Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 26, No. 4. Whole No. 143, October 1955

Only the Guilty Run by Vin Packer

A sensitive study of an adolescent boy in love with his English teacher... a prize-winning story that will make you stop and think.

It was a few hours after dinner, that cool evening at the beginning of September. Charlie got up from the mauve stuffed chair in the living room and walked into the foyer, opened the closet and grabbed his red wool sweater from the hook. He said nothing to his parents and they said nothing to him. His mother had looked up from her sewing which was spread out in her lap, and smiled tentatively, and Charlie had winked in answer. His father had not taken his eyes from the ball game on the television screen. It was understood that they would not ask him where he was going, or what time he would return. This was his sixteenth summer, and when the new term started at school, Charlie would be a senior. If he wanted to, he could even smoke in front of his family, and he had done so once. In July he had camped out for two weeks with four of his best buddies far up into the Adirondacks. His allowance was increased from two dollars and a half a week to fifteen dollars a month, and as long as he did not run short, he did not have to account for the money. After Labor Day he would go to work from 4 until 8 in Allen’s Pharmacy, and open a savings account in the bank where his father was a teller.

Charlie stood in the hallway of the apartment building and pushed the button of the self-operating elevator. Little Billy Crandell’s mother was standing in front of 3C yelling, “C’mon now, Billy. It’s after 8. Billy, I said hurry!” Billy was trudging up the stairs slowly, dragging his coat on the cement steps, his dark eyes sad, his lips pouting. He passed Charlie, and Charlie ruffled the boy’s yellow hair and smiled to himself. He could remember when he was only eleven.

Downstairs in the lobby he paused before the large square mirror. He was tall, and not skinny any more. His shoulders were broad, and his legs and arms were muscular, firm. The deep tan gave his face a rugged, masculine look that set off his gray eyes and made his teeth seem very white when he grinned. The close-cropped haircut helped too. He looked older than he had in June. Even though it had only been three months, he knew he looked older — acted older too. He wasn’t a kid any longer. He was grown up. He was on his own.

Then he thought of her... Of course, he had never really stopped thinking of her. Not all summer. He had pretended to himself that she was not important, that she was merely a stage he had gone through, that it did not matter now. But in his heart he knew differently. It was crazy the way he had dreamed of her those days and nights during June, July, and August. In his sleep he would see her entering the classroom again, smiling with the dimples at her cheeks, her green eyes sparkling, the soft, long, flaxen-colored hair touching her shoulders. He had seen her that way countless times, but when he dreamed of it, he made it different. She called the roll the way she always did, but when she came to his name, she stopped and looked up, searching the room for him. Then, when their eyes met, a wistful expression came over her countenance. She said, “Oh, there you are,” and the tone in her voice was hallowed and tender. What she was really saying was, “Charlie, Charlie, I’ve missed you so!”

He would wake up from that recurring dream feeling glorious. He would sing I’ll Be Seeing You in the shower, shine his scuffed-up brown oxfords, and take long walks, humming to himself and watching the sky. It didn’t matter that it was only a dream. It didn’t matter that Miss Lattimore had never said anything of the kind to him. It was wonderful, wasn’t it? He was in love with her. She was his high-school English teacher and she was probably past 27, and he was just sixteen — but that didn’t matter either. Those mornings after the dream, he believed only in his love, in Jill — that was her name. Miss Jill Lattimore.

Sometimes he was depressed. He did not always sing or hum or smile or think it was wonderful to be alive. He read poetry — especially the plays and sonnets of Shakespeare — imitating the way she had read them aloud in class.

That was the one he read most of the time, and he would close the book, hold his head in his hands, and say, “Jill!” and then, “Jill! If you only knew...”

Charlie shook his head and stared at the mirror in the lobby of his apartment house where he had been standing, thinking of her. Suddenly he laughed and said to the mirror, “Shakespeare! Me like Shakespeare? Ha!” He shrugged his shoulders the way Sid Caesar might have done on television. “Yeah, me. Me — Charlie Wright. I like Shakespeare, that’s all. And because of her!” He laughed again, but his stomach did a flip, and when he walked out the door of the building, he was frowning.

