Killing Mr. Griffin

  And so he had gone, glancing back at her with a pleading, worried look as he left, and she had experienced a subtle shift in her own emotions. David was honestly upset, as upset as she had ever seen him. And the girl had been also. There was something very wrong here, somehow.

  Where had this ring come from, and why was it so important?

  She was back to the beginning again. She turned the ring slowly on her finger, staring at it as though the answer might suddenly appear interspersed with the words of German. Could David have stolen the ring? Such a thing was hard to imagine, but young people today did seem to be under all kindsof intense pressures that drove them to do strange and unpredictable things. Davy didn’t have much spending money, and now that he was beginning to date, this might be suddenly important. At the same time, common sense told you that if you were going to steal for money, there were all sorts of things more marketable than a college ring.

  Lost in contemplation, Irma Ruggles did not hear the front door open, only the sharp click as it was shoved closed. Could time have passed so quickly? She glanced up, startled.

  “Davy,” she called, “is that you?”

  There was no answer.

  “Davy?” she said again, turning to face the figure that had appeared silently in the bedroom doorway, and then she stopped, bewildered. Her hands rose with a jerk that sent the ring sliding off her finger, into her lap.

  “Why, you’re not Davy!” she said to the boy with the funny eyes.

  CHAPTER 17

  The wind began in the early afternoon. It rose slowly at first, but increased steadily, as winds do in the southwest in March, lifting the dust from the vacant lots and unpaved roads and mesas and sending it sweeping into the town.

  The Sunday twilight was muted and pink, as the sun’s last rays slanted through the thick, red air, and when dark came the wind did not drop but seemed to grow stronger, whining around the corners of houses and stripping the first new leaf buds from the trees.

  Susan brought two logs in from the pile beside the garage and built a fire. She felt foolish doing it, for the evening was not cold, but some inner part of her seemed to be freezing. It took some time before she could get the fire to catch; this chore had always fallen to Craig or her father. Once she got it going she sat on the floor, huddled as close as she could get to the fire screen, taking comfort as much from the friendly, crackling sound as from the heat of the flames.

  “Are you sure you won’t change your mind and come with us?” her mother had asked one final time before they had left. “I know how low you’re feeling, but Sunday suppers at the church are always fun, and seeing other people might give you a lift.”

  “I’m sure,” Susan had told her. “I just couldn’t face it.”

  “There’s going to be a sing-along,” Alex had reminded her.

  “I said, I don’t want to come.”

  The thought of the crowded church basement with her parents’ friends chattering and munching and hordes of shrieking children racing about between the long, food-covered tables had in itself been enough to exhaust her. Now, alone in the house, she wondered if she had made a mistake in not going. Although she dreamed often of solitude, she had seldom actually experienced it. With the comings and goings of a largefamily, the McConnell house was seldom empty and almost never silent. Tonight its absolute stillness, accentuated by the moan of the wind outside, was oppressive and almost frightening.

  Hungry suddenly for the sound of human voices, Susan turned on the television and flicked from channel to channel. On one a recently divorced actor and his ex-wife were trading insults; on another a female singer was wailing about the agony of lost love.

  On the third channel, the first words she heard were “Brian Griffin.”

  “…for Brian Griffin, Del Norte English teacher, whose body was found yesterday in a shallow grave in the Sandia Mountains. Results of the autopsy show the cause of death to have been coronary arrest, possibly preceded by a severe angina attack. Griffin’s wrists and ankles were bound with twine, tightly enough to obstruct circulation to the hands and feet, and there were bruises on his arms and legs, the coroner’s report said.

  “Mrs. Catherine Griffin, the wife of the deceased, said that a new prescription for the medication Griffin took for angina was on order at the…”

  Susan turned off the set.

  In the kitchen, in a pan on the back of the stove, was stew from last night’s dinner. Her mother had set it out for her before she had left.

  “Be sure to eat, Sue,” she had told her, and Susan had nodded agreement.

