The View from the Cherry Tree

  “Was that why you ran away? Because of the police? But why, if you just wanted to tell them something that was true?”

  “I didn’t have any proof, then. Now I’ve got it.”

  Derek’s features seemed to sharpen as he moved his head under the dangling light bulb. “You have? Proof of what? Proof against who?”

  “I hid it . . . the evidence. Where they’ll find it . . .” He almost said, “When Darcy comes back from her honeymoon,” but that would provide a clue to where it was.

  “What evidence did you find? What kind of clues does a man leave behind when he pushes someone out a window?”

  Was he worried about it? Rob couldn’t tell. There was the sound of a car outside and for a moment he hoped that it was his father. He’d run to the window and yell and Derek couldn’t stop him and wouldn’t dare do anything once his father had heard him. But the car didn’t slow; it went on past, and there was a bitter, acrid taste in Rob’s mouth.

  “What evidence?” Derek insisted, stepping closer.

  Rob wanted to retreat, but his back was against the doorframe.

  “Why should I tell you? I’ll tell my dad when he comes.”

  It was a touch of bravado not backed up by his hammering heart. Derek didn’t take offense. In fact, he grinned a little. “Why did you run when the police came?”

  “They didn’t believe me, before. They will when they see the evidence.”

  “But you’re not going to tell me what it is?”

  “No.”

  Derek shrugged, suddenly backing away. “Whew, the smell in here is unbelievable. Maybe if I just got rid of that garbage sack . . .”

  He left the door standing open while he hauled out three bags of it, to dump into the can out back. He seemed to be inspecting it, shaking everything out of each bag as if it might contain something of value. He didn’t leave the porch, and at no time was there any way Rob could have gone past him to escape.

  “There, that’s some better, isn’t it? Why do you suppose she kept all the newspapers?” It didn’t seem to bother him that Rob didn’t reply. “Real fire hazard. Look at the way she’s got them right next to the water heater. That’s a gas heater, with a pilot light, and when the burner comes on . . . boy, the flame could shoot out and ignite those papers. This old place would go up like you wouldn’t believe . . . I’ll bet it would burn to the ground before they could even get the fire trucks here.”

  Rob felt the goose bumps rise on his bare arms at the implied threat. Or was it? Was Derek just talking?

  “The evidence isn’t here,” Rob said. “It’s . . . hidden. But where they’ll find it, in a day or two.”

  Derek’s grin seemed friendly, the same as always. “Yeah? Why don’t you tell me what it is, Robbie? Maybe I could help you . . . convincing the rest of them.” He spoke casually, opening cupboard doors, peering into a paper bag, replacing it.

  Rob stiffened against the use of his name. Nobody but his mother and grandmother called him Robbie anymore, except Teddi, once in a while when she forgot. “I don’t need any help.”

  He did, though. Even if they found the poisoned chicken, would they know what to do with it? Would it occur to anybody that it ought to be tested for poison? If he weren’t around to explain, it might not count for anything at all. The .22 shell would, if he could deliver it to someone who would listen . . . but if Derek burned the house down the other shells . . . and their location . . . would be lost forever.

  I have to be around to tell people the connections, he thought. And he knows it.

  Still, he couldn’t be absolutely sure about Derek. His eyes drifted to the long sleeves of the yellow shirt. He’d know for sure if he saw Derek’s arms. When Sonny scratched, he did a good job of it. There would be marks.

  Rob blinked, realizing that Derek was watching him very closely and that he was no longer smiling.

  “What’s the matter, Robbie?”

  “I think I’ll go home,” Rob said. “I’m getting hungry.”

  Derek glanced around the dimly lit kitchen. “Yeah? Well, there’s food here, if you want a snack. She won’t be needing it.”

  “I don’t want any of her food.”

  Derek nodded. “I guess I don’t blame you. She wasn’t very particular, was she? That’s why my mother wouldn’t come over here. Couldn’t stand the smell and the mess. Poor Aunt Bea . . . she’s probably better off dead. She was getting senile, and she didn’t have much of a life.”

