree trunks, circled boulders. She could not see more than ten feet ahead, and could hear nothing now.

    She realized she was holding her breath, unmoving, and breathed again, took a step. A bird, she thought. A squirrel or rabbit. Coyote. Cougar, bear, elk, deer.. .. She walked faster, making no noise on the carpet of endless cycles of needles, and she heard a sound again, the snap ping of a branch, a foot scraping a rock, something. This time it was to her left.

    To the right, fifty yards away, thirty, twenty, some where, was the edge of the cliff, the river below. To her left, at about the same indeterminate distance, was the gravel road. She must have covered half the distance to Doc's house, she thought. And then.. .. Then she would have to cross the cleared space, be out in the open.. ..

    The sound came again, to her left, behind her, between her and the road, between her and home. She started to run.

    "Run, Barbara," Clive said mockingly, still behind her, off to her left.

    "Run, run."

    She ducked off the trail, behind a tree. He laughed.

    Slowly, she edged away from the tree, darted to another one, only to hear his mocking laughter again.

    "Don't do this, Clive. Go back to the house. Let's just talk about it. You can plead your case, you know."

    "Shh," he said.

    "You know, it's funny in a way. I didn't want to kill Lucas. I saw the rifle and I got mad that Nell left it where one of the kids could pick it up, fool around, get hurt. That's all. I picked it up, and the shells, and I wasn't thinking about shooting anyone, until he began popping up here, there. But I want to kill you, Barbara.

    Not too fast, not from behind so that you don't know what's happening. Oh, I want you to know. I've had you in the cross hairs at least twice already, and I waited, you see, because I wanted you to know. And now you know."

    "What about that girl? Why did you kill that poor girl?"

    she called. As soon as he spoke, she moved again, behind the next tree.

    "I saw Lucas and her going up that dead end road, and I got curious when they didn't come out again. Then she said he was walking home, and I thought she was kidding me, mocking me, trying to be funny." He stopped moving, stopped talking; she didn't move a muscle. Then he said, "You guessed right about her, Barbara. I wouldn't have touched that little slut for all the gold on Earth. I used a stick. Crazy Lucas, let them think crazy Lucas did it. I didn't want him dead. In jail, the booby hatch, Nell ever faithful. I would have been her good, loyal friend good to her, good to the children."

    As soon as he spoke, she moved again, froze again; the eerie silence returned. This was his world, she thought desperately; he knew how to move, how to hunt down his prey. She was not even sure how far from the trail she had drifted, how close to the edge of the cliff she was now, and she could hear nothing.

    His voice sounded very close, amused when he said, "You'd better breathe, Barbara."

    "You can get a good attorney who will handle the case," she cried, and ran again, stopped again.

    "You could say you found the car and no one there. You were ready to blame Lucas; you still can. A good lawyer would raise doubts in the jury's mind." This time she held her breath, listening.

    The silence was prolonged. She pulled off her cap, a light blue wool cap that would be visible a long way in the darkening woods. She looked around and saw a spike sticking out from a tree, a broken branch, head high; she dropped down in a crouch.

    He chuckled, and she ran in a crouch to the tree with the spike.

    "Thank you, Barbara. Good defense. I just didn't want to get involved. I had no idea a crime had been committed. I assumed it was just hikers out in the woods. Very good, Barbara, very good."

    She still had not seen him; his voice carried in a way that did not yield a real clue about how far away he was.

    But he could see her every time she moved, she knew.

    Predator and prey, prey and predator. Only one had need to see the other. She wedged the cap on the spike so that most of it was on the side of the tree where she was, with an edge that Clive could see, if he was still behind her and to her left. She bent over as low as she could get and still move, and this time she crept away from the tree to take shelter again behind another one. No sound followed.