Manhunt. Volume 6, Number 4, June, 1958

The Sight of Blood by C. B. Gilford

He had a phobia about blood — fainted at the sight of it. So how could anyone suspect him of the bloody murder of his uncle?

“Damned nonsense,” Miles Ramey’s Uncle David said irritably. He still knelt there in the grass where he’d been pruning the rose bush. The pruning shears were in his right hand. And on the ball of the thumb of his left hand, where a thorn had pricked him, was a tiny bubble of fresh blood.

But his irritation wasn’t directed at the slight wound. At his nephew rather. Miles Ramey had been standing watching his uncle and dutifully listening to his discussion of horticulture. But now Miles’ face had gone suddenly a greenish white, a clammy sweat sprang to his forehead, and he clung to the rose trellis for support. He rolled his eyes and glanced away. He looked as if he were sick.

“What’s the matter with you?” Uncle David insisted upon knowing, although he knew quite well.

“Would you excuse me a minute?” Miles pleaded and tried to walk away.

But there was a devil in the old man that day. He had a grouch on, which was not unusual for him. But he was peskier today than even he had a habit of being. He struggled up from his knees, dropping the shears, and grabbed Miles’ arm before the latter could escape.

“Don’t like the sight of blood, is that it?” Uncle David could be almost gleeful about other people’s infirmities.

“You know I don’t,” Miles said, grimacing. “Let me go please.”

But the old man hung on. “Lot of damned nonsense,” was the judgment he rendered again. “You better cure yourself of that, sonny. Nobody minded when you were little, but it’s damned foolishness in a grown man. What you need is a shock, like seeing a lot of blood at one time. Too bad you never got in a war. Or seen a nice juicy highway accident. Bet something like that would cure you once and for all.”

Miles’ head felt dizzily empty except for the great gory visions his uncle had put there. He was weaker than Uncle David now, too weak to pull away and run.

“Too bad,” the old man said, “that we haven’t got a war or an accident handy. But we’ll try this...”

He dropped Miles’ arm and thrust his wounded thumb into Miles’ face. Somehow Miles couldn’t close his eyes. He had to look. The gnarled old brown thumb with its glistening red bead ornament, like one tiny sphere balanced precariously on a larger one, was just inches from him and filled his vision. Then as he watched in horror, Uncle David reached up with his other hand and squeezed that thumb. The blood welled, burst from its tiny spherical shape, and trickled down the skin.

To Miles it seemed like a vast, rushing, drowning torrent. He screamed.

And screaming seemed to summon strength back into his body. He wrestled out of Uncle David’s grip and ran. Like a man running away from death, and with the devil behind him. He ran the length of the path, and around to the front of the house. But he didn’t stop there. He ran down the slope, through bushes and over grass, past the low scrub trees that whipped their branches in his face. He ran out onto the dock to the far end. There, alone and gasping for breath, he threw himself down on the boards, put his head over the edge, and surrendered to his nausea.

Then he lay for a long time resting, listening to the lake water lapping against the piles, letting the fresh air seep into his throat like balm. Slowly the ugly thing seemed to wash out of him, out of his insides and out of his mind. But he still trembled from the memory, like a frozen man who cannot stop shivering even in front of a fire.

I hate him, he thought.

And his other thoughts were tumbled and incoherent for a while. Till finally, in a sudden burst of light within his brain, they all arranged themselves. He had long wanted what part of Uncle David’s estate he would inherit. And he had hated the old man for just as long. Today wasn’t the first time the old man had been impossibly overbearing, insensibly cruel. Today was somehow only the worst.

But he knew now that he wanted to kill him. And he knew exactly how he would do it.

Miles Ramey went to work on his secret project slowly and methodically. There was an impression to be reinforced in the popular mind. Everybody in Minochee knew, of course, about Miles’ tender feelings and his utter inability to cope with a display of gore or even to discuss gory subjects. But now it became important that their memories be refreshed about the existence of this fact. So that they could call it to mind at the proper time. And bear witness...

In this project luck favored him with several opportunities. And he didn’t have to act or pretend.

First there was the lecture on civil defense and first-aid at the town hall. If he had had anything less than murder in mind, Miles would never have attended. But now he professed concern and patriotism. He had to leave in the middle of the lecture, white-faced, down the center aisle for everyone to see. Then he was sick on the town hall steps.

A few days later Mr. Cromwell the painter fell off his scaffolding and broke an arm. Miles had never run morbidly to accident scenes, but he ran to this one. Friendly hands had to escort him to a shady spot under a tree and make him lie prone to keep him conscious.