It was getting dark. There were some kids sitting on the curb under the streetlight at the end of the block. He began to walk in the opposite direction, up the winding road of Overlook Terrace to Fort Washington Avenue. He had always liked living in Washington Heights. It was close to the river and the George Washington Bridge, and he used to sit on the low banks near the water and watch the tugs and barges go by. Last year he had found another reason for liking Washington Heights. Miss Lattimore lived on Cabrini Boulevard, a few blocks from where Charlie was walking right at that moment.

He had gone by the Excelsior Apartments dozens of times, and once he had gone inside and read her name on the mailbox. Lattimore-4B. Later, as he stood in the road behind the building, he picked out her apartment from all the others. It was in the rear, facing the Hudson. Sometimes in the early evening he would see the lights up there and wonder what she was doing. He would make a bet with himself. “If she comes to the window and looks out, she feels the same way I do.”... But she never came to the window and Charlie went home sorrowfully, moping around in his bedroom, angry at his mother’s questioning.

His mother would say, “Do you feel all right, dear?”

“Sure,” Charlie answered, “swell!” He would say it very sarcastically.

“Darling, if anything’s the matter...”

“Aw for Pete’s sake,” he would exclaim. “For Pete’s sake, mom!”

Then before he went to bed he would go to his mother, pat her under the chin with his finger and say, “ ’Night sweetheart. Pleasant dreams.” Because he was always sorry when he was rude to her. When you came right down to it, he had a swell family. His mother and dad always played square with him, and he used to think, “Why, I can tell them anything — anything!” But he couldn’t tell them about this. This was different. He was in love — desperately in love — with an older woman, and he had been in love with her for one whole year.

Even the fellows at school didn’t know. He made sure of that. Some of the boys used to say, “Hey, that Lattimore is some chick, huh? All teachers should have her looks.” Charlie would smirk and tell them they were loony. He cut up in her class, shot paper airplanes across the room, dropped aspirin in inkwells, and whistled La Cucaracha when she read poetry. One day she kept him after class.

“Charlie,” she said, “why can’t we get along?”

He wanted to cry right then and there.

He said, “What difference does it make!”

“It makes a great deal of difference to me,” she answered quietly, “You know, Charlie, I’ve read your compositions carefully. I think we both know you don’t act the way you feel inside. You’re quite a sensitive young man, Charlie. You write beautifully about beautiful things.”

He thought, if she doesn’t stop saying my name that way I will cry; if she doesn’t stop saying things like that I will cry — I just won’t be able to help myself.

He said gruffly, “I’ll be late for Latin.”

“Please think it over,” Miss Jill Lattimore said.

The truth was, she understood him and no one else really did. “You’re quite a sensitive young man, Charlie. You write beautifully about beautiful things.” And what else had she said? That he didn’t act the way he felt inside. He should have said, “Yes, Miss. Lattimore. ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.’ ” He should have said something adult and intellectual — like something Shakespeare had written. She was a bug on Shakespeare and Charlie was too now. He had thumbed through the pocket-book Shakespeare he kept under his pillow until the pages were worn and marked...

This term it will be different, Charlie thought as he strolled along Fort Washington Avenue, past the drug store where the gang crowded in booths, listening to the juke box and drinking cokes. He didn’t want to go in the drug store and hear all that kid talk. He wanted to be by himself and think about how different it would be this term. He was grown up now and he would act grown up. Jill would notice it immediately because he wasn’t going to clown around any more. The very first morning of class he would go to her and say, “You know, Miss Lattimore, I was something of a buffoon last year.” Buffoon was a good word. And then he would quote, “My salad days, when I was green in judgement.” That would do it. Short and to the point, with a peppering of Shakespeare and a sincere smile. He had been practicing sincere smiles all summer.

Charlie thought it was a lucky thing she taught both Junior and Senior English. He might never have seen her again, or heard her voice, or watched the proud way she walked with her head held high, the tilt to her nose giving her face a saucy look. He was a lot taller than she was, and really, when he thought about it, she seemed younger than he. It was a fact she didn’t look 27 — she didn’t look that old at all.

There was a moon up over the Hudson and dots of light on the Jersey side. Charlie walked slowly and he made his hands into fists. He had not seen her for three months. He remembered she had said that she would spend the summer in Colorado with her folks. School began in three days and she should be back. He turned and walked down Cabrini Boulevard. “How like a Winter hath my absence been, From thee.”

