A Touch of Death (Hard Case Crime Book 17) Read online

  He was scrambling to his knees, trying to get the rifle swung around. I clawed at the tree limb with the sick arm and reached back with the other and found her. I put the hand against her belly and threw her at him like a bag of laundry. She took a long step backward and crashed down on top of him and the two of them rolled across the rifle. I reached down for the gun I had dropped.

  It was the blonde, but she’d turned off the Southern belle. Her eyes were hot with fury as she untangled her long legs and arms and tried to sit up. She had pine needles in her hair, and a scratch on her knee oozed blood over the ruin of a nylon stocking.

  She didn’t like me. And you could see the cords in her throat while she was telling me about it.

  “Shut up,” I said.

  I walked over to them. They were both sitting up. The rifle was under her legs in the sand. I pushed them out of the way and dragged it from under her with my foot. She liked me even less. He didn’t say anything. He just looked at me with his crazy eyes.

  I shoved the rifle backward, stepped back to it, and squatted down. I took the bolt out and threw it twenty yards down the hill into the underbrush. Then I swung the rest of it against a tree. The stock splintered, and broken glass trickled out the end of the ’scope.

  “Where’s the car?” I said.

  Something had been eating him away inside for a long time. You could see it in the hot, crazy eyes, and in the way his hands twitched as he rubbed them across his mouth. “Who are you?” he asked. His voice was ragged. “What do you want?”

  “A car,” I said. “I thought I mentioned that.”

  There was something odd about them, and I saw what it was now that I had time to take a good look. They were brother and sister. He was big, and a lot younger, probably not over twenty-one or twenty-two, but it was unmistakable. Maybe it was the identical ash blondness and the well-formed bone structure of their faces. They were good-looking as hell. And full of it.

  “You’ll never take her out of here,” he said. “You’ll never take her out of here alive. I’ll kill her. I’ll kill you.”

  I gestured with the gun. “On your feet.”

  He hesitated a moment, watching me; then he got up. She continued to sit there.

  I caught her by the arm and hauled her up. Red fingernails slashed toward my face. I brushed her hand away and shoved her. She bounced against him and he caught her to keep her from falling.

  “If she won’t walk,” I said, “carry her.”

  He stared hungrily at the gun. “Where?”

  “Out to the road. We’re looking for a car, remember?”

  She looked at him with contempt. “Are you afraid of this miserable thug?”

  “What do you want me to do?” he said. “He’s got the gun.”

  “So you’re going to let her get away?”

  “She hasn’t got away yet.”

  “All right, break it up,” I said. “You can yak some other time.”

  “What are you going to do with Mrs. Butler?” she asked.

  “I’m going to adopt her. I think she’s cute.”

  “Maybe you don’t know what you’re getting mixed up in. The police want her for murder. She killed her husband.”

  “I don’t care if she killed Cock Robin,” I said. “I just work here. Now shut up and start walking.”

  They started out toward the road. I kept about six feet behind them. When we struck it we were near the edge of the meadow. I didn’t see the car anywhere. It had to be above.

  “Turn right,” I said. “Up the hill. And stay in the road.”

  We went silently uphill through the sand.

  “You could tell me where it is,” I said. “But that would be the easy way. So we’ll just walk. It’s only eight miles out to the road, and eight miles back.”

  They made no answer. They walked side by side in icy silence, not looking back.

  “If we pass it,” I said, “don’t bother to say anything. We’ve got all the rest of the day to walk around.”

  I watched the ruts, fairly sure I’d see where they had pulled it off the road even if they had it hidden. And just before we reached the crest of the ridge I did. It was pulled off in a clump of dogwood. It was the same car the girl had driven up in.

  “Who’s got the keys?” I asked.

  They stared at me in silent hatred.

  It was obvious she didn’t have them, because she didn’t have a purse. I looked at him. “All right, Blondy. How’d you like one through the leg?”

  He took the keys out of his pocket.

  “You drive,” I said. “And Toots will sit in the middle.”

  We got in. He backed it out on the road. “Downhill,” I said. “To the camp. And don’t get any funny ideas about giving it the gun and crashing into a tree. I might walk away from it, but you wouldn’t.”

  We were jammed in together, but I held the gun in my right hand over against the door, where she couldn’t grab for it.

  She turned her face and stared into mine from a distance of three inches. She was lovely. “You son-of-a-bitch,” she said.

  I patted her on the leg. “Did you ever find Gillespie, honey?”

  Chapter Nine

  WE STOPPED IN FRONT OF the cabin.

  I got out. “Inside,” I said.

  We went up on the porch. I heard Madelon Butler unlocking the door, and knew she had watched us from the window. The door opened and the blonde went in, followed by her brother. I was in the rear, not expecting it, and they almost pulled it off.

  He jumped inside, making some kind of hoarse roaring sound in his throat, and the blonde tried to slam and bolt the door ahead of me. I got a foot in it just before it closed, and leaned on it. She shot back into the room and sat down. I almost fell over her.

  He was on the floor, with Madelon Butler under him, groping wildly to get both hands on her throat. She was kicking and beating at his arms, but uttering no sound, while that insane racket kept coming from his open mouth.

