Hellfire

21

“Well?” Phillip Sturgess asked. “What do you think?”

It was past ten o’clock, but to look at the little Westover police station, anyone would have thought it was the middle of the day. Most of the force was there, and people filled the small lobby, asking questions of anyone whose attention they could get. But everyone on the force had been told to reply to all questions in the same way. Over and over again the answer was repeated: “We don’t know yet exactly what happened. As soon as we have some information, there will be an announcement.”

The rumors, of course, had been running rampant, feeding off one another, passed from person to person.

All of them, naturally, centered on Beth Rogers, and all of them were variations on the same theme.

“Mr. Sturgess found her right over the corpse. It wasn’t even cold yet, and she was covered with blood.” Then there would be a falsely sympathetic clucking of the tongue, and a heavy sigh. “She’s always been an odd child, though, and these last few weeks — well, I don’t like to repeat the stories I’ve heard.”

But of course the stories were repeated, and embellished, and exaggerated, until by nightfall there were few people in Westover who hadn’t heard that Beth had already killed Jeff Bailey, but had been protected by the power of the Sturgesses, who hadn’t wanted a scandal.

And, of course, there was the horse — Phillip Sturgess’s prize mare — that Beth had slaughtered in its stall. Would a sane person kill an innocent animal? Of course not.

And they’d all seen Beth, hadn’t they? Seen her wandering around town by herself? And talking to herself? Certainly they had.

The kids had known, of course, and their parents had been foolish not to have listened to them. Children always know when something’s wrong with someone — they have a sixth sense about those things. In a way, the more sanctimonious citizens declared, Alan’s death was the responsibility of them all, for they’d all seen the signs of Beth’s illness, but no one had done anything about it.

They came and went from the police station, gathering in the square to enjoy the warmth of the summer evening, and speculate on what would happen next. Some of them dropped in at the Red Hen to have a drink, and listened with serious faces as Eileen Russell repeated over and over again what had happened to Peggy the last time she had gone to visit Beth. All of them agreed that Peggy Russell had been lucky to escape with her life.

Bobby Golding, who was an orderly at the clinic, got off shift at eight, and went directly to the Red Hen, where he reported that Beth was currently being held in a locked room, where she was held into a bed with restraints, and would be transferred to the state mental hospital in the morning. And, he added, she would never stand trial for what she’d done, because schizophrenics never did.

And that, of course, wasn’t fair, someone argued. There wasn’t really anything crazy about Beth at all. She was just damned clever. All she really wanted to do was get back up to Hilltop, and she couldn’t do that as long as her father was still alive. So she’d pretended to be crazy, and killed him, knowing perfectly well that they’d just put her in a hospital for a couple of months, then let her go. And when she came back to Westover, then nobody would be safe.

And so it went, until by ten o’clock Beth had been charged, tried, and convicted.

Except by Norm Adcock, who now leaned back in his chair and rubbed his tired eyes, then tried to stretch the knots out of his aching shoulders. “Only way I can figure it is an accident,” he said in reply to Phillip’s question. He gestured to the reports that sat in a neat stack on his desk. “We found the broken brace three feet away, and there were traces of both paint and rust on Alan’s hands and shoes that match what we got off the girders. I suppose the rust could have come from anywhere, but the paint was only used on the struts supporting the roof. Couldn’t have come from anywhere else. Besides, we even found his fingerprints on the glass over the spot where that brace broke. He must have been up there checking the dome for something, and his own weight broke the brace.”

Phillip nodded. “And what about Beth? Is there any way she could have been up there, too?”

“I don’t see how. You know as well as I do that Alan wouldn’t have let her start climbing around up there. He wouldn’t have let anybody do that, let alone his own daughter.”

“But he’d do it himself,” Phillip commented, not really expecting a reply.

“That was Alan. He wouldn’t let anyone else take a risk like that, but he’d never think about it himself.”

There was a silence, while Phillip turned it over in his mind. “What if he was already up there, and she climbed up without his permission?”

“Already thought of that,” Adcock replied. “If traces of the paint showed up on Alan’s shoes, then they would have shown up on hers, too. And they didn’t. There’s no way she was up there, and no way she had anything to do with what happened to Alan.”

Phillip felt the tension he’d been unconsciously building up in his body suddenly ease. He hadn’t yet told Carolyn about the strange words Beth had uttered when she’d finally been able to speak that afternoon, and now he wouldn’t have to. But he still didn’t understand them.

“What do you think about what she said?” he asked.

