Thicker Than Blood - Crouch Blake - Страница 131

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"I'm not going to prison," I whispered. "Look at the map, he's here."

There was a soft tapping on the window. I took a deep breath and turned with a smile to face the officer. I pushed the button to lower the window but nothing happened.

"Just a moment," I said, chagrined. The officer's brow wrinkled as I turned the key back. Then I lowered the window and frigid air slipped into the car. "What can I do for you, officer?" I asked, looking into his chiseled, emotionless face. He couldn't have been over thirty. He wore a tight-fitting jacket over his uniform and a toboggan reached down and covered his ears.

"You folks having car trouble?" he asked. He lifted his flashlight and inspected the front and then the backseat, awaiting my reply. I was so thankful we'd put the shovel in the trunk.

"No, sir. Just a little map trouble." Walter made a rustling noise to draw attention to the large map of Vermont spread across his lap.

"Why you parked so far off the road? Trying to avoid being seen?"

"No, sir," I said. "Just trying to avoid getting hit."

The officer nodded but pursed his lips as if he believed otherwise. "I need to see your license and registration," he said.

"No problem. Walter, get your registration for the man," I said, reaching into a pocket for my wallet. "It's his car," I said with a nervous laugh. "I'm on driving duty now."

The man's face didn't even register that he'd heard me. I pulled out my wallet, and as I slid my driver's license from the clear, plastic panel, I realized I still wore the latex gloves. I pretended I was having trouble getting my license out and made a weak attempt to pull a glove off. It wouldn't budge. Sweat had cemented my skin to the rubber.

Walter laid the registration in my lap, and I took it and my driver's license and handed it to the officer, quickly withdrawing my hand the moment he had the papers within his grasp.

"Wait here," he said, and he walked back to his patrol car and climbed inside.

"He suspects something," Walter said. "He asked why we were parked so far off..."

"And I told him why we were parked here." I rolled up the window. "There's no way he suspects what we've actually done. No one would."

"What if he wants to search the car?"

"A very respectful, Bill of Rights-oriented, no fucking way."

"We'd get the chair for this," Walter said, after a moment.

"That really helps." I remembered my gloves again. The officer stepped out of his car and shut the door, so I pulled like hell and squeezed out of them. I put them under my seat and rolled the window back down.

"Your gloves were on?" Walter was incredulous.

The officer returned and handed back my license and registration. "Where you folks coming from?" he asked as I returned my license to my wallet.

"Bristol," I said. "Just up the road."

"I know where it is."

"We came up here for the week to see the countryside, and now we're trying to find Middlebury." I'm talking too much, I thought.

"Oh." The officer smiled. "Well, just get back on the highway and head that way." He pointed down the road. "It'll take you right through downtown. Not more than five miles away."

"Fantastic," I said. "You've been a great help."

"You folks have a safe night," he said. Then he turned and walked away.

We waited as the officer climbed into his patrol car and drove away, back towards Middlebury. It seemed his red taillights were visible for miles as they dwindled away down the lonely highway. The relief was indescribable. I could see it in Walter's face, too. But we said nothing. Tired, hungry, and tense, we were beyond verbal expression, the air between us so thick with reality, we didn't disturb it with words.

We sat in the dark for several minutes after the police car was gone, staring down the road, into the woods, into nothing. The moon continued to rise above the mountains, and it had just reached into our shadows when I started the car and drove back towards the inn.

# # #

The sun crept up over the Atlantic, its rays gliding gently across the water, into the coast, and over the Green Mountains. They warmed the window near my bed, brightened the room, and turned the morning sky from black into royal blue. I burrowed deeper beneath the quilts, shielding my eyes from the new, morning light. With the blankets over my head, I shut out the sun and slept until I woke from restfulness alone, not the piercing rays which showered in between the curtains.

I kicked the covers onto the floor and lay on the naked bed in boxer shorts. A cool draft tickled my chest and I shivered. On the bedside table, the clock read 10:29, and it pleased me to be waking at a reasonable hour. As I sat up, I felt the raging hunger in my stomach. In fifteen minutes, Walter and I would be sitting before the fireplace downstairs, drinking coffee, eating hot pastries. Last night would be a fading nightmare, nothing more.

I planted my feet on the floor and stared across the room at Walter's bed, neatly made. Slowly I came to my feet, glancing around the room, but he wasn't here. As I approached his bed, I saw a piece of white paper, folded in half, standing like a tent on the smoothed, plaid bedspread. I reached down and picked it up, and when I saw the words, my knees gave out.

You stupid fuck. I watched you sleep for an hour last night. I stood at the end of your bed and thought about cutting your throat so you couldn't scream while I disemboweled you. Why didn't I? Because I have plans for you. This is only the beginning.

Poor Walter. What are you gonna tell his wife, Andy? That he's rotting on a mountainside in Vermont? That I took all of my rage towards you out on him for several horrible hours? Maybe you shouldn't tell her anything. Maybe you should do her a favor, too.

Go back to North Carolina, Andy. I'll contact you before Christmas. And save yourself the trouble of wondering how I got out of that hole, how eight bullets at point-blank range couldn't kill me, because I got a little tidbit for you, brother: I was never in that fucking hole.   

# # #

My mother was discovered eight days after Orson murdered her when a neighbor noticed newspapers collecting on her porch and phoned the police. They found her in bed, under the covers, stiff and cold, tucked in as lifeless and cozy as a Barbie Doll in her blue dress with yellow sunflowers. There was only one bruise on her entire body--a thin, purple ring encircling her neck. The pantyhose which Orson used had been balled up and thrown under the bed.

I arrived home from Vermont on Sunday evening, and at nine-thirty on a cold, rainy Monday morning, a police officer was banging on my front door. His grave eyes might have been unbearable had I not already known. Even when he told me, I couldn't muster tears, so I buried my face in my hands and asked him for a moment alone. Shutting the door and leaving him standing on the front porch, I rushed to the kitchen sink and dabbed water on my cheeks and rubbed my eyes so they’d look red and swollen. How could an innocent man explain not crying when he learns his mother has been murdered? Even the guilty manage tears.

Walter's Cadillac sat in my garage. I'd intended to sink it to the bottom of Lake Norman after dark, but that was impossible now. I’d have to go to Winston to handle my mother's affairs.

Most of Monday, I spent at a police station in Winston, identifying my mother's body for the police and the coroner before noon and answering questions for two detectives afterwards. From the outset of their questioning, it was obvious they were baffled as to why my mother had been murdered. Did I know of any reason someone would want to kill her? Did she have a boyfriend? Did she use drugs? To my knowledge, had she ever borrowed money from anyone?

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