Bill Pronzini: Schemers

The notebook opened in his hands, as if by itself, to that last section. Mother’s round, cramped handwriting in faded purple ink. The smeared word at the bottom of the last page: teardrop, tearstain. Mother’s tears.

He stood next to Henderson, loomed over him, and read the passages aloud again, the same ones in the same order.

“‘I love Lloyd. More than I ever loved Anthony. I know he’s married and he’s never made any promises, never said he loves me, but I feel his love when we’re in bed. It’s not just sex. He loves me as much as I love him.’

“‘Went to his camp today, I just needed to see him for a few minutes. But I shouldn’t have. He was there with his friends and he made me leave. He was so angry, like Anthony used to get sometimes. It’s a side to Lloyd I hope I never see again.’

“‘I’m going to have Lloyd’s baby. Our love child. I didn’t do it on purpose, it was an accident, but he’ll be happy when I tell him. I know he will.’

“‘He was furious, that awful angry side of him. He said the baby’s not his. He said he doesn’t want to see me anymore, it’s over between us. How can he say that after what we’ve been to each other?’

“‘I drove down to Los Alegres, I saw his wife, I saw him at his office. He called me a dirty little slut. He said he’d kill me if I told anybody he was the father of my baby. The way he looked at me… like he really did want me dead. God, how could I have been so stupid?’”

And the last entry, the final damning piece of testimony, written the day before she disappeared. “‘Lloyd drove up this afternoon alone. I saw his truck go by the store. After work tomorrow I’m going to his camp. I don’t care if he doesn’t want me, he has to help me with the baby. He has to. He used me and now he has to pay. I’ll make him pay.’”

Devries closed the notebook. His eyes were wet again, like hers were when she wrote those last words. “You see?” he said. “You see? She didn’t make him pay, he made her pay. That night, right here. Her and the baby both. Strangled her and then dumped her in the woods for the animals… the animals…”

“It wasn’t my father. She wasn’t killed here.”

“She was. I know she was.”

“Somebody else…”

“That same night? Attacked her, strangled her, that same night? Coincidence? No, Henderson. No, no, no!”

“I’ll never believe my father did it. He had an affair with your mother; all right, he wasn’t a saint. But he wasn’t a murderer, either.”

“He was! He’s dead, I can’t punish him, but I’ve got you and I’ll get your brother, too, devil’s sons, bastards, you’ll both die in his place, right here where he killed my mother and my baby brother or sister!”

He realized he was screaming. His temples were pounding, his face was hot and running sweat. Control. Don’t lose it now, it’s not finished yet, there’s still the other one, Damon. Take deep breaths. Get a grip.

“Go ahead then,” Henderson said. “Shoot me, get it over with.”

“No.”

“Do it, damn you.”

“No. Not yet.”

Now he felt dirty all over. Crawly, as if bugs had come up out of the floor, dropped off the ceiling, and were trying to burrow beneath his skin. Scrub them off, get clean for the execution. You had to be clean. For Mother’s sake. She’d drummed that into his head so many times. Be clean, Tucker. Always keep yourself clean.

He went outside, stood sucking in the chill mountain air until it cooled him and his head quit pounding. He made himself walk slowly around the cabin to the stream. When he knelt down on the bank, he realized he was still holding the gun; he put the safety on, shoved the automatic inside his belt. In the splashes and scrubs of icy water, the bugs shriveled and died and his skin tingled and he was clean again. He stood, dripping, and went around the front of the cabin.

A man was standing there against the front wall.

Devries stopped, staring in disbelief. At first he thought he must be hallucinating. But no, no, the man was real. Big, hard-looking, somebody he’d never seen before.

“Hello, Tucker.”

He reached for the gun, his fingers, still wet, slipsliding around the handle. But the stranger was already moving, fast. There was a slash of pain at the joining of his neck and shoulder and the entire right side of his body went numb. He stood there bent and swaying, confused. Left hand, get the gun with his left hand… but the gun wasn’t there anymore, the stranger had it now.

Another cut of pain, all through his left side this time. And all at once he was down on the grass, writhing, numb all over, looking up at the hard face above him through a watery blur. He tried to say something, he wasn’t even sure what it was, but his throat muscles wouldn’t work. The noises he made sounded like a baby’s gurgle.

The man caught hold of his jacket collar and he felt himself being dragged through the dew-wet grass, pulled up the porch steps, slammed back against a support post. He couldn’t prevent any of it, couldn’t move his arms, could barely feel his legs. Paralyzed. What did he do to me?

Something cold and hard snapped around one wrist. Through the blur he saw that it was a ring of steel. Handcuff. The other ring clicked around a railing post. Hard footsteps thudded in his ears, across the porch, into the cabin. Voices, then, like noisy fish swimming in the confusion inside his head.

“Runyon! My God, I’d given up hope-”

“You all right? He hurt you, burn you?”

“No, no. Just numb, cramped… Where’s Devries?”

“Handcuffed outside.”

“How did you-?”

“Judo. He won’t give us any trouble.”

Sounds of tape being torn loose. And the voices, still swimming.

“I thought for sure I was dead. How’d you know where he took me?”

“I was here before, three days ago. Figured it out when I remembered the chair and the table over there, the only things he hadn’t wrecked and burned. I had to park down the road so he wouldn’t hear me coming. Wasn’t sure I’d make it in time.”

“You almost didn’t. He’s crazy… he thinks my father killed his mother. It’s not true. I don’t care what kind of proof he thinks he’s got.”

It is true, Devries thought. It is, it is. Lloyd Henderson. Dead, and his sons both alive. I’m sorry, Mother. I tried. For you and the baby. I tried so hard but I waited too long.

Tears in his eyes, deepening the blur. Like her tears that last night, the droplet on the smeared purple ink.

He felt dirty. He felt as if now, no matter what he did, he would never be clean again.

Inspectors Yin and Davis weren’t particularly happy to see me-at first.

It was a quarter past eight and they’d just come on duty. They were having coffee at Yin’s desk, talking over something she’d pulled up on her computer screen. The coffee smelled good-I’d had a quick cup before leaving home and was ready for another-but neither of them offered me any.

“You again,” Davis said. “What is it this time?”

“Some things you’re going to want to hear. Question first. Have you given Gregory Pollexfen permission to clean up his library yet?”

“Later this morning. Get him off our backs about it.”

“So you’ve still got both keys.”

Yin said, “We’ve got them. Why?”

“He killed Jeremy Cullrane,” I said. “I’m pretty sure I know how and why, and I think I can prove it to you.”

They looked at me, looked at each other, looked at me again. Cop looks: poker-faced skepticism.

“Give me half an hour in the library, then a few more minutes with Pollexfen. Both of you present, of course. That’s all I ask.”