Chapter 2
A YEAR PRIOR TO THE NIGHT CARON LOVELL WAS raped in Blueside Park, Lee Windsor lay on a cot in his psychiatrist's office and went through a highly traumatic experience. He'd been under psychiatry off and on for years since the tragedy in Ludlow had robbed him of his brother Carl.
For some time after that accident, he'd been in no state to mourn Carl nor greatly miss him. Nor had he been able to be of much comfort to his sister. His own injuries precluded this.
As it so developed, this did not deprive her greatly, because the tragedy put her into a pitiable state. The shock unhinged her mind to a point that she had lived in a fog from that night on. A merciful fog, perhaps. At any rate, she was not required to face the stark grief of the tragedy.
Lee's prime injury had been incredible damage to his face, which was butchered in the crash. This had been the reason for the sudden exodus of the diamond family from Ludlow. The Windsor uncles moved surely and directly to a location more convenient for the vital attention Lee needed.
He was put in the hands of the most competent plastic surgeons available and twenty-thousand dollars and three years later, their miraculous creative abilities became apparent They gave him a new face.
They could do nothing for what had happened to his mind, though. Help in that area was far more difficult to administer.
One good man after another probed and failed. Other psychiatrists tried and time passed, but the mind was far harder to repair than the face. His thoughts went back to the night of the tragedy and insisted on dwelling there. That terrible night became a compulsive preoccupation while new weeks and months went by.
The notes which one psychiatrist passed on to the next revealed some interesting facets of his case from a professional viewpoint. Lec had been very close to his dead brother and this, in the beginning, appeared to be the paramount problem in his mental and emotional rehabilitation. Finally, the detachment was made, but by transference in that the morbidity to which he'd fallen victim remained strong, grew even stronger, as it centered upon his sister Barbara.
There is something more. That was a note that one of the men had jotted down while taking notes, and had been duly considered by later psychiatrists. They all agreed There was definitely something more that hadn't been just the accident that night. The memory was too much of a malignant tumor in Lee's mind.
But none of them had been able to open the tumor and extract the poison, so Lee had gone on with his life, able to live and function, but a complete cripple so far as creating and enjoying the normal satisfying progressions of human existence
Until that afternoon on the couch of his last psychiatrist.
The block was not cleared away in spectacular fashion as many lay people imagine such clarifications occur. In fact, the psychiatrist himself was not aware of what he'd accomplished. Watching his patient, he saw a sudden physical reaction. Lee tensed his fists. His expression reflected what might have been horror from a sudden psychiatrist leaned forward, waiting for the breakthrough.
But it didn't come. It seemed to the practitioner that another sort of stiffening took place other than that of the flesh. A stiffening of the spirit
Had he practiced his art boldly at that precise moment, things might have been different. But he chose to wait; not to drive his questions in ruthlessly, but to move with caution.
"Something came back to you."
Lee's look was crafty. "Yes."
"About that night."
"Yes."
"Tell me."
"Nothing important."
"You can't be sure of that."
"You told me I was the fortunate one."
"Yes. You came through the accident."
"But you were wrong. I was the unlucky one."
"How do you arrive at that conclusion?"
"Carl was killed. It was best.' If he'd survived, he would have lost his mind and lived in hell for the rest of his life."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because it's true "
"But what is your reason for believing he couldn't have coped with the after-effects of the accident?"
Lee ignored the question. "And Barbara. It would have been better if she'd died, but at least she lives in a mental vacuum. The part of her that would suffer was destroyed when the car hit the stone wall."
Unsatisfactory That was the psychiatrist's verdict. Something had happened. The mental abscess had broken but not drained: Soon, perhaps. Time was his ally.
But time did not help. Lee changed as the sessions went on. He continued with the therapy but he began guarding his mind until he became very skillful.
Then he began missing appointments and dropped away altogether.
But he became more self-reliant and purposeful outside the psychiatrist's office. For two months after that fateful session he did little but walk the streets and engage in some inner struggle of his own. And sometime during that two months he made the strange decision that was to have its affect on several lives.
He began gathering information.
When this phase of his new operation was completed, he had assembled pertinent data that read:
Frank Lovell.
Wife Caron Lovell. 826 Morningside Drive.
James Payne.
Wife Laurel Payne. 914 Grove Street.
Clete Watts.
Wife Elizabeth Watts. 1110 Wellington Drive.
Thomas Weathers.
Wife Alice Weathers. 1708 Myrtle Drive.
Michael Bevins.
Wife Grace Bevins. 10 Lincoln Circle Crystal Heights.
