The Anatomy of Violence Page 10

  “Seven.” Heavy shadows lay under her green eyes. I started up and she pushed me back gently. “You’ve got to stay in bed today, Laurie. You were raving most of the night.”

  “Raving?” I rolled a woolen tongue around my mouth and felt weakness in my bones. “What about?”

  “Plaster footprints, Captain Riemann, a picture of Eileen, and a damn dog.” She fumbled a cigaret from her pocket.

  “And daddy was here?”

  Gwen lit her cigaret and nodded. “Getting grayer by the minute. He went to Riemann’s place and found nothing. No metal locker. No plaster casts. No picture of Eileen. Nothing.”

  “Give me a cigaret.” I felt cold inside; no doubt now that Riemann had been murdered and his evidence destroyed. And I was the only one who knew what he’d found. I drew on the cigaret and tried to relax. “Where’s daddy now?”

  “The capital. Said he’d try to interest the state police in Riemann’s death. He’s … Laurie, I never saw Ben scared before and it scares me. He said to keep you in bed if I had to tie you.”

  “Can’t, Gwen. Rich gets out today.” I slid my legs across the bed and winced as my knee brushed the covers.

  “What is it?” Gwen pulled up my pajama leg and clucked at the brown spot on my knee. “Floor burn? You must have gotten it night before last. I’ll get something.”

  “Later, Gwen—” But she was gone. Bottles clinked in the medicine cabinet, then she returned with a jar of salve.

  “Gwen, I have a lot to do.”

  She ignored me, slid the pajamas up above my knee and applied the salve. “So Rich is getting out today?”

  “That was the deal.” I lay back as her blunt fingers smoothed salve over the burns.

  “Deal?” Her head jerked up. “You made a deal for a twenty thousand dollar bond?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Laurie … only Jules Curtright could make a deal like that. You’d be better off selling it at the State Line Club, ten bucks a trick.”

  “The deal isn’t to sleep with him. We’re just going out.”

  She laughed without humor.

  “What’s so bad about going out with Jules?”

  “It’s give and take.” Her voice was flat. “You give and he takes.”

  “Gwen, have you gone out with Jules?”

  “You won’t tell Ben? He has it hard enough, working for Jules now.”

  “No—but you did go out with Jules.”

  “I knew better than that. I grew up with Jules. We weren’t social equals.” She laughed without humor. “We had that little farm next to the Curtright mansion. Where Ann’s dad is now. Jules was always running off to our place to get away from his grandmaw.”

  “He told me about her. Called her Grandmam.”

  “Yes. I could always tell when he’d had a fight with her. He’d play so … rough.”

  “Play?”

  “Not the way you think, at first. He was twelve and I was eleven. It was a hot day and a drought year and the grass was yellow and burnt on the ends. Jules came over. He always did because the old lady didn’t allow me over there. His eyes—you’ve seen how dark they are—looked like they’d burn clear through me. Said he’d been locked up, and he’d thought of something he’d like to try.”

  “You let him?”

  “He hit me with a stick when I wouldn’t take my dress off. I was curious too, though. At first I … helped him a little. But he had the idea it was supposed to hurt me. Got mad when I quit crying. So he twisted my arm until I … cried again.”

  I stood up. Gwen’s eyes followed me as I pulled on my panties. “Where are you going?”

  “Out.” I took a bra from the dresser.

  She stood up frowning. “Your father said no.”

  “He works his way. I work my way.” I hooked the bra and slid the clasp around to the rear. “Nobody is going to shut me up in a house.” I jerked the straps in place.

  “I won’t stop you.” Gwen stood behind me as I opened my closet. “But the police might.”

  “Who’s out there?”

  “Same sergeant. Looks like an undertaker trying to keep a straight face. His girl friend just brought him coffee.”

  “That’s his wife.” I took out a square-necked blouse.

  “Girl friend, I said. Men don’t pinch their wives on the fanny at six in the morning. And she didn’t have a ring.”

  So Johson had lied about the wife and kids. It would make dealing with him easier. I pulled the blouse over my head and turned my back to Gwen. “Zip me?”

