Chapter 15

Something awakened Adam. He opened one eye and lay listening. The effects of last night's drunk weren't as bad as they had been, despite the fact that he'd consumed the contents of two bottles of Scotch. His system was conditioning itself to the constant absorption of alcohol. His physical appearance, however, had worsened. His beard was thicker and more unkempt-looking. He hadn't bathed. He stunk.

Adam closed his eye. Whatever the sound was, to hell with it. A moment later he opened both eyes. He suddenly knew what the sound had been: the flapping of the lid on his front door mail slot. He closed his eyes and rolled over. He couldn't care less what had been shoved through the mail slot.

Or could he care less? He distinctly remembered that a soft thud had followed the flapping. What did it remind him of? He sat up. It reminded him of the sound the manila envelope had made when John Bryant had dropped it on the living room table.

Cursing to himself, Adam got out of bed and staggered into the living room. It wasn't the manila envelope. It wasn't an envelope at all. It was a small square package, neatly wrapped in white paper. Adam picked it up. He recognized the handwriting at once. It was Betty's. Instantly he knew what the package contained. Her engagement ring. Tears filled his eyes. What else could happen to add to his misery?

He tossed the package on the table and weaved his way into the kitchen. The solace that he could find in a bottle would ease his pain, if only temporarily. He yanked a bottle from the nearly empty case, twisted off the top and half filled a glass. He took a long swallow and plopped down into a chair.

He tried to think of what he should be doing, but his thoughts wouldn't jell. A panorama of pictures paraded through his mind. Anne, naked in bed. Betty, naked in bed. The cold features of John Bryant. The sniveling features of Lafe Bryant. Ben Hearst. Miss Quimper. Dean Hodgkiss. Somehow they all got mixed up. He laughed hysterically. He was seeing Dean Hodgkiss and Miss Quimper in bed. They were wildly making love. Miss Quimper was screaming in delight. Then suddenly Dean Hodgkiss disappeared and Ben Hearst took his place. Miss Quimper acted as though she expected him. Her passion seemed insatiable. Anne came in and began screaming obscenities at them. Neither seemed to notice her. Anne tore off her clothes and jumped on top of Ben.

Adam slapped the table top and rocked back and forth, doubled up with laughter. Suddenly he stopped laughing. Ben Hearst, Miss Quimper and Anne all disappeared. Betty and Doug Gaskins had taken their place. Betty was trying to fight him off, but Doug persisted in trying to rape her. Adam pounded the table with his fist. "You sonofabitch!" he yelled. "Get away from my girl! I'll kill you for this!"

He swung his arm wildly, knocking the half-filled glass of whiskey from the table top and sending it crashing to the floor. Adam swore, seized the bottle of liquor and tilted it up to his mouth. He tried to recapture the pictures, but they were gone. "Hallucinations," he muttered. "That's what I been having. Hallucinations. Doug wouldn't do that. Betty wouldn't even get into bed with him. They're both good decent kids." He took a swallow from the bottle. "I gotta stop drinking. I gotta shave and take a shower and go down to the practice field. Those kids like me. They respect me. They make me feel like a man."

The front doorbell rang. Adam waved his arm angrily in the direction of the living room. "Go 'way. Can'tcha see I'm busy?"

The bell rang again and was followed by a heavy pounding. Adam tilted the bottle again. "All right. All right. I'm coming. I'm coming."

He lurched to his feet, groped his way toward the living room, fell to his knees once and got back onto his feet by bracing himself against the wall. The pounding on the door was continuing when Adam, holding himself upright by clinging tightly to the knob, opened it.

"Don't want none," he started to say, leering. Then he stopped and gaped. There was a whole crowd of people gathered on his front porch. He recognized Dean Hodgkiss at once, but his vision was too blurred to identify any of the others. Holding onto the doorknob with one hand, Adam made a sweeping courtly gesture with the other. "Come in, gentlemen," he said. Then he recognized Miss Quimper. "Ladies and gentlemen, I should have said. To what do I owe this great honor?"

They crowded into the small living room: Dean Hodgkiss, Olive Parker, John Bryant, his son Lafe, The Reverend Thomas Adams and Police Chief Merrill Handscomb. They were all grim-faced, accusing. Dean Hodgkiss produced a letter and thrust it under Adam's nose. "Young man, did you write this?"

Adam closed one eye, bent forward and peered at the handwriting. He straightened up.

" 'S'right. I wrote it to Miss Anne Yeaton, English One teacher."

"And this?" Miss Quimper thrust forward her letter.

Adam nodded. "Sure did. Wrote 'em all. Wrote 'em, shall we say, in the heat of passion."

"Disgusting," Miss Quimper said. She turned to Dean Hodgkiss. "Dean Hodgkiss, I demand-"

The dean gave her a bleak look. "You're in no position to demand anything, Miss Quimper. Especially after bringing me those blank sheets of paper. I'm still wondering how you got them-unless you stole them. That's a matter we'll have to go into later."