  Now she went out to the kitchen and stood for a moment in front of the stove, trying to decide if she would be able to face a meal. The mere smell of the food, with its combination of onion and spices, made her slightly nauseated. She had almost decided to put the whole concoction down the disposal, when the doorbell rang.

  “Who in the world—” Susan hesitated, feeling reluctant to open the door when she was alone in the house. Then she thought of David. Of course, it would be him, come to give her a follow-up on the situation with the ring. By this time Mark would have talked with him, and perhaps they would have worked out a solution.

  Setting the stew pan back on the burner, Susan went to the door and opened it. To her surprise, she found her visitors to be Jeff and Betsy.

  “Are you here alone?” Betsy asked, glancing quickly about her.

  “Yes,” Susan said. “The rest of the family is out for the evening.”

  “Well, good. We can talk then. Aren’t you going to ask us in?”

  “Of course. Come in,” Susan said, stepping back to allow them to enter. Both their faces were red from the wind, and Betsy’s hair was wild around her face.

  “We’re on our way to Zuni,” Jeff said. “I got the car sprayed gray this morning, and Betsy’s borrowed the license off her mom’s Honda to use on the drive out there. We figure nobody will be using that car tonight, and we’ll get the license back on again before anybody sees it in the morning.”

  “How are you going to get back?” Susan asked them.

  “We’ve got Griffin’s car,” Betsy said. “And Mark’s going to follow us in Jeff ’s. After we dump the Chevy we’ll come back with him. He’s going to meet us here in a couple of minutes. The reason we stopped here is to tell you that I told my parents I was spending the night with you. I don’t think Mom will check it out—if she wants me, she’ll call me on my cell—but if for some reason she does happen to call on your house phone, you’ll have to handle it.”

  “How?” Susan asked nervously.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake—you’re supposed to be so smart; figure something out. Tell her I’m asleep or in the bathtub or whatever. The main thing is to be sure you get the phone every time it rings tonight. That won’t be hard considering your parents are out.”

  “The other thing is, we’ve got to get hold of Dave,” Jeff said. “I gave my parents the same story about sleeping at his house. Are you going to see him tonight?”

  “Not that I know of,” Susan said.

  “We tried to stop at his place on the way over here,” Betsy told her, “but there was a whole line of cars parked in front like they were giving a party. We didn’t think we ought to go in.”

  “Let’s call him from here,” Jeff said. “He doesn’t have a cell. Do you know his home number, Sue?”

  “No,” Susan said, “but I can look it up. There’s a phone in the den.” She led the way into the wood-paneled room where the fire was burning brightly and casting dancing shadows against the far wall.

  “I’ll find it,” Jeff said, picking up the phone directory, which lay on a stand under the wall phone. “I’ll read the numbers out to you, and you dial. It’ll sound more natural if the call comes from you. Are you ready? Two-six-eight—”

  Susan pushed the buttons. There was a connecting click, and the phone on the other end of the line began to ring. After a moment a woman’s voice answered.

  “Hel
lo,” Susan said. “Could I speak to David, please?”

  “Can I tell him who’s calling?” the woman asked.

  “It’s Susan.”

  “Okay. Just a minute.” The voice moved away from the phone. “It’s somebody named Susan for David. Does he want to take a call right now?” From somewhere in the background there was an answer. Susan was aware of the hum of numerous voices. There was a long pause, and then the sound of the receiver being lifted and David’s voice.

  “Hello?”

  “David, it’s Sue.” She was not sure he understood it was she who was calling. “What’s happening over there? Is something the matter?”

  “Yes,” David said in a flat voice. “My grandmother died this morning.”

  “Oh, David!” She was stunned. “How awful!”

  “Yeah, it is pretty awful. It happened while my mom and I were at church. We found her lying on the floor in the bedroom. She must have fallen and hit her head when she was getting out of her chair.”