  Gwen fumbled with the zipper, and I mused aloud. “What if Jules were the man who raped me?”

  Her hand froze with the zipper halfway up. “What makes you think that?”

  “You said he wanted to hurt you.”

  “That means nothing.” She jerked the zipper up and her voice was tight. “Don’t mention that to anyone.”

  “No, but it’s funny. Eileen used to get all bruised up.” I wriggled into a skirt. “And I get sick when he touches me. As though my body wants to tell me something and my mind won’t listen.”

  “Evidence like that would throw a jury into hysterics.”

  “I know.” I sat down and started brushing the hair back from my temples. “But suppose I could prove Jules did it?”

  Gwen’s eyes met mine in the mirror, wide and sincere. “You’d need evidence his own grandmother couldn’t doubt.” She gripped my shoulders. “Don’t push it, Laurie. You’ll get us all in trouble.”

  “Trouble?” I powdered my jaw and saw that the bruise was lighter. “Aren’t we in trouble now?”

  “Not Curtright trouble.” Her mouth turned down in a bitter smile. “That trouble doesn’t disappear when you powder your face.”

  “You’ve had it?”

  She nodded. “There was more to the story about Jules and me. Daddy caught us and whipped us both. That night our barn burned. Daddy found a gasoline can outside it. He went to the sheriff and said he suspected Jules. Nothing happened.”

  “Well, a barn—” I touched my lips with lipstick and started to get up.

  Gwen pressed down my shoulders. “A barn wasn’t enough. Next year was a drought year too and we went busted. Like everyone else, daddy went to the bank for a loan to last another year. Curtright’s bank turned him down—no reason given. Daddy sold the farm to the Curtright’s to pay his debts and died on relief.”

  Gently I removed her hands from my shoulders and stood up. “Your dad had only an empty gasoline can. I’m talking about proof—solid proof.”

  “You’d get no help, anywhere.” She caught my arm and looked hard into my eyes. “Laurie, the Curtright’s never work directly. We hate the people who work for Jules—his mayor, his editor, his police lieutenant, his banker. We forget who’s behind them. People lose jobs, homes, farms. They move away. They had tough luck, we say.” Two red spots appeared high on her cheeks and her voice rose. “Their tough luck was running up against Curtright. You want that to happen to us?”

  “Gwen, I don’t intend to accuse Curtright in public.” Her fingers were hurting my arm and it surprised me; I’d never seen her emote before. “I have no proof—yet.”

  “Laurie, I tried to help after I goofed at the beginning. But if you plan to start nosing into Curtright business I’ll keep you home if I have to sit on you.”

  “I’m just going out to meet Richard, Gwen.”

  “Sure?” She let go of my arm and looked dubious.

  “Positive.” I put my arm across her shoulders and we walked out together. “You’ve been a big help, Gwen. And I just remembered Jules couldn’t have done it. He was in the State Line Club when it happened.”

  Downstairs she handed me a bundle of letters, two inches thick. “They’re addressed to you but take my advice and don’t read them. They’re probably like those phone calls.”

  “There may be clues.”

  She shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ll be in the garden. I want to be able to tell Ben I didn’t s
ee you leave.”

  I started ripping through the mail. Only a few had return addresses, but the postmarks showed that degeneracy had no geographic center. They came from everywhere in amazing variety.

  A girl sent a bulky letter detailing how she’d been assaulted by four men. Someone else had taken my face from the newspaper and pasted it on what was intended to be obscene drawing. It was too crude for obscenity. I got impatient and started skimming the mail.

  I stopped at a letter addressed in a careful, vertical hand. The perfect circle above the “i” was Ann’s. I ripped it open.

  “Dear Laurie, I’m sick tonight. I feel like there’s half a dozen bongo drummers shut up inside my head and I’m looking at the world through a scummy beer glass. Daddy found me and sobered me up. He read me the paper that told what happened to you. After that I was stone sober.

  “I know how it is to be forced the first time because he did it to me. Remember the time almost four years ago when we planned to practice for the school play and I never showed? That was when. He said if I told on him, something bad would happen to someone I loved. So I didn’t tell, then or ever. It happened lots of times. And even when I got the chance to stop—by then I couldn’t.