Adam tried to look dignified, but he was still gripping the doorknob in an effort to stand erect. " 'S'right,' he said. "She's not only a thief, she's profane. She told Anne to go fuck herself. Now what do you say to that, Ollie?"

"I say you're drunk," the spinster snapped. "I can even smell your body."

The Reverend Adams took a step forward. "Young man, will you please watch your language?"

Adam attempted to bow to the reverend, and almost fell on his face. He pulled himself erect by the doorknob. "Reverend, I apologize, but she said it just the same."

Dean Hodgkiss said, "Coach Lombard, I'll expect to see your resignation on my desk not later than tomorrow morning."

"You got it, Dean, old boy."

Dean Hodgkiss started for the door. "Come along, Miss Quimper."

Chief Handscomb blocked their way. "Please. I'd like you both to stay. There may be some questions I'd like to ask you both."

Dean Hodgkiss nodded and remained where he was. Olive Quimper seemed delighted. Her eyes were fiercely bright. This was something she was going to enjoy.

Chief Handscomb faced Adam. "Son, you're pretty drunk, and this is a serious business. Suppose you go into the bathroom, splash some water onto your face, and fix yourself up a little. We'll wait here."

Adam nodded and weaved his way into the bathroom. Instead of splashing water onto his face, he stepped out of his shorts, turned the cold water faucet on full in the shower, and entered. The stinging icy pellets sobered him up considerably. He hadn't liked the expression on the chief's face, but he knew the officer to be fair, willing to listen to all sides of a story. Adam was grateful for this respite that had been given him. He'd have to get himself together.

Five minutes later he stepped from the shower, toweled himself dry, went into his bedroom and found a clean pair of shorts. He felt reasonably sober now, but in order to help things along, he went into the kitchen, found that the percolator held at least a cup of cold coffee. He swallowed it all, drinking from the spout. He returned to the living room where he found his guests pretty much as he'd left them.

"Feeling better?" the chief asked, his voice not unkindly.

Adam brushed his hand over his beard. He nodded. "I didn't think you'd want me to take the time to shave."

The chief inclined his head and studied Adam for a minute. "Coach, there are a few questions I have to ask you. Be careful with your answers. They're important."

"Fire away, chief. I've nothing to hide." Adam tried to sound confident, but he felt a chill of apprehension.

"Where were you last Wednesday night between the hours of nine and eleven?"

Adam's eyebrows went up. "Where was I? Why, I was right here, I suppose."

"You're not sure?"

"Wait a minute. Let me think. Kind of hard for a person to remember where he was a week ago." His brow furrowed. "Yes, I'm sure. I was here."

"Have you a witness who can confirm that statement?"

Adam glanced around at the circle of faces. He saw then that Doug Gaskin was among those present. The quarterback's face wore an agonized look. There was another man among them, a man Adam didn't recognize. Olive Quimper was leering at him, as though she had some secret information which, when released, would set him back on his heels. He said slowly "Yes. I have a witness."

Olive Quimper shrilled, "If you mean that hussy Anne Yeaton, you can count her out. She packed up and left last night. She wrote a letter telling me all about it. I have the letter right here in my purse."

Chief Handscomb turned to look at the spinster. "Did Miss Yeaton say where she was going?"

"No. And you won't find her either. She's going to change her name."

"Change her name? Why?"

Miss Quimper hesitated. "She's going to become a prostitute. She says she can make ten times as much money as she can teaching school."

Adam was the only one facing the window, and so he was the only one who saw the blue Chevy drive slowly by. A moment later the car returned and parked.

Adam knew the car and knew its driver. He wondered what on earth Ben Hearst could have in this matter, but it didn't matter. Things couldn't be much worse. He saw Ben get out of the car, come quietly up the walk and step lightly onto the porch. He remained there listening.

Chief Handscomb jerked a thumb toward Lafe Bryant. "That boy," he said to Adam, "says he saw you driving away from where he found the broken and beaten body of Nancy Poole. That was last Wednesday night."

"If the boy told you that," Adam said levelly, "he was lying."

"Hah!" That was the booming voice of John Bryant. The thickset form of the older man stepped forward. He glowered Adam and turned to his son. "Tell them what else you know about this matter, son."

Lafe Bryant, eager, enjoying himself said, "Well, I'd been seeing Nancy a lot. I mean-"

"Were you intimate with her, son ? Tell us if you were."

"Yes I was." '

"Go on."

"Well, I'd been screwing her every chance I got. Most of the guys on campus were doing the same thing. She was a good lay and-"

"Just a minute!" The man whom Adam had not recognized elbowed his way toward Lafe. "Listen, you young brat, I'm Nancy Poole's father. Are you saying that my daughter was a tramp?"

Lafe eased up beside his father. "Yes," he said defiantly.

Several things happened then. Robert Poole made a lunge at young Lafe and John Bryant laid a heavy hand on the dead girl's father's arm. But before anything else could be said or done, Chief Handscomb was in among them. He shoved Bryant backward and held onto Poole. "Easy does it. If there's any roughhousing to go on here, I'll do it. If either of you steps out of line again you'll find yourself wearing handcuffs." He glared at Lafe. "You got any more to say, boy?"