  Rob made a tentative move toward the back door. “I’ll eat at home.”

  He wasn’t sure whether Derek blocked his way by design or just happened to step in the same direction. At any rate, he occupied the space Rob would have to go through to get out.

  “Don’t you agree? She really isn’t any great loss.”

  Maybe she wasn’t, Rob thought, but that wasn’t the point, was it? The police wouldn’t think so.

  Rob tried to reach past Derek for the doorknob, only to find the way barred by one muscular arm.

  He was no match for Derek, physically; he knew that. Yet the suspense was more than he could bear, and he had to know the truth. Before Derek had any inkling of his intentions, Rob grabbed one yellow sleeve and ripped it upward. He used all his strength, and the button on the cuff popped off and rolled across the linoleum-covered floor.

  Neither of them was aware of the button, however. They were looking at the exposed forearm, at the parallel red scratches made by a cat’s claws.

  Rob felt as if he couldn’t breathe, and the need to swallow was uncontrollable. Derek’s face was close, too close, above him.

  His eyes had gone cold and peculiar in a way Rob couldn’t have described, but instinct told him it was threatening. Derek’s jaw showed dark, needing a shave, as it jutted ­dangerously.

  “You shouldn’t have done that, Robbie.” The words were no more than a whisper, but that was all that was necessary to reach him, only inches away. “You shouldn’t have done it.”

  It had been a calculated risk, and he had lost. If there had not been scratches, he might have found an ally; as it was, he had given away his own knowledge of the identity of a killer. And the killer knew he had not yet passed along any information to the authorities.

  Very slowly, Derek pulled down his sleeve, his eyes still on Rob’s waiting face. “I think there are some things you’re going to tell me, Robbie.”

  He had never been more scared in his life, but he said the words that came, without thought, to his tongue. “Kiss off.”

  Slowly Derek reached for him, and took the one necessary step in his direction. As his fingers began to close around Rob’s upper arm, his heel came down . . . on Sonny’s already injured tail.

  The cat yowled and jumped; Derek staggered and loosened his hold, trying to regain his balance.

  “That blasted cat! I’ll kill it, too!”

  Sonny streaked through the unlighted part of the house, disappearing into what was now almost full darkness.

  As for Rob, the moment Derek’s fingers let go, he stumbled backward, managed to turn, and fled. Through the dining room, snatching at the only thing he saw, the fishbowl that reflected the light from the kitchen. He flung it behind him, into the path of the pursuing Derek, and heard the muffled oath as it caught him in the shins.

  Derek was too close to allow him to go through the window. Rob pounded on toward the front of the house, flinging himself at the front door, only to find it locked.

  Fourteen

  Although only a few seconds had passed it seemed to Rob that he had been running for hours. This exit was blocked to him; he glanced back to see Derek picking himself up, kicking at the offending fishbowl.

  The man was silhouetted against the lighted doorway into the kitchen, and clearly visible. Rob himself must be considerably harder to see, but there was nowhere to go that he couldn’t be he
ard.

  He took the stairs. There was no logic to it, because the upper floor was just as much a trap as where he was . . . more, perhaps, because he couldn’t drop from one of those windows. But it would delay being cornered, to go up there, whereas if he entered any of these rooms, that would be the end. Right now, in seconds.

  His sneaker-clad feet pounded on the stairs, and he flung himself upward into the darkness.

  He stumbled and fell at the top, and crouched for a moment, listening. There were no heavier feet behind him on the stairs, not yet.

  His breathing had quickened a little, but not so much as Derek’s. He could hear it, ragged, rasping, from the lower hallway.

  “It won’t do you any good, Robbie. You can’t get away.”

  Robbie made a rude suggestion. He wasn’t wholly sure what it meant, but he knew it was the ultimate in rude suggestions.

  “We need to talk, Robbie.”

