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    Desperate Measures

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      late to do anything about Kline himself. He died in the early fifties.

      By then he'd retired from Grollier and had a place here in Boston. My

      father said that one of the happiest days of his life was when he read

      Kline's obituary. Believe me, my father had very few happy days."

      Meecham finished his martini and frowned toward the pitcher as if he

      could use another drink. "I don't know what you've set out to prove,

      but if there were other instructors like Kline at Grollier and if their

      counterparts still teach there and if your book exposes them, we've both

      done some good.

      Suspecting something, Pittman asked, "Would you be willing to be

      quoted?"

      Meecham reacted sharply. "Of course not. Do you think I'd want that

      kind of public attention? I told you before, this conversation is

      stricly off the record. I'm just pointing you in the right direction.

      Surely someone else would be willing to substantiate what I've told you.

      Ask the grand counselors. " Meecham looked bitterly amused. "See how

      willing they'd be to go on record. "

      "When Jonathan Millgate was in intensive care, he told his nurse,

      'Duncan. The snow. Grollier.' What do you suppose he meant by the

      reference to snow?"

      "I have no idea. Certainly my father never mentioned anything that

      linked Duncan Kline with snow."

      "It's a slang expression for- Could it be a reference to cocaine?"

      "Again, I have no idea. Was that expression even used back in the early

      thirties? Would someone as distinguished as Jonathan Millgate reduce

      himself to that type of language?"

      Pittman shrugged in discouragement, then turned, hearing a knock on the

      door.

      Frederick stepped in. "Mr. Meecham, two policemen are at the door."

      Pittman felt a hot rush of adrenaline.

      Meecham looked surprised. "Policemen?"

      "Detectives," Frederick said. "They want to know if You've had any

      contact with someone named Matthew Pittman. He's traveling with a woman

      and Frederick's gaze settled on Pittman and Jill.

      Meecham frowned.

      "Where does that door lead?" Pittman stood unexpectedly and crossed the

      room toward a door in a wall that faced the rear of the house. The door

      was the only other wayout of the room, and since Pittman had no

      intention of using the door through which Frederick had come, of going

      out to the corridor where the detectives might see him, he had to take

      this route. He heard Jill's footsteps behind him.

      "What do You think you're doing?" Meecham demanded. By then, Pittman

      had pulled the door open and was lunging into a narrow hallway, Jill

      hurrying to follow. Pittman's steps quickened.

      "Stop!" Meecham said.

      On the left, Pittman passed the entrance to the mansion's kitchen. He

      had a glimpse of a male cook in a white uniform, who opened his mouth in

      surprise. Then Pittman, flanked rapidly by Jill, was out of sight,

      running farther down the hallway, reaching a door, the window of which

      revealed a cobblestone courtyard.

      Pittman jerked the door open and felt pressure in his chest as he

      realized that the dusky courtyard was bordered by a high barred gate, an

      even higher wall, and a carriage house turned into a garage. We'll

      never get out of here!

      Dismayed, he swung to look behind him. Frederick appeared at the

      opposite end of the hallway. The cook appeared at the entrance to the

      kitchen. Heavy footsteps pounded toward the hallway from the front of

      the house. To the right of the door, stairs led upward. Pittman

      suddenly thought of a way to escape and charged up, tugging Jill behind

      him. At a landing, the stairs veered up on another angle, and Pittman

      bounded higher, reaching a hallway on an upper level of the house.

      Closed doors lined the hallway. Meecham was making indignant demands to

      someone downstairs. He flinched as a door came open across from him.

      Meecham's elderly mother appeared, deceptively frail. "So much noise. I

      can barely hear the television."

      Pittman made a soothing gesture. "Mrs. Meecham, does your bedroom have

      a lock?"

      "of course it has a lock. Doesn't every bedroom have a lock? Do you

      think I want people barging in on me? What are you doing up here?"

      "Thanks." Pittman hurried with Jill, who didn't understand what Pittman

      was doing.

      "You can't go in there," Mrs. Meecham said.

      Pittman slammed and locked the door- From a television in the corner of

      the well-appointed lace-curtained room, complete with a four-poster bed,

      the opening theme music for a nature program almost obscured Mrs.

      Meecham's feeble pounding on the door. Jill swung toward Pittman. "What

      are we doing in here?" A look of sudden understanding crossed her face

      as Pittman rushed toward a window. It faced the back of the house,

      above the peaked roof of the garage. Pittman opened it. "Come on.

      Inexplicably Jill seemed frozen. "What's wrong?" Jill stared toward

      the door. She turned her head and stared at Pittman. "Come on!"

