College-Cut Kill

Chapter Three No Suicides Today

The next to the last was a washout, the same as Toberly. The last was a kid named Harley Reyont. I found him at his room in the dormitory and I took him down the street to a beer joint. I knew he had seen me around the campus so I had to use a different approach with him.

I said, “I’m a transfer and I’ve been thinking of whether or not to hook up with the local chapter of my fraternity. But I don’t like some of the things I’ve seen around there. I thought the smart thing to do would be to find somebody they gave the dirty end of the stick to.”

I saw his hand shake as he reached for his stein. He was a pale, thin, pleasant-looking boy. “What makes you think I got the dirty end of any stick, Arlin?”

“I saw the rush list. They didn’t pledge you and neither did any other group.”

“They did me a favor, that bunch.”

“Just how do you mean that?”

His mouth curled bitterly. “I was just as wide-eyed and eager as any of the rest of them. Hell, I thought I’d die when I wasn’t tapped on pledge night. I thought something was wrong with me, that maybe I was a second-class citizen. I’ve smartened up since that night, believe me. My clothes weren’t right during rush week and my conversation wasn’t smooth enough to suit those snobs. They could see I wasn’t going to be an athlete. So I got passed over in the rush.”

“Was that good?”

“Take a good look at them, Arlin. A good look. Then come back and tell me what you think of their set of values. It’s a damn superficial life, fraternity life. If they’d take me in I’d be like the rest of them now. Cut out of the same pattern.”

“But you resented them at the time. Maybe you still do.”

He frowned down at his stein. “No, I don’t think I still resent them. I feel a little bit sorry for them.”

“Didn’t you want to get even?”

He looked up quickly. “I see what you mean. I suppose so. I sublimated it. I hated them and I had to show them. I turned in straight A’s for the freshman and sophomore years. I’ll do it again this year. But not because I still resent them — because in the process of acquiring the high grades, I learned that I’m actually pretty bright. I enjoy the work.” Again the bitter smile.

“You could say the brothers helped me find myself.” He sighed. “Hell, Arlin, I guess I still resent it. I’ll resent it all my life. Sour grapes, I suppose. Only I went for a walk along fraternity row during one of the big weekends. I could see them through the windows, dancing with their tall cool women, all wearing that same satisfied smirk. I wanted to bust the windows with rocks. I wanted to be inside there, one of them.

“I wanted to be Brother Reyont, the Big Man on the Campus. I walked back to the dorm and read Kant. He always puts me to sleep in short order. It took twenty pages that night. But I don’t blame Gamma U. Any other house would have done the same thing. I was a pretty dim little freshman, that I can assure you.”

“Thanks for being so frank with me.”

“You’re buying the beer, aren’t you?...”

When I drove in I saw that my lights were on, and I knew that Tilly had used the key I had given her. I parked quietly and stopped and looked through the window. She was in the big chair wearing that green dress I liked. Her legs were tucked up under her and she was reading a news magazine. The lamplight brought out the very fine line of her cheek and throat.

She looked good to me. Having her waiting there for me made me play too many mental games. It wasn’t healthy. On a crap table the wise man plays the field. Anybody who bets all night on the same number loses his shirt.

I went in and she came up eagerly out of the chair.

“Aha!” I said. “So you are here about the mortgage! Heh, heh, heh.”

“Please, sire! The night is cold. You will not throw me and my piteous child out into yon snow.”

“Mind your tongue, girl, or I shall feed you both to the wolves.”

We laughed together. Silly people. She stopped suddenly and said, “Oh, Joe, it seems so long since I could laugh like this.”

“Easy, easy,” I said warningly. “Go weepy on me and I’ll turn you over to the dean of women. They’ll hang you for — damn! I’m sorry, Till. Foot in the mouth disease.”

“That’s okay. How did you do?”

“Reyont is off the list. And he’s the last one, that is if you covered your boy. Did you?”

“That’s why I came, Joe. I saw him. He... he’s very odd. He frightens me a little. His name is Luther Keyes.”

