Sycamore Hill (40 page)

I recoiled from him as though he had struck me physically in the
stomach. My face paled, and my eyes filled with tears. “Get out. I don’t ever
want to see you again,” I managed chokingly.

“Only too happy to oblige,” he answered harshly, but his own face was
pale and drawn. “Only one other thing before I go. Just for the record, I
didn’t murder my wife. She was drunk and fell down the stairs while I was
working five miles from the ranch house. That’s how she broke her neck. I
didn’t do it! When you invite the ladies in for tea, shovel that into their
cups along with the sugar!”

Jordan turned and strode out the schoolhouse without a backward
glance. A moment later I heard his horse galloping away into the night. I sank
down onto a chair and felt miserable. I wouldn’t blame him for hating me. My
hand smoothed down over my abdomen. I shut my eyes and bent down, too desolate
even for tears anymore.

“Well, well, well,” came a satisfied voice from the doorway to my
room. I looked up and stared in frightened surprise at the man standing there.
“I couldn’t have planned things better myself.” The man heaved something at me.
A length of rope snaked across the floor to my feet. I stared at it in horror,
seeing the noose at the end. Then I looked up again.

Tom Hallender unholstered his gun and aimed it at me.

“Pick up the rope, Miss McFarland,” Hallender instructed me
coldly. I did not move. I was unable to tear my eyes from the black barrel of
his gun. His hand was steady, and he moved his thumb slowly to cock the hammer.
It made a deadly click, sending a shock of terror through me.

“I said pick up the rope,” he ordered in a low voice.

I bent forward at the waist, feeling blindly for the rope at my
feet. My eyes never once left his gun. I could not comprehend what was
happening. Only yesterday Tom Hallender had been friendly, concerned about my
welfare and future. Now he stood here in the shadows of the schoolroom, holding
a gun on me. It did not make sense. Nothing seemed to make sense anymore, I thought.
I could feel a rise of hysteria, which I choked down.

“What are you going to do?” I asked, my voice not seeming to be my
own. The sheriff looked intent and determined.

“It’s not what I plan to do. It’s what you’re going to do to
yourself,” he told me, and his eyes dropped to the rope in my hand. I blinked,
confused. Then my heart stopped. It started hammering again in hard, alarmed
staccato thuds that sent a surge of adrenaline through my system.

“I don’t understand,” I murmured, terrified that I did.

“You’re going to hang yourself just like Prudence Townsend did.”

My eyes widened, and my lips parted in a silent gasp. I watched as
he moved slowly into the room, limping from his old wound. He unhooked the
lantern as he came. He set it on the desk and leaned back negligently. He put
his left arm across his chest, bracing his gun arm. The barrel never wavered
from my head, but he carefully returned the hammer, and I breathed again.

“I’ll give you a little assistance, of course,” he said with a wry
smile.

I strove for calmness. “Why should I want to do such a thing?” I
asked shakily,

“Loneliness.” He shrugged indifferently. "Tonight is
Christmas Eve. Ah, I can see you’ve forgotten what day it is, Miss McFarland.
And no wonder, with your friend Miss Greer dying on you, and then your lover
walking out on you. But tonight is Christmas Eve, all right, and everyone else
in this miserable, ungrateful town is home with their family, eating and
drinking Christmas cheer,” he said bitterly. He gave a harsh laugh.

“They aren’t giving a thought to people like you and me who give
our lives for them. They don’t think to invite us,” he jabbed at his own chest,
“into their homes to share their wealth.” His eyes were glittering resentfully
in the dark. “You and I mean nothing but to save their skins, protect their
belongings or educate their brats. That’s the truth, Miss McFarland, and you
know it!” His mouth moved up into a humorless grimace.

“But I don’t feel that way, Mr. Hallender,” I said quietly,
wondering if the man had gone mad in his bitterness.