"Yeah. Some of the faculty were screwing Nancy too. She liked older men. When she got pregnant she knew it was the coach that got her that way and-"

"How?"

"How what?"

"If she were as promiscuous as you seemed to think, how did she know who got her pregnant?"

Lafe shrugged. "I dunno. Girls know about those things, I guess. Anyway, she told me it was the coach."

The chief took a deep breath and turned to Adam. "What's your side of the story, coach?"

"The little bastard's lying in his teeth. Thursday morning he came to my office and admitted that he'd gotten Nancy in a family way. He said he'd beaten her up because he'd heard that pregnant women frequently had a miscarriage if they were in some kind of an accident. He said he'd brought her into the hospital and told Doctor Gleason that he'd found her lying beside the road, unconscious."

"Hah!" It was John Bryant's booming voice again. "That's what I call thinking on your feet, Mr. Lombard. It's the most preposterous story I've ever heard. No boy could dream up a wild tale like that. Why, you people should be grateful that my son stopped to pick the girl up."

"Your son," said Adam calmly, though he was seething inside, "has an imagination that won't quit. You've only heard half the story."

There was a note of doubt in the chief's voice when he asked Adam his next question. "What possible reason could young Bryant have for telling you such a wild story, coach? It was practically an admission of guilt."

"That's the other half of the story. Blackmail."

"Blackmail? How?"

"He wanted me to swear that he was here in my cottage that Wednesday night. I was supposed to be helping him with his homework."

"And if you didn't?"

"The kid had been spying on my cottage. He knew I had a visitor. He knew if he told who the visitor was, my career would be ruined. Well, he's succeeded in doing that, so I guess it doesn't make any difference now what I say."

"Brother! And he expects us to believe more of his lies." John Bryant looked at Handscomb. "Chief, I demand that you arrest this man and charge him-"

"And I demand that you keep your mouth shut, Bryant. Unless you keep quiet, you'll be charged with obstructing justice." The chief turned to Adam. "Do you have more to say, coach? What was your answer to the boy?"

"My answer," said Adam, "was to work him over, but good." Unconsciously he rubbed the knuckles of one hand into the palm of the other. "And I enjoyed every minute of it. I wanted him to know how it felt to be beaten up by someone bigger than he. Lafe told me he'd used a baseball bat on Nancy. I was only sorry that I didn't have one handy."

"And then?"

"Then I threw him out of the office and called the hospital. I talked with Doctor Gleason. He told me that Nancy wasn't the victim of a hit-and-run driver as Lafe had told them. She'd been beaten up."

"Was the girl conscious?"

"No. She was still unconscious. Doctor Gleason had doubts that she'd ever come out of the coma."

There was stirring and muttering among the listeners. John Bryant was having a hard time restraining himself. The others seemed to be frozen into silence, awaiting Adam's next word.

Chief Handscomb asked, "Is that all coach?"

"No. I heard that the girl died and that Lafe had been arrested, charged with murder. The report was that he'd sent for his father and that the old man and the old man's lawyer were on their way up to Mekins."

"Anything else?" the police chief asked.

"Yes. Sunday morning Bryant appeared at my door and thrust his way inside uninvited."

"What did he want?"

"He had fifty thousand dollars in an envelope. Or so he said. He tossed the envelope on the table and said it was for me, providing I'd swear his son was here with me Wednesday night."

"What did you say?"

"I didn't say anything. He began abusing me with his foul talk."

"And you took it?"

"For a while I did. I-I had a visitor on that day too."

There was more stirring and murmuring among the listeners. "Who was she?"

"I didn't say it was a she. But in any event I can't give you the name."

"The way this thing is going, you'll probably have to eventually. That is, if you have any idea of getting yourself out of this mess."

"Sorry, chief."

John Bryant could restrain himself no longer. "That's the damndest rottenest lie I ever heard. Where's the money now? Ask him where the money is."

Handscomb gave Adam a questioning look and Adam shook his head.

"I don't know. Bryant's talk got so foul and so personal that I sprang at him. It was a foolish thing to do. I think he'd been needling me, and was expecting the move. He came in with a straight-arm and I went down for the count. When I came to, Bryant was gone and so was the money. He'd already implied that if I didn't take his bribe, he'd frame me for Nancy's murder."

The room was suddenly quiet. There it was, all out in the open, the whole sordid story. Every eye was trained on Chief Handscomb.

Robert Poole stepped forward. He said in a cold, hard voice, staring at Adam accusingly, "It seems to me that I'm the injured party here. Someone murdered my daughter. I want that someone arrested."

Chief Handscomb sighed deeply. He reached for his handcuffs. "Coach," he said, "it appears that I have no alternative. Everyone seems to have witnesses but you."

"Just a minute. Hold it, everyone," a voice interjected.

Everyone swung around. Ben Hearst was standing in the doorway.