  I shoved the gun in my belt and hauled him up. He wouldn’t turn her loose, and tried to bring her with him. I hit him. He turned his face a little, and finally let her go and looked at me as if he’d never seen me before. I hit him again and felt the pain go up my arm. He was standing there rubber-legged as if he couldn’t fall until somebody told him where, so I put my hand in his face and pushed. He stretched out alongside the blonde on the floor. I felt of my hand. It hurt and it had blood on it, but I couldn’t feel any broken bones.

  Madelon Butler stood up. The dark hair was wild and her eyes were like winter smoke as she came toward me. I didn’t know what she was trying to do until I felt the gun sliding out of my belt. I grabbed her wrist, broke her grip on it, and shook her hand off.

  “No, you don’t,” I said. “Sit down.”

  She didn’t seem to hear me, so I shoved her down in the chair at one end of the table. The other two were getting off the floor, and now they both looked crazy. He was crying, and her face was white and her eyes blazed.

  I pointed to the chairs at the other end of the table. “You’d better sit down,” I said. “I’m tired of wrecking my hands. From now on I use the gun.”

  His mouth was working. Tears ran down his face. “I’ll kill you,” he said. “I’ll kill you.”

  “Quiet,” I said. I pointed at the chairs again.

  They sat down.

  I pulled a chair up to the table, halfway between them and Madelon Butler, and sat down myself. I tilted back in the chair a little, put the gun in my lap, and took a cigarette out and lit it.

  After all the violence it was suddenly quiet in the room, so still I could hear the sound of my own heavy breathing. Then the blonde’s voice came up through it.

  Her hands grasped the edge of the table so tightly her fingers were white around the nails. I could see the cords standing out in her throat. Her voice wasn’t much more than a whisper that sounded as if it were being pressed out of her by a heavy weight on her chest, but some of the things she sai
d I’d never heard before myself.

  It went on and on. Madelon Butler watched her curiously, the way she might study something brought up by a deep-sea trawl. When the blonde finally stopped for breath, she said, “You are a vulgar little gutter rat, aren’t you?”

  But the blonde was finished. She could only stare silently. She drew her hands across her face and shuddered, and at last she turned to me.

  “What are you going to do with her?” she asked.

  “Never mind,” I said.

  “Let me have the gun,” she begged. “Just let me have it for five seconds. Let me kill her. I’ll give it back to you. You can kill me, or turn me over to the police, but just let me have it.”

  “Relax,” I said. “You’ll get ulcers.”

  “What are you going to do with her?”

  Madelon Butler lit a cigarette and watched us through the smoke. The man sat hunched over the other end of the table, holding the edges of it with his hands and saying nothing.

  “We’re going to take your car and go for a little ride as soon as it’s dark. If you don’t mind.”

  “How much is she paying you?”

  “Who said she was?” I asked.

  “Of course she is. Why else would you do it?”

  “I’m her mother.”

  “How much?”

  “Never mind,” I said. “I don’t think you could meet the price.”

  She turned her face then and looked at the man. “Didn’t you hear him, Jack? You see? The dear, sweet thing couldn’t find it. She didn’t even know what we were talking about”

  “Stop it!” he said.

  “She not only double-crossed you then, to get it, but she’s using it now to double-cross you again and get away and leave you holding the bag.”

  “Shut up!”

  There was no stopping her. “Why didn’t you have sense enough to look? Just look? Did you trust her, or something? Didn’t you know what she was? Didn’t the other one teach you anything?”

  His eyes were terrible. He hit her across the mouth with his open hand. She stopped then, and it became suddenly and almost breathlessly silent in the room. I could even hear the squirrel chattering again, up on the hill.

  I looked at my watch. It was only a little after one. We couldn’t leave until it was dark. That meant for at least six more hours I had to sit here and keep them sorted out and untangled and away from each other’s throats. I had thought that if I got them in here I could turn the gun over to Madelon Butler and let her watch them while I got a little sleep, but I could see that was out. They’d rush her the minute I dropped off. They were crazy enough. Or if they weren’t, she’d taunt them into it with that arrogant contempt of hers.

  I’d given up trying to figure it out. And there was no use asking any questions. I’d just be wasting my breath. They were all too hell-bent on killing each other to bother with outsiders trying to make sense out of it.

  I was tired. It had been thirty hours since I’d had any sleep, and we had a long afternoon and another whole night ahead of us. I wondered what our chances were of getting back to Mount Temple and into that house without being caught. In the dark, and with another car, we shouldn’t be stopped on the highway, but the house was another matter. They’d be watching it.

  I stood up and motioned toward the storeroom. “In there,” I said.

  They went by, watching me like a couple of big cats, and walked in. They sat down on some boxes. I stood in the doorway and looked at them.

  “You won’t get hurt if you stay in there,” I said. “And when we leave here you’ll be turned loose. But if you try to come back through this door or jump Mrs. Butler again while we’re here, you’ve had it.”

  “Aren’t you brave, with a gun in your hand?” the blonde said.