“But that doesn’t matter,” he shot back. He hesitated before he
went on in a lower voice. “It takes a strong person to live alone. And, Miss
McFarland, you’re not a strong person. Or more to the point, people won’t think
you were once they find you swinging from that rafter up there.” He pointed up
to the front beam with the barrel of his gun.

“But why?” My voice was shaking uncontrollably. The coil of rope
in my hand felt as heavy as lead.

Hallender’s eyes had never once left mine. My question seemed to
discomfort him. “It’s your own fault it’s come to this,” he accused. “You
should have taken the notes I left seriously. But you didn’t. I thought the
noises and crying would do the trick. But you weren’t buying any of that
either. So I pulled the nail from the front railing, hoping you would break
your leg or neck reaching for that stray cat I set on the sill. But, hell, no!”
he snarled angrily. “You were lucky and rescued the little nuisance without
hurting a hair on your damn head.”

I remembered Orphan perched on the windowsill that dark night. I
had wondered how such a small kitten could have got herself into such a high,
precarious place. And Ross Persall had said the railing had been tampered with.

“Then I tried offering you a loan yesterday,” Hallender continued
dismally. “After Miss Greer’s funeral you looked like you were ready to get
away from Sycamore Hill. But you turned me down. That left me with no choice. I
had to kill you. I thought I had last night, but it seems you have a very hard
head, Miss McFarland,” he said dryly.

“You hit me?”

He made an affirmative movement of his head.

“And you’re the one who has been making all the crying noises and
eerie sounds?”

“None other.”

“But I don’t understand why you’re doing all this? What have I
ever done to make you want to do these things... or to kill me?”

“I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to kill you,” he told me
harshly. “But I have to. Like I said, it would never have come to hanging you
if you’d taken my earlier warnings seriously. Now I’ve got no choice but to
kill you.”

I licked my lips tensely. “But I saw Prudence Townsend. How did
you manage that?”

His eyes left mine for the first time, but only for an instant.
Then he smiled slightly. “Good try, but it won’t work. If you saw anything, it
was out of your own imagination. There’s nothing here, Miss McFarland—nothing
that is except you and me. And in a little while it’ll be just you hanging up
there, dead.” He jerked his head upward to indicate the beam, and I swallowed hard.

“It won’t be slow like it was for her,” he assured me almost
kindly, and I felt the hysterical impulse to laugh. Then I recalled his vivid
picture of Prudence jerking frantically at the end of the rope as it slowly
strangled her. Kicking and kicking.

Hallender straightened away from the desk, impatient to get on
with his deed. “Bring the rope over here.”

I couldn’t have moved even if I had wanted to. I licked my lips
again. The back of my neck felt wet with perspiration.

“Come on. You’re not making this any easier for me.”

“Why should I?” I gasped, affronted and terrified. He wanted me to
make things easy for him?!

“Stalling isn’t going to do you any good,” he muttered.

“You should at least tell me why you’re doing this!” I cried,
desperate for time.

“Money,” he retorted simply. “The ‘root of all evil,’ as our
self-righteous minister would tell you.”

“Money? But how are you going to get money for murdering me?” I
asked, bewildered.

“The money is stashed here. You’ve been sleeping over it for
months.”

“I don’t know anything about any money,” I said blankly.

“Well, since you’re going to die for it, I might as well tell you
about it.” Hallender settled back against the desk again. I felt a moment’s
reprieve.

“Three men robbed the bank a year ago. They got off with a little
short of a hundred thousand dollars,” he explained, and raised his brows
expressively. “Now do you get it?”

I stared at him, remembering the stories I had heard about the
robbery. “You mean you organized the robbery?”

“I had nothing to do with the robbery,” he said, irritated by my
suggestion. He shifted restlessly. “I’m the sheriff, remember? It was my job to
go after those thieves and get the money back... and bring them in any way I
could. Well, I caught up with them. They backtracked on me and tried to set up
an ambush. But it backfired. I got them instead. One at a time, Indian style.
But I risked my neck doing it.”

My eyes widened as comprehension sank in. “You mean you murdered
those men and kept the money from the robbery?”

