I still had his head in my sights and squeezed the trigger.
The flash lit up the island, and suddenly he wasn’t there.
“Oh thank God, thank the merciful God!” sobbed the girl, coming suddenly into view toward me. But after a few steps she fell and started moaning about her feet. “They’re all cut up!” she said. “The river took my shoes.”
I tilted the rifle back in its place against the front seat, hopped ashore, and ran to her through the bushes. She was half-sitting, half-lying against a stump, her teeth chattering, and moaning. I whipped off my coat and put it on her, telling her: “Hold on to me now, give to me when I lift.” I put one arm around her back, the other under her knees, at the same time kneeling myself. Then I got to my feet and carried her to the boat. “I’m so cold, so cold, so cold,” she whispered.
“Take it easy,” I said.
I helped her to the seat in the stern. This time, instead of paddling, I set the locks in their holes and rowed. I pushed clear of the tree, backed into the current, and let it take me below the island. Then I pulled for the east bank, shooting the bow up on it right beside Mom. I jumped ashore, gave the painter a hitch on a tree, and helped the girl ashore. But her feet still flinched at each step, and I picked her up once more, this time not having to kneel. “Get the rifle, will you?” I told Mom.
She didn’t answer or even act as though she heard me. She gave the girl’s hand a jerk and yelped into her face: “What’d he do with the money?”
“Who is this crazy bitch?” screamed the girl. Then without waiting for me to tell her, she exploded at Mom: “How would I know what he did with the money? How would I know what he did with anything? All I know what he did with was what he did with that gun, thanks to you trying to get him to shoot me, daring and daring and daring. Didn’t you know he had to be nuts? Didn’t you know he just might have done it—killed me, like you said? Didn’t you know that all that crap you dished out about what might happen to him if he shot me meant nothing to him at all? Hey, I asked you something! Why did you do that to me?”
“Get the rifle,” I repeated to Mom.
“I’ll bring it!” she snapped. “But first I’m going out there, going out and having a look.”
“Have a look at what?”
“The money, that’s what.”
“What do we have to do with that?”
“A reward’ll be out for it. They always pay a reward! If we turn it in, we can claim it.”
“Mom, you leave things lay.”
“I will, except for the money.”
“If I can put in a word,” said the girl, touching Mom on the shoulder, “you could take off your clothes and start diving down in the river. It got everything—his parachute, his hat, my shoes.”
“How do you know it got his hat?”
“He kept talking about it.”
By now it was full daylight, and Mom kept staring at her. Then: “OK,” she said to me, “take her up to the house and give her some clothes to put on. There’s some old ones of mine in my bottom bureau drawer.”
“Mom, use some sense.”
“And don’t you call no one, Dave, till I give you the word.”
“I have to call the sheriff.”
“But not till I give you the word.”
I still had the girl in my arms. At last we could start for the house. After two or three steps she whispered: “I’m sorry to be so much trouble.”
“You’re no trouble.”
“Am I getting heavy?”
“Not to me you’re not.”
“Mom? She’s your mother?”
“That’s right.”
“I took her for your wife.”
“I don’t have any wife.”
“I’m sorry I yelled at her, but she almost got me killed.”
“She gets some funny ideas.”
“Dave? Dave what?”
“Howell. What’s your name?”
“Jill. Jill Kreeger.”
“Pleased to meet you, Jill.”
“Likewise.”
A wan smile crossed her face. By then we were on the back porch of the house. Her arm suddenly tightened, the one around my neck. That brought her face against mine. She kissed me, first on the cheek and then on the mouth. “Hey, hey, hey! Jill, will you open the door?”
She reached down and turned the knob. We went through into the kitchen. I kicked the door shut behind me, then carried Jill up the hall and through the living room to the den. I was ashamed of the bed, all mussed up with only blankets oh it, a pillow without any case and no sheets. But she didn’t seem to mind, dropping off my coat and getting ready to jump in. But she had on those soggy clothes, such as they were—short red pants, a red bolero, as she called it, and some kind of thing like a bra. I stripped them off her quickly. She was standing in front of me, naked, a beautiful thing to see. I banged open a bureau drawer, grabbed a towel, and rubbed her dry, then bundled her into the blankets. But in the cold air of the room with no clothes on, her teeth started to chatter. “I’m having a chill,” she said.