He stopped before the building where she lived, and when he looked up, he saw the lights there. She was back! There was a drum in his stomach and he could feel his knees weaken. He did a strange thing. He kept walking toward the rear of the building until he could touch the brick with his hand. He touched it very gently... When he saw the fire escape, he said in a whisper to himself, “Don’t be crazy, Charlie. Hey, don’t be crazy!”

It was easy because he wore sneakers on his feet and he went up the iron steps like a cat. He was afraid too. He had never done anything like this in his life and the moment had no reality for him. The moon was bright and big, and when he looked down he felt dizzy. He kept thinking “Go back” — but he wanted to see her.

He kept going until he came to the fourth level. At the windows of 4B he crouched, lifting his head slowly to stare into the room. She was not there. He saw the bookcases, the wide gray rug, the modern lamps and low tables, and the black vase of flowers. Her room. Her living room. He just kept looking at it, trying to imagine her there.

Then everything happened.

He remembered the sudden flash of light, the sound of a harsh voice ordering him to halt. He remembered running up the steps of the fire escape to the fifth floor and the sixth, his hands shaking, his legs like lead under him. He thought he would fall, he wished he could jump, and after he had gone three flights up, he stopped and held on to the wall of the building.

Two shots rang out in the night and he screamed, terrified. He stood clutching the brick, sobbing, saying “No!” aloud. A dark figure came stealthily toward him, grabbed the back of his sweater, jerked him forward. He felt the rough material of a policeman’s coat. Again, he looked down and the scene made him dizzy. He felt himself buckle and the voice grew faint...

“He’s a good boy, a good boy,” his mother was crying. Charlie sat slumped in the wooden chair at the Police Station, hearing his mother defend him, his father question him. A fat Police Captain in shirtsleeves stood next to Charlie, his face kindly, his eye dark and serious.

“Try to explain, son,” Charlie’s father said, “What made you go up there? Try to explain before Miss Lattimore comes.”

Charlie couldn’t answer. He kept thinking that he was very nearly killed.

“Were there any other boys with you?” the Captain asked. “We got a report saying there was only one.”

“He’s an Eagle Scout,” his mother said to no one in particular. Her eyes were tired and red.

“Don’t you like Miss Lattimore?” His father’s tone was patient, soft. “Chuck, did you really go up there to look in her window?”

The officer interrupted, “That’s where he was, all right — kneeling right outside her window.”

Charlie knew he would cry out again any moment. There was a knot in his throat.

“I fired over his head,” the officer said, “but it was dangerous just the same. He could have got it if he’d kept on running.”

“What about it, Chuck?” his father said. “Try to tell us, son.”

He had almost been shot down, Charlie thought, like a criminal. He was dreaming, he would wake up...

When he heard Miss Lattimore’s voice, his hands went cold. His lips quivered and he could not have spoken if he had wanted to. He sat shaking.

“He’s a good boy,” his mother repeated, and he thought, “Aw mom, dear mom,” and he kept his head lowered to keep them from seeing that his eyes were filled.

“I know he is,” he heard Miss Lattimore say.

“We’re sorry about this,” his father apologized.

Charlie could not look up at her, and he could not stop his shoulders from heaving with the great sobs inside him. He was just a kid after all, he told himself, just a big sissy.

“I should have asked^-the janitor,” Miss Lattimore began, “but I never thought he’d be hurt doing me that favor.”

“You mean?” Charlie’s mother cried out.

“My television wires. The nails were loose. It’s attached to the window on the ledge outside and I didn’t think he’d hurt himself. I certainly never thought he’d be reported for being a peeping Tom.”

Then Charlie looked up. He stared at her. She looked little and delicate, standing there in the sky-blue linen dress with the sweater, the same color as her hair, over her shoulders.

“He was doing you a favor?” his mother asked hopefully.

“That’s right,” Miss Lattimore answered. “I met him on the Boulevard and asked him if he would. I just returned yesterday and there’s so much work, getting resettled and—”

She’s beautiful, he thought, she’s like an angel.

“Well,” the Captain boomed out, “that ends that!”

“Chuck, you should have said so.” His father was smiling broadly, clasping his arm around Charlie’s shoulder. “Good lord, son, you should have spoken up, told us about it.”

