Chase Read online

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We sinned, and we can't blame the boy.’

  Chase was too depressed by them to remain any longer. He stood up abruptly and took Glenda's hand as she stood beside him. ‘Thank you for your time and trouble,’ he said. ‘Sorry to have brought this all back into your minds again.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Mike's mother said. ‘We're glad to help.’

  Glenda spoke for the first time since they'd come into the living room. She picked up an evening paper and said, ‘Is this today's paper?’

  ‘Yes,’ Anne said.

  ‘If you've read it, I'd like to have it. I didn't get a chance to pick one up today.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ Anne said as she started them toward the hallway and the front door. ‘Nothing good in it anyway.’

  ‘You were in the army,’ Harry Karnes called after them. He had turned sideways in his chair and was staring at Chase's open collar.

  ‘Yes,’ Chase said.

  ‘I think that was what Mike needed. If we could have persuaded him to join the army and go to college later, maybe they'd have whipped him into shape, put sense into him. Maybe what he needed was a year or two over there, where you were.’

  ‘That's the last thing he needed,’ Chase said.

  ‘Maybe, maybe not.’

  ‘Take my word for it,’ Chase said, the sympathy completely gone from him now, angry at the casualness with which the old man suggested sending his son to a living hell.

  At the door, Mrs Karnes thanked him again and said she was happy to have met Glenda. She also said, ‘Dear, aren't you cold in that little bit of a dress you're wearing?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Glenda said. ‘It's a summer night.’

  ‘Still and all -’

  Glenda interrupted her. ‘Besides, I'm a practicing nudist. I'd actually prefer going without any dress at all, if the law allowed.’

  ‘Well, goodnight,’ Anne Karnes said. She gave them a terribly strained smile and closed the door.

  Chase said, ‘You seem so soft and cuddly and sweet - until that acid streak shows up. You continue to amaze me.’

  She took his arm as they walked to the car. ‘Well, dammit, they made me sick. They aren't the least bit sorry for their son - only for themselves. And if he'd gone off to war and been killed that way, they'd have been proud as punch.’

  ‘I know,’ Chase said. ‘I've seen it all before.’ He put her in the car and went around, slid behind the wheel.

  This will interest you,’ she said, opening the newspaper she had got from the Karneses’ coffee table.

  ‘What was that all about, by the way?’

  She read the headline. ‘Tavern owner found shot.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘It's Eric Blentz,’ she said. ‘They've got his picture on the front page.’ She handed the paper to him.

  Chase took the paper and read it in the glow of the streetlamp.

  Tell me,’ she said.

  ‘He was shot five times. Twice in the head and three times in the chest, at close range.’

  ‘My God,’ she said. She was shivering, and she reached automatically for a cigarette, which she lighted but did not smoke.

  ‘He was found this afternoon at ten after twelve, by his sister.’

  That's the last evening edition, ‘Glenda said. ‘It just made print, and it must be a small piece.’

  ‘It is. Doesn't say much, except how he was found and where he lived - a town-house apartment on Galasio, out where the old golf course used to be.’

  ‘I know the place,’ she said. ‘Shared walls in the town houses. And no one heard anything at all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Leads?’

  ‘None here,’ he said.

  ‘What do you think, Ben?’

  ‘It was Judge,’ Chase said, convinced of it against his own will.

  ‘You can't be positive.’

  ‘But I am. When I left the tavern Saturday afternoon, I was fairly sure Blentz knew the man I'd described, but I couldn't see how to force it out of him. He must have tried to call Judge all Saturday evening while Judge was keeping a stakeout on your apartment. He wouldn't have got hold of him until Sunday afternoon at the earliest, perhaps late Sunday evening. He probably asked Judge to come see him at home this morning, and maybe he hinted about the reasons. He would have had time to realize who I was and to put the bits and pieces together. Maybe he wanted to blackmail Judge. He didn't look as if something like that would go against his grain.’

