Clifton Adams - Death's Sweet Song

There was a night light burning in the station and it felt as bright as those factory floodlights as I lifted the receiver and gave the number. I could hear the ringing. It must have gone on for a full minute before my father answered.

“Dad, can you come out to the station? Right away?”

He didn't say a thing. I could hear his heavy breathing. I could almost feel his weariness. “Dad,” I said, “it's important.”

“All right, Joe.” He hung up. I sat down at the plank desk and tried to tell myself that it was going to be all right. After all, my father didn't know I had anything to do with the robbery and killing. For all he knew, I had just got myself into some kind of fool scrape over a woman. People got into that kind of trouble every day. And Sheriff Miller—if he had anything to throw, he would have hit me with it long before now. Miller meant business. He would have jumped on me good if he'd had any idea I was mixed up in a killing.

He hadn't jumped, so everything was all right. But it didn't feel all right. There was this thing with Manley and my nerves were still raw from that, but I couldn't see how they could possibly tie me up to a train wreck. That part had been foolproof, much better than the lake.

But it didn't feel right. As I sat there I could fed the cold emptiness growing in my guts.

I remembered then how easy it had seemed at first. A pushover robbery, fifteen thousand dollars in my pocket. Easy. What a joke that had been, but I wasn't laughing. Somewhere along the line my future had gone up in a bright, hot flame. It started the day I first looked at Paula Sheldon, and it was sealed the night I eavesdropped at Sheldon's window.

I needed sleep. I got up, went to the far wall of the station, and began moving cases of oil. When I had all the money together I locked the station again and went to my car and stuffed the money under the rear seat. I was just beginning to realize that I was actually preparing to leave Creston, preparing to wipe out in one night the plans that had been half a lifetime in the making. As far back as I could remember I had known just what I wanted—position, respectability, family; the same things, more or less, that every man wants out of life.

And what do you have now, Joe Hooper?

Fifteen thousand dollars. That's a lot of money in any man's language. And Paula Sheldon, if I wanted her on her terms. And I did.

The door to Number 2 opened and Paula said, “Joe, is that you?”

“Yes.”

She came outside and over to where I was standing.

“He seems to be sleeping. Did you call your father?”

“He's on his way.” She leaned against me and it was like a charge of electricity against my bare arm. I grabbed her, pulled her hard against me, and she squirmed like a snake.

“Joe, not now!”

“What's wrong with now?”

She laughed softly, moving her head to one side as I tried to kiss her. “What were you thinking, Joe, when I called to you just now?”

“Nothing.”

She smiled. I felt her hands on my arms, crawling up and down my arms and across my shoulders. Then, deliberately, she gouged her sharp fingernails into the muscles of my shoulders. “You're hard, Joe. I like men who are hard!”

That mouth of hers found mine and everything seemed worth while again. Who gave a damn about the past or the future, as long as there was a present? I held her tight, so tight that I knew I was hurting her, but she made no sound of complaint. My arms and legs felt weak when I finally released her.

“We're getting out of here,” I said. “Tonight.”

“If your father says it's all right.”

“All right or not. It's got to be tonight; I've got to get away from Creston.”

She was silent for a moment, then turned her face up to mine. “You really mean it, don't you, Joe? Don't you have any roots here? Don't you feel just a little sorry to leave this place?”

“No.”

“What about your father?”

“He'll be better off without me.”

“Karl asked you once if you had a girl here in Creston. Do you, Joe?”

“Not any more.”

“No girl, no roots.”

“Nothing.”

“Just me?”

“Just you.”

She laughed. The sound of that laughter cut like a whip, and at that moment I could have killed her, and I almost did. I knocked her back against the car and grabbed for her throat. But she was too fast for me. She slipped out of my arms and moved quickly along the side of the car, and there was a flash of uneasiness in her eyes. Not fear, just uneasiness that came from the knowledge that she had done something very dangerous. By the time I got my hands on her again that first unreasoning burst of anger had disappeared, but Paula didn't know it.

“Joe, what's wrong?”

“Nothing's wrong,” I said roughly. Then, very gently, I put my hands on her throat and slowly let my fingers begin to squeeze. “Just you, Paula. That's the way you want it, isn't it?”

That was when the first fear showed in her eyes. In my mind were all the things I was giving up for her, and she had laughed at them. I don't know what would have happened if the car hadn't pulled off the highway just then, if the headlights hadn't cut a bright swath across the row of cabins and snapped me out of it. I turned her loose and said, “That must be my father. You'd better go back to Karl.”

She slipped away quickly, as silently as the night itself, and I stood there by the car as rigid as steel. Slowly I made myself relax. I told myself that what had happened had been for the best. She knew who was boss now. That was Sheldon's trouble; he had never let her know who was boss.

It didn't occur to me that my father, in his old Dodge, hadn't had time to reach the station. I watched the headlights coming toward me from the highway, and when the car stopped a little way from my cabin I stepped out and said: “Dad, is that you?”

“No, Joe.” A thick, squat figure stepped out of the car and said, “It's the Sheriff, Joe. Otis Miller.”

Chapter Sixteen

The muscles in my legs turned to milksop. The Sheriff waited for Ray King to get out of the car and then the two of them came toward me. If my legs could have worked I would have started running in stark panic—but they wouldn't work and that was the only thing that saved me.

Otis Miller said, “Hope we didn't wake you, Joe, comin' out here like this in the middle of the night.”

“Not at all, Sheriff.” I was amazed that my voice could sound so calm. “Too hot to sleep in that cabin of mine— but we could go in and have a beer. What have you got on your mind?”

“Just some questions, Joe,” Ray King said.

At this time of night! But I merely nodded at the door to my cabin and the two of them went in ahead of me. I followed and turned on the light. Otis sat heavily in the room's only armchair and Ray took the edge of the bed. They were very businesslike. Their faces told me nothing.

“How about that beer?” I said. “There's some in the icebox.”

Both of them shook their heads. “Later, maybe,” Otis said, wiping his face with a handkerchief. “Joe, didn't I see somebody with you as we drove off the highway just a minute ago?”

I was sure they could hear my heart pounding. I had to stand there looking them right in the eye, not knowing what they were thinking, or how much they knew. “Oh, yes,” I said, and again my voice sounded all-right. “That was the lady from the next cabin. Her husband came down with the fever. She knew my father was a doctor and wanted me to call him.”

“Did you do it?”

“Sure, just before you drove up. He'll be here soon.”

I was going to have to explain my father some way when he got here, and I might as well do it now. If Otis and Ray already knew about the Sheldons, there was nothing I could do about it, anyway. I needed a minute to get myself set for whatever was coming, so I said, “Ray, you sure you won't have a beer with me?”