Miss Lattimore was holding her glance steady with Charlie’s. “He was probably afraid,” she said carefully. “He could have been killed.”

She had done this thing for him. She had understood, she had known, and she had done this thing for him...

“Never run,” the officer said at the door, “Only guilty people run, lad.”

“Your post cards were forwarded to me, Charlie,” Miss Lattimore said. “You seem to have had a nice summer.” They were leaving the Police Station now — Miss Lattimore, Charlie, his mother and his father.

His mother said, “He went camping with some other boys alone in the woods. He’s sixteen now, you know.”

He didn’t mind his mother saying that. For some reason he didn’t mind.

His father said, “I have my car, Miss Lattimore. May I drop you?”

In the car everyone began to laugh about it. It wasn’t really funny, his mother said, because he could have been killed. Charlie laughed too, sitting in the back seat looking at Jill’s light blonde hair. When she waved goodbye to them in front of the Excelsior apartment house, Charlie watched her walk up the path until she was out of sight. Then he sat forward, resting his chin on the back of the seat where his parents sat, and he kept thinking about her...

It was near midnight. He had waited for the house to be still, for the door to his parents room to close. Quickly and quietly he went down the hall, down the steps to the lobby, and out into the street. The late night air was colder now and he wished he had brought his topcoat, instead of wearing just his suit. His only suit — blue serge with a good press.

The streets were empty and the stores along Fort Washington Avenue were dark. When he came to Cabrini Boulevard, he did not turn down the back road. He walked directly to the entrance of the Excelsior. A man with a skinny dog on a leash held the door open for Charlie, and inside he took the elevator to the fourth floor.

When she answered the door, he said, “Hello, Jill.”

She stood in a white terry-cloth robe, her long hair pulled behind her ears and held with a red ribbon. Her eyes were wide, her lips half parted, and she looked at him with disbelief.

“Aren’t you going to ask me in?” he said.

She blocked the entrance. “Charlie Wright, go home. Now!”

“Jill,” he said, “Listen, Jill—”

“Charlie, what on earth? Don’t you realize that I was trying to be a good sport tonight? I was trying to help you, Charlie, don’t you realize that?”

“Why?” he said. “Why were you helping me?” He made his lips grin playfully, but he was less sure now.

“You poor kid. Please, Charlie, go home! Don’t you see — I was trying to help you because I knew you had a crush on me. All those post cards, and the ridiculous way you acted in my classes last year — and your compositions. Charlie, please! Don’t make me do anything mean.”

He didn’t know what to do. He felt foolish standing before her in his best suit with his new shirt and striped tie, and the gold tie-clip his father had given him for his birthday. He said, “Crush?” and his voice did not sound like his own.

“Charlie, leave right now. I mean it.” Her eyes were round and as he looked at her intently, he suddenly became aware of something terrible. She was afraid of him. She was genuinely afraid of his presence there.

He said, “Look, I won’t hurt you. I only want to — I want, I—” He began to stutter. He felt confused. He wanted to make it all right, to make whatever he was doing all right. She wasn’t in love with him. He wanted to make that all right too, and it was. It was, because he didn’t love her either any more. In those slow seconds he experienced a horrible awakening. All he wanted to do was go home, to get some sleep, to wake up and find the gang tomorrow. Play ball. Go up to the drug store. Things like that. He wasn’t Charlie Wright standing before the door of his English teacher’s apartment. That was crazy.

“Go on, now!” She raised her voice and the sound startled him. Now that he knew, he did not want anything more to happen to spoil it. He reached out without being conscious of what he was doing — only to stop the frantic words she was saying to him, to stop them and tell her he was sorry, that he was a fool, and was going.

He clamped his hand across her mouth. Instantly, she screamed. She screamed the way he had when they had shot at him on the fire escape.

He said, “Listen... I—” But it was too late. The man from the next apartment was running toward Charlie. Charlie stood still. Miss Jill Lattimore was crying, and the man had Charlie by the shoulder.

“Miss Lattimore,” he tried to say again, but she was sobbing her words hysterically now. She was telling the man that Charlie was a foolish kid with a crush on her, that she couldn’t control him, that this time he had gone too far... Charlie knew that in a matter of minutes the police would be on their way, the phone would ring out in the darkness of his parents’ bedroom, and now he was on his own — really on his own.