“Not my department,” Adcock replied, shrugging. “You’ll have to ask the docs about that one. But offhand, I’d say it was nothing more than shock. She was the only one there, Mr. Sturgess, and she’s a little girl.” He stood up, stretched, and once more rubbed at his shoulders. “I’d better get out there and talk to the folks. Hope I can convince them that I’m telling them the truth. And you,” he added, “might want to think about going out the back way.”

Phillip frowned, wondering what the police chief was getting at. “Why?”

“Because if you’re with me, someone’s bound to suggest that you’ve pressured me to gloss over what happened.” He smiled bitterly. “People are like that. They don’t want a simple answer. They’d rather have a scandal, and they’re about to be disappointed.” He hesitated a moment, then went on, but his tone of voice had changed slightly, become less official. “Alan was a friend of yours, wasn’t he?”

“He was,” Phillip replied. “In other circumstances, I suspect he might have been my best friend. We — well, we understood each other, Alan and I.”

Adcock’s lips pursed thoughtfully. “He was my friend, too. So I guess, in a strange sort of way, you and I should be friends, Mr. Sturgess.”

Phillip hesitated, uncertain what the chief was getting at. “Friends usually call each other by their first names,” he observed quietly. “And mine’s Phillip.”

The chief’s head bobbed. “And mine’s Norm. And if you want my opinion, I’d say you’re going to be in for some very rough times.”

“I’m not sure I follow you—”

“Beth. What do you plan to do about her?”

“Do about her?” Phillip repeated. “I’m going to take her home, and do whatever I can to help her get through all this.”

“Six weeks ago you kicked her out of your house.”

Phillip’s eyes narrowed, and he felt sudden anger make a vein in his forehead throb. But before he could speak, he realized that there had been nothing condemnatory in the chief’s voice. Adcock had spoken as if he were simply delivering information. “Is that what people have been saying?” he asked.

“That’s what they’ve been saying. And all evening I’ve been getting reports from my boys.” Briefly, he told Phillip about the gossip that was already sweeping through the town. “I can’t tell you what to do, but if Beth were my daughter, I’m not sure I’d want her to stay here. It’s not going to matter what I say, Mr. — Phillip. People are going to talk, and the stories are going to get worse and worse.”

“But Beth hasn’t done anything—”

“What about the horse?” Adcock asked bluntly. “Are you going to tell me the poison got into those oats all by itself?”

Suddenly, unbidden, a memory flashed into Phillip’s mind. A memory of his daughter, looking up at him earlier that afternoon, and asking him if Beth had killed someone.

She hadn’t cared.

He’d seen it in her eyes.

She hadn’t cared that someone had died. All she’d cared about was that once more Beth Rogers might be in trouble.

“Beth didn’t poison the oats,” he said now, the pain of the truth wrenching at him. “But I know who did.” He turned, and started out of the office, but Adcock’s voice stopped him.

“Mind telling me?” the chief asked.

Phillip didn’t turn around. “Yes,” he said quietly. “I mind very much.” He pulled the door open and stepped out into the squad room. Glancing around, he spotted the back door that led out to the alley behind the building, and started toward it. He could feel the eyes of everyone in the room following him, but no one spoke.

Phillip slipped quietly into the room at the clinic. Carolyn, her face pale, looked up at him from her chair next to the bed in which Beth lay sleeping, but made no attempt to rise. He could see by the redness of her eyes that she had been crying. A damp handkerchief was still clutched in her left hand. With her right, she held her daughter’s hand. He moved around the bed, and leaned over to kiss his wife’s forehead.

“How is she?” he asked.

“Asleep,” Carolyn sighed. “Finally. They had to give her a shot. She didn’t want one, but she finally gave in.”

Phillip’s sympathetic smile slowly faded into a look of grim determination. “And maybe that’s the problem,” he muttered to himself. “Maybe she’s always given in too easily.”

Carolyn looked up at him dazedly. “Given in? Phillip, what are you talking about?”

Phillip shook his head as if trying to clear it of unwanted thoughts. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I’ve just been thinking, that’s all. And I’m not liking what I’m thinking.” He hesitated, then decided there was no point in putting it off. “We were wrong to send her to Alan,” he said.

Carolyn swallowed, and for a moment Phillip was afraid she was going to start crying again, but then she recovered herself. “Phillip, will you please tell me what you’re talking about? I just don’t understand. Alan’s dead, and Beth keeps saying she killed him, and now you say—” And then a thought struck her, and her face paled. “Phillip,” she whispered, “you don’t believe she had anything to do—”

“Of course not,” Phillip assured her immediately. “I didn’t from the first minute she said it, and I’d hoped you hadn’t even heard it. Norm Adcock is positive it was an accident. He says there’s no way Beth could have caused Alan’s fall. But that’s not exactly what I’m talking about.”