  She crushed the cigarette in the ashtray. ‘Can't even stand the smell of them burning any more.’

  Chase said, ‘I've been wondering why we haven't been followed or bothered all day. Now I think I know. If Blentz called him yesterday and asked to see him this morning, maybe hinted at the reason, Judge would have been pressed to stay up most of the night making plans. Perhaps the grenade was his last device before he heard from Blentz. Once he killed Blentz, he would have gone straight home to bed to catch up on his sleep. And I think I've read that psychotics sleep like dead dogs after a murder, exhausted by the emotional peak they've reached.’

  ‘If he has slept all day,’ Glenda said, ‘he'll be up and around soon.’

  ‘Yes,’ Chase said. ‘That's why we're going back to your place and locking up until morning. We can't get a list of physics tutors from the high school until nine o'clock or so. We might just as well shut down for the night.’

  ‘I'm for going home,’ she agreed. ‘Being out in the open gives me the chills.’

  ‘You're a nudist, remember? You're used to that sort of thing.’

  ‘Those aren't the kind of chills I mean. Please, Ben, no jokes right now. I want to be taken home and fed some whisky until I fall asleep.’

  ‘It's a deal,’ he said.

  No one followed them away from the house where Mike Karnes had once lived.

  Thirteen

  Tuesday morning after Glenda called in sick at work for the second day in a row, and after they had finished breakfast, Chase phoned the high school and represented himself as the father of a boy who needed a physics tutor to help sharpen him up for an advance placement test in college physics. The secretary he spoke with was pleasant and helpful. In ten minutes he had the names of four men who were interested in such moonlighting whenever it was available.

  ‘Two of these were on the other list,’ Glenda said. ‘That means it has to be either Monroe Cullins or Richard Linski.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Chase said. ‘These may not be the same men the high school was recommending a year ago.’

  ‘We'll know shortly, won't we?’

  He nodded and lifted the telephone again. He dialled Monroe Cullins’ number and waited, wondering what it would be like for Judge to realize, when he heard Chase's voice, that the tables had turned. Had been turned. This had been no accident of fate, but the result of hard work and more than a little cleverness.

  No one answered Monroe Cullins’ phone.

  ‘It could be that Judge is here, watching the building.’

  ‘And it could mean the guy is just out buying the newspaper or tending to an errand of some sort.’

  ‘Try the other one.’

  He put the phone down, looked at Richard Linski's number, picked the receiver up and dialled.

  Again no one answered.

  ‘Damn!’ Glenda said.

  Chase wiped his hands on his slacks, which she had pressed for him an hour earlier. ‘We'll just have to wait. We'll try again, around noon, see if either one comes home for lunch.’ His hands had left dark splotches of perspiration on his slacks.

  Glenda passed the next hour trying to read, curled up in one of the velvet-covered easy chairs, her long legs tucked under her. Chase decided to read too, but found himself prowling the length of the bookshelves in the corridor, picking out one title after the other, only to replace it and go on. He felt as if he were looking for one special book, one certain topic, though he had nothing in mind. Once he thought he was looking for glass
dogs that might be hidden behind the books.

  At eleven the telephone rang.

  ‘I'll get it,’ Chase said.

  ‘What if it isn't him?’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘My mother, perhaps. Or someone from work.’ She got up and went to the phone and stood over it, watching it ring. She said, ‘No, I'll have to get it myself.’

  ‘Go on, then.’

  She picked it up. ‘Hello?’ She smiled, placed a hand over the receiver. Her smile looked as if it had been hammered in a sheet of tin, stiff and beginning to rust. ‘Mother,’ she whispered.

  He went back to the bookshelves and finally chose a picture history of erotic art. He didn't expect to be aroused just then, but at least there wasn't much reading to it.

  Glenda's mother kept her on the phone fifteen minutes. When she hung up, she said, ‘Mother wondered how ill I was.’

  ‘How'd she know you called in sick?’