This was the list of people Lee Windsor had gone about locating. Then, with his time, his money, and his compulsion to know more, he learned everything about them that was possible to discover.
The business of the husbands; the habits of each couple jointly and separately; their reputations in the communities in which they lived; the personal traits of each of them.
He knew, among other things, that Tom Weathers was jealous of Alice, his attractive, red-headed wife. And with justification, for she was not above clandestine affairs with attractive men.' He knew that Mike Bevins did some traveling in his job, and that Grace had a friend or two who took his place on some of these occasions.
He discovered also, that Jim Payne had keys to his secretary's apartment and that some of his after-hour work was handled there.
These, and other bits of pertinent data went to make up the dossier he compiled, the confidential file upon which he based his plans.
Some of his persona! jottings during those eight months would have alarmed his psychiatrist, various samples in particular:
The vengeance must take the same form as the crime. If the women are innocent victims, so be it. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. They did not kill, there they shall not be killed Death would be lenient. They must be made to die inside, as my brother and I died that night. The things they hold most dear must be destroyed. They must see retribution approaching, and their guts must twist in agony as they anticipate, the end. Five evil men who must pay for what they did.
The final note in Lee Windsor's diary was short and to the point.
The preparation is over. Now J proceed.
That night, Caron Lovell was raped in Blueside Park ...
The next day, Frank Lovell didn't get much work done. He left home that morning and went directly to his office. But he couldn't concentrate on the affairs that should have occupied him and after pacing his office for an hour, he seized the phone and dialed a number. A secretary with a bedroom voice put him through.
"Jim? This is Frank. Frank Lovell."
"Sure, Frank, how:s tricks? You been behaving yourself?"
"Look, Jim, something's happened. I want to talk to you."
"Okay, how about lunch?"
"No, I'd rather make it after work. That'll give us a little more time if we need it."
"Sounds important."
"Maybe, maybe not. I've just got to talk to you."
"How about the Welton Hotel bar?"
"I'll be there at five-thirty."
And nothing was very important to Frank Lovell that day until he was facing his boyhood friend across a table in the dimly lit bar.
Jim Payne, slim, handsome, had an air of sophistication about him that tended to deny his small-town beginnings. It was said that Laurel suited him perfectly, that she was exactly the kind of woman he needed, and that they made a very handsome couple.
"You sounded serious as hell," Jim said as he lifted his glass. He savored the first cocktail-hour sip, relishing it visibly. "Good! Nothing like that first mouthful hitting your stomach."
Lovell ignored his own drink. "I was serious."
"Then let's have it"
"Jim, I'm going to tell you something I know you won't pass on."
"Confidential? Of course. You know me."
"Caron was raped last night."
Jim's glass stopped halfway to his mouth. He sighted over it into Frank's eyes. Then he took a second sip, swallowed slowly, and put the glass down
"You're kidding . where?"
"In Blueside Park ol the way home from playing bridge "
"In a cab?"
"She was walking."
"The little fool! She could at least have taken a bus."
"She usually calls me and I pick her up. Last night, she didn't."
"How did this happen?"
"She was pulled into the park after being grabbed off the sidewalk '
"A gang?"
"No, just one man"
"Did the police get him?"
"We didn't go to the police."
Payne pursed his lips while he thought that over. He nodded. "I can understand. Was she hurt badly?"
'No, not in terms of physical injury. There was certainly emotional shock, but I think she'll be all right."
"I'm certainly glad to hear that, old man. What can I do to help?"
"Nothing really. It's nice of you to offer."
"Look, Laurels mighty understanding. She might be able to give Caron some comfort. Why don't I send her over?"
Frank shook his head "Thanks, but I don't think it would help. Caron just wants to forget."
"Of course"
"But there was something else, Jim. This may be the wildest kind of a coincidence, but...."
Jim finished his martini and said, "Look, Frank. We're old friends. Tell me whatever you have to tell me. Don't feel embarrassed "
Frank gripped the stem of his glass. "I've got to go back, Jim back a few years to Ludlow just before we all graduated from high school."
A look of wariness appeared in Jim's eyes.
"There were five of us that night. You and I and Tom Weathers and . . "
"You don't have to name them," Jim said coldly.
"It was the night we..."
"Now look here! I sympathize with you for what happened to Caron, but you aren't going to help yourself by nourishing your guilt complex. We made a pact, remember? The five of us. And that was a damned important pact. We would never refer to that incident again. Each of us would tell himself that didn't happen."
"I know."
