Dead Letter (Digger) Read online

  Buehler was sitting behind the wheel of his car in front of the terminal, motor running. Digger jumped into the passenger’s seat.

  "Get going," he said.

  "Fine," said Buehler. "Where?"

  "I don’t know. Go toward Lexington. I’ll tell you as we go."

  "Are we chasing a criminal?" Buehler said.

  "Yeah."

  "Wahoo. I feel like fucking Doctor Watson," he said. He peeled away from the curb with a screech of tires and skidded on the wet pavement.

  "Just don’t get us in an accident," Digger said. "You know how tough it is to find a doctor on a Wednesday."

  "Up yours," said Buehler.

  As he drove, Digger began to dig through the tapes in his jacket pocket. He found the tape numbered One. He reached under his shirt and pulled the small recorder loose from the belt he wore next to his skin. The wires yanked loose the adhesive tapes along his side and he winced from the pain.

  He held the recorder on his lap and inserted Tape Number One.

  He pressed "Play" and heard Allie and Danny’s voices on the tape along with his own, his own loudest because he was nearest to the frog microphone he wore on his tie. He hoped he was right; that he remembered correctly. It was perhaps his only chance.

  He fast-forwarded the tape. He heard himself discussing with Danny the young man’s stolen car. That was when Allie was in the ladies’ room. Then he heard his voice ask Allie:

  "Do you love him?"

  He turned up the volume so it reverberated sharply through the car.

  "Listen," he told Buehler.

  "Yes, but not that way," she said. He fast forwarded again just for a few seconds. Again Allie’s voice: "A drive about a month ago and Danny drives up toward Lexington, but then he turns off and we wind up in East Sudbury. Well, just as you get out of town, just past the big inn, he pulls off to the side of the road and points off into a field. There’s a deserted farmhouse there. Don’t ask me how he found it. Well, it turns out that he wants to buy that for us. So we can get married and fix it up and live there. Our honeymoon house, he called it."

  Digger stopped the tape. "Did you hear that?" he asked Buehler.

  "Yeah?"

  "Can you find it? Do you know where the hell it is?" Digger asked.

  "Sit back, pal. You’re on your way," Buehler said. "Hi, ho, Sherlock Holmes."

  "Shit," Digger said. "I should have left you home." He noticed that Buehler was hunched forward, his face close to the windshield as he sped through the sheets of rain. The water hit the top of the small sedan in thumps.

  "Screw you," Buehler said. "You never could have made it without me. What’s going down, anyway?"

  "I don’t know," Digger said honestly. "But it’s all starting to come together. First, there’s this kid, Danny, and you’ve got to see him with Allie. He’s absolutely fixated about her; she can’t be out of his sight for a couple of minutes without him getting batty. He wants her to marry him and he’s worried, especially now with school almost over and them maybe going their separate ways. She gets knocked up but has an abortion."

  "You didn’t tell me that," Buehler said.

  "You were too busy yelling at me about my missed appointments," Digger said. "I think he wanted the baby so that she’d have to marry him. When she got rid of it, I think that was pushing him to the edge."

  "What about those letters?" Buehler said. "The letters."

  "They were written on an old typewriter of Allie’s," Digger said. "She had it when she was living with this guy Hatcher, who’s the dean. Gilligan was always hanging around when she was living with Hatcher. I think she threw the typewriter away and he picked it up. Don’t ask me why. But the other day, I stopped in to see Danny in his room and he was typing. He made me wait out in the hall for a few minutes. Then when I went inside, there wasn’t any typewriter and there was a pair of gloves on his desk. Now, what in the hell would gloves be doing on his desk at this time of year? Except, maybe, he used them so he didn’t get finger-prints on anything? And he stashed the typewriter so I wouldn’t see it. Watch out for that goddam truck," Digger barked. "How the hell far is this East Sudbury place anyway?"

  "Not much farther," Buehler said. "Keep going."

  "Koko got on to it when she told me about Danny’s car. No car thief would wipe off every print in the car. Only somebody who wasn’t thinking straight. Check the owner, she said. He stole his own car and covered it by reporting it to the cops. I think she was right."