“Hold everything!”
I started upstairs to the bathroom, but ducked back for one more kiss. She wanted it too, but her lips were cold as ice.
3
UPSTAIRS I TRIED THE water. When it was hot, I left it running while I went back to Jill. She was still in the bed, shaking. I wrapped the blanket around her, knelt by the bed and lifted, and carried her up to the tub. I took off the blanket, so she was naked again, and smacked her one on the tail.
“Get in and get in quick.”
She did. She stretched out in the hot water and for a second the chattering went on. Then it stopped and she closed her eyes.
“OK?”
“Yes, it’s heaven.”
“Is from this angle, no kidding.”
“Am I pretty?”
“Beautiful.”
“I want to be, for you ... Know what you looked like? From my angle? Out there just now?”
“I’ll bite. What?”
“God.”
She said it low and solemn. I didn’t gag it off or make any answer. After some time, she said: “Well? You always heard that hell’s hot, but you find out that cold can be worse, especially wet cold, with a rotten guy holding a gun to your head and a crazy, screwball woman egging him on to shoot. Then a voice behind you speaks. Then a rifle goes off. And from being down in hell, you’re in heaven all at one swoop. How would he look to you, the guy that flew you up there?”
“Like he needed a shave, I bet.”
She touched my chin and said: “God wears a beard, too. I’m sure he does. It shows in all the pictures.”
“OK, but I couldn’t tell you what would show in a picture of you. It would be against the law.”
She slapped water over the things I was talking about and asked, very innocently: “You like them?”
“I love them.”
They were round, with the nipples all spread out in the hot water, and beautiful. She slapped along, then said: “They’re floating up—to you.” At last I dipped my hand in the water and cuddled one, and she whispered: “It took you long enough.”
“I didn’t have the nerve.”
“God’s not supposed to have sex appeal, but let Him learn how to shoot and He can look awful pretty. I should have said, I was praying. All the time out there I was praying. Then when you spoke from the boat—”
“I’m not God, I’m Dave Howell, and I know you’re getting to me.”
“Then it’s mutual.”
“Hold still, I want to look at your feet.”
They were small and cute and pretty, but when I felt them she started to squeal. “Stop!” she yelped. “That tickles.”
“They’re not cut, that I can see.”
“They hurt outside.”
“That underbrush would hurt...They may be bruised a bit, but they’re not cut.”
“OK.”
She sat up, cut the water, soaped under her arms, sl
oshed herself, then came back to the subject of Mom: “Dave, why would she? Egg him on to fire that gun? She didn’t even know me. Why would she want me killed?”
“You must have misunderstood her. She’s mountain. We’re a peculiar bunch. We always say it opposite.”
“Listen, maybe I could misunderstand her, but not my belly. My belly knows what she meant. But why?”
I didn’t have any answer to that. The way Mom had acted had also baffled me. I said “Let’s forget it” or something like that and tried to get back to us.
She said: “OK, but you better be going down. She could come any time, and better you not be up here.”
“OK. Kiss me.”
She kissed me very solemnly put pulled back all of a sudden. “Why hasn’t she come?” she asked. “What’s she doing out there?”
“What’s it to us what she’s doing?”
But Jill kept staring at me. Then at last she whispered: “I know what she’s doing: she’s swiping that money, that’s what. She said she was going to look for it, and that’s what’s keeping her there. And that’s why she wanted me killed. Once he killed me and you killed him, you could roll us both in the river and who would know where we died, or when, or who shot us? You could stash that money and keep it. You—”
“Hey! Quit talking like that’s what I wanted—”
“Dave, I didn’t say you wanted me killed. I don’t believe you did. Just the same, if I had been killed out there, if I was dead, you’d have had to go along. You’d have had to play it the way she wanted, because after all, she’s your mother—roll me in the river, roll him in, and keep the hundred thousand.”
