Killing Mr. Griffin

  “Okay?” he asked.

  “Okay,” Susan said shakily. And then—“Dave, think how dark—how terribly dark it must be—back where he is! Think how it must be for him lying there, all alone, not knowing if anybody’s going to come—ever!”

  “Well, we’re here now, so he doesn’t have to lie there much longer,” David said reassuringly.

  He took her hand. It felt small and cold in his, and he squeezed it hard. There was no reason for a girl like Susan tobe here, frightened and remorseful, staggering around themountain darkness. Why had he drawn her into this crazy plot? he asked himself angrily. Why, indeed, had he been drawn into ithimself ? It had been a dumb idea right from the beginning. People didn’t go around kidnapping other people just because they didn’t like them. There was nothing amusing about it, nothing to be gained by doing it. If anyone but Mark had suggested it, he would have told him he was nuts. But somehow with Mark things always seemed so sensible. When Marklooked at you with those odd, gray eyes of his, when Mark spoke your name and put his hand on your shoulder—

  “How long has it been since you did something crazy, just for the hell of it?” Mark had asked him, and it had been as though he had reached straight into him and placed a finger on the open sore at the core of his soul.

  After that, things had happened so fast there had been no time for reconsidering. It had all been there before them, laid out the way it should go. He had been swept up by the plan as completely as though it had been his own. He had thought of calling Susan—or had he? Was it he or someone else who had suggested that? He had hardly known Susan at that point. To him she had been no more than a studious, shy little mouse of a girl who had tried to help him catch his papers when the wind had caught them.

  “Well, let’s go,” he said. “The sooner we get there, the sooner it’s done. He’s going to be one mad dude when we get tohim.”

  The beam of the flashlight led them forward, and a moment later the bushes had closed in behind them. A few paces more and they could hear the waterfall. It grew louder and louder—much louder than it had seemed in the daytime—as though the whole night was made up of rushing water.

  As they approached the stream bank, David tightened his grip on Susan’s hand.

  “There’s no way we’re going to get him out of here without untying him,” he told her. “You do know that, don’t you? If Jeffwere here, he could do it. He’d just drag him out with the ropes and blindfold still on him. But I’m not a jock. We’ll have to untie him here and let him walk out.”

  “I know.”

  “What I mean is, he’ll see who we are. There’s no way to prevent it. We’re really letting ourselves in for it. He can have us expelled.”

  “I know,” Susan said again. “It doesn’t matter. I mean, of course, it matters, but we don’t have any choice, do we?”

  “I guess not,” David said.

  The light moved ahead and fell upon him—the man by the stream.

  He was lying exactly as he had been when they left him, straight and still, the blindfold neatly in place. A cry broke from Susan’s lips, and she dropped David’s hand and hurried forward.

  “Oh,” she moaned, dropping to her knees beside the still figure. “Oh, Mr. Griffin, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry—so sorry—” Her voice broke, and she grasped the rope at the man’s wrists, fumbling for the knot. “David, I can’t find the end! How did you tie this? Oh, please, hurry and get this off him. It’s cutting off his circulation.”

  “Here—it goes all the way around behind.” David knelt down beside her. “I’m sorry too, sir. This was a dumb, rotten thing to do. We’ll have you undone in a minute. Try to roll over sideways so I can reach the knot in back.”

  The man did not move.

  “He’s asleep,” Susan said in amazement. “How could he be asleep with the ground so hard? Mr. Griffin, wake up! Please, wake up! We’re here to take you home!”

  “Move back, Sue,” David said hoarsely.

  “But, we’ve got to wake him—”

  “I said, move back. Let me get at the blindfold.” He gripped the cloth with numb fingers and yanked it upward until it slid off the forehead and onto the ground. Then he lifted the flashlight and turned the beam straight into the man’s face.

  “His eyes are open,” Susan breathed. “He’s not asleep. His eyes are open!”

  “He’s not asleep,” David agreed softly.

  “Then why doesn’t he move? Why doesn’t he say something? Mr. Griffin, it’s Sue—Susan McConnell—from your lit class, remember? Please, Mr. Griffin—”

  David turned the light away from the wide, unblinking stare of the man on the ground beside him.