  "And then he stashed it," Buehler said, "and went back and got it to run down this Redbone. Right?"

  "Redwing," Digger said. "Yeah."

  "Why? Why Redwing?" Buehler asked as he stomped on the accelerator and skidded past a slow-moving car in front of them.

  "I don’t know. I looked at Gilligan’s file in Langston’s office tonight, but it was empty. There was just one notation and it had some letters and said that his file was in her private file. I didn’t know where her private file was, so I couldn’t look."

  "What letters?"

  "I don’t know. It was like a code or something. Let me think. H-I-W-F-M, it was."

  Buehler grunted. They drove silently for a few seconds, and Buehler said, "Wait. I think I know what that is."

  "What is it?"

  "Shrinks have codes that other shrinks know," Buehler said. "They use them to keep their dirty little secrets away from prying eyes. H-I, I think, means homosexual incident."

  "Mmmm," said Digger as he stared ahead at the car’s lights, illuminating the raindrops as if they were driving through a school of insects. "H-I-W-F-M. What the hell could that mean? Redwing was gay. Wait. Homosexual incident with faculty member. Could that be it?"

  "Sure could," Buehler said. "Is it a reason?"

  "I don’t know. I don’t know how crazy this Gilligan kid is. Is it possible that he just decided to get even with this Redwing for no reason at all?"

  "Hey, bucko," Buehler said. "If Redwing seduced him, maybe when he was a young freshman or something, that’s not exactly ‘no reason at all.’"

  "I guess not," Digger said.

  "I still don’t understand, though. What’s in East Sudbury?"

  "After I called Allie tonight to talk about her typewriter, she must have told Gilligan. I think he figured I was on to him or close to it. He must have snapped and figured he’s going to lose Allie forever, and maybe he’s taking her up to his silly damned idea of a honeymoon cottage and…"

  "And what?" Buehler asked.

  "I’m afraid to think what," Digger said. "He’s got a knife. Just drive faster." The car responded by leaping forward.

  "But why’d he write the letters?" Buehler asked.

  "I think he was getting desperate. He’d gotten Allie pregnant and she had scheduled an abortion. He asked her to marry him and she said no. A few more days or weeks and she’d be going back to New York. I think he wrote those letters to try to drive her close to him. To make her dependent on him. Maybe confuse her, maybe get her to marry him out of fright or panic. And then I stumbled along and messed it all up, because she could lean on me as well as him."

  "I hope you’re wrong," Buehler said with a sigh.

  "I do, too," Digger said. "Otherwise, I’m afraid of what’s waiting for us at that farmhouse."

  They passed into the village of East Sudbury. The town was drenched, sodden, and quiet. The sole gas station was closed, but up ahead, on the right, Digger saw through the rain-coated windshield, a blinking red neon sign.

  As they drew closer, he saw that the sign read "Village Inn."

  "That looks like the inn," Digger said. "Now it shouldn’t be too far down the road."

  Buehler slammed on the brakes as they suddenly approached a narrow bridge that crossed a rain-swollen stream, and then they were out of the town, beyond the reach of street lights, and ahead of them was only the darkness of the night, gouged out by the headlights of Buehler’s car.

  Digger saw a flash of yellow off to the right of the
road.

  "Slow down," he barked.

  As they came abreast of it, he saw it was a yellow Pinto, parked well off the road. Ordinarily, it would have been obscured by high grass, but the heavy rains and wind had weighted down the foliage so the car was visible from the road.

  Buehler hit his brakes and Digger said, "Keep going, but slow. We don’t know where he is yet. He might be watching." A hundred yards farther down the road, Digger told Buehler to turn off his lights.

  "Now, coast to a stop. Use the emergency brake, not the pedal," he said.

  The heavy car rolled to a slow stop on the shoulder of the road.

  "Okay," Digger said. "This is what I want you to do. I’m getting out here. You drive down the road a little bit and then turn around. Drive back to the inn and call Lieutenant Terlizzi in the cocktail lounge at the Copley Arms. Tell him where we are."

