you." Dex Stanley began to weep.
"Finish your drink while I write my wife," Henry said, apparently
not noticing the tears. He even grinned a little. "And for Christ's
sake, let's get out of here before she gets back."
Dex clutched at Henry's sleeve. "But we won't go anywhere near
Amberson Hall, will we? Promise me, Henry! We'll stay away
from there, won't we?"
"Does a bear shit in the woods?" Henry Northrup asked. It was a
three-mile drive to Dex's house on the outskirts of town, and
before they got there, he was half-asleep in the passenger seat.
"The state cops, I think," Henry said. His words seemed to come
from a great distance. "I think Charlie Gereson's assessment of the
campus cops was pretty accurate. The first one there would happily
stick his arm into that box."
"Yes. All right." Through the drifting, lassitudinous aftermath of
shock, Dex felt a dim but great gratitude that his friend had taken
over with such efficiency. Yet a deeper part of him believed that
Henry could not have done it if he had seen the things he had seen.
"Just... the importance of caution ..."
"I'll see to that," Henry said grimly, and that was when Dex fell
asleep.
He awoke the next morning with August sunshine making crisp
patterns on the sheets of his bed. Just a dream, he thought with
indescribable relief. All some crazy dream.
But there was a taste of Scotch in his mouth--Scotch and
something else. He sat up, and a lance of pain bolted through his
head. Not the sort of pain you got from a hangover, though; not
even if you were the type to get a hangover from three Scotches,
and he wasn't.
He sat up, and there was Henry, sitting across the room. His first
thought was that Henry needed a shave. His second was that there
was something in Henry's eyes that he had never seen before--
something like chips of ice. A ridiculous thought came to Dex; it
passed through his mind and was gone. Sniper's eyes. Henry
Northrup, whose specialty is the earlier English poets, has got
sniper's eyes.
"How are you feeling, Dex?"
"A slight headache," Dex said. "Henry... the police... what
happened?"
"The police aren't coming," Northrup said calmly. "As for your
head, I'm very sorry. I put one of Wilma's sleeping powders in
your third drink. Be assured that it will pass."
"Henry, what are you saying?"
Henry took a sheet of notepaper from his breast pocket. "This is
the note I left my wife. It will explain a lot, I think. I got it back
after everything was over. I took a chance that she'd leave it on the
table, and I got away with it."
"I don't know what you're--"
He took the note from Henry's fingers and read it, eyes widening.
Dear Billie,
I've just had a call from Dex Stanley. He's hysterical.
Seems to have committed some sort of indiscretion with
one of his female grad students. He's at Amberson Hall.
So is the girl. For God's sake, come quickly. I'm not
sure exactly what the situation is, but a woman's
presence may be imperative, and under the
circumstances, a nurse from the infirmary just won't do.
I know you don't like Dex much, but a scandal like this
could ruin his career. Please come.
Henry.
"What in God's name have you done?" Dex asked hoarsely.
Henry plucked the note from Dex's nerveless fingers, produced his
Zippo, and set flame to the corner. When it was burning well, he
dropped the charring sheet of paper into an ashtray on the
windowsill.
"I've killed Wilma," he said in the same calm voice. "Ding-dong,
the wicked bitch is dead." Dex tried to speak and could not. That
central axle was trying to tear loose again.The abyss of utter
insanity was below. "I've killed my wife, and now I've put myself
into your hands."
Now Dex did find his voice. It had a sound that was rusty yet
shrill. "The crate," he said. "What have you done with the crate?"
"That's the beauty of it," Henry said. "You put the final piece in the
jigsaw yourself. The crate is at the bottom of Ryder's Quarry."
Dex groped at that while he looked into Henry's eyes. The eyes of
his friend. Sniper's eyes. You can't knock off your own queen,
that's not in anyone's rules of chess, he thought, and restrained an
urge to roar out gales of rancid laughter. The quarry, he had said.
Ryder's Quarry. It was over four hundred feet deep, some said. It
was perhaps twelve miles east of the university. Over the thirty
years that Dex had been here, a dozen people had drowned there,
and three years ago the town had posted the place.
"I put you to bed," Henry said. "Had to carry you into your room.
You were out like a light. Scotch, sleeping powder, shock. But you
were breathing normally and well. Strong heart action. I checked
those things. Whatever else you believe, never think I had any
intention of hurting you, Dex."
"It was fifteen minutes before Wilma's last class ended, and it
would take her another fifteen minutes to drive home and another
fifteen minutes to get over to Amberson Hall. That gave me forty-
five minutes. I got over to Amberson in ten. It was unlocked. That
was enough to settle any doubts I had left."
"What do you mean?"
"The key ring on the janitor's belt. It went with the janitor."
Dex shuddered.
"If the door had been locked--forgive me, Dex, but if you're going
to play for keeps, you ought to cover every base--there was still
time enough to get back home ahead of Wilma and burn that note.
"I went downstairs--and I kept as close to the wall going down
those stairs as I could, believe me..."
Henry stepped into the lab and glanced around. It was just as Dex
had left it. He slicked his tongue over his dry lips and then wiped
his face with his hand. His heart was thudding in his chest. Get
hold of yourself, man. One thing at a time. Don't look ahead.
The boards the janitor had pried off the crate were still stacked on
the lab table. One table over was the scatter of Charlie Gereson's
lab notes, never to be completed now. Henry took it all in, and then
pulled his own flashlight--the one he always kept in the glovebox
of his car for emergencies--from his back pocket. If this didn't
qualify as an emergency, nothing did.
He snapped it on and crossed the lab and went out the door. The
light bobbed uneasily in the dark for a moment, and then he trained
it on the floor. He didn't want to step on anything he shouldn't.
Moving slowly and cautiously, Henry moved around to the side of
the stairs and shone the light underneath. His breath paused, and
then resumed again, more slowly. Sudenly the tension and fear
were gone, and he only felt cold. The crate was under there, just as
Dex had said it was. And the janitor's ballpoint pen. And his shoes.
And Charlie Gereson's glasses.
Henry moved the light from one of these artifacts to the next
slowly, spotlighting each. Then he glanced at his watch, snapped
the flashlight off and jammed it back in his pocket. He had half an
hour. There was no time to waste.
In the janitor's closet upstairs he found buckets, heavy-duty
cleaner, rags... and gloves. No prints. He went back downstairs like
the sorcerer's apprentice, a heavy plastic bucket full of hot water
and foaming cleaner in each hand, rags draped over his shoulder.
His footfalls clacked hollowly in the stillness. He thought of Dex
saying, It sits squat and mute. And still he was cold.
He began to clean up.
"She came," Henry said. "Oh yes, she came. And she was... excited
and happy."