Uncle David was in a crumpled heap on the floor. His head was unrecognizable. There was blood on everything, the corpse, the furniture, the axe, Miles himself. Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? Miles had to seek the comfort of the ammonia again.
But he went to work doggedly. He could afford only one hand for the axe. The other kept the smelling salts under his nose. He knelt on the wet floor. Actually, he found, he could wield the axe without looking at what he was doing. It didn’t matter where he cut. I forgot one thing, he thought, I should have brought cotton to stop my ears.
He didn’t count how many times he lifted the axe and let it fall again. Perhaps he couldn’t. Perhaps his brain wasn’t capable of arithmetic at the moment. He continued on instinct, letting old hatreds be his dynamo. Lift the axe... let it fall... crunch like a cleaver... stuck fast... wrench it out again... lift... fall... I can’t get sick... I ate too much for dinner though... lift... fall... but if I hadn’t eaten Stella would have been suspicious... lift... fall... this is enough... he was dead a long time ago... lift... fall... but the maniac whom I’m impersonating would go on and on... lift... fall...
His arm tired finally and he had to stop. He staggered to his feet, lost his balance once on the slippery floor, made it on the second try. He left the axe where it lay. He still had the bottle. It had stayed clamped to his nose. But the cap had rolled away. He searched for it wildly, found it under the table. He saw that he had left red marks on whatever he touched.
I’ve got everything I came with, he told himself. But he double-checked. The axe was Uncle David’s, leave it. The bottle. Both gloves, red and wet. Both shoes, the same. All right. He lurched out the way he had come.
The fresh night air was the most wonderful thing he had ever smelled. It kept him alive and rational. He stumbled half-blindly down toward the dock. I’m getting blood on the grass, and every bush and tree branch, he thought. But that’s all right. Leave bloody footprints too, footprints bigger than my own.
When he reached the water, he had sense enough not to touch the boat. No blood on Robert’s boat, he remembered. But he walked straight into the water himself. It was colder than the air. It shocked him. A needed shock. His brain cleared a little more.
And it was fortunate that he could think a bit. Because it was important that he be thorough now. No blood on Robert’s boat and no blood on himself. This was another reason why the lake had to be part of his scheme. The lake would wash him clean.
He ducked his head beneath the surface and swam out a few strokes. He could almost feel the filthy red stuff flowing off his body. He came up, gasping for air, and swam some more. Then he circled back to the boat. There, treading water, he scrubbed at the bottle till he knew it was clean. Then he tossed it into the metal box. Sec-only the gloves. He kneaded them like a washerwoman, wrung them out, kneaded and wrung them again. They went into the box too. Finally the shoes, much rinsing, and into the box.
He gave himself another last inspection. He went underwater again, and brushed his hair. He felt all over his face and body, could detect no foreign substance anywhere. Then, with a tremendous, killing effort, he hoisted himself into the boat.
He sat there, naked and shivering, for several minutes before he could even lift the oars. But eventually, because he had to, even without the strength, he untied the boat and began to row.
He went to a place where he knew the water was deepest. He locked the box then with its contents inside, and gave both the box and its key to the friendly lake. It made him feel good, hearing that box sink with tiny gurglings. He started home.
He had to stop to rest often and let the boat drift. He had lost all notion of time. His muscles ached, but he wasn’t nauseated any more. He didn’t need smelling salts. All he needed was rest. Tomorrow morning he would feel very good. The thought of rest kept him rowing.
When he got to Robert’s dock, he tied up the boat. His body was dry now, so he could put on the swimming trunks. He climbed up on the dock and walked carefully to the house. A look through the window showed him Robert and Stella playing gin rummy together. They wouldn’t have been doing that if he had been missed.
Climbing the low roof of the garage was possible with a small running leap, but it required the last ounce of the strength in his arms to lift himself up from a fingerhold. He crawled to his window, and through it into his own room.
There he pulled the blinds and turned on the lights softly. Then he inspected every inch of his own body and found no telltale signs of blood. He congratulated himself. Everything had gone precisely, exactly, according to plan.
He turned out the lights and slept soundly.
Scotty Harris was pretty new in the job of sheriff’s first deputy, having just come to Minochee less than a year ago after being a big-city detective most of his life. So he didn’t know too much of the background of Miles Ramey’s special weakness. But there were plenty of people to tell him about it.
“Miles certainly could never have killed his Uncle David,” Aunt Marian for one said. “He’s too chicken-hearted. Can’t stand the sight of blood.”
“I wasn’t suggesting that he committed the murder,” Harris said defensively.
“Then why are you asking him where he was at that certain time?”
Harris was professionally polite and patient. “It’s my job, ma’m, to ask questions, especially to those people who might benefit by David Ramey’s death. And anyway, it doesn’t look as if Miles Ramey has anything to worry about anyway. His whereabouts last night seem to be pretty well established. He was home all evening.”
“Certainly he was home.”
“Yes, ma’m.”
“But even if he wasn’t, he couldn’t have done it. Why, I saw all the blood in that kitchen. Miles would have fainted and never come to if he’d ever seen that much blood. Why, I remember when Miles was a little boy and I’d be killing a chicken...”
“Ma’m,” the deputy interrupted, “I think you’ve made your point.”
“A maniac must have killed old Dave.”
“Very likely.”
Harris turned his back on Aunt Marian and looked around at the rest of them. They were all here in David Ramey’s parlor, all of David’s local relatives and a couple of his very few friends. Stella and Robert, Miles himself, Aunt Marian, and Cousin Edward. Then there were Sam Ballas and Thad Denton.
“Well,” Harris said, addressing all of them at once, “it looks like we’ll have to accept the maniac theory for the moment at least.”
Miles sat rather alone in a corner. He hadn’t been in the least afraid, but he found additional comfort in the deputy’s verdict. Harris was just coming to a conclusion about something everybody else had known all along. If Miles Ramey was to murder anybody, an axe would be the last thing in the world he’d choose to do it with. Harris was obviously pretty smart, but not even Harris could get around a known fact.
“Can we go then, Mr. Harris?” Sam Ballas asked.
“I guess so,” Harris said, sounding like a defeated man.
Everybody started to get up to leave when Harris cleared his throat and stopped them. “Just one more thing,” he said.
Everybody waited while he went out into the kitchen. When he came back he was carrying the murder axe. But it didn’t look like it had when Miles had last seen it. It had been pretty well cleaned up and was shining again.
“This is what killed David Ramey,” Harris said matter-of-factly. “We’ve already examined it for prints, of course. Nothing there. But I’d like to be sure of just one thing. Can anybody say for sure whether this axe belonged to David Ramey?”