“How long have you been walking?”
Wollender shook his head again.
“Why’d you keep your leg in the cast?”
Again, Wollender shook his head.
“You killed two young girls!” Hawes bellowed. He was surprised to find himself trembling. His hand tightened on the shirt front, the knuckles showing white through his skin. Perhaps Wollender felt the sudden tension, perhaps Wollender knew that in the next instant Hawes would throttle him.
“All right,” he said. His voice was very low. “All right.”
“Why’d you keep wearing the cast?”
“So ... so ... so she wouldn’t know. So she would think I ... I was ... was unable to walk. And that way, I could ... could watch her. Without her knowing.”
“Watch who?”
“Helga. She ... She was my girl, you see. I ... I loved her, you see.”
“Yeah, you loved her enough to kill her,” Hawes said.
“That’s not why I ...” He shook his head. “It was because of Kurtz. She kept denying it, but I knew about them. And I warned her. You have to believe that I warned her. And I ... I kept the cast on my leg to ... to fool her.”
“When did it come off?” Hawes asked.
“Last week. The…the doctor took it off right in this room. He did a bivalve, with an electric saw, cut it right down the side. And…and when he was gone, I…I figured I could put the two halves together again, and…and…hold it in place with…with tape. That way, I could watch her. Without her knowing I could get around.”
“And what did you see?”
“You know what I saw!”
“Tell me.”
“Friday night, she ... I ... I saw Kurtz leaving the annex. I knew he’d been with her.”
“He was there to pick up Maria’s skates,” Hawes said. “To sharpen them.”
“No!” Wollender shouted, and for a moment there was force in his voice, a vocal explosion, fury and power, and Hawes remembered again the brute strength of Wollender’s attack on the mountain. Wollender’s voice died again. “No,” he said softly, “you’re mistaken. He was with Helga. I know. Do you think I’d have killed her if ...” His voice caught. His eyes suddenly misted. He turned his head, not looking at Hawes, staring across the room, the tears solidifying his eyes. “When I went up to her room, I warned her,” he said, his voice low. “I told her I had seen him, seen him with my own eyes, and she ... she said I was imagining things. And she laughed.” His face went suddenly tight. “She laughed, you see. She ... she shouldn’t have laughed.” His eyes filled with tears, had a curiously opaque look. “She shouldn’t have laughed,” he said. “It wasn’t funny. I loved her. It wasn’t funny.”
“No,” Hawes said wearily. “It wasn’t funny at all.”
14
The storm was over.
The storm which had started suddenly and filled the air with fury was gone. The wind had died after scattering the clouds from the sky. They drove in the warm comfort of the convertible, the sky a clear blue ahead of them, the snow banked on either side of the road.
The storm was over.
There were only the remains of its fury now, the hard-packed snow beneath the automobile, and the snow lining the roads, and the snow hanging in the branches of the trees. But now it was over and done, and now there was only the damage to count, and the repairs to be made.
He sat silently behind the wheel of the car, a big redheaded man who drove effortlessly. His anger was gone, too, like the anger of the storm. There was only a vast sadness inside him.
“Cotton?” Blanche said.
“Mmmm?” He did not take his eyes from the road. He watched the winding white ribbon and listened to the crunch of snow beneath his heavy-duty tires, and over that the sound of her voice.
“Cotton,” she said, “I’m very glad to be with you.”
“I am, too.”
“In spite of everything,” she said, “I’m very very glad.”
He did a curious thing then. He suddenly took his right hand from the wheel and put it on her thigh, and squeezed her gently. He thought he did it because Blanche was a very attractive girl with whom he had just shared a moment of communication.
But perhaps he touched her because death had suddenly shouldered its way into that automobile, and he had remembered again the two young girls had been Wollender’s victims.
Perhaps he touched her thigh, soft and warm, only as a reaffirmation of life.