  “It seemed as though all I had to look forward to was when he and I would go away together.

  “I hit bottom when Eileen started going out with him. I’d get sick I wanted it so bad. That’s why I went out with other boys.

  “I’m telling all this so you’ll understand what I did to you and Eileen. I knew what he was going to do when he asked me to call Eileen outside the barn. I never regretted it about Eileen. She was so sweet when you were around it nearly made me puke. When you weren’t she was pure bitch.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you, though. It was for your own good I tried to make you lose the contest. Take my word. And I didn’t know what he was planning when he told me to take the dojigger off your car. You get in the habit of doing what somebody tells you and you forget there’s such a word as why.

  “Now I’m going to try and straighten up. I’m going some place where I don’t have a reputation. Mostly I’m going away because I don’t want to hurt you anymore and I don’t know what he’ll do to you next.

  “But Laurie, believe me, he wouldn’t see anything wrong with killing you if he thought he ought to. His mind works funny. Like he came from some other planet and just naturally hated human beings. You wonder how I can love a man like that?

  “I don’t think I love him now after what he did to you. Well, I’ll never know because I never intend to see him again. Maybe you’ll understand how I could do what I have when you really fall in love. I hope you have better luck than me. Your best friend, Ann.

  “P.S. I trust you not to give this to the police. He says if he gets caught I’ll sit in the electric chair right beside him because I’m an accessory.”

  My hands were sweating as I folded the letter and put it in my purse. Then I dialed the police station. “I’m calling about Richard Farham. Has he been released?”

  “Hold on.” The unfamiliar voice returned after a minute. “His bond’s been put up. He’ll be out in a few minutes. You a relative?”

  “His mother. Would you have him meet me in the drug store at the corner of Main and Third?”

  “Ill tell him.”

  I hung up and peered out the back window. Sergeant Johnson stood in the garden talking to Gwen’s bent back. Out the front window I saw another policeman at the end of the walk with his back to me. Someone had doubled my guard.

  “George,” I called softly. George thumped in from the kitchen. I opened the front door a few inches and pointed to the policeman at the end of the walk. “Sic him, George.”

  George took off with a scurry of toenails, barking as though he’d rip the man apart. I knew he wouldn’t bite—but Johnson didn’t. I watched the sergeant run around to the front of the house, then I slipped through the back door. Gwen didn’t look up as I ran within five feet of where she worked.

  I reached the drug store five minutes ahead of Richard. I was in a booth when he came in. He wore a white bandage like a flag of truce on his forehead. He waved, then turned to the cigaret man and asked the time.

  He walked over to the booth, grinning and setting his watch. “Hi, mom.”

  I squeezed his hand and made room for him beside me. “Rich, we have to find Ann.”

  “Has she disappeared?”

  I nodded and gave him the letter. “This came today.”

  Richard’s blue eyes moved quickly down the pages as he read the letter a paragraph at a time. He was nodding his head slowly when he handed it back. “Ann’s quite a girl. Now I know how the rotor cap got in my pocket.”

  “Was she with you after you left the Barn?”

  He nodded. “Let’s get out of here and I’ll tell you.”

  “Tell me here.”

  “It isn’t conspicuous enough.”

  “You want to be conscipuous?”

  “Laurie …” He took my hand and gave me a level look. “I intend to stand out like a black cat on a snow bank. I want people to see me and remember when they saw me. That’s one reason for the bandage. That’s why I asked about the time. You know why?”

  I shook my head.

  “I’ll run through it for you. Koch thinks he has me on this case, but you can never be sure about the law. Now I’m free on bond, but let’s suppose something happens. Say a house is broken into, a kid’s bike is stolen, a girl is … hurt, maybe. Who is the only vicious criminal at large in Curtright City?” He tapped his chest. “Richard Farham. And where was he at the time of the crime? Did anybody see him?” He looked at me with his eyebrows raised.

  “I see, Rich. But let’s hurry.”

  At the door I had to wait again while Richard spoke to a man stacking cigarets in slots. “What time do you have?”

  “Nine thirty,” said the man without looking up. “Ten minutes later than the last time you asked.”

