John Ball
The Cool Cottontail
prologue
As the car rolled smoothly along through the night, the man in the back seat found it increasingly difficult to keep his eyes open. He had already been riding for some time, and before that he had had an unusually long and tiring day. At last he gave in and allowed himself the luxury of not caring where he was; he let the many things in his mind come together and overlap one another while he rested his head against the back of the seat. Then, despite the bumps of the road, in a matter of only a minute or two he was sound asleep.
For some time the driver had been watching him very carefully. The low-mounted rear-vision mirror made this simple; a slight shift of position brought the passenger easily into view without his being able to notice it. Presently it became obvious that the tired man was more than just dozing; his mouth was open and his breath made an audible sound as it went in and out with the rise and fall of his chest.
The driver maintained a steady pace for another twenty minutes and then swung off onto a side road slowly enough so that the unfamiliar motion of the turn would not rouse the passenger.
On the narrower road, the driver kept the car’s speed even and moderate so that anyone who saw it passing would not take special notice of it. There was almost no other traffic. Twice roads branched off to high and deserted canyons, but the car continued steadily ahead. Then the low-beam headlights picked up a sign and the brake lights came on.
When the car pulled up quietly at the side of the blacktop pavement, it was in a position where the driver could see the loom of the lights of an oncoming vehicle for a considerable distance in either direction. The sleeping man, now slumped in total relaxation, had no idea when the headlights were cut or when the driver gently opened the door next to where he sat.
For a few seconds the driver stared without any emotion at the face of the sleeping man. Then he checked quickly that no cars were coming as far as could be seen in either direction; the night was totally dark and silent. The place was right and the time would never be better. The driver gulped in a deep lungful of air and then struck with vicious, violent power.
The sleeping man slumped a little more and the breath flowed slowly out of his mouth into the still air of the night. He had no sense of pain, no knowledge even that his sleep had been disturbed. When the second smashing blow hit him, he was oblivious to it. His chest no longer moved. The third massive blow smashed two bones in his body, but he was beyond caring. Sometime in the next few seconds he died.
When the last blow, the most vicious of all, struck the man, his body received it, but his spirit was no longer present to be outraged. The driver knew that his victim was already dead, but long and careful training forbade the taking of any unnecessary chances. Making sure could do no harm; not doing so could lead to the gas chamber.
Along the thick shrubbery that lined the road on the south side, there was a small opening and a turnoff. The driver, after checking once more for intruding headlights, walked ahead to see that by no possible chance anyone was hidden there watching. He found no one. Looking down the narrow half roadway that broke off at the gap, the driver saw only the comforting blackness and, very faintly, the glint of water.
A fresh cadaver, especially of a substantial and solidly built male, is an incredibly awkward and damning possession. The driver was aware of this, but he already knew exactly what he had to do.
The dead man felt no indignation when hands began to undo and pull off his clothing, when fingers were thrust into his mouth and the two carefully made dentures that fitted over his gums were pulled out and thrust into the pocket of his coat. For a moment the person who had done all this contemplated slicing off the tips of the dead man’s fingers to destroy any possibility of his prints being taken and identified; then he decided it would not be necessary.
Only the night watched while the murderer rolled the dead man’s clothes and possessions into a neat tight bundle and then searched carefully to be sure nothing had fallen out that someone might later be able to identify. Satisfied that the work had been completed, the driver placed the bundle on the front seat of the car, using the open window so that the automatic light would not come on an unnecessary time, and then turned to do one more essential thing.
In five minutes the engine of the car came once more to life and the driver backed cautiously onto the paved road. There was still no evidence of any other traffic, but the rigid necessity to avoid taking chances still held good. Not until the car was safely shielded by the heavy shrubbery did the driver turn on the lights, and then only the low beam. The car departed as it had come, as a carefully chosen pace unlikely to be noticed by anyone. Soon its red tail lights vanished around a turn and the peace of the night returned once more.
chapter 1
Forrest Nunn was awake before the hands of his electric alarm had reached quarter to eight. He pushed down the plunger that would silence the bell and allowed himself a minute or two of total luxury in his warm bed. Then, feeling a little guilty that his wife was up before him, he pushed the bedclothes aside and swung himself to his feet. For a moment he rubbed the palms of his hands across his face to rouse himself further, and then stepped into the bathroom.
At forty-six he did not look his age by a good ten years. His bare body was comfortably on the lean side, well muscled, and deeply tanned. There was no break in its sun-deepened tone below his waist; he was uniformly darkened all over except for the undersides of his arms where the skin color was visibly lighter. He brushed his teeth, shaved, and then stepped under a stinging shower. He was toweling himself when he detected the welcome aroma of frying bacon and caught the sounds of breakfast being prepared in the kitchen of the converted farmhouse.
Quickly he ran a comb through his wet thick hair, pushed his feet into a pair of well-used leather sandals, and, otherwise entirely nude, walked down the hallway toward the kitchen.
He was halfway there when he met his older daughter. She was a buoyant eighteen, at the mid-point between adolescence and womanhood, pretty by any standard and beautiful by some. Her hair, worn loose about her face, set off the wide spacing of her blue eyes, which were her best feature. Her body was near perfection, still that of a girl in outline, but with the depth and symmetry of fast-approaching full maturity. She was wearing nothing, and even in the restricted lighting of the hallway her young skin seemed to glow with a golden-bronze color.
“Morning, Daddy,” she said, and smiled at her father.
“Good morning, Linda.” He laid his hand on her bare shoulder for a moment; then, together, they went to the kitchen.
It was a very large room at the back of the house, with windows on three of its four sides. The morning sunlight streamed in to burn brilliant patterns on the linoleum and brighten every corner of the clean, well-scrubbed interior, which Forrest had spent long hours rebuilding to make it exactly the way his wife had wanted it to be. The many windows offered a wide view of well-maintained grounds, with the children’s playground on the left and the main parking area, which was surrounded by shrubbery, on the right. To the center, concealed by a small grove of trees and the picnic area, were the big pool, volleyball courts and other game facilities, the main sunning lawn, and the beginning of hiking trails that wound up through the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains.
Emily Nunn, who was actually two years older than her husband, looked even younger than he did and could have passed as being in her early thirties. There was no evidence of middle-age spread in her firm slender body, which was partially concealed by the ample cooking apron she wore tied around a waist as smooth and shapely as her daughter’s. Her Swedish descent was revealed by her naturally ash-colored hair.