“Mother Nature spawned a litter of mean little bastards.”
“The police have hauled them in a few times. But they deny everything, nobody can ever make an identification — they always use those horrible masks — and anyway I’m sure if you accused them they’d come up with interlocking alibis for this evening, the way they always do. They’re a disgrace to the college.”
“Why aren’t they kicked out?”
“Because you have to have due process on campus as elsewhere,” Kathryn said dryly. “You can’t kick a student out without cause. No one’s ever pinned anything on them. A few have been dropped from Tisquanto for poor grades — they’re not very good students — but most of them manage to get by. They stick pretty close and avoid the other students.”
“Nature’s Children,” McCall said savagely. “I’d like to kick a few of their rosy little asses.” He winced, and she jumped up.
“You’re in pain!”
“I’ve felt fitter. Katie, I wonder if I might take a shower.”
“I should have thought of that right off! And while you’re taking it I’ll clean up your clothes. You follow me.”
He tagged her to a pink-and-white bedroom furnished in maple. Where she takes her clothes off, he thought, she wants it feminine; and felt an absurd relief. “There’s the linen closet,” she said, “and that door there leads to the bath. Leave your clothes out here and I’ll get busy on them. Oh, you’ll need a robe. Oh, dear, I don’t think any of mine would fit you...”
“A big bath towel will do fine, Kathryn.”
“Plenty of those in the linen closet. Throw your clothes out here when you’re undressed.”
He stripped in the bathroom and tossed his clothes out dutifully. Then he took a look at himself in the full-length mirror set into the inside of the bathroom door.
His body was a welter of bruises well on their way to lividity. I’m going to look like a working palette, he thought. The cigarette wound was nasty. He rummaged in the medicine chest and found a jar of burn ointment. This he applied liberally to the burn. Then he got under the shower and adjusted it for its gentlest spray. Even so, it hurt abominably. He dried himself gingerly, feeling like the sensitive Prince in the fairy tale who could feel the pea through sixteen mattresses.
He wrapped himself in a huge bath towel and went into the living room. She was clucking over the condition of his shirt.
“I’ll have to wash your shirt and shorts, Mike. They’re filthy. I’ve got a drier,” she added quickly. “It won’t take long.”
“When I go to the Turkish bath,” McCall said, “I put myself entirely in the hands of the attendant.”
“Feeling a little better?” she asked when she got back.
“Not much.”
“You sit down here. I’ll bathe those bruises.”
“It’s okay, Katie.”
“Do as you’re told.”
He sat down. She immediately began on his face. The rubbing alcohol burned like acid. Her extraordinary eyes kept watching him, concerned.
He told her suddenly about the burning joint and his groin. Kathryn blanched. “That can’t be true! You’re putting me on.”
“Do you want me to show it to you?”
“No! I mean — how could she? It sounds like something out of Krafft-Ebing.”
“Or Buchenwald,” McCall said. “I can only tell you that it happened. It’s all right, Katie, I put some of your burn salve on it.”
“Do you want another drink?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You’re really not a drinker, are you?”
“No.”
“I notice you don’t smoke, either.”
“I’m fighting it,” McCall smiled.
“You’re remarkably free of vices, Mr. McC.”
“Except one,” he said, and pulled her to, him.
Afterward she accused him of having raped her.
“I had a remarkable lot of cooperation,” McCall said dreamily.
“What’s more, you promised, Mike. You gave me your word.”
“I’m sorry, Katie. I’d take it back if I could.”
“I’ll bet!” She tossed the flaming locks on his chest. “What I ought to do is jab you in that burn.”
“My God, no. You wouldn’t.”
She shivered and tightened her arms. “Is this all there is to it, Mike?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you going to take the Nature Children’s gentle hint and leave town and I’ll never see you again?”
“A, I don’t take hints. B, I have no intention of leaving town until my assignment is finished. C, even if I did, I’d see you again — if that’s what’s steaming around in that little old redhead.”
“Mike, they might hurt you again... worse the next time...”
He felt her convulse, protecting him with all her limbs, and he allowed himself to be consoled in the traditional way.
A taxi waited down in the street. They stood in the front doorway.
“I hate to leave you, Katie, but I’m dead for sleep. I want to check the hospital, too.”
“Take care of yourself, Mike.” She kissed the side of his jaw and gave him a hard push. “Get going, cowboy.”
“Cowboy?”
“You know what I mean, damn you!”
He grinned and trudged down to the cab. He had the man drive him to the garage where his Ford waited, gleaming and sweet inside. McCall gave the attendant a big tip and headed crosstown.
Tisquanto Memorial Hospital looked ominous in the spring night. The moon was down by now and the hulking place was largely a haunt of shadows. He hoped it was not prophetic.
He checked at the third floor desk, and the old blonde nurse with the withered lips said, “Still no change, Mr. McCall.”
“Could I look in on her?”
The nurse hesitated. “I suppose it’s all right. Just for a second.”
“Her father still here?”
“No, he went back to his hotel. The poor man was exhausted. We had to practically force him to leave.”
“Where you going?” McCall demanded.
“Mr. McCall,” the old nurse said, “this is the way I get my exercise.”
“You don’t trust me,” McCall said sadly.
“I just want to be able to say, if the doctor should question me, that nobody touched her.”
They were halfway up the hall when they heard a muffled shriek. It was cut off abruptly.
“What’s that?” McCall demanded.
“Blessed if I know.” The nurse began to hurry. “It sounded like it came from... from Miss Thornton’s room...”
So McCall ran, too. He burst through the door. A pale bedlight shadowed the unconscious girl. He saw a man’s leg disappearing over a windowsill, and a young nurse sprawled on the floor, looking dazed. A bed screen had been overturned. There was a pillow on the floor.
The nurse scrambled to her feet, holding her throat.
“A man,” she said, swallowing. “He choked me — tried to smother Miss Thornton...”
“See if she’s all right!”
McCall jumped for the window. “Call the police,” he said to the old nurse, and dived out.
The featureless figure of a man was speeding down the fire escape. As McCall started down after him the man reached the first floor. Running through McCall’s head was the thought that he was chasing the man who had beaten Laura up. Had he left her for dead at the river? This attempt to kill her pointed to that — to kill her before she could regain consciousness and identify him.
The man dropped from the short stretch of ladder to the pavement below. He ran like a whippet toward the parking lot at the rear of the hospital. His running made hardly a sound; he was in sneakers.