  "What should I tell him if he asks anything?"

  "He won’t ask anything," Digger said. "But tell him I said no cops or sirens or anything. If he’s coming, come alone."

  "And what do I do?"

  "You wait at the inn for him," Digger said.

  "You mean I won’t be in on the kill?" Buehler said.

  "Doctor Watson was always left waiting at the inn. Just do what I say," Digger said, and then he slipped quickly out of the car, slammed the door, and began running, low to the ground, back toward the yellow Pinto.

  As he drew within twenty-five yards of the car, the world was illuminated by a flash of lightning and a thunder clap so near, it sounded as if it had exploded inside Digger’s jacket pocket. He dropped to the wet ground. The rain already had soaked him, and he could feel his wet skin chilling.

  He ducked off the shoulder of the road and off into the high grass lining the roadway. Slowly, keeping low, he made his way toward the Pinto. When he was abreast of it, he stopped, but he could hear nothing except the pelting of the rain on the car’s metal roof. Allie and Gilligan might still be in the car, so he got onto his belly and crawled through the grass until he was next to the car’s right rear wheel. He put his ear to the side of the car but heard nothing except rain.

  Slowly, ready to duck again, he rose from his crouch, peering in through the automobile’s right rear window. He saw nothing. He stood up and looked into the back seat and onto the floor. The Pinto was empty.

  Digger turned and looked across the field, but through the rain, he could see only a faint dark blur against the darkness of the sky. Then the lightning flashed again, and he saw it: an old battered farmhouse, one hundred yards back through the field, but as dark and barren-looking as death itself.

  He started again through the grass toward the farmhouse, then stopped and returned to the Pinto. He squatted next to the right front wheel and unscrewed the valve cap from the tire. He turned it around and pressed it against the inflation pin inside the valve. The air rushed from the tire and he saw the car settling lower as the tire flattened.

  Then he turned and, hunched low, began running through the grass toward the abandoned farm.

  All the windows were out and there was no front door. The wind slammed through the door opening, carrying with it waves of rain.

  Digger lay in the long grass, next to the three-foot-high stone foundation of the house, listening for a sound inside. There was no silence; there was only noise, but none of it the noise he hoped to hear. He heard the wind and the rain and the creaking of water-weighted tree limbs. A shutter slammed rhythmically against the house and then its sound was overpowered by a crackling burst of lightning and thunder. And in the wake of that explosive sound, there was again only the wind and the rain.

  Digger stayed low and moved past the open front door around the side and toward the rear of the house. If they were still in there, they might have moved to the leeward side of the house, away from the chill gusts. He was at the rear corner of the house, just under a window opening, when the wind paused for a breath, and he heard it.

  A voice. It said "This was going to be…"

  "This was going to be our studio," Danny Gilligan said. "Did you notice how it opens up and overlooks the valley? I was going to take out this whole wall and put in windows. It would be like a big sun porch. And I could take half of it and use it as my study, reading, maybe writing papers and books, and you could have the other half and you could use it. Maybe you could paint, Allie; you’re a pretty good painter. With all that glass, this would be a wonderful room to paint in, Allie. It would have been."

  There was no answer.

  "And inside there, I was going to build a real old country kitchen, with a real old-fashioned hearth and real old-fashioned cast iron pots, and we could always have on a pot of stew, if we ever had company, they could have some. But I wouldn’t want too much company. I just want us. And maybe someday our babies. We’d have room for them in this house. A lot of room."

  There was no answer.

  "Do you know I found this house the same time I found you, Allie? We were both freshmen and I saw you walking around the campus. I followed you all day. You never noticed me. But that was all right because it meant you didn’t chase me away, either. You were the most beautiful girl I ever saw, and I knew that all I ever wanted was you. I used to tell Doctor Langston about you, all the time. She used to joke and say that you were a fixation with me, but that wasn’t a joke, Allie, you were a fixation with me. And she used to say that I should give it time and if anything was supposed to work out, it would work out. She told me that for two years, Allie. Then you wound up sleeping with her husband. That was bad of you, wasn’t it?"

