Timothy started to rise, but Marco pushed him back. “No nonsense, now,” Marco said. He was so eager to know the nature of Timothy’s trouble he would have locked the door to keep him here. “You did exactly right. Just relax and tell me what it’s all about.”
Timothy was incapable of relaxing. Marco crossed the room to the buffet, poured a stiff drink, and brought it to Timothy, who gulped gratefully, shuddered the liquor down straight, and a bit of color came to his face.
“Marco,” he said in a whisper of suffering, “I’ve killed a man.”
“What!”
“A stranger. A man I never saw before. Never knew he was there, hardly, until the car hit him.”
All the bitterness went out of the evening, as far as Marco was concerned. He put on a front of gravity and trouble. He dropped beside Timothy and put his hand on the wiry, sandy man’s shoulder. “Better tell me about it from the beginning, Timothy.”
Timothy was miserably reluctant. “I don’t want to involve...”
“More nonsense,” Marco said, giving him a slight shake. “What are friends for, anyway?”
Timothy’s need was so great and Marco so kind and understanding that Timothy’s slate-gray eyes misted. “Miss Randall and I... We had cocktails before dinner and a couple drinks afterward. I left there pleasantly mild. Not drunk, but not completely sober either. Not knowing that a man’s life would be in my hands...” He closed his eyes and shivered briefly.
“You were returning home from Miss Randall’s, Timothy?”
“Yes, driving along, thinking of her, of our evening. I saw the truck stop at the intersection far ahead. It pulled away, and I know now that the driver had let a hitchhiker out. The truck was going no closer to town than the intersection. The hitchhiker was headed on this way.
“I... I didn’t see him until I was through the intersection. He was just there, all of a sudden. On the edge of the road, flagging me for a ride.
“I slammed on the brakes and the car skidded slightly. Felt like it was going to flip over. I hadn’t realized how fast I’d been driving.
“I jerked the steering wheel. The car slewed off the edge of the pavement, and I heard a bump, exactly like cold metal slapping meat and bone.
“When I managed to get the car stopped, I got out but I didn’t see the hitchhiker. It was as if he’d been a mirage in the rainy night, an impression of a thin, slightly stooped guy in jeans and out-at-the-elbows jacket.
“Remembering the sound of that bump, I began to shake all over, I tell you! I grabbed the flashlight from the glove compartment, ran up the road...”
“And found him?”
“Yes,” Timothy mourned, his head in his hands. “In a thicket down the embankment beside the road, his head all bloody — I knew he must be dead.”
“How did you know? Did you go down and examine him?”
Timothy lifted his head slowly. “No, I — come to think of it the sight of so much blood — I panicked, I guess. Don’t remember anything else clearly until I got here. But he couldn’t have been alive with his head battered so badly.”
“Did you leave any traces of yourself out there, anything that might link you to him?”
“I... I don’t know,” Timothy said.
“Then we’ll have a look.”
“Marco, I don’t want to drag you in...”
“Forget it,” Marco said, keeping his face averted so Timothy wouldn’t see the glint in his eyes. “We’re business partners, aren’t we?”
Timothy stood up slowly. “You know, I always had the feeling you really didn’t like me. Deep down, I mean. Well, after all, you might have felt I stole your girl.”
“Come now, Timothy, give me credit for being a bigger person than that.”
The highway was a dark, deserted ribbon of slippery black. Timothy slowly stopped his car. “Right over there, Marco,” he whispered, although there was no reason for keeping his voice so low. “Across the road. I was heading in the other direction, you know, toward town.”
Marco’s’ raincoat rustled as he shifted his bulk out of the car. He had the flashlight in his hand. “Leave the parking lights on, and if you see another car coming, get out and open the hood like you have car trouble.”
“Marco...”
“I know. You can thank me later.”
Marco went quickly across the highway and started down the slope. He moved below highway level, the flashlight probing a rough, sparsely-grown landscape. His excitement grew higher. Surely, this was the opportunity of a lifetime. He’d get his business and his girl back. Once he went through the motions of friendship, he’d have to go, finally, to the cops, wouldn’t he, before Timothy had a chance to move the body? He had conscience, didn’t he? He was a law-abiding citizen, wasn’t he?
The topping on the cake was the knowledge that if Timothy had played it cool he might have got away with it. Now, he never would.
Irritation began to crowd the elation in Marco. The finger of light became more hurried in its movements. Where in blazes was the guy, the dead man who would return to Marco everything Timothy had taken? The light swung across the heaviest of the thickets. Stopped. Returned.
Marco moved forward, holding the light steady. He cursed under his breath. Clearly, this was the place where the hitchhiker had landed, where Timothy had seen him. There were freshly broken twigs, an impression where a man’s body had lain. The wet leaves had been disturbed where the hitchhiker had dragged himself away.
With a growing sense of having been cheated, Marco moved the light slowly. He could see exactly how the man had pulled himself around, groaned his way to his feet A few feet beyond the thicket was a tattered, soiled handkerchief with a smear of blood on it. The guy had paused there to touch his wounds, steadying, feeling the return of strength.
Marco plunged forward, hoping the hitchhiker had collapsed. Marco’s eyes and brain were hungry for the sight of the dead body.
But the hitchhiker had recovered and gone. Marco had to admit the fact. He finally stopped his search and stood overcome by the death of hope. Wouldn’t you know it? Those stringy, bewhiskered bums and winos, you couldn’t kill them with a meat-axe. A passing motorist had probably picked up the guy. Right now, the bum was no doubt dry and comfortable in a hospital charity bed. The cops would give cursory attention to his accident and invite him to get out of town.
“Marco?”
Marco raised his head. Timothy’s shadow was visible up on the highway.
“Marco, what is it? Where are you?”
The sound of the hated voice at this moment put Marco’s teeth on edge. He hadn’t until tonight known how much he really wanted to remove Timothy, when for a little while it had seemed possible.
And then a thought came to Marco. Timothy had no way of knowing he was down here alone. Without turning on the flashlight, which he’d extinguished when he’d quit searching, Marco called softly, “Get back in the car, Timothy! Trying to attract the attention of anybody who happens to pass? You crazy or something? I’m coming right up.”
Chastened, Timothy was under the wheel of the car when Marco returned.
“Let’s get out of here, Timothy.”
“What took you so long?”
“For pete’s sake, I wasn’t so long. It only seemed that way to you. I had to find the guy. And then I tried to figure something to do. Thought about moving him. Looked around for a place maybe to hide him.”
“Then he’s—”
“Deader’n a burned out match, Timothy.”
A sob came from Timothy as he hunched over the wheel.
“Look,” Marco said, “I’m sorry.”
“I’m a murderer, Marco.”
“I wouldn’t feel...”
“Murderer,” Timothy said. He suddenly beat on the steering wheel with the heel of his palm. “I’m a murderer — and the fact can never be changed.”