  “Don’t keep crowding your luck. Just because I haven’t shot you already doesn’t mean I won’t if I have to. I’m strictly a money player, and there’s a lot of it tied up in this. Too much to let a couple of hotheads like you louse it up. Keep it in mind, Blondie.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that money too much,” she said.

  “You wouldn’t? Why?”

  “You’ll never get it.”

  “I’ll worry about that.”

  Her eyes had grown thoughtful, and now she actually smiled. It was a very cold smile. “Yes. You’ll worry about it, before you get through. You haven’t found out yet who you’re dealing with. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before, but it makes me feel a lot better.”

  “What does?”

  “The fact that even if you get away from here, it really doesn’t matter. One of you will kill the other before it’s all over. Isn’t it nice?”

  “Isn’t it?” I said. “Unsaddle your broom and stay a while.”

  I closed the door and walked back to the table.

  Madelon Butler was still sitting in the chair at the end of it. I sat down and lit another cigarette.

  “You’d better go in and get some sleep,” I said. “You’ll need it.”

  “It’s too hot,” she said.

  “Suit yourself,” I said. “But it may be a little hot tonight, too.”

  She gave me that supercilious smile of hers again. “Not afraid to go back there, are you?”

  “No,” I said. “We’re going back.”

  “You’re rather fond of money, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I never had any.”

  “I hope you’ll be very happy with it.”

  “I like your friends,” I said, nodding toward the storeroom. “Why don’t all of you rent yourselves out to curdle milk?”

  “You’re not becoming squeamish, are you?” she asked mockingly. “Where’s your fine, professional attitude? Surely the detached and unemotional Mr. Barton wouldn’t let a little display of petulance like that upset him.” She broke off. “By the way, you never did tell me what your name really is.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “I didn’t, did I?”

  She shrugged.

  Time dragged. The cabin was stifling.

  I dozed off once, propped up in the chair. When my eyes flew open I saw the storeroom door being pulled gently back. The blonde was looking at me. “Back,” I said. It shut again.

  They’d be watching the house. They might catch us.

  Or if we tried to run, it could be worse. They might kill us.

  All right. Either I wanted that money, or I didn’t.

  And if I wanted it, I had to have the keys.

  Somehow, the sun went down.

  It was dusk out across the clearing. I stood up. Madelon Butler killed another cigarette in the mountain of butts on the tray and looked at me. “Put on your robe,” I said. “It’s time to go.”

  “Very well,” she said.

  I thought of something. “Would that blonde’s dress fit you?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea. But I’d die before I’d touch it.”

  “All right,” I said. “Don’t strip your gears. It doesn’t matter. You can change into something else when we get in the house. If we do.”

  I went over and opened the storeroom door. “All right,” I said.

  They came out. I motioned for them to go out the front door. I followed them. Madelon Butler came out, and I handed her the key. “Lock it,” I said. She locked the door. I put the key in my pocket.

  I nodded to the blonde and Jack. “Just stand right where you are. When we’re gone you can start walking. Or you can have that Cadillac if you know how to start it without the keys and don’t mind that it’s a little hot.”

  “I’ll find you someday,” Jack said. “I’ll find you.”

  “I’m in the book,” I said. I motioned for Madelon Butler to get into the car.

  As we crossed the culvert at the edge of the meadow I tossed the key out at the end of it without slowing down. I looked in the rear-view mirror, but I couldn’t see them. It was already too dark under the trees.

  I flicked on the h
eadlights and we went up the hill through the timber.

  The lights of the country store and filling station were ahead of us. “Here’s where we hit the highway,” I said. “We’ll see a police car once in a while, but they won’t be looking for this car. Don’t pay any attention to them. They can’t see you in here.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” she said.

  I sailed the keys to the Cadillac into the roadside bushes, and in another minute or two we pulled onto the pavement. In spite of what I’d told her, it was like walking into a cold shower.

  I drove carefully, holding it down to forty or forty-five. Just a simple accident or being stopped for a traffic violation of some kind was all it would take to ruin us. I thought of how invisible a car was among all the hundreds of others until something happened to it, or the driver did something wrong, and then it was in the center of the stage with all the spotlights on it. When we came into the first town I turned over one street to keep out of the lights, and went through as if we were driving on eggshells.

  I turned twice more, and we were back on the highway again. It was only thirty miles now.

  It had been over twelve hours since she was supposed to have fled. They might not actually expect her to be stupid enough to come back, but they’d have at least one man covering the place as a matter of routine. Maybe there’d be more. The money still hadn’t been found. They wouldn’t be taking any chances.

  Would he be in front? Or in back? Inside the house itself?

  We had to park the car far enough away so they wouldn’t hear it or see the headlights. And still we couldn’t walk around on the streets.

  “Is there another street or road in back of that one directly behind the house?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ll show you where to turn. There are no street lights there, and it’s mostly vacant lots.”

  She’d grown up in that house. I wondered how she felt about going back to it for the last time and knowing she’d never see it again if we got away. But whatever she felt, she kept it to herself. Then it occurred to me she had never seemed particularly bothered by the fact that her husband wasn’t around any more, either, or why he wasn’t. She wasn’t exactly the gushy type.