The Heir

MURDERER STRIKES AGAIN

I just stared at it. I couldn’t even think what it meant; just that it was more terrible than anything else that had happened. But then I saw the smaller type.

Doctors Upgrade Eric Boyer’s Condition to Guarded.

I wouldn’t have let go of that newspaper for a steak dinner. I devoured it for any clue about him.

He was conscious, as of sometime yesterday. He’d had a concussion. There was no major damage.

That gave me energy enough to want to read the rest of what was happening. Harry Bright had told the reporter that if they wanted to see brain damage, they should look at Commissioner DeAngelo’s department. Nothing else could explain how his entire Division of State Police could let the most wanted man in the world get past them to attempt another murder. DeAngelo had answered that the police protection had been suspended at Eric Boyer’s request after his police escort had given him a speeding ticket.

But most of the news was about the hunt. There were now roadblocks around the whole city, watches on all the bus and train and air terminals, at all the ports and marinas. Hotels were reporting anyone vaguely resembling the fugitive.

There were no police left to look for a tramp sleeping in the bushes. I had to agree with Harry Bright: they weren’t doing a very good job.

I finished reading. It was time to get on. It had warmed up, and I thought about abandoning my coat, but it was my only friend.

Then there was another miracle. In the trash was an almost full twenty ounce bottle of soda. I savored the liquid and calories and caffeine. It was enough for the moment.

It still took me four more hours to get to his house. It was after noon.

I saw no sign of anyone watching. Nathan would have refused police protection. He had nothing to fear from me.

Surely he knew. He didn’t think I was the killer. What if he did? He’d give me a chance to explain. Would he believe that it was Fred? I didn’t know if I believed it anymore.

I went around the block, to the house backing against his. There was a way through to his house that was covered by trees and fence. I made my way slowly into his backyard. Now what? His door would be locked. The house would have alarms on all the doors and windows.

I’d wait in the bushes for him to get home.

I sat for an hour, but it got painful. I shifted to bushes against the house. They were smaller, but there was room behind them. I tried a window, but it was locked.

He had to believe me. Nothing would work if he didn’t. The reason I was going through all of this was to talk to him. I couldn’t see anything past that. Maybe because there was nothing. Maybe I’d fought through the pain and hiding and wretchedness without a reason. I waited.

I’d done so much waiting the last week. It was good practice for prison, or being dead.

The sun descended. When would he get home? Would he eat out? I still didn’t even know for sure that he was coming home at all. He might have just left for a month-long conference in Bombay.

A car pulled into the driveway and around to the back of the house. It wasn’t him; it was a woman in a gray uniform. She let herself in the back door. I waited two minutes and silently opened the door myself and followed her in.

I didn’t know if she was the maid or the cook or what. The kitchen was the first room on the left of the passageway, but it was empty. I needed a place to hide. I opened a closet. It held brooms and mops. I closed the door and kept looking.

In the hall I stood still, listening, and I heard her upstairs. I hurried through the dining room and front hall to Nathan’s study.

There was a door on the far side. I opened it. It was a conservatory, with glass windows and plants in pots on the floor and hanging. I had no idea Nathan would have had such a place. It wasn’t visible from the front street. I closed the door behind me and wedged myself behind a chair. Most of the pain was from my bruised, pounded muscles, and it was starting to fade. Just my jaw was getting worse.

I waited.

I couldn’t hear anything from here, or see her leave. It was about four o’clock when she’d come. I kept waiting.

At six thirty I unrolled myself and let what blood I had left back into my knotted limbs. Nathan might be home already. The maid might still be cleaning or cooking. I opened the door.

The study was dark and empty. I crept through the house. There were lights on in the front hall but no cars in the driveway or garage.

I went upstairs and found a bathroom. What a luxury it was, after the past days. I cleaned myself as well as I could. I’d take a shower soon, after he got back.

The kitchen was lit, and a casserole dish was warming in the oven. The timer showed forty minutes to go. The smell of it cooking was overpowering, and there were cabinets of food, but I left them. I went back to the study.

I didn’t know how to meet him. He’d be startled. I practiced:

“Nathan! It’s Jason. I’m here!”

The voice sounded strange to me. Had it changed, too, like everything else? I wasn’t used to it.

“Nathan. I’m Jason.”

It was hard to speak anyway. I sat in the armchair. He would arrive anytime in the next hour.

The room was so organized. The amount of paper he went through must be immense. Just the notes from his years of conferences took shelves.

I opened one binder. The pages were filled with his neat, straight writing. The meeting had been a decade before, but at the bottom of the page a line had been drawn and another paragraph added, dated years later. These were the records of his life, these notes about poverty and crime and hunger. What if this was the answer, Nathan’s purpose in life-to do good? That was why Melvin had hired him, to do the good that a rich man didn’t have time or interest for.

I heard the garage door opening, a muffled groan like thunder in the distance.

I practiced again. “Nathan. I need help.” Would he recognize me? “Nathan. I’m Jason.”

The roar of a car engine echoed in the garage and then died. Where should I wait for him? He might not come to the study. If he didn’t, I’d go to him in the kitchen.

The garage door closed with the same growl. A door opened, back by the kitchen. Would he have anyone with him? He was in the kitchen now. I’d hear him talking if he wasn’t alone, but it was silent. Faintly, I heard the oven door open and close.

Even Nathan Kern would wonder what was for supper.

There were footsteps in the hall. I put the binder back on the shelf.

“Mrs. Hammond?” He was at the foot of the stairs. Somehow he knew someone was in the house. “Are you there? Hello?”

I was standing in the center of the room and he was in the doorway, his eyes wide, his hands half raised.

His mouth dropped open. “Jason? Is it you?”

“I didn’t kill her.”