  “How awful,” Susan said again. “Is there anything I can do?” The question was ridiculous, and she knew it, but it was the only thing she could think of to say.

  “No,” David said. “What is it you called about?” He was far away from her, so far away there was no way to touch him. Susan found herself wondering if she would ever touch him again. The scene yesterday in the bedroom between themselves and the old, gray-haired woman would stand between them forever. It would be a memory David would want to thrust away from him, and in her presence, it would come surging back to be relived, over and over again.

  She answered his question.

  “Jeff and Betsy are here. They’re on their way to take the Chevy out to the pueblo. Jeff has told his parents he’s spending the night with you and wants you to cover for him if they should try to call him there.”

  “I can’t do that,” David said. “Our minister’s over here and half the people from the church. It’s a regular wake. None of them have seen Gram for years, but you’d never know it to listen to them. There’s no way I can catch the phone when it rings. One of my mom’s friends is acting as telephone secretary.”

  “Oh,” Susan said. “Well, Jeff will just have to change his story. David, the ring—” It was not the right time to ask it, but she could not let him forget. “Have you gotten it yet?”

  “I don’t want to think about that right now,” David said.

  “But, David, you have to! What if somebody else finds it? It has to be there somewhere in the bedroom.”

  “I’ll hunt through her stuff, but not tonight. There’s too much going on over here.” He dropped his voice. “The spacey woman from next door came over a few minutes ago, and you know what she said? That there was a guy in the bedroom with Gram at the time she died. She said she looked across from her bedroom window and saw him standing talking to Gram back behind her chair. She didn’t think anything about it at the time, because she thought it was me.”

  “But—but—how could there have been anybody?” Susan stammered.

  “There couldn’t have been, of course, but she’s got my mom and everybody else here all riled up. She says the guy was wearing a brown sweater. I don’t even own a brown sweater.”

  “How much did she see?” Susan asked shakily. “Did she actually see your grandmother fall?”

  “No. She says she looked over once and saw this guy with Gram and then later she looked again and Gram wasn’t in her chair anymore and she didn’t see anybody. She’s got to be making the whole thing up. Gram didn’t have drop-in visitors, and if she did have they sure wouldn’t have been teenage guys. I think the woman’s cracked. She’s using this as a way to get some attention for herself.”

  “But what if it was a burglar?” Susan said. “Is anything missing from the house?”

  “Nope. My mom’s jewelry, such as it is, is all in its box, and there’s nothing else here that anybody would want to steal. Look, I’ve got to get back to Mom now. She’s taking this hard.” David’s voice came from years away. “Did you want anything else?”

  “No,” Susan said. “I just called about the alibi for Jeff. David—” She sought for words and could not find them. “I’m sorry,” she said lamely.

  “Yeah—well, so am I. She was quite an old girl, my gram. The place is going to seem pretty strange without her.”

  “Yes, I imagine so.”

  “Good-bye,” David said.

  “Good-bye.”

  Susan replaced the receiver on the hook. Jeff and Betsy were looking at her questioningly.

  “His grandmother died today,” Susan said.

  “Well, what about the cover?” Jeff asked.

  “He said he can’t do it.”

  “Shit, that really messes us up if my parents try to get hold of me. Well, there’s nothing to do but take the chance, I guess.” He paused, taking in the expression on Susan’s face. “Hey, what’s with you? You look like you’re going to keel over.”

  “Mark has a brown sweater,” Susan said. “He wears it all the time.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means—it means—” Susan felt the floor tilting strangely beneath her. The room swam about her, and she reached out a hand to brace herself against the wall for support. “When I told Mark about the ring—he said—‘Don’t worry. I’ll get it.’ And there was someone with her when she died. The woman in the house next door saw him.”

  “You’re not making sense,” Betsy said. “What ring was Mark going to get?”

  “Mr. Griffin’s ring, the one that was missing from his finger when they found him. David took it.”

  “Dave did?” Jeff said in surprise. “Why would he do that?”