  ‘Phoned me at work to tell me something; they told her.’ She went back to her chair and picked up her book. ‘Could we call those two now?

  He looked at the wall clock just inside the hallway. ‘Wait a little while yet.’

  ‘I guess you're right,’ she said. In the next half-hour she lighted and put out four cigarettes, though she smoked none of them.

  Neither of the men was home when they called at noon. ‘We'll try again at three,’ Chase said.

  They played cards for a while, took a bath together that did not lead anywhere erotic, watched a bit of afternoon television and tried reading again.

  Neither of the men answered his phone at three.

  Nor at five-thirty.

  ‘I think I'll crack apart if we don't get hold of them soon,’ Glenda said. ‘I'm beginning to think crazy things - like maybe both of them are Judge.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Chase said. ‘I was looking for glass dogs in your bookshelves a while ago.’

  ‘Glass dogs?’

  Before he could explain, the telephone rang. ‘Your mother has already called, and it's too late to be someone from work.’ He picked up the receiver and said hello.

  ‘You can't stay inside forever,’ Judge said. ‘Sooner or later, you have to come out.’

  ‘Why don't you come up and get us?’ Chase asked. ‘That would solve your problem.’

  Judge laughed. ‘You continually underestimate me - or were you only joking? Anyway, I only called to let you know I intend to take a break from the vigil, eat some supper and sleep a bit. You'll go unobserved for a while. It's perfectly safe to run out and stock up on milk and bread.’ He started laughing again, and he required a long while to stop.

  Chase said, ‘You're pretty sure of yourself, aren't you?’

  ‘And why not? I have all the time in the world; I can wait weeks for the proper moment.’

  In the hours they had been waiting, he had had time to think about what to say to Judge if he should call again. Now it was almost like going through a printed script. ‘Did you properly research Eric Blentz's past before you killed him?’

  Judge was silent a moment, and when he did speak he sounded strained, on the verge of a scream. ‘I knew him so well that I didn't need to do any research. He's deserved to die for years.’

  ‘But especially since he discovered what you've been up to.’

  ‘I didn't kill him for personal reasons,’ Judge said. ‘You've got to understand that. He was a sinner, he deserved to die, I did the world a service by it.’ His voice had deteriorated into an emotional garble. He hung up.

  Chase said, ‘Let's try those numbers again.’

  ‘You think he called from home?’

  ‘I think he's beyond taking precautions now.’ He dialled Monroe Cullins’ number. No one answered. Hesitantly, he dialled the number of Richard Linski and listened while it rang six times before it was answered. Chase let the man on the other end say hello half a dozen times, but he did not respond. When Linski broke the connection, Chase hung up.

  ‘Well?’ Glenda asked.

  He said, ‘It's him. Judge's real name is Richard Linski, the well-known physics tutor. We have him.’

  Fourteen

  Chase carried Glenda's overnight bag into the motel room and placed it at the foot of the double bed. He went back and closed the door, checked to see if the lock worked properly, slid the chain latch in place. The room was small, but clean and comfortable. There was no window in the bathroom, and the only window in the main room was filled by an air-conditioning unit.

  ‘You're safe enough if you stay here,’ he said.

  ‘If I don't?’

  ‘Glenda-’

  She stood by the bathroom door, her hands fisted at her sides, very attractive in her anger. She had been very attractive for more than an hour, because she had been angry at him for that long. ‘I know Linski's address as well as you, and I could get there right on your heels if I called a taxi as soon as you've gone.’

  He went to her and put his hands on her shoulders. She did not resist, though she did not encourage him either. ‘Glenda, you know he's dangerous, that he killed two people and that he threatened to kill us. I've been trained in self-defence, while you haven't. I've had field experience, while you haven't. It's as simple as that.’

  ‘It's even simpler,’ she said. ‘Go to the police.’

  ‘I told you I didn't want to yet.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I have to be sure this is Judge, that I'm not making a mistake somewhere. I wouldn't want to be laughed at again.’