"Then why are you bringing that up."
"Because I've got to. It's for your good as well as mine."
"I fail to see how your wife getting into trouble."
"Damn it, Jim, listen to me! You remember that night. Regardless of what we told ourselves, we all remember. You recall how crazy and nightmarish that was. The booze we had in us running the show."
Jim glanced around. "Frank, keep your voice down. There are other people in this bar."
"You remember what I did with the dress?"
A visible change came over Payne. His expression said that he remembered, indeed ... that he was regarding the incident with relish, with a certain dreadful fascination.
"Uh-huh. You tied it in knots."
"That's right. A silly, stupid thing to do."
"I guess it must not have seemed that way to you at the time, though."
"We were all crazy drunk!"
"But now that's over. Forget it!"
"I had forgotten. Right up to the moment Caron told me that the rapist did the same thing."
"What?"
"Tied her dress in knots."
Jim stared, and Frank felt a certain satisfaction at having rocked him.
"If you'll recall, there was more than just that. After I tied the dress in knots, the rest of you entered into the spirit."
"Not me! i didn't do anything until Lee and Carl Windsor found us. Then I helped."
"Before that. When I tied her dress, Clete Watts, I think it was, knelt down and pulled her slip out from under her. She was lying on it. He hung the slip carefully on a bush and Mike picked up the rest of her clothes and spread them around."
"I remember," Jim said quietly
"I wish I could recall the exact pattern."
"How would that help?"
"The guy that raped Caron spread her clothes around in a pattern."
Jim didn't reply. His face was heavy with thought as he signalled for new drinks. They sat silent, each man involved in his own mental world until the drinks came. Then Jim Payne turned his glass slowly, making a wet ring.
"Carl was killed in that accident, of course. And I heard Barbara went to a mental home. 'But what about Lee? Did you ever hear what happened to him?"
"No. But I never tried to find out. I never wanted to know. Did you?"
"No. I couldn't have cared less. But now..."
"What about Barbara? Is she around the city somewhere?"
Jim raised his eyes quickly. "Frank, why did you come to me with this."
"Come to you?"
"Yes. Why didn't you go to any of the other three? Or have you gone to them?'
Frank shook his head. "I contacted you because we were closer to each other in the old days. I think we understood each other better."
"I always felt closer to you, too." For an instant, Jim Payne's image of urban sophistication was stripped away. His eyes turned wistful, his mouth softened and the brittleness disappeared.
"Frank, why did we do it?"
"I don't know."
"We weren't bad kids. And I say that objectively. We did the usual things high school kids do. We talked a lot and tried to act as though we knew it all. But that one night...."
"It was a kind of madness, I guess."
"Too much to drink "
"Just the right circumstances."
"When we drove out there, none of us had the least idea that was going to happen."
"Then I guess that got to be a chicken proposition. Nobody dared back down,"
"I think we hated Lee and Carl, too."
"And Barbara was so high-hat."
"We wanted to bring her down, that was for sure."
Frank shook his head as though trying to dispel cobwebs. "But none of that means anything now. Beside I've had enough self-recrimination through the years."
"I can say the same."
"The question now is-what are we going to do."
"Let's explore a little more," Jim suggested. "Several questions occur to me."
"Such as?"
"Why now? Why eight or ten years later? Granting of course that this is some grotesque revenge on Lee Windsor's part?"
"That point alone seems incredible. Maybe we're assuming too much in pinning it on him. Couldn't his spreading Caron's clothes around have been sheer coincidence?"
"If you believe that, why did you come to me?"
"I didn't say I believe that, I was asking you."
"I'll only say this, we have reason to wonder about a man waiting so long for revenge. We've also got a right to question the kind of revenge he's taking. We, the five of us, are the culprits. The idea of taking this out on our wives is pretty far-fetched."
Frank asked, "What about the others? Do you think we should alert them?"
"I've been trying to make up my mind," Jim replied.
"I honestly don't think we've got enough to raise an issue on yet."
Jim smiled wryly. "Shall we wait for another rape, then?"
"That's a callous way of putting it, but...."
"I'm inclined to agree with you. It occurs to me if we talk to them with what we've got, we won't get a verdict. One or two are bound to disagree. Then, if nothing further happens, we'll look foolish."
"Have you any idea where we can make contact with Clete Watts? I've lost touch myself."
"I'll check around and see what I can find out."
They left it that way, each going his own way with an agreement to keep silent for the time being. But in the mind of each, a dark shadow of dread had been created. Old ghosts had returned to haunt them.