  “He’s not asleep,” he said. “He’s dead.”

  CHAPTER 9

  We’ve got to get to Mark!

  The single sentence screamed again and again through his brain.

  We’ve got to get to Mark! Mark will know what to do.

  It got him back down the path, dragging Susan behind him, stumbling, falling once, getting up again, Susan’s wrist still tightly encircled by his hand. It got him into the car, the key into the ignition, the engine into life. It took them back along the dirt road without running off the side into the underbrush, back onto the highway without swerving and running headlong into an oncoming car.

  “We’ve got to get to Mark. He will know what to do.” Davesaid it aloud, emphasizing each word.

  “To do? How can anybody do anything?” Susan said. “You can’t make a dead person come alive.”

  She wasn’t crying. Susan, whose tears had fallen continuously since the middle of the afternoon, was no longer weeping. David glanced sideways at her there on the seat beside him, dry-eyed and expressionless, her lips pressed tightly together except when they parted to let the thin, flat voice come through.

  “There’s nothing Mark can do,” Susan said. “We’re murderers.”

  “We didn’t kill him! We hardly touched him! I swear it, Sue, nobody roughed the guy up. He was fine when we left him. You know what he said to us? Mark told him, ‘Beg us, Mr. G. Plead with us,’ and he said, ‘I most certainly will not.’ Does that sound like a guy who’s been banged around?”

  “People don’t just die, for no reason.”

  “This guy did. I swear it—honestly—we didn’t hurt him. The worst we did was tie the rope around him. That could never kill anybody.” David bore down on the accelerator. “We’ve got to get to Mark. He’ll know how to handle things—who to call—what to do. What the hell do you do when somebody’s dead like that, for no reason, way out in the mountains? Who goes and gets them? An ambulance couldn’t ever make it up that road.”

  “We can go to my house and get my dad,” Susan said. “He’ll help us.”

  “Mark first. We can’t do anything until we tell Mark. Oh my god, Sue, why did we have to be the ones to find him? If you hadn’t insisted we go up there it would have been Mark and Jeff. They’d have taken care of things. It was crazy for us to have gone up there without telling them or anything.”

  They pulled into the Del Norte parking lot. It was seething with activity; voices shouted, headlights blinked on in all directions, car horns blasted as automobiles tried to inch their way into the creeping lines of traffic.

  “The game must just be over,” Susan said. “You’ll never find him in this.”

  “Sure I will. We’re in luck; there are parking spaces.” There was one right ahead of him, and David pulled into it, braking and shifting suddenly so as to bypass the fender of the car next to him. “Come on, let’s get in there.”

  “I’m not going.”

  “What do you mean you’re not going?”

  “I just can’t face it. All those people, yelling and screaming because we won or lost a basketball game. David, what’s wrong with you? We don’t belong here. We ought to be—”

  “Okay—okay.” He didn’t want to listen to her any longer. “I’m going to find Mark. This is your last chance to come with me.
Are you coming?”

  “I want my dad.”

  “We’ll talk about that later. We tell Mark first. Are you coming?”

  “No.”

  “Then sit here and wait. I’ll be back in a minute. We’ll be back in a minute.” He left the car and half walked, half ran across the parking lot. People were pouring out of the doorways to the gym. He had to stand on the edge of the flood, working his way in between two outward-rushing people, then between another pair. Somebody shouted, “Hey, Dave, where are you going?” Somebody else gave him a hard shove in the ribs with an elbow, muttering, “The tide goes in the other direction, dude.”

  Mark—where was Mark? David worked his way down an aisle. The crowd was thinning now and there was nobody left on the gym floor. The score was still posted on the board, home team, 61, visitors, 57. Del Norte had won, then, as usual. There was no way anybody defeated Jeff when he charged down the court, a head taller than anyone else; that ball under absolute control. Why couldn’t the rest of life be controlled so easily? How could things get out of hand so quickly?

  Mark—Mark—where are you?