“You do have it figured out, don’t you?”
That’s what I said, but I have to own up—she shook me. The way Mom had acted out there by the water’s edge had a mighty peculiar look.
Jill kept staring at me and then went on, pretty cold: “Well, all I’ve got to say is, if that’s the mountain way, I’m glad I was born lower down. Is that all they know, just go around killing people?”
“Sometimes it has to be done.”
She kept staring at me, then all of a sudden closed her eyes as though hit with a whip. Then she reached out and touched me, gripping my hand in hers. “I’m sorry, Dave, I forgot who’s God, that’s all. I won’t again, ever. ... Yes, sometimes killing a guy can be the most glorious thing in the world.” Then: “You have to go down.”
She pushed her wet face to mine but once more pulled back and asked: “What’s she doing out there? Why hasn’t she come? She also has that gun. If she gets here before you call, my life’s not worth a plugged dime. Dave, you’re calling, you’re calling that sheriff now! Now, do you hear? Now!”
I didn’t believe her life was in danger, but with a beautiful, naked girl beside you, dripping water and banging you over the head, you do what she says, if for no other reason than to make her shut up. I went down-stairs, looked up the sheriff’s number, and called. The officer who answered sounded sleepy. I didn’t get much reaction even when I mentioned I’d killed a guy “to save the life of a girl.” But when I mentioned Shaw, the hijacker of that plane, the officer came to life fast. He told me to wait till he got his pen, then told me to “start over,” and “say it slow while I write it down.” When he had the name, time, and place all straightened out, he checked over what he’d send out: an ambulance for Jill, a “dead wagon,” as he called it, for the body, and “anything else?” he asked, very friendly. I couldn’t think of anything, and he said: “The officers’ll be right out, soon as they can get dressed. Hold everything till they get there.” I said I would.
As I hung up, Jill came limping into the room, the blanket wrapped around her. She asked to borrow the phone, which was next to the arch out in the hall, and I got up to let her sit down. By the number of spins on the dial, I knew she was calling long distance. When the answer came, she said: “Jack? It’s me, Jill.” Apparently the guy all but dropped dead, because she cupped the phone and whispered: “It’s Jack Mullen, our chief dispatcher. He thought I was dead, and it’s kind of knocked him over.” Then she was on the phone again, telling him what happened over and over: “Be sure you call Mr. Morgan right away now, quick. Tell him I’m all right. Thank him for sending the money, and give my best to Mrs. M. She’s a doll, and she was worried sick about me. I would call them myself, but I don’t have their number with me because it got dunked with everything else I had. And give them my love; be sure you don’t forget that.” Mr. Morgan seemed to be president of the airline.
She hung up and said: “Well? Now I feel better!” That was when Mom came in, carrying the rifle. Jill said: “Mrs. Howell, I’m sorry to tell you, Dave has called the sheriff. So if you figured to shoot me, it’ll cost you twenty years in Marysville, so maybe you better not.”
“No one’s planning to shoot you,” I told her, kind of short. I was getting fed up about something she had no proof of and that I didn’t at all believe. Mom paid no attention to her, but said to me: “I can’t find no trace of that money. What he done with it I don’t know, but could be he slipped it off, slipped off the straps of that poke, when he unsnapped the parachute. I found that all right. It’s out there in the river, on the other side of the island.”
“It don’t concern us, Mom.”
“You sure you didn’t find that money and hide it?” Jill asked her sarcastically. “You’ve been out there long enough.”
If Mom made a pass with the gun, I don’t know. Maybe she just thought about it. Whatever she did, Jill caught it and flinched in her chair. “I’m taking that,” I told Mom, reaching for it. But she backed away and I had to get tough to make her give it up. She kept saying: “Leave me be. This gun’s mine. It belongs to me. Your father bought it for me, so I’d be protected.” That was news to me; I thought he had bought it for himself.
