Chapter 17. Who could have taken the car?

MURDER

Trapped.

Who could have taken the car?

No time to think about it.

Over the maddening wail of the alarm, Pam could hear the rise and fall of other sirens. Police sirens. Growing louder.

Coming closer.

“We’ve got to get out of here!” she cried.

And then she saw the car.

It was right where she’d parked it at the loading dock to their right.

“We came out the wrong door!” Clay realized.

They had burst out onto the middle loading dock. Now, without hesitating, Pam jumped down, landing hard on the asphalt drive, and hurtled toward the car.

As she ran, Pam pulled the keys from her coat pocket. All three of them reached the car at the same time, their breath puffing above them, steamy and white against the night sky, the sirens wailing.

Clay slammed his fist on the trunk top, latching it.

It’s empty, Pam found herself thinking.

All that fear. All that worry. All that... blood.

And the trunk is empty.

Pam slid behind the wheel and slammed the door shut. The sirens followed her inside the car. Clay and Mickey piled in, resuming their places.

The car sputtered, then started on the second try. Pam floored the gas pedal, and the big car squealed away, through the empty employees’ parking lot, lurching over traffic bumps, then back onto Division Street, through a yellow light about to turn to red, and away.

Away, away, away.

Two police black-and-whites, their sirens crying out, passed them going the other way.

In the rearview mirror Pam watched them turn and pull into Dalby’s parking lot.

In a few minutes they would find the guard. Lying in his own blood.

And then... what?

The dark stores gave way to dark houses. The streets whirled by silently.

Silent, at last. Silent again.

None of them spoke.

What was there to say?

Somehow Pam drove them home. Somehow Pam drove herself home.

♦ ♦ ♦

The next morning she woke up in her clothes, the bed sheets and blankets in a tangled heap on the floor beside the bed.

It was all a dream, she told herself.

What a nightmare!

But then, why was she still dressed in the same clothes as in the dream? And why had she slept so fitfully?

And why was the dream so fresh, so vivid, so real in her mind?

Because, Pam knew, it wasn’t a dream.

It had all really happened.

Yawning and rubbing her eyes, she bent to pull the bedclothes up off the floor, then glanced at the clock. Nine forty-five. Saturday morning.

She stood up, stretched, thought about changing into a fresh outfit, then decided against it.

How could she face her parents this morning?

She had the feeling that they would know. That they would know everything that had happened just by looking at her, by peering into her eyes.

She thought of Foxy. He would know too.

Everyone would know.

Her life was ruined.

She slumped into the bathroom, brushed her hair and her teeth. Then, feeling as if she hadn’t slept, still hearing the insistent wail of the store alarm in the back of her mind, she descended the stairs and walked into the kitchen to face her parents.

The radio droned low in the background. Breakfast dishes were still on the table, but her parents were nowhere to be seen. At her usual place at the table Pam found a hastily scribbled note in her mother’s handwriting.

The note read: “Your father still insists on paneling the den. I’ve gone with him to the lumber store so he doesn’t pick anything too ghastly. Back soon. Love.”

Pam felt relieved and disappointed at the same time. She didn’t want to face her mom and dad this morning, but she didn’t feel like being alone, either.

There were cereal boxes on the table, but Pam knew she couldn’t eat anything. Her mouth felt dry as cotton. She poured herself a glass of orange juice and drank it down, pulp and all.

She was about to go back up to her room when the voice on the radio caught her attention. “A break-in at Dalby’s Department Store on Division Street last night,” Pam heard. She lunged for the radio, banging her knee against the counter, and turned up the volume.

“Ed Javors, a veteran security guard, was fatally shot,” the announcer reported. “The burglars got away with twenty-five thousand dollars from a main-floor office safe. Shadyside police have assigned four men to the case. I’ll have today’s tri-city weather forecast in a moment.”

Her forehead throbbing, Pam clicked off the radio. Her head lowered, she stood grasping the counter, trying to catch her breath.

Fatally shot.

The guard was fatally shot.

Killed.

And $25,000 in cash taken from a main-floor office safe.

This is impossible, Pam thought.

This didn’t happen.

The guard was killed and $25,000 was stolen.

But how could that be?

She pushed herself away from the counter, slumped onto the chair at the table, and buried her head in her hands.

Got to think. Got to think. Got to think about this clearly.

But her thoughts spun wildly, whirling, whirling to the wail of the alarm siren.

Clay is a murderer.

He killed the guard. I saw him. I saw him shoot the guard.

And then—

No!

We didn’t open the safe. We didn’t take any money.

We didn’t take anything!

This story is wrong. All wrong. It has to be wrong.

Without realizing what she was doing, she had gotten up, walked over to the wall phone by the kitchen door, and was punching in Clay’s number.

He picked up after the first ring.

“Clay—” Pam said. “Did you hear the radio?”

“Yeah,” came the reply. His voice sounded hoarse, weary.

“It’s wrong. It’s all wrong!” Pam shrieked, unable to contain her panic.

“Tell me about it,” Clay said quietly. “My gun wasn’t loaded.”

“Huh?” Clay’s words didn’t make any sense to her.

I’m losing it, Pam thought. I’m totally losing it.

“My gun wasn’t loaded,” Clay repeated. “I just carried it for show.”

“You didn’t shoot him?”

“No way,” Clay said, sighing loudly. “No way.”

“That means—” Pam started, closing her eyes, trying to think.

“That means someone else killed the guard,” Clay finished her sentence for her. “And someone else took the money.”

“Clay, we’ve got to go to the police. We’re not murderers. We didn’t take anything. We’ve got to tell them the truth,” Pam pleaded.

Clay didn’t reply for a long moment. Then he said, “Pam—no one would believe us.”

Дата добавления: 2015-07-20