Carolyn relaxed just a little. “Then what are you talking about?”

Phillip replied, “The more I think about it, the more I keep thinking that this whole mess might not have happened if Beth weren’t so damned determined to try to please everyone. Which,” he added bitterly, “is a trait she inherited from her father, God rest his soul.”

Now Carolyn’s tears did overflow. “Will you please tell me what you’re talking about?” she begged.

Suddenly Beth stirred in the bed, and Phillip reached down to stroke her forehead. Still asleep, she reached up and clutched his hand in her own for a moment, then let it go and rolled over. After a few more seconds had passed, she was sleeping peacefully once again.

“Come on,” Phillip said quietly, drawing Carolyn to her feet. “Let’s find someplace where we can talk.”

He led her out of the room, then spoke to the duty nurse, who let them into a vacant office. Phillip guided Carolyn to a chair, then paced the little room for a moment, wondering where to start.

“I keep wondering why they were there at all, at that time of the afternoon,” Phillip finally said. “The men had gone home an hour earlier, but they were still there. Anybody else would have knocked off, but not Alan. I’d asked him to rush the schedule, and instead of telling me he couldn’t, he just went ahead and did it. He’s been working late every day, and working on weekends, too. And on top of that, we dumped Beth on him.”

Carolyn gasped, her eyes widening. “We didn’t dump her,” she protested. “You know what the situation was like at home. And it was just getting worse.”

“I know,” Phillip agreed. “But did either of us stop to think about the situation at Alan’s? Carolyn, we know what’s been going on, and all we’ve done is tell ourselves it would blow over. But what can the last six weeks have been like for Beth? No friends — every kid in town down on her — spending all her time in the mill because she had no place else to go! My God, she must have been out of her mind with loneliness. And she wouldn’t complain, either. Not her. All she ever wanted was for people to love her, but none of us ever managed to have time for her.”

“That’s not true!” Carolyn objected. “I always had time for her, and you used to get up and take her riding.”

“Three times, maybe,” Phillip replied. “But you know as well as I do that we were both walking on eggs, trying to be fair to everyone. You were trying to fit in just as hard as Beth was. And then when Patches died, we were both willing to believe that she’d poisoned the oats.”

“We didn’t,” Carolyn breathed, but Phillip held up a hand in a silencing gesture.

“Maybe we didn’t. But we let it be the last straw, and we didn’t try too hard to find out what really happened. It was easier just to avoid the situation by letting Beth move in with Alan.”

“We thought it was best,” Carolyn insisted. “We talked it over, and we agreed that it would be best for all of us. It wasn’t just ourselves we were thinking about! It was Beth and Tracy, too!”

“Tracy,” Phillip breathed. He’d been standing at the window, looking out into the darkness, but now he turned and faced Carolyn. “It was Tracy who poisoned Patches,” he said.

Carolyn stared at him. “No … even Tracy wouldn’t—”

“Wouldn’t she? Try this — what if Tracy heard us talking the night before?” He knew he was guessing, but even as he spoke the words, he knew they were the truth. “What if she knew that if anything else happened — anything at all — we’d decided to let Beth go live with Alan? You know as well as I do that she’s always resented Beth.”

“But she loved that horse—”

Phillip shook his head tiredly, feeling the exhaustion of the conflicting emotions that had been boiling within him over the last hour. “It wasn’t the horse she loved,” he said. “It was having the horse. I… I’m not sure Tracy is really capable of loving anything or anyone. This afternoon—” He fell silent for a moment; then made himself tell Carolyn what had happened in front of the mill that day. “She didn’t care about Alan being dead,” he finished, his own eyes flooding with tears now. “All she cared about was that it might be blamed on Beth. And she hoped it would be. I could see it in her eyes.”

Carolyn groaned softly, her eyes fixed on the floor as her hand unconsciously kneaded the limp handkerchief. Then, finally, she looked up.

“But what do we do?” she asked. “What can we possibly do?”

“I don’t know,” Phillip confessed. “But we can take Beth home, and try to make it up to her some way. Somehow, we have to make her understand that she’s not alone. We have to make her know that we love her very much.”

Carolyn nodded mutely. And then, after a long moment she spoke the other question, the question that was in both their minds.

“What about Tracy? What do we do about her?”

Phillip had no answer.