Hallender’s mouth tightened, and the knuckles of his gun hand
stood out, white. “I told you I risked my life for that money. It’s mine by
rights. The town owes me something for thirty-six years and a bum leg.”

“That... that may be true, Mr. Hallender. But one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars?”

“How much is a man’s life worth? I’ve been lamed once for this
town. I got a couple of pats on the back for that. If I’d been killed, they
would have given me a pine box. I’m taking that money!”

“But why didn’t you just take the money then and keep going? Why
did you come back here?”

“If I’d done that, I’d never have had any peace. I’ve been a
lawman near all my life. I know what goes on. My face would have been plastered
all over the state... and country for that matter. I’d have had someone on my
trail for the rest of my life. No, thank you.” He shook his head. “It was
better this way, hiding the money and waiting until I could retire. That way
it’d just be another unsolved robbery where the thieves got away with it. In
time I could go someplace far away and enjoy my good fortune.”

“Why don’t you just take the money now and go?”

“I wouldn’t be out of here five minutes and you’d be setting the
town on me,” he declined.

“But you could have come in here any time I was out, or at night
when you were pretending to be Prudence, and moved the money somewhere else.
Why didn’t you do that? Why do you have to kill me?”

“You think I just stuck it in a desk or something?” He laughed.
“All that money? Ten big bags of it, Miss McFarland! No, ma’am.” He laughed
then as though greatly amused and satisfied with himself.

“Where?” I asked, glancing around as though I might see it.

He laughed again, slapping his leg in obvious enjoyment. “You’ve
been sleeping on it for months.”

“What?” I breathed. “My cot?”

“It was the most obvious place I could think of, but which others
would discard for the same reason. It’s sewn right into your mattress. In fact,
there isn’t much mattress stuffing left in that bed of yours.” He laughed
again. “Everything went perfectly. I was careful when I brought the money up
here, but someone heard me working in here. They spread the word that it was
that schoolmarm’s ghost. People just avoided this place all that much more.
After Miss Townsend killed herself, people didn’t want to come up here anyway.
But after they heard about the sounds, they really stayed their distance. I
never expected them to find another schoolteacher so soon—not sooner than a
year anyway. And by that time it wouldn’t have mattered. I’d have retired, come
up here and got my money and been out of the state. But then you showed up,” he
said in resigned dismay.

“I didn’t expect you to find the money, even though you were
sleeping on it. But it still worried me. What if you were one of those women
who stashes her savings inside her mattress instead of in the bank? It really
worried me.” He gave a harsh sound in his throat.

“People won’t believe I killed myself,” I said quietly, sounding
more assured than I was.

“You think not?” He raised graying brows derisively. “There are
plenty of reasons I can think of why people will believe it.” He smiled
unpleasantly. “You’ve been acting mighty strange lately, kind of dazed and
depressed. I’m not the only one who’s noticed it. I overheard Sadie saying her
aunt was concerned about you, and that’s why she went to the schoolhouse. But
if that isn’t enough, there are plenty of other reasons.”

“Like what?” I stalled for more time to think.

“I overheard a damned good one just before I came in. Bennett!
Couldn’t be more perfect if I had planned it myself. There were rumors that
Miss Townsend killed herself because she fell in love with someone and was
scorned by him.” He frowned slightly. “I wonder if that was Bennett too. Pretty
active fellow.” He smiled slightly. I remembered what Margaret Hudson had said,
and I wondered if I had just been another of his amorous victims.

“Nobody will believe it. Everyone has seen the antagonism between
Jordan and myself,” I told him.

Hallender grinned mockingly. “But he was your lover, wasn’t he? I
heard that much. He was pretty blunt about it. ‘Spreading yourself like a whore
in a field about the creek,’ I think is the way he put it,” he said crudely,
bringing a humiliated flush to my pale cheeks. “I never figured you for the
type. But Bennett ought to know, huh?” Hallender’s eyes looked down over me
speculatively, and a cold feeling spread through me.