“My leg. I need a doctor, I can’t stand the pain.”
“Answers first. You killed Dr Adler?”
“Yes! Yes, you knew that already.”
“I wanted to hear it.” Parker got to his feet and walked out of the room.
Behind him, Wells cried, “For the love of God, I need a doctor!”
Parker remembered a study. He found it and searched through the desk drawers till he found pen and paper. On the way back he passed through the music room and took down an LP in its jacket to write on.
Wells was still on the sofa, his eyes closed. When Parker came in he opened them. “Did you call a doctor?”
“Not yet.”
“The pain, man.”
“That’s nothing.” Parker lifted Wells to a sitting position, the bad leg straight out in front of him, heel on the floor. Then he loosened the tourniquet. “Watch the ankle.”
Wells watched, and saw the blood suddenly spurt. It had practically stopped before, and started to coagulate, but when the tourniquet was released the clot broke down. Wells groaned, and reached for the tourniquet.
Parker slapped his hand away. “You’ve got something to write first.” He gave Wells the LP and the paper and the pen. “Write how you killed Dr Adler and Stubbs.”
“I’m too weak! I’m losing blood!”
“You could die,” Parker said, “if you waste time arguing.”
Wells’s hands were shaking, but he managed to write: “I leaned in the window from the porch, and shot Dr Adler as he was sitting at his desk. I fired four times. I waited in the woods for–-“
He paused and looked up. “What was the chauffeur’s name?”
“Stubbs. With two b’s.”
” — Stubbs and shot him when he came into the open in front of my house.”
Parker read over his shoulder. “Sign it.”
“Charles F. Wells.”
“The other name, too.”
“C. Frederick Wallerbaugh.”
“Fine.”
Parker took the confession away so no blood would get on it, and then fired the Sauer once. The bullet caught Wells in the heart.
Parker put the Sauer away under his jacket and waved the confession in the air till the ink dried. The he folded it up and put it in his pocket, and went out to the kitchen to find a knife.
Chapter 6
IT TOOK him only three days to drive to Lincoln, because he was on turnpikes most of the way. They’d given him a Pontiac instead of a Chevrolet for the one-way rental from New York to Lincoln, and it was just old enough to be broken in, so he made good time. He took only one side trip, to pick up the typewriter case full of money from the motel outside Pittsburgh.
It was just eleven o’clock Thursday morning when he drove up to the sanitarium building. In the four days since he’d seen it, the further deterioration in the place was visible. It was falling apart fast, in the hands of May and her two men, and they’d probably abandon it before winter.
As Parker got out of the car, carrying the overnight bag, Lennie and Blue came out on to the porch and stood looking at him. Blue’s left arm was in a sling, and his colour wasn’t good. They both seemed surprised to see him.
Parker came up on to the porch. “Where’s May?”
Lennie blinked. “We didn’t expect to see you no more.”
Blue said, “Where’s Stubbs?” His yapping voice was weaker than before, but still belligerent.
“May first,” Parker said.
“Here I am.”
Parker looked past the two men and saw May in the semi-darkness just inside the doorway. She was glaring at him, and holding an old Colt Peacemaker in both hands, her right hand holding the grip and the trigger and her left hand holding the barrel.
“You’ll burn your hand off, you shoot that gun when you’re holding it that way. And break a wrist while you’re at it.”
“Don’t you worry none about me,” she said. “What are you doing back here?”
“I said I’d be back?”
“Where’s Stubbs?”
“He’s dead.”
“You killed him.”