      Pittman said. At once Jill became animated, taking off her pumps. "Of

      all the times to be wearing a skirt." out the

      The hem tore as she raised her legs and climbed louder. window. The

      pounding on the bedroom door became

      Angry male voices were on the other side. The door shuddered as if

      shoulders were being heaved against it.

      Wincing from pain in his injured ribs, Pittman squirmed out the open

      window after Jill. The garage roof sloped down on each side, and

      Pittman tried to stay balanced while running along the peak. Behind

      him, something crashed in the bedroom. Jill reached the end of the roof

      and jumped down onto something, appearing to run on the shadowy air as

      she disappeared around the corner of another house.

      When Pittman came to the end of the garage, he saw that what Jill had

      jumped down onto was the foot-wide top of the high wall that enclosed

      the courtyard. That wall continued to the left, bordering the

      courtyards of other houses, bisecting the block. Hearing a shout behind

      him, Pittman climbed down as well and followed her, breathing so deeply

      and quickly that his lungs felt on fire.

      Then he, too, was out of sight from the window. He concentrated not to

      topple from the wall as he hurried after Jill, who clutched her shoes in

      one hand, her purse in the other, and scrambled in bare feet across the

      Peak Of another carriage house turned into a garage A shingle gave way

      beneath Jill, skittering off the roof, clattering onto cobblestones. She

      fell on her shoulder, beginning to roll . Pittman grabbed her arm. She

      dropped her shoes, which hit the cobblestones next to the shingle

      Pittman charged ahead with Jill and halted unexpectedly. The wall

      didn't continue beyond the garage. The courtyard was framed only by

      buildings. Below them, a red Jaguar was parked outside the garage.

      Pittman jumped down onto the car, feeling the roof protest but hold.

      Jill didn't need encouragement; she leapt down after him, the metal so

      smoothly waxed that her bare feet nearly slid out from under her.

      Pittman clutched her, kept her from her arm
    s, lowered her toward the

      cobblestones, falling, held then jumped down next to her.

      The Jaguar Is owner must have been planning to leave soon. The gate to

      the street was open. Racing along the driveway, they reached a narrow,

      quiet, tree-lined, twilit street around the corner from Meecham's

      address.

      Their gray Duster was parked three spaces to their left.

      "Drive." Jill threw him the keys, then climbed into the backseat,

      ducking below the windows.

      As Pittman sped away from the curb, he heard her rummaging in the back.

      "What are you doing?"

      She was scrunched down out of sight, fumbling with some thing.

      "Jill, what are you-""

      This

      "Getting out of this damned skirt and into my jeans. skirt is ripped up

      to my backside. if I'm going to be arrested, there's no way it's going

      to be with myunderwear showing.

      Pittman couldn't help it. He was frightened, and he couldn't catch his

      breath, but she sounded so embarrassed, he started laughing.

      "I've had it with skirts. And those useless pumps," she said. "I don't

      care who I have to make an impression on. All this running. From now

      on, it's sneakers, a sweater, and jeans. And how the hell did the

      police know we were at Meecham's? Who could have .

      Pittman stared grimly ahead. "Yes. That's really been bothering me."

      He concentrated. "Who?"

      "Wait a minute. I think I- There's only one person who had that

      information. The man I phoned."

      "At the alumni association?"

      "Yes. This evening, he must have called my father to suck up to him by

      bragging how he'd done me a favor."

      "That's got to be it. Your father knows that the police are looking for

      you. As soon as he heard from the alumni association, he phoned the

      police and sent them to the address the man gave you.

      "We've got to be more careful."

      Pittman steered onto Charles Street, trying to keep his speed down, not

      to be conspicuous. As other cars switched on their headlights, so did

      he.

      "Exactly," Pittman said. "More careful. What were you doing back

      there?"

      "I told you, putting on my jeans."

      "No. I mean back at the house. In the bedroom. It looked as if you

      weren't going to leave with me."

      Jill didn't respond.

      "Don't tell me that's true," Pittman said. "You actually thought about

      staying behind?"

      "For a second Jill hesitated. "I told myself, I can't "keep running

      forever. The police don't want me. It's Mill gate's people who want to

      kill me. I thought I could end it right there. I could stay behind and

      give myself up, explain to the police why I've been running, make them

      understand you're innocent."

      "Yeah, sure. I bet that would have been good for a few laughs at the

      precinct." Although Pittman could understand Jill's motives, the

      thought that she would have left him caused his stomach to harden. "So

      what made you keep going? Why didn't you stay?"

      "The story you told me about how you'd been arrested when you were

      trying to get an interview with Millgate seven years ago."