And finally came the best chance of all. An outbreak of typhoid made it necessary for the whole town of Minochee to be innoculated against the fever. Miles Ramey stood in line with the others, but he fainted before his own turn came. The incident was noted and commented upon by quite a few people.

So it was time to begin.

Miles would need the proper alibi, of course. But he had provided for that. He lived with his sister Stella and her husband Robert. Relatives would be prejudiced in one’s favor naturally. But that was all right. An airtight, unshakable alibi might look too planned.

Miles chose a night when Robert and Stella were staying home. He ate dinner with them in quite normal fashion, watched a television program with them, even listened to Robert discuss his favorite topic, trout fishing, for a while. But about nine-thirty he said he was tired, retreated to his second-floor bedroom, and locked the door. He always did that.

Once alone, he didn’t hesitate, for he’d made up his mind long ago. He undressed, but not for pajamas and bed. He put on his swimming trunks. Then he brought out of the closet the necessary items he had accumulated for tonight’s work — his tools, he called them.

There was the old pair of sneakers, three sizes too large for him. He’d found them on a trash heap, because he hadn’t dared to arouse curiosity by going into a store and buying shoes so obviously unsuited for wearing. Then there were the three articles that he had purchased in stores, but each at a different store, and none in Minochee. A pair of cotton work gloves, a metal cash box with a key, and a bottle of smelling salts.

He put the bottle, the shoes, and the gloves all inside the metal box for convenience in carrying. Then he turned out the lights, opened the window quietly, and climbed out on the roof. The roof sloped to a low point over the attached garage. The cash box landed on the ground with a soft thud. Miles followed. It was a jarring fall, but he managed it without injury.

He gathered up the box and picked his way in the moonless darkness toward the lake. The rowboat, he knew, would be tied up at Robert’s dock, and Robert wouldn’t be using it or come looking for it at this time of night, so it would never be missed. Miles entered the boat slowly and stealthily, untied it, and pushed silently away from the dock.

Uncle David’s cottage where he lived completely alone was around the little point, half a mile by water, a bit more than half that distance by land. Miles had never in his life rowed over to see Uncle David. Neither, then, would anybody ever expect him to row over to murder Uncle David. That fact was but one advantage of Miles’ plan. But the rowboat was necessary besides. A lot of extra clothing would be a handicap on this expedition. The swimming trunks would be sufficient attire in a rowboat, but hardly if he met anyone on the footpath or the road. And as a matter of fact, he didn’t want to meet anyone.

He was content to proceed slowly, so as not to make any noise with the oars. He was sure no one noticed his passage. Lights were burning in cottages all along the shoreline, but the occupants were staying indoors. From somewhere far off in the night, an outboard motor buzzed, down the lake. No other boats were in the immediate vicinity, for the night was really too cool for pleasant boating.

A light in Uncle David’s kitchen finally shone out as a beacon for Miles. His boat glided silently into Uncle David’s dock, and he tied it there. Then he divested himself of the swimming trunks, and put on the sneakers and gloves. He left the trunks and the metal box in the bottom of the boat, but he took the smelling salts with him as he climbed out.

He approached the house cautiously but not timidly. On the way he made a point of leaving the footprints of his oversized shoes in several places where there was soft earth, such as among Uncle David’s freshly cultivated roses. He also stopped at the little tool shed where Uncle David kept an axe for cutting firewood. He took the axe.

He paused outside the kitchen window to locate Uncle David. He saw the old man, alone as always, sitting at the kitchen table. He had something that looked like garden catalogues spread out on the table in front of him, and he was quite engrossed in them. He wasn’t aware of any other presence until Miles burst through the unlocked door.

Then he jumped up at the noise, only surprised at first. But the surprise quickly changed to awe and wonder, and finally to the cantankerous anger so habitual with him.

“What in thunder are you doing?” he wanted to know.

Certainly he had a right to ask the question at least. His nephew presented a strange spectacle indeed, naked except for the white gloves and the old, obviously huge sneakers, and with an axe in his hand.

But Uncle David didn’t wait for an answer. “I knew you were crazy all the time,” he stormed. “What do you think you’re doing in that get-up? Don’t you wear clothes any more?”

He didn’t seem to be aware at all of the lethal intentions of his visitor. Perhaps he considered the axe to be only a part of the costume, or the lack of costume. And he certainly seemed to have misread the gleam in his nephew’s eyes.

“Now you get home,” Uncle David railed on, “before I call Stella or the police.” He was thinking of calling the police, of course, on a matter of indecent exposure, not of murder.