  Then he saw him at last, down at the end of the court in front of the door to the locker room, standing with Betsy. Dave broke into a run, his eyes trained on them, unable to see anything except the two figures.

  “Mark!” He opened his mouth to shout the name, but no sound emerged. “Mark—Mark—Mark—” His lips kept moving, but nothing came from between them. They saw him now. Both of them had turned toward him, Betsy with her lips parted, her eyes wide and astonished. “It’s David!”

  Mark’s face was inscrutable. “Yeah, it’s David. How goes it? Something the matter?”

  “He’s dead,” David said. He had not meant to state it so abruptly. The words flew out of him, escaping from his throat and over the top of his tongue before he could stop them, before he could weigh what he was saying. “He’s dead.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Then Mark said, “Griffin?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Sue and I went up there. We looked at him. There’s no guessing about it, Mark; he’s gone. He’s—gone.” How could one describe those eyes staring upward into the far-reaching, incredible space of the night sky? “He’s dead, Mark.”

  “I believe you.”

  Betsy was staring at both of them, speechless.

  “Where’s Sue?” Mark asked. “Why isn’t she with you?”

  “She’s out in the car.”

  “In the lot, here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then get out there, man! She might take off across the place and yell to a cop. Run, now! I mean it!”

  “Aren’t you coming?”

  “Sure, I’m coming. I’ve got to wait for Jeff. Betsy, you go with Dave. Do something about Sue. You know how she’ll go—a total basket case.” He reached out suddenly and touched Betsy’s cheek, his hand light, almost but not quite a caress.

  “Hey, girl, I’m counting on you.”

  “Yes—okay.” Betsy’s eyes were huge in her round face. “David said—I mean, it’s not true, is it? It can’t be, can it? Mark, he’s not really—I mean—”

  “Get going, will you? Nobody needs to see us standing together like this. Jeff will be out in a minute, and we’ll come join you.”

  They went.

  They crossed the corner of the gym floor together, David’s hand placed protectively beneath Betsy’s elbow. A few people turned—turned back—smiled at each other. Guess what? A new romance! The senior class president and the head cheerleader, what a perfect combination! Why hadn’t it happened sooner?

  “You didn’t mean it, did you, David? It’s all a joke, isn’tit?”

  “A real funny one,” David said numbly. He tightened his grip on her elbow until his nails bit into her flesh and she jerked away from him.

  Where am I? he asked himself in bewilderment. What am I doing here? Where has the night gone? It’s a dream, that’s all, one of those crazy dreams that seem so real and yet you know all the time down underneath that in a minute you’ll wake up. A moment ago it was six o’clock—we were eating dinner, Mom and Gram and I—and then I went out—and I stopped at Susan’s—and then—and then—

  They reached the door to the outside. Now they were through it, walking together across the parking lot. Where was the car?

  “Over there,” David said. “That’s it—over there.” It was the only car parked alone and unmoving amid the turmoil of flaring lights and sounding horns. Sue was still in it. He could see her profile outlined against the lights of the cars beyond. Her head was turned at a right angle with her eyes focused on the gym doors. Her chin was high. She was still not crying. Even before entering the car he could tell that by the lift of her chin.

  They reached the car and opened the door and climbed in. Susan turned, her glance going past David, past Betsy.

  “Where’s Mark?”

  “Coming. He had to wait for Jeff.”

  “You said you’d get him. Did you tell him?”

  “Yes. He’ll be along in a minute.”

  “Are you okay, Sue?” Betsy asked. “You’re not going to go to pieces or anything, are you? You look like you’re okay.”

  “Here they come,” David said with relief. “That’s Jeff, see—over there against the lights? Mark must have dragged him out before he hit the showers.”

  “Did you tell him?” Susan asked again.

  “I said I did, didn’t I?” Her calm was frightening to him because it was so unnatural. He reached out for her and could not find her hand. He wished suddenly that he could throw himself across the seat that lay between them and put his arms around her and hold her and tell her to go ahead and cry and cry. Cry for herself, and for him too, for Mr. Griffin alone on the bank of the mountain stream, for all of them.