  “You sure? I’ve got nine forty.”

  The man sighed and called to the woman behind the soda fountain. “Selma, tell the man what time it is.”

  “Nine thirty.”

  The man turned back to his cigarets. “Better get that watch fixed, fella.”

  We’d gone twenty feet down the street when Rich suddenly laughed. “It just occurred to me that I can’t help being conspicuous when I’m with you. You realize I’m supposed to have attacked you?”

  I caught his arm and steered him toward a door. “Let’s go in here and talk.”

  “That’s a poolroom.”

  “I don’t care if it’s a slaughterhouse. I want to hear about Ann.”

  We walked into the long, musty room. It was empty except for an owl-eyed man who ran the place. He held a wooden triangle in the crook of his arm and stared at me. Rich handed me a tapered stick he called a cue. “We’ll just slop a few balls around. He’ll never forget a beautiful girl who shoots pool at nine thirty in the morning.”

  He broke open the triangle of balls with a loud crack. I waited while the ivory balls clicked softly, until I could wait no longer. “Rich, please, tell me about Ann. Is there something wrong?”

  He straightened, rubbing his forehead beside the bandage. “Ann? Oh, yes. I’m sorry, it’s the damn jail. Destroys my will. I hear of guys writing books, devising theories in jail—I can’t even decide what kind of razor blades to buy for days after I get out. Ann.” His brow furrowed and he bent back to the table. “I never dreamed she had anything on her mind but sex.”

  He’d run across her in the parking lot while he was waiting for me to come from the Barn, he said. Ann wanted him to come with her because she had something important to tell him; something that might make a story. Rich didn’t go, but by the time he learned there was no story, both Jules and I had left the club. Rich assumed I’d gone with Jules since my car was still there. But Ann said no, she could find me.

  She’d jumped into the blond boy’s car and st
arted driving. Ten miles out, she pulled off the road, lifted a quart jug of vodka and orange juice from the back seat and suggested a party. Rich told her to get in the back seat first. When she did, he handed her the jug, slid behind the wheel, and started driving back to town.

  After some resistance, Ann had ridden quietly. They were going down Main Street when Ann leaned forward, bit Richard’s ear, and started pawing him.

  “That’s when she could have slipped the rotor cap in my pocket. A set of molars in the earlobe always did distract me.” Rich paused to rub the end of his cue with a square of blue chalk. “She said, ‘I’m hot, Rich. Let’s go back to the country.’ I said I was driving myself home, then she could go find an ice-pack some place. She said if I didn’t go back she’d lean out the window and yell at everyone she saw. I told her I didn’t give a damn what she did, then her teeth sank into my ear like a pair of pliers. I swung my arm backwards and it landed, spiat! right on a bare posterior. I glanced back and damn if she hadn’t taken off all her clothes.”

  He bent to the table and sank another ball. “I pulled into the first alley I saw and left both Ann and the car. I called Harry and quit my job, went home and started that letter to you. Then the cops walked in.”

  He stepped back and motioned me to shoot. I aimed, the cue made a solid hit but the ball shot off at a weird tangent. “You have no idea where Ann is now?”

  “No. But her dad must have been the guy she was trying to protect, the first time.” Rich put his arms around me from behind and held his hands over mine on the cue. “Was she close to him?”

  “Used to be very close.” With his hands on mine, Rich shot in a ball.

  “He’s the man to see first, then.”

  “All right. Lend me your car keys.”

  “I can drive.”

  “You can’t leave town, Rich. Don’t be a hero.”

  “Hero?” The butt of his cue struck the floor. “A hero thinks trouble is something other people have. I know trouble like a brother. I know the whole situation can get a lot dirtier than it is, too. Maybe you don’t realize how dirty.” He bent and slammed a ball in the pocket. “This is a rotten little town, Laurie. It’s worse than a rotten big town because people don’t like to join little crusades; only big ones. I learned that on the paper.” He slammed another ball into the pocket, harder than the last. “And this guy—whoever he is—has a preference for pretty girls just coming out of their teens. That’s why I’m staying with you. The hell with my alibi.”