  “So talk,” Rob said. Derek sounded in worse physical condition than he ought to be at his age. Old Max could run pretty good; he’d raced Rob and beat him a couple of weeks ago. Old Max . . . not guilty at all, and he and Teddi could have been trusted, if he’d only known. Then he wouldn’t be in this predicament.

  “What’s your evidence? What have you got?”

  Rob laughed.

  He wouldn’t have thought it possible, that he could laugh under such circumstances.

  “Look, kid, you can make this easy or tough. It’s up to you.”

  “Easy or tough for you, you mean? What do I care how tough it is for you?”

  “You know I can’t let you tell anybody about me.” The voice rose up the stairway. By straining his eyes Rob could make out what he thought was a figure, but the front hallway was very dim. At least Derek couldn’t get at him unexpectedly. The stairs would creak the minute he set foot on them.

  “I won’t have to,” Rob said, hoping he sounded more assured than he felt. “I told you, I hid the evidence. They may not find it tonight . . . but they will tomorrow, or the next day.” He was only exaggerating by a week or so. Or maybe if he died tonight, if Derek killed him or they just couldn’t find him, they’d postpone the wedding, after all. They wouldn’t want a wedding and a funeral all at once, would they? He was amazed that he could think of it so calmly.

  “You’re lying, Robbie. You don’t have any evidence. I didn’t leave any.”

  “That’s what they all think. What did you come back here for, if not to check? You didn’t know I was here.”

  “No,” Derek confessed. “But there’s nothing here to indicate to anybody that I pushed Aunt Bea out the window. And nobody else is going to know where I got the cat scratches. By the time I put on a short-sleeved shirt again they’ll be healed up, and nobody will ever know anything about them.”

  “So why did you come back?”

  Derek’s breathing was less ragged; he was catching his breath. “All right. I’ll admit I came back to pick up the empty shells. I suppose you found them.”

  “Yes.”

  “They won’t do you any good. The police will never see them.”

  “They know I said somebody was trying to kill me. They might not have believed me then, but they will if I turn up dead or missing. They’ll keep looking until they find you.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so.” Derek was regaining his confidence. “Everybody who’s ever been in this place knows what a firetrap it is. All those newspapers everywhere.”

  “Nobody ever came to see her.”

  “Not to visit, no. But the meter readers came, and the paper boy, and the milkman, and the mailman. Everybody who ever looked in the door or a window knows what it’s like. And there’s this crazy kid with a bunch of wild ideas, afraid of being punished for making up lies and stirring up trouble, he comes over here and hides and he manages to burn the place down. That’s an accident, that’s not anything to hold anybody responsible for. They got no reason to come looking for me.”

  “They will have, when they find the chicken.”

  He wasn’t sure he’d meant to say that; he couldn’t judge if he’d been smart or stupid. For a few seconds Derek didn’t say anything.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I hid it, with a note saying why, and where it came from, and what’s the matter with it.” He lied boldly, willing Derek to believe him.

  He heaved a quick breath below. “How did you know about the chicken? Did it taste funny? I didn’t think it would.”

  Rob was silent. The more Derek had to worry about, the better.

  “Where did you hide it?”

  Rob cocked his head, listening. Another car . . . but this one, too, kept right on going. No, it was stopping, it was pulling up right in front of the house . . .

  Derek heard it, too. The shadows at the foot of the stairs moved, blurred, stilled.

  “It’s Max. Coming back from the rehearsal. And Steve and Darcy, too.”

  Was there any chance they’d hear him if he yelled?

  “Go ahead,” Derek invited, reading his thoughts. “But you’d better make it a good one the first time, because I’ll strangle you before you get out a second yell.”

  “How you going to make that look accidental?” Rob demanded. He was pretty sure they wouldn’t hear him, anyway. Their voices reached him, faintly. Doors slammed.

  “When they find your body in a burned-down house, it will be hard to tell you were throttled first. I’ve wanted to throttle you for years, you know.”