  “Because—because—” She could not try to explain. That part no longer mattered. All that was important now was the horrendous realization that was sweeping over her. “Mark killed that woman. He went over there this morning while David and his mother were in church, and he took the ring from her, and he killed her!”

  “You’re crazy,” Betsy said. “Mark would never do a thing like that.”

  “He would, and he did!” Suddenly, incredibly, there was no doubt in her mind. “We’ve got to go to the police!”

  “Bets is right, you are crazy,” Jeff said. “After all we’ve gone through to keep this undercover, you think we’re going to go to the cops now? We’d have to tell them everything right from the beginning, the whole bit about the kidnapping and Griffin’s dying on us and the burial, and who would ever believe it was an accident, especially if you’re going to follow it up with this crazy thing about Dave’s grandmother?”

  “It’s gone past the point where there’s any choice,” Susan said. “Whatever they do to us, they’ll just have to do.”

  “You don’t have the right to make that decision,” Betsy said. “We’re all in this together. You agreed to help with the kidnapping, and by doing that, you agreed to anything that followed from it. You’re committed, just like the rest of us. You can’t chicken out now.”

  “Didn’t you hear a thing I said?” Susan asked her. “Mark killed Mrs. Ruggles! He killed an old woman! Mr. Griffin’s death was an accident, but this wasn’t. Mark knew what he was doing. He planned it, and he killed her.”

  “You don’t know that,” Jeff said. “You don’t have proof.”

  “I do know it, and I don’t need proof ! The police can find that!” Susan was on the edge of hysteria. “If I’m wrong, if Mark had nothing to do with this, if it really was an accident and the old lady slipped and fell, that will show up from her injuries. They can do an autopsy on her the same way they did on Mr. Griffin. But if he did do it—”

  “If he did do it, he did it to protect us, you as well as the rest of us,” Betsy said. “He was willing to take that risk in order to keep us safe. If Dave was stupid enough to take that ring and let his grandmother get hold of it, what could Mark do but get it back any way he could?”

  “But to murder someone—”
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  “Like Jeff said, you’re only guessing about that, and you’re probably wrong. But if you’re not, just remember that Mark did only what he had to do. He’s gotten us through this far, and we’ve got to trust him to get us through the rest of the way.”

  “I don’t care what you say,” Susan said miserably, “I’m going to the police, and I’m going to tell them everything. After that, whatever happens, happens. I’m sorry if the two of you won’t back me up, but if you think Mark did only what he had to do, then you can believe the same thing about me. I can’t go on like this any longer. It’s like a snowball rolling downhill; it’s getting worse all the time!”

  From the street outside there came the quick, impatient beep of a car horn.

  “That’s Mark,” Betsy said. “What are we going to do?”

  “It won’t do us any good to get rid of the car if Miss Holier-Than-Thou is going to spill the beans,” Jeff said. “We’ve got to keep her quiet.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll stay here with her. You run out and tell Mark what’s happened. He’ll think of something.”

  “You can’t tell Mark!” Susan cried. “He’s the very one—”

  But Jeff ’s hand was clamped tightly upon her shoulder, and Betsy was already out the door.

  When she returned a few moments later, Mark was with her. He was still wearing the brown sweater.

  CHAPTER 18

  “Where’s her family?” Mark asked.

  “Out for the evening,” Jeff said. “There’s nobody else here.”

  “Good. Let’s tie her up. The cord on those drapes will work. Betsy, go out to the kitchen and get something to cut them with.”

  “Betsy, no!” Susan twisted in Jeff ’s grip so that she faced the other girl squarely. “You can’t keep doing everything he says, not when you know what he’s done!”

  “I don’t know that he’s done anything,” Betsy said.

  “You don’t want to know!”

  “I said, go get a knife.” Mark shifted his gaze from Betsy to Susan. “Now, exactly what is it you’re trying to sell them? What am I supposed to have done?”