  Jeff and Mark were closer now, a tall figure and a shorter one, working their way across the lot. Eventually they reached the car, and Mark opened the front door on the far side.

  “Shove over,” he said. “Move over, Sue, I’m getting in beside you. Dave, you get this thing going. Jeff, get in back with Betsy.”

  “Where do you want to go?” David asked.

  “Anywhere,” Mark said. “Give me a minute and I’ll think of a place. Meanwhile, just drive. Get us out of here.”

  David started the engine and drove out of the lot and turned east on Montgomery. After they had gone a few miles Mark said, “Pull in there.” It was a lot behind a row of apartment buildings, and David steered the car carefully into it and drew to a stop behind a garbage bin. He turned off the key, and there was silence. For a moment no one spoke. Then Mark drew a long breath.

  “Well,” he said, “it looks like your dream came true, Jeff, old boy. We ‘killed Mr. Griffin’ for real.”

  “We didn’t!” Jeff said. “We didn’t do anything to him. Nobody’s going to stick this on me! I hardly touched him!”

  “Nobody can stick it on any of us,” Mark said. “We’ve got our alibis. Dave was with his grandmother all afternoon watching television. You and I were at Betsy’s.”

  “We’ve got that solid,” Betsy said. “The woman next door phoned Mom tonight while we were eating dinner and complained about how we played the Surround Sound so loud we woke her kid up from his nap.”

  “And tonight most of us were at the game. People saw us there. The best thing now is to show up at the Burger Shack as usual and then head for home.”

  “You mean—not tell anybody?” Susan said in amazement.

  “Why should we do that?”

  “Why? Because—because—there’s a man dead!”

  “Would he be any less dead if we told people?”

  “No, of course not. But you can’t just have somebody die and not report it.”

  “If we reported it, we’d have to tell about the kidnapping,” Jeff said. “Who’d believe us when we explained how we were just having a little fun? They’d check over his bod
y, and there’d be bruises on him where he fell down, and maybe the ropes have made cuts on his arms and legs. Whatever happened to make him die, that would be blamed on us too, even though we didn’t have a thing to do with it. We could end up in jail.”

  “We’re minors,” Betsy reminded him. “Minors can’t bejailed, can they? Besides, my dad’s on the County Commission.”

  “Hold it, Bets,” Mark said. “We wouldn’t be considered minors now.”

  “What do you mean?” Betsy asked in bewilderment. “We’re all underage.”

  “If somebody’s killed during the commission of a felony, it’s first degree murder,” Mark said. “Kidnapping’s a felony. No matter what our ages, we’d be tried as adults.”

  “But—that’s not fair!” exclaimed Betsy. “Besides, it wasn’t a real kidnapping! It was a joke!”

  “Who’s going to believe that?” Jeff asked. “We could spendthe rest of our lives in jail! And talking about your dad, think what this would do to him. It would be all over the papers—‘County Commissioner’s daughter indicted for murder.’ Christ!”

  “And my mother.” David felt a wave of nausea hit his stomach. “There’s no way I could tell my mother.”

  “We have to tell!” Susan insisted. “We don’t have a choice! People will be looking for him! Mrs. Griffin will call the police, and Mr. Griffin won’t show up to teach tomorrow, and everybody will know he’s missing.”

  “Lots of people turn up missing,” Mark said. “It happens every day. Right, Dave?”

  David nodded. “They do. Men leave home. They go—just take off and go—and years go by, and nobody ever finds out where they went. Their wives go on all right. It’s tough, maybe, but they make out.”

  His own mother’s face rose up before him, the lines etched deep around the corners of the eyes and mouth. A “saint,” the Reverend Chandler had called her. She had liked that. Not every woman had the chance to become a saint. It was rough, of course, but was it really any worse than being a widow?

  “We’re clean as soon as we get rid of two things,” Mark said, “the body and the car. Once those are gone there’s nothing left to worry about. We can’t do anything tonight, it’s too dark and too late. And we can’t cut school tomorrow. It’ll have to be tomorrow afternoon. Who can get hold of a shovel?”