“Do you think he’s capable of — what happened?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know. You’d better talk to him tomorrow. He’s in my nine o’clock class, room fourteen in the Arts Building. I’ll arrange to walk out with him. We’ll come out the west door.”

“Done. What did you tell him? What sort of a story did you give him?”

“I played the gossip. I asked him if he thought one of the Gamma U men had been killing his fraternity brothers. You know, dumb innocent questions. Baby stare. I won’t tell you how he reacted. You be the judge of that.” She looked at her watch. “Gosh, it’s late.”

“And a bright moon and a warm breeze. It just so happens that I picked up a suit the other day that ought to fit you.”

She stared hard at me. “No nonsense, Joe?”

“Promise.”

I waited for her in the living room. She went out first. I turned off the lights. There was a trace of phosphorescence in the waves as they broke against the shore.

We went out too far. The fear came without warning. She was surging along, ten feet ahead of me. All knowledge of the shore line was gone. We were in the middle of an ocean.

“Tilly!” I called. “Till!” She didn’t stop. I put on a burst of speed that I knew would wind me completely if I had to continue it for long. As I made a long stroke, my fingertips brushed her foot. I reached and caught her by the ankle.

“No, Joe,” she gasped. “Let me go! Oh, please let me go! Don’t stop me!”

She fought to get free but I wouldn’t let her go. “What good would it do? You’re trying to run away from something.”

Suddenly she was passive. “All right, Joe. I’m all right now.”

“Come on, we’ll get you in.” That was easy to say. In the struggle we had become turned around. I could get no clue as to the direction of the swells. I could see no lights on shore. I knew then that we were out so far that the lights were too close to the horizon for us to see them from our angle of vision.

“Which way, Joe?” she asked, her voice tautening with panic.

Oh, fine, I thought. This was your idea and now you don’t care for it much.

Then, like a letter from home, I saw the pink on the sky, the reflected city lights of Sandson.

“That way,” I said. “Come on. Take it easy.”

After a long time I was able to correct our course by the lights of a familiar hotel. It seemed that we would never, never make it — and then my knee thumped sand. She stood up, swayed and fell forward. I tried to get her up. She was out cold. I got her over my shoulder and weaved up to the house. I dumped her, dripping wet, on the couch. I turned on the hooded desk light, got big towels.

Her lips were blue. Her eyes opened and her teeth were chattering so badly she couldn’t speak. It was a warm night. I poured a shot and held her head up while she drank it. She gagged but she kept it down. I got blankets, covered her. She cried for a long time, softly, as a tired child will cry. I sat beside her and rubbed her forehead with my fingertips until she went to sleep.

After she was asleep, I sat for a long, long time in the dark and I knew, without her telling me, just how it had happened. She had grieved for Ted. But not enough. She had been strongly attracted to me, as I was to her. With a person of her intense capacity for loyalty, it seemed an unthinkable deceit. It made a strong conflict within her. What she had done had seemed to her at the time to be the only solution.

I knew that when she awakened, her reaction would tell me whether or not I had guessed right about her feelings.

I sat there until the eastern sky was gray shot through with a pink threat of tomorrow’s sun. She stirred in her sleep, opened her eyes and looked at me with no alarm or surprise. She held her arms up and I kissed her. It was as natural and expected and unsurprising and sweet as anything I’ll ever know.

“I had a nightmare,” she whispered.

“A long, long bad dream, darling. It’s all over now. For good.”

“Don’t ever say anything to me that you don’t mean, Joe. Ever.”

“Promise.”

“And Joe...”

“Yes, darling.”

“Please. Go away from me for a little while. Way over there. I feel like a hussy. I don’t want to be one.” She grinned. “Not quite yet.”

“We ought to get you back.”

“Isn’t today Saturday?”

“Don’t ask me like that. I always look at my watch when anybody asks me too quickly what day it is. Yes, it’s Saturday.”

“No classes, Joe. I can cook. How do you like your eggs?”

“After a swim at dawn, of course.”

“Then go on out and swim, dear. You’re dressed for it. I’ll call you when it’s ready. How’s the larder?”

“Full of ambrosia.”