Miles didn’t pause to argue or explain. He advanced three steps, which was the distance separating them. Uncle David still didn’t seem to understand, because he still wasn’t afraid. Which made everything much simpler. Miles lifted the axe, aimed it at Uncle David’s head, and swung. The target remained immobile, and that even allowed Miles to close his eyes at the last moment. He only heard the impact therefore, without seeing it.

But the sound, like the sounds one can hear in a butcher shop, was enough for Miles’ imagination. His mind instantly conjured pictures worse than any reality. A river of blood seemed to gush at him, suffocating, drowning him. The floor under his feet began to gyrate crazily. The thought of fainting here, in Uncle David’s gore, spurred his hand working at the top of the smelling salts bottle. And then, just in time, the strong ammonia scent rushed into his nostrils.

His head was light and empty, his stomach churning, but he was still conscious. He kept his eyes closed a bit longer, and took further sniffs from the bottle, till the odor was painful inside his nostrils. And he listened for further sounds. There were none.

Only then, after perhaps a full minute of silence, did he dare to look. He had to look. There was still work to be done.

Uncle David was in a crumpled heap on the floor. His head was unrecognizable. There was blood on everything, the corpse, the furniture, the axe, Miles himself. Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? Miles had to seek the comfort of the ammonia again.

But he went to work doggedly. He could afford only one hand for the axe. The other kept the smelling salts under his nose. He knelt on the wet floor. Actually, he found, he could wield the axe without looking at what he was doing. It didn’t matter where he cut. I forgot one thing, he thought, I should have brought cotton to stop my ears.

He didn’t count how many times he lifted the axe and let it fall again. Perhaps he couldn’t. Perhaps his brain wasn’t capable of arithmetic at the moment. He continued on instinct, letting old hatreds be his dynamo. Lift the axe... let it fall... crunch like a cleaver... stuck fast... wrench it out again... lift... fall... I can’t get sick... I ate too much for dinner though... lift... fall... but if I hadn’t eaten Stella would have been suspicious... lift... fall... this is enough... he was dead a long time ago... lift... fall... but the maniac whom I’m impersonating would go on and on... lift... fall...

His arm tired finally and he had to stop. He staggered to his feet, lost his balance once on the slippery floor, made it on the second try. He left the axe where it lay. He still had the bottle. It had stayed clamped to his nose. But the cap had rolled away. He searched for it wildly, found it under the table. He saw that he had left red marks on whatever he touched.

I’ve got everything I came with, he told himself. But he double-checked. The axe was Uncle David’s, leave it. The bottle. Both gloves, red and wet. Both shoes, the same. All right. He lurched out the way he had come.

The fresh night air was the most wonderful thing he had ever smelled. It kept him alive and rational. He stumbled half-blindly down toward the dock. I’m getting blood on the grass, and every bush and tree branch, he thought. But that’s all right. Leave bloody footprints too, footprints bigger than my own.

When he reached the water, he had sense enough not to touch the boat. No blood on Robert’s boat, he remembered. But he walked straight into the water himself. It was colder than the air. It shocked him. A needed shock. His brain cleared a little more.

And it was fortunate that he could think a bit. Because it was important that he be thorough now. No blood on Robert’s boat and no blood on himself. This was another reason why the lake had to be part of his scheme. The lake would wash him clean.

He ducked his head beneath the surface and swam out a few strokes. He could almost feel the filthy red stuff flowing off his body. He came up, gasping for air, and swam some more. Then he circled back to the boat. There, treading water, he scrubbed at the bottle till he knew it was clean. Then he tossed it into the metal box. Sec-only the gloves. He kneaded them like a washerwoman, wrung them out, kneaded and wrung them again. They went into the box too. Finally the shoes, much rinsing, and into the box.

He gave himself another last inspection. He went underwater again, and brushed his hair. He felt all over his face and body, could detect no foreign substance anywhere. Then, with a tremendous, killing effort, he hoisted himself into the boat.

He sat there, naked and shivering, for several minutes before he could even lift the oars. But eventually, because he had to, even without the strength, he untied the boat and began to row.

He went to a place where he knew the water was deepest. He locked the box then with its contents inside, and gave both the box and its key to the friendly lake. It made him feel good, hearing that box sink with tiny gurglings. He started home.

He had to stop to rest often and let the boat drift. He had lost all notion of time. His muscles ached, but he wasn’t nauseated any more. He didn’t need smelling salts. All he needed was rest. Tomorrow morning he would feel very good. The thought of rest kept him rowing.