  “Why? What for?”

  “Always sitting around somewhere, quiet, listening. Behind the couch, up that tree, in the bushes alongside the porch. Always underfoot, popping up at awkward moments.”

  “I couldn’t help it if you came along and sat down next to where I was.” Had they all gone into the house next door already? He couldn’t hear them anymore. Maybe he should have tried to yell, maybe he should have run to that window in the front bedroom, which could be opened easily, and called before they got inside. Derek wouldn’t have dared do anything once he’d got their attention, would he?

  But it was dark enough now so that he couldn’t have run directly to it, and getting lost wouldn’t have helped much. He tried to remember which door it was, the second or the third?

  “What are you doing?”

  The demand startled him; he’d been quiet too long.

  “Nothing.”

  “There’s nothing you can do, you know. No way you can get away from me.”

  Rob was aware of his dry mouth and his moist palms. The heat lingered in the upper floor of the old house. He wondered if he could move more quietly if he took off his shoes, then decided that they were rubber-soled and probably as quiet as his sock feet would be. He tried to remember the layout of the house, from the outside. Was there anywhere a roof that he might drop to, a way to climb down?

  He couldn’t remember anything. It was a tall house, very high off the ground, with the second-floor level way above the same story in his own house. There was lots of fancy scrollwork and knobs and curlicues, but he didn’t think any of it offered hand or footholds. There was no lower-roofed room like the Mallory service porch, either. If he went out any of these windows it would kill him, sure.

  It might well kill him to stay in here, too.

  Was Derek serious? Did he intend to burn the house? But if he tried to burn it now, before everyone in the neighborhood went to sleep, there was a good chance somebody would see the fire and call the fire department before it got very far. In spite of the newspapers, Rob didn’t think it would burn to the ground in a few minutes.

  Still, if he were on the inside, helpless . . . and Derek would see to it that he was helpless . . . it might burn enough to do what Derek wanted.

  He heard another car. This time, when Derek moved to peer out the glass panes of the front door, he didn’t
say anything. Rob felt the pounding start in his throat. Was it his father finally coming home?

  He had to know. He couldn’t stand not knowing. He rose silently from his crouching position, moving toward what he thought was the room from which he had been fired upon.

  “Rob?” The voice from the depths of the house was sharp, demanding.

  He didn’t wait, but opened the first door he encountered that was on the right side of the house.

  It wasn’t the same room . . . there was furniture in it. The streetlight allowed enough illumination to enable him to avoid the bed, and he reached the window as Derek again called, “Robbie?”

  He thought it was his father’s car at the front curb, but it was parked ahead of Steve’s Mustang, and he couldn’t see enough of it to be sure. Somehow it gave him hope, though, just to think that his father had returned. Even if he couldn’t think of any way to contact him. His father was there. He was available, only a short distance away.

  He heard Derek starting up the stairs. He was coming slowly, cautiously. He must know something Rob didn’t know about how to climb the stairs, because he wasn’t making as much noise as Rob had, but he couldn’t help being heard.

  Rob tugged helplessly at the window, finding it sealed. There wasn’t time to search for anything to break it with. He moved back toward the hallway, afraid of being trapped in this room with no exit and no open window.

  The stool was so low he didn’t see it, but he didn’t pause to moan about the bruises it made on his legs.

  He scooped it up and ran with it, careless now of sound, flinging the stool as hard as he could down the stairs.

  Derek was still far enough down to be caught in the face and chest, and he wasn’t expecting it.

  He fell backward, swearing, tangling again with the stool before he could bring himself to a stop.

  “That kind of thing won’t get you anywhere, Robbie. I didn’t want to hurt you, but you’re making me mad.”

  Rob said nothing. He had learned that he could move about much more quietly than Derek. Maybe Derek knew the house better . . . and again, maybe he’d never been up here before this afternoon, either . . . but right this minute he couldn’t be sure where Rob was.