“Come here, Joe. Now go swimming. Quickly, Joe. Quickly.”

I swam. She cooked. She called me. I ate. We kissed. We made silly talk. Words are no good. Ever.

That Ted had himself a girl, he did. I was glad he was dead. To be glad for a thing like that gave me a superstitious feeling of eternal damnation. Bad luck. It gave me a shiver. She saw it. We held hands. No more shivers. No more bad luck, I hoped.

During that week, after I rubbed Keyes off our list, we plotted. I could speak more freely because now I could talk about Ted without it rocking her as badly at it had in the beginning.

I said, “We tried one way. I have a hunch that guy you mistrust is just another zany. Now we go at it from the other direction. We forget motive and try opportunity. We back-track on the beach party, the return trip from Tampa, the gun-cleaning episode, Ted’s apparent suicide. Now from the motive viewpoint you brought out that the case is stronger for an outsider.

“From the opportunity point of view, the case is stronger against one of the brethren. Two of the incidents happened inside the house. At the beach party most of the members were present. The car accident is the hard one to figure out. I suggest that we drop it for the time being. Maybe it was a legitimate accident. Maybe it just served to give the murderer his idea. Were you on the beach party? Yes, I know you were, because I know Ted was there. And it was all couples.”

“You want me to tell you about it.”

We were in deck chairs side by side on the little terrace, our heads in shade, our legs outstretched in the sun. She took a cigarette. I held the lighter for her.

She leaned back. “The beach party was just before Christmas vacation started. It was a fraternity affair, but there were a few outsiders, guests. Rex Winniger, the boy who drowned, was with a casual date, a snakey little blonde that I disliked on sight. Rex had broken off with Bets, a girl in my house. It seemed too bad. He was very popular and a good athlete, but not much of a swimmer. He came from Kansas, I think.”

“Where was the party?”

“On a long sand spit called Bonita Island. We used a big launch belonging to Harry Fellow’s father. Harry graduated last year. We moored it on the mainland side of the island and we had to wade ashore. We got there in mid-afternoon. Everybody swam and toasted in the sun. The drinking started a little later. Nearly everybody drank too much. The party got a little wild.

“The party broke up a little after midnight because some of the boys had passed out and their dates were yammering to be taken home. Somebody thought of counting noses. Rex and the little blonde were missing. Some of the group thought it would be a big gag to leave them marooned there. Then they went looking with flashlights. They found the little blonde asleep on the sand. They got her awake and she said she hadn’t seen Rex in she couldn’t remember when. You could feel people getting a little worried and a little soberer then.

“The boys made a line across Bonita holding hands — it’s only about seventy feet wide. They went right from one end to the other. Quite a few of the other boys could have swum to the mainland as a joke. But Rex really couldn’t swim that well. Then we all hoped that maybe he’d tried it and made it all right. But on the way back people were laughing in that funny nervous way that worried people do. Ted whispered to me that he didn’t like the look of it at all. We girls were taken home.

“In the morning Ted met me and he looked haggard. He said that Rex hadn’t showed up. They reported it early that same morning. Hundreds of people looked for the body. The papers made a big story of it and the blonde got her picture on the front page, looking tearful. Well, you know the rest. The beach party was on a Thursday night. They found his body on the beach on the mainland on Saturday afternoon, about three miles below Bonita Island.”

“Did you notice if he got drunk at the party?”

“Everybody was drinking. Some of them got pretty sloppy. But I don’t remember that Rex was sloppy. We talked about that later. We compared notes. After dark everybody was in the water at one time or another, because the surf was coming in beautifully.”

“Was there any incident, any trouble that caught your eye?”

She thought for a few moments. “No... I guess not. Nothing really unusual. When people drink they say things they normally wouldn’t say. There were quarrels and poor jokes and some spiteful talk. Harv Lorr was president of the house. He saw that things weren’t going too well. He tried to keep all the boys in line. Arthur Marris helped him, even though Arthur was only a junior then. Ted could have helped but he didn’t want to leave me alone for as long as it would take.”

“All in all, a bust party, eh?”

“Not a nice party, Joe. Full of undercurrents.”