      "That's right. Two prisoners, probably working for Millgate, beat me up

      while I was in a holding cell."

      "The police weren't quick enough to help you," Jill said.

      "Or maybe the guards were bribed to take a long coffee break." Pittman

      continued to feel bitter that she might have left him. "There's no way

      the authorities could guarantee your safety . So that's why you came

      with me? Your common sense took over? You listened to your survival

      instincts?"

      "No," Jill said.

      "Self-preservation.

      "No. That's not why I came with you. It had nothing to do with

      worrying whether the police could protect me."

      "Then ... ?"

      "I was worried about you. I couldn't imagine what you'd be like on your

      own."

      "Hey, I could have managed."

      "You don't realize how vulnerable you are."

      "No kidding, every time somebody shoots at me, I get the idea.

      ,Emotionally vulnerable. Last Wednesday, you were going to do the

      shooting."

      "I don't need to be reminded. It would have saved a lot of people a lot

      of trouble."

      Jill squirmed from the back into the passenger seat. "You just proved

      my point. I think the only reason you've managed to get this far is you

      had somebody cheering for you. I've never met anybody more lonely. Why

      would you want to keep going if you didn't have anything to live for,

      anybody to care?" Pittman felt as if ice had been placed on his chest.

      Unable to speak, he drove through the shadows of Boston Common, reaching

      Columbus Avenue, using the reverse of the route Jill had taken.

      "The reason I decided to stay with you," Jill said, "is that I didn't

      want to be apart from you.", Pittman had trouble speaking. "You sure

      did a lot of thinking in a couple of seconds."

      "I've been thinking about this for a while," Jill said. "I want to see

      how we get along when life gets normal.

      "If," Pittman said. "If it ever does get normal. If we can ever get

      through this."

      "This is a new feeling for me," Jill said. "It kind of snuck up on me.

      When you introduced me as your wife .

      "What?"

      "I liked it." Pittman was so amazed that he couldn't react for a

      moment. He reached over, touching her hand.

      A car horn blared behind him as he steered from traffic and stopped at

      the curb. His throat feeling tighter, he studied Jill, her beguiling

      oval face, her long corn-silk hair, her sapphire eyes glinting from the

      reflection of passing headlights.

      He leaned close and gently kissed her, the softness of her lips making

      him tingle. When she put her arms around his neck, he felt ripples of

      sensation. The kiss went on and on. She parted her lips. He tasted

      her.

      He felt a swirling sensation and slowly leaned back, pleasantly out of

      breath, studying her more intensely. "I didn't think I'd ever feel this

      way again."

      "You've got a lot of good feelings to catch up on," Jill said.

      Pittman kissed her again, this time with a hunger that startled him.

      Shaking, he had to stop. "My hart's beating so fast.

      "I know," Jill said. "I feel light-headed."

      Another car horn blared, passing them. Pittman turned to look out his

      side window. Where he'd stopped was in a no parking zone - "The last

      thing we need is a traffic ticket."

      He pulled from the curb.

      Immediately he noticed a police car at the corner of the next street. He

      tried to keep his speed constant, to peer straight ahead. It seemed to

      take him forever to pass the cruiser. In his rearview mirror, he saw

      the police car move forward not in his direction, but along the

      continuation of the side street.

      He loosened his tight grip on the steering wheel. His brow felt clammy.

      He was more afraid than usual.

      "Where are we going?"

      Pittman shook his head, squinting at the painful glare of headlights on

      the crowded Massachusetts Turnpike. For several minutes, he'd been

     
    pensively quiet, trying to adjust-as he assumed Jill was-to the powerful

      change in their relationship. "We're heading out of Boston. But where

      we're going, I have no idea. I don't know what to do next, We've

      learned a lot. But we really haven't learned anything. I can't believe

      that Millgate's people would want to kill us because we'd found out what

      happened to him in prep school. "Suppose he wasn't molested."

      "The circumstantial evidence indicates-"

      "No, what I mean is, suppose he'd been willing," Jill said. "Maybe

      Millgate's people believe that the old man's reputation would have been

      ruined if-"

      "You think that's what his people were afraid of?"

      "Well, he confessed something to you about Grollier, and they killed him

      for it. Then you had to be stopped. And me because they have to

      believe you've told me what you know.

      "Killed him to protect his reputation? I just can't There's something

      more," Pittman said. "I don't think we've learned the whole truth yet.

      Maybe the other grand counselors are trying to protect their reputations

      . They don't want anyone to know what happened to them at Grollier. "

      "But what exactly? And how do we prove it?" Jill asked. She rubbed her

     
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