When he got to Robert’s dock, he tied up the boat. His body was dry now, so he could put on the swimming trunks. He climbed up on the dock and walked carefully to the house. A look through the window showed him Robert and Stella playing gin rummy together. They wouldn’t have been doing that if he had been missed.

Climbing the low roof of the garage was possible with a small running leap, but it required the last ounce of the strength in his arms to lift himself up from a fingerhold. He crawled to his window, and through it into his own room.

There he pulled the blinds and turned on the lights softly. Then he inspected every inch of his own body and found no telltale signs of blood. He congratulated himself. Everything had gone precisely, exactly, according to plan.

He turned out the lights and slept soundly.

Scotty Harris was pretty new in the job of sheriff’s first deputy, having just come to Minochee less than a year ago after being a big-city detective most of his life. So he didn’t know too much of the background of Miles Ramey’s special weakness. But there were plenty of people to tell him about it.

“Miles certainly could never have killed his Uncle David,” Aunt Marian for one said. “He’s too chicken-hearted. Can’t stand the sight of blood.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that he committed the murder,” Harris said defensively.

“Then why are you asking him where he was at that certain time?”

Harris was professionally polite and patient. “It’s my job, ma’m, to ask questions, especially to those people who might benefit by David Ramey’s death. And anyway, it doesn’t look as if Miles Ramey has anything to worry about anyway. His whereabouts last night seem to be pretty well established. He was home all evening.”

“Certainly he was home.”

“Yes, ma’m.”

“But even if he wasn’t, he couldn’t have done it. Why, I saw all the blood in that kitchen. Miles would have fainted and never come to if he’d ever seen that much blood. Why, I remember when Miles was a little boy and I’d be killing a chicken...”

“Ma’m,” the deputy interrupted, “I think you’ve made your point.”

“A maniac must have killed old Dave.”

“Very likely.”

Harris turned his back on Aunt Marian and looked around at the rest of them. They were all here in David Ramey’s parlor, all of David’s local relatives and a couple of his very few friends. Stella and Robert, Miles himself, Aunt Marian, and Cousin Edward. Then there were Sam Ballas and Thad Denton.

“Well,” Harris said, addressing all of them at once, “it looks like we’ll have to accept the maniac theory for the moment at least.”

Miles sat rather alone in a corner. He hadn’t been in the least afraid, but he found additional comfort in the deputy’s verdict. Harris was just coming to a conclusion about something everybody else had known all along. If Miles Ramey was to murder anybody, an axe would be the last thing in the world he’d choose to do it with. Harris was obviously pretty smart, but not even Harris could get around a known fact.

“Can we go then, Mr. Harris?” Sam Ballas asked.

“I guess so,” Harris said, sounding like a defeated man.

Everybody started to get up to leave when Harris cleared his throat and stopped them. “Just one more thing,” he said.

Everybody waited while he went out into the kitchen. When he came back he was carrying the murder axe. But it didn’t look like it had when Miles had last seen it. It had been pretty well cleaned up and was shining again.

“This is what killed David Ramey,” Harris said matter-of-factly. “We’ve already examined it for prints, of course. Nothing there. But I’d like to be sure of just one thing. Can anybody say for sure whether this axe belonged to David Ramey?”

Sam Ballas and Thad Denton gave positive identification.

Harris looked even more glum. “That’s too bad,” he said. “If the murderer had brought it with him, it might have been a clue.”

They waited, but he didn’t dismiss them. He ran his fingers meditatively along the business edge of the axe. “Still plenty sharp,” he commented softly. Then his hand seemed to jump, as if something had bitten him.

Harris moved swiftly then, too swiftly for Miles to predict his intentions. Then there it was, Harris’ right hand in front of Miles’ face, and a finger cut by the axe. The sight of blood.

“That shows you how sharp it is,” Harris said.

Miles waited confidently for the usual reaction, a sickness in his stomach, a whirling emptiness in his head. But nothing happened, absolutely nothing. He stared at the cut finger, at the red liquid oozing gently from the slice in the flesh, stared hard. He wanted to become ill... and he couldn’t.

And he found himself remembering that conversation with Uncle David — was it irrelevantly? Uncle David had been so sure of how to cure his nephew... “...a lot of blood... like a war... or a nice juicy highway accident...” There’d been another possibility. A nice juicy murder.

The detective was looking at him, calmly, but with new interest. “Mr. Ramey,” he said, “they tell me you get sick at the sight of blood.”