  She seemed to shrink, curling against him in defeat, but she continued to argue in a less strident tone of voice. ‘Ben, you could call him on the telephone and confront him at a distance, couldn't you? You'd know soon enough that way.’

  ‘I have to do this,’ he said.

  Although he was doing his best to try to convince her that his reasoning was sound, he was as unsure of his motives as she was. Everything she had said was true, but none of it helped to alleviate the intense need he felt to see Judge in person and to make the climax of this affair as sharp and sudden as possible.

  ‘If Linski is guilty, his prints would match those on the knife that was used on Michael Karnes. An anonymous tip to the police. . .’

  ‘I have to do this,’ he repeated when she had run down like an old-time phonograph.

  She leaned all her weight against him then, tired. ‘Okay, okay. But I wish that I could have a least stayed home in my own apartment. Waiting here, in a strange place, makes it all the worse.’

  ‘I've already explained why it has to be this way,’ Chase said, gently massaging the back of her slim neck as he held her against him. ‘He may have been lying when he said he was taking time off for supper and sleep. He may have been hoping to get me out of the apartment long enough to move in on you.’

  ‘But he didn't bother us when we came out, and no one followed us here.’

  ‘Still, I'm not taking chances with you. There's no way for him to know where you are now.’ He kissed her once, only lightly, and broke the embrace. ‘I have to get going if I want to catch him before he leaves home.’

  ‘I'll wait for you,’ she said reluctantly, having finally given in to him.

  ‘You better, or I'll let the Press-Dispatch know you really haven't been sick the past two days.’

  She did not smile at the joke, and he supposed that was understandable.

  He unlocked the door and took the chain out of the slot, stepped outside onto the concrete promenade. He waited for her to close the door and to put both locks back in place, then left the motel in his Mustang.

  Really alone for the first time in days, he found his mind wandering down avenues he had thus far managed to avoid. The argument with Glenda, however, had forced him to consider exactly what she meant to him and what losing her would do to his life. Before, he had emotionally accepted that such a loss would be greater than he could handle, but until this moment he had not intellectually faced the reasons why her death w
ould destroy him. There was, naturally, the simple truth that he loved her as he never had loved another woman in his life. But men had lost love and had gone on to find happiness. It was not just that. He had to confront and accept the second reason her death must be prevented at all costs: if she died because of Judge, then she had indirectly died because of Chase, and she was his responsibility. If he hadn't come into her life, Judge wouldn't have known her. He had placed her in peril, and if he could not get her out of it, there was one more count of guilt to add to the list he already carried with him.

  And that would mean insanity.

  At a quarter past eight in the evening, Chase parked two blocks from Richard Linski's house and made the rest of the journey on foot, staying to the far side of the street. At the corner, half concealed by the public telephone booth, he looked the place over, setting it firmly in mind by daylight so that when he returned after dark, he would move more familiarly about it. It was a tidy little bungalow, second from the corner, and it was kept in good repair and appeared to have been painted recently: white with emerald-green trim and dark-green slate roof. It was set on one and a half lots, which were also well managed, the entire property ringed with waist-high hedges that were so even they might have been trimmed with the aid of a quality micrometer.

  He turned and walked down the street that ran perpendicular to the one on which the bungalow faced, found the mouth of a narrow alleyway and entered it. He went far enough to be able to see the rear of Linski's house. A back porch, not so large as the Indian-style, wide-floored, roofed front veranda, led to a windowless back door. Windows flanked the door, and both were partially curtained in a cheery red and orange pattern.

  Chase returned to the Mustang to wait until dark.

  At first he tried to occupy himself with word games, then with the radio, but soon gave that up. He had been trying not to think about his impulsive decision to come here alone, for he did not want to puzzle out the nature of his reasons. He got out of the car and took a walk away from the bungalow, and in that manner he passed the time until half an hour after nightfall.