  There was only silence.

  "But I wasn’t mad at you, Allie. I just didn’t understand why you didn’t love me like I loved you. I used to watch you every night going into Dean Hatcher’s house and I’d wait out in the park, hoping that I’d see you passing the upstairs windows. Then all the lights would go out, and I’d be sick because I knew you were in there sleeping with him, and he was touching you all over. But I wasn’t mad at you. I knew if I waited long enough, someday it would happen. Some nights I used to sit in the park all night, just in case you had to leave his house in the middle of the night, someone would be there to walk with you and protect you. That’s how I saw you put the typewriter in the garbage can. I took it. I don’t know why, I guess maybe because I wanted something of yours. You never knew that, did you?"

  His only answer was the whistle of the wind through the staring empty windows of the old farmhouse.

  "And then all of a sudden we were together, just like that. It was just the way I always thought it would be. The way it was supposed to be forever. How could I love you so much and it not work with us forever? It had to. And then you wouldn’t marry me. That wasn’t right, Allie. I loved you. You know I made you pregnant on purpose? That’s right. I told you I was using something, but I always ripped a hole in them first. You were talking about going home and you forgot, Allie, this is your home. I wanted to buy this place for you. For us. Oh, that’s right, I was telling you, I found this house when I was a freshman, and I’d follow you around, and when I couldn’t stand being near you anymore without you even noticing me, I would come up here and sit right in this room and look out over that valley and know that someday, the two of us would sit here together. We would spend our life together here, Allie. I always knew it. But you wouldn’t listen. You wouldn’t have our baby, Allie. And you wouldn’t marry me. Even when I scared you with that letter, you wouldn’t marry me. Why was that, Allie?"

  His answer was a flash of lightning that illuminated for a brief instant, almost like daylight, the room. Danny Gilligan paced back and forth across the center of the room. Allison Stevens sat against a wall. Her ankles were tied and her hands were behind her. There was a handkerchief gag in her mouth, and in the flash of the lightning, her wide eyes had seemed to explode with fright.

  "And now that friend of yours, he knows I wrote that letter. He’ll find that typewriter in my room when he looks there, and he’ll k
now that I killed Redwing, that terrible fat pervert. If I had had the time, I would have killed Doctor Langston, too, because she lied to me when she said I would have you, that it would work out. She lied to me and you lied to me, too. I thought you loved me, but you were just going to go home and forget me. Who’d ever know that I’d ever had a woman like you if you went home without me? Who was going to believe me? You’re not going home, Allie, and neither am I. This is home. You and me, we’re going to stay here forever. It won’t be like I wanted, but we’ll be together. That’s what I always wanted, Allie. Why isn’t it what you always wanted?"

  He was answered by Digger who had seen Allie in the lightning flash and dove through the low open window.

  "Maybe, Danny, it’s because you’re a shit," he said.

  The lightning cracked again and as young Gilligan wheeled, Digger saw the light flash off the shining steel blade in his hand.

  Gilligan charged, the knife in front of him, clenched in a fist.

  Digger waited and when the young man drew near enough kicked out with his right foot. His foot dug into the young man’s forearm and the knife clattered onto the damp wooden floor. The youth’s charge carried him to Digger, who stepped aside, thumped him on the back of the neck with his fist, and then pushed him out through the open window. He heard Danny land outside with a thump and a groan.

  Digger felt on the floor for the knife, then ran over to Allie.

  He pulled the gag from her mouth.

  "Are you all right?"

  "Oh, Digger, he was going to kill me."

  "I know. You’re okay. He didn’t hurt you?"

  "No. No."

  Digger squatted with his back to the wall, watching in case Danny came back into the room. He felt the ropes on Allison’s ankles and cut them apart with the knife. Then he reached behind her and carefully cut the ropes holding her wrists. He helped her to her feet. She rocked unsteadily, then leaned back against the wall.

  "Stay here," he whispered and ran across the floor to the window. He peered outside.