“Whoever it belongs to,” I snapped, now pretty disagreeable, “it’s evidence in a killing. It has to be handed over to the police.”
At last I had it and could put it on the living room table, the low one in front of the fireplace. “I think it’s time for breakfast,” I said, and to Jill: “Could you stand some food?”
“I’d like some coffee, please.”
“Coming up.”
Generally I did the cooking, but this time I took Mom out to the kitchen with me to get her away from Jill—and away from that gun. The stove was electric. After I’d got out the kettle and filled it, I snapped on the coil under it and got out my grill that I used for fritters. It was stainless steel, twelve by twenty-four inches, with bolt holes around the edges. I bought it in a junkyard. What it had been part of, I don’t know—the floor of a truck maybe. But for me, once it was greased with Crisco, it was perfect for top-of-the-stove frying, like fritters. I greased it up now and cut the corn off the cobs, starting the bacon first in a heavy skillet I had. Soon as the kettle started to whistle, I made coffee and took it to the living room on a tray, with a napkin, sugar, and cream. Pretty fancy. Mom didn’t bother to hide her disgust. I put it on the table in front of Jill. She put in four lumps of sugar and some cream and started to gulp, flinching in between from its being so hot. Suddenly she looked like a half-starved child, and my heart went bumpity-bump. I made quick work of the orange juice, eggs, bacon, and fritters, but ate mine out there with Jill while Mom ate in the kitchen. Every so often I’d pat a strong little hand and it would pat me on the cheek. I’d just got through washing the dishes when the door-bell rang. I opened the door and there the officers were.
4
IT SEEMED THE SHERIFF was in Europe on some kind of business. The officer who was in charge was a sergeant named Edgren. He introduced himself and then the deputy with him, a middle-aged man named Mantle. He also introduced, or pointed at, the intern on the ambulance, who had pulled up in back of the sheriff’s car, a doctor named Cline, and the undertaker, Santos, who was getting out of the “dead wagon,” a black, enclosed truck with no markings of any kind, that had pulled up behin
d the ambulance.
Sergeant Edgren asked me: “You killed a man, that right?”
“The hijacker, Shaw, yes.”
“You identified him already?”
“The girl identified him. The one who came down with him on his parachute.”
“She here?”
“Right inside.”
“She’s the one that’s to go? In the ambulance?”
“She’d better go, sergeant. I’d say she’s in pretty bad shape.”
“Dr. Cline?”
Dr. Cline came up with two men who got a stretcher out of the ambulance, and I led the way inside. When I’d introduced the whole bunch to Jill, she motioned to the blanket and started talking like she was used to taking charge. “Pardon my informal clothes,” she said, very cool, “but my others got wet in the river, where I came down on the parachute. Mr. Howell fixed me up with this blanket.”
Dr. Cline touched her forehead, felt her pulse, and made a face. His men put the stretcher down, lifted her on it, and carried her out. As they were sliding her into the ambulance I bent down and kissed her. “You get well,” I whispered.
“For you I will.”
Edgren was at the door keeping an eye on me. As soon as the ambulance drove off, I went back with him. “OK,” he said. “Start at the beginning.”
“Not much to tell. However—”
So I told it, beginning with Mom’s waking me up, the walk to the water’s edge, the argument there with Shaw, my trip up to the landing, my paddling down in the boat, my order to drop the gun, the shot he took at me, and the one I took at him. “That killed him, at least, I think it did. I didn’t look, but I imagine my mother did. You can talk to her about it.”
“When was this?”
“Little after five. Twenty after, I’d say.”
He opened a notebook and glanced at it. “You called us at six after six.”
“Something like that, yes.”
“What took you so long? What were you waiting for?”
“I had that girl on my hands. She was in awful shape from the cold after coming down in the water, fright from his holding that gun to her head, and shock at seeing him killed. First things first. She was important. He could wait.”