Take a Step to Murder. Day Keene
play out the cable behind you.”
Renner carried the hook over the edge of the shoulder and scrambled down the slope again with Angel playing out the cable behind him. With a dozen pair of car headlights spotlighting the scene it was much easier-going than it had been the first time.
Renner had to crawl under the back of the wrecked car to secure the hook and cable. When he finally managed to secure it, he crawled out again and called back up the slope.
“Take up the slack—easy.”
Angel reversed the winch, using Renner’s raised hand as a guide. When the heavy cable came so taut the big car nosed forward slightly, Renner gave him a cut-off sign.
“That should do it. Ease off a trifle and lock the winch.”
“Sí, senor.”
Prichard was still worried. “I don’t know if we’re going to pull this off or not, Kurt. When that cable came taut she almost nosed over right then.”
Renner wiped his greasy hands on the skirt of his coat and tested the balance of the car. It wasn’t good. He wished he could be in two places at the same time. Unfortunately, he couldn’t. It was going to be up to Angel to keep just the right strain on the cable while he lifted Tamara out of the car.
He called up the slope again. “Keep the cable as taut as you can without taking too much of a strain on it. And if the truck starts to slip back, slap it into low gear and gun her.”
Angel made a circle with his thumb and second finger to show he understood. “Bueno.”
Working as carefully as he could, Renner tried to open the door on Tamara’s side of the car and couldn’t. The door was jammed. Leaning over the door he tried to lift her out and wasn’t any more successful. The top part of her torso raised but her right foot seemed to be caught on something.
While he was straining to lift her she opened her eyes and spoke rapidly but without panic. “I’m sorry, Kurt,” she said in Hungarian. “But when I missed the bus in Cove Springs and the man offered me a ride, I accepted.” The blonde girl shuddered and tried, instinctively, to cover her exposed flesh. “I didn’t know what kind of man he was. Am I going to die?”
“No,” Kurt said crisply. “Just sit tight and leave everything to me.”
“What kind of language is that?” Prichard asked.
Renner told him. “Hungarian.”
“What did she say?”
“She said she missed the local bus in Cove Springs and the dead guy offered her a ride.”
“Ask her her name?”
“I’m Tamara,” Tamara said in English. “Tamara Daranyi.”
Renner took the light out of Prichard’s hand and walked around the car and pulled the dead man out of the shattered windshield to get rid of some of the weight forward.
“What are you going to do?” Prichard asked.
Renner told him. “Get her out of there.”
He crawled in past the broken wheel post and turned the beam of the flashlight on Tamara’s wedged foot. It was caught in a lethal boot formed by the expensive leather and heavy paperboard liner under the cowl. He tried to free it, but his hands were so slippery with blood and grease he couldn’t get a good grip on her ankle. He wiped his hands on her skirt and tried again. As he did, the car tilted forward precariously. There was an ominous scrape of metal on stone and the men up on the top of the cliff began to shout.
Above the excited babble of Spanish and broken English and the racing motor of the tow truck, Renner could hear Kelcey shouting, “For God’s sake get out of there, Renner. Your weight is upsetting the balance and the tow truck is slipping backwards. The ground is too soft for Angel to get traction.”
Still other voices were shouting for Angel to get out of the truck.
Then, as if to emphasize the danger, a small fall of rock broke loose and cascaded down the slope, banging against the back and the underside of the car.
Even Sheriff Prichard was shouting now. “It’s going. The whole thing is going. Let the girl go and get out while you still can, Kurt.”
Tamara’s eyes were open and agonized.
Renner stopped pulling at her leg and put his arms around her waist, heaving back as hard as he could. There was an audible “plop” as her wedged foot pulled free.
The car was in motion now. One headlight still intact and burning swept up and across the sky like a pointing finger as the strain on the cable pulled the rear end down momentarily. Then as the underside, with a shriek of tortured metal, scraped across the last of the shale and rocked forward, Renner, holding Tamara pressed tightly against his own body, hurled himself backward and out the open door on the far side of the car just as the wrecked Cadillac nosed over the cliff and fell, pulling the tow truck with it. The heavy truck bounced and whipped at the end of the cable like a white toy truck on the end of a string.
With Angel Guitierrez still clutching the wheel.
Three
RENNER FELL on his back on shale, with Tamara partly on top him, his body cushioning her fall but with her bare legs flailing in space. A second fall of rock cascaded down the slope. Renner shielded Tamara’s head and face as best he could, at the same time trying to scramble back to safety and keep both of them from following the car and the truck.
Then Sheriff Prichard was pulling at them, widening their margin of safety. He was breathing so hard it was difficult for him to talk. “God damn,” he panted. “God damn. That was the bravest thing I ever saw.”
Renner didn’t feel brave. He wasn’t proud of himself. He felt sick. All he could see was Angel’s face as the truck had gone over the drop.
He wriggled out from under Tamara and knelt beside her. Her eyes were closed. Her breathing was shallow. She’d either struck her head on something when they’d fallen or fainted. He had no way of telling which.
“How is she?” Prichard asked him.
“I don’t know,” Renner said.
A dozen or more men were scrambling down the slope now. Doctor Flanders hadn’t shown up but Father Sebastian had. The priest came over to where Renner was kneeling.
“How badly is the girl hurt?” the priest asked.
“I don’t know,” Renner said.
Sheriff Prichard got to his feet and called to one of the men still on the cliff to bring some blankets from the police car. When they arrived he spread one on the ground beside the girl. Then, after making certain her back wasn’t broken, he rolled her gently onto the blanket.
Renner continued to examine her. Nothing seemed to be broken. As far as he could tell the blood on her lower body wasn’t hers. It had probably splattered on her when the dead man had gone head first into the windshield.
Renner got to his feet and walked a few feet away and was sick. This was his fault. If he hadn’t been so damned determined to save his court none of it would have happened.
Sheriff Prichard covered the girl on the ground with the other blanket. He seemed to be willing her to hear him. “You’re all right now, Sissy,” he said. He might have been talking to his own ten-year-old daughter. “No one is going to hurt you. You just lie still and don’t worry until the doctor gets here.”
After he’d spread the blanket over the girl, Prichard walked over to the body of the man whom Renner had pulled out of the car. “Anybody recognize him?” he asked.
None of the men on the ledge did.
“The bastard,” Prichard said. “Of course I have no way of proving it and won’t have until the girl recovers consciousness. But the way I see