A Dismal Thing To Do (4 page)

“I hope so.”

The constable was coming toward them, carrying the snowshoes Madoc had again forgotten about. “Have we got a thermos?” Madoc yelled.

“Ayuh.”

What the hell was the man’s name? Michael? Gabriel? Raphael? Something that went with Archangel, anyway, or ought to be. Janet was telling the constable so as he handed her a red plastic mug full of scalding coffee. It would be loaded with sugar and she preferred hers plain, but no matter. When they got back to the car, the archangel even produced a box of sweet meal biscuits.

“Always keep a little something in the car,” he remarked. “You never know.”

“You don’t, do you?” Janet agreed politely as she accepted a biscuit. “Madoc, how did you think to look for me out here?”

“Muriel’s directions. Actually, how it started was that your car was found ditched and empty except for your keys and pocketbook down on the Harvey Road.”

“Oh Madoc, I’m so sorry. It was my own stupid fault. If I hadn’t left the keys in—” Janet stopped eating her biscuit. “If I hadn’t left the keys, I’d be—”

“You’d what, darling? Here, what’s the matter? Put your head down between your knees.”

“No, I’m all right.”

They had her in the back seat with her feet up, a woolly gray blanket wrapped around her and the emergency blanket on top of that. Madoc was supporting her head and shoulders against his chest, nicking his finger on a shard of glass that was, sure enough, caught in the soft wool of her coat, and not giving a damn. The constable was back in the driver’s seat, fiddling with the two-way radio, letting them know back at headquarters that the lost had been found, that there was a fire out here but he didn’t know where here was and it didn’t much matter now anyway because Mrs. Rhys said the place was derelict and there’d been nobody else inside.

She didn’t say anything else till the driver had turned his car around in the melted-out circle that had been left from the burning truck and they were passing the smoldering remains of the barn. Then she remarked rather offhandedly, “I’m in there.”

“What?” Madoc was jolted. “Jenny, are you—”

“I mean they thought I was. That’s why they burned it. The man who stole my car claimed he kicked—I tried to dry my boots but the stove wasn’t—and then they pushed it over.”

“We’ll have you home soon.” Madoc had never before in his life felt so totally useless.

“Delayed reaction,” said the archangel in charge of biscuits. “She’ll be okay once you get home. You warm enough, Mrs. Rhys? Want me to turn up the heater?”

“I think she’s asleep.”

Madoc thought perhaps he was, too. The driver began a long and confusing conversation with the dispatcher about how to get out of wherever they were. Eventually they achieved a meeting of the minds, then there was no more talk until the car drew up in front of the right house. That set off a bustle of explanations and cups of tea and hot soup and sandwiches—Muriel knew how to find her way around a kitchen well enough—and at last Janet was in bed with her boots off and her nightgown on and her short hair still damp from a hot bath. Her gown was respectably hidden by a fancy blue bedjacket Grandma Dupree had crocheted, no doubt with visions of Janet’s cutting a dash in a maternity ward. She put on the prim and proper expression Madoc liked to tease her about and said, “Now I expect you’d like me to make a statement.”

“Ayuh,” said Arthur. That was the constable’s name, Madoc had remembered at last. Good man, Arthur. Maybe they’d name their first son Arthur. He still felt a little woozy himself, but Janet appeared to be in full possession of her faculties, thank God.

“Muriel, I never did find that place with the washstand.”

It was a beginning, anyway. Janet picked up steam once she got going. Madoc was trying to take notes and keep his arm around her at the same time, perhaps so she wouldn’t take a notion to go back for the washstand. He was joggling her sore ribs, so she had to protest.

“For goodness’ sake, Madoc, either let go of me or leave the note taking to Arthur.”

Janet settled the matter for him by taking the pencil out of his hand and hanging on to the other arm so he couldn’t take it away. “Anyhow, I got mixed up somewhere along the line and there I was, out on this long, empty road when I met a truck coming toward me over the top of the hill. I was wondering how on earth we were going to squeeze past each other when all of a sudden the truck tipped over.”

“How do you mean it tipped over, Jenny?” Madoc was still a detective, come what might. “Did it skid and jack-knife?”

“No, it wasn’t that kind of truck, more like what your father would call a pantechnicon. A big box on wheels. It didn’t do anything that I could see, just flopped over on its side in the snow and lay there with its wheels spinning.”

“I’ll be darned!” exclaimed Muriel, who naturally wasn’t about to be excluded from the denouement when she’d been, so to speak, the author of the drama. “Whatever did you do?”

“Stopped the car and sat there like a lump. The truck was all across the road. There was no way to get around it and no place to turn back. Then it came to me I’d better try to do something about getting the driver out.”

“Could you see him, Jenny?” Madoc asked.

“No, I couldn’t. The truck was over on its left side, with the cab half-buried in a drift. He’d have been on the down side. I thought he might have bumped his head and got knocked unconscious or something. Anyway, I got out to have a look, but the truck was so high and I’m so short I couldn’t figure out how to climb up and get the door open. Am I making myself clear?”

“Clear enough. Go on.”

“There was this old barn next to the road a little way back, so I decided to look in there for a ladder or some boards or something I could get up on. I yelled up to the driver so he wouldn’t think I was leaving him stranded, then I backed the car down to the barn and went in over the snowbank.”

“Leaving your keys and pocketbook,” Madoc amplified, “but taking that plastic blanket.”

“That’s right. Actually I started to take my purse, but tossed it back because I figured it would just be in my way. I wanted my hands free to carry the ladder or whatever, and I thought maybe the blanket would come in handy one way or another. I was assuming the man was trapped, you see. It made sense at the time.”

“Of course it did, Jenny. So you got into the barn.”

“Yes, and I did find a ladder. An apology for one, anyway. Only it was iced into the floor, and while I was trying to pull it free, the barn blew in on me.”

“Jenny, what—”

“I’m sorry. I should have said the truck blew up and the explosion knocked the barn down. About half the roof landed smack on top of me.”

“Jenny!”

“Now Madoc, don’t get all hot and bothered. I landed on a heap of moldy straw. That and my heavy clothes saved me from the worst of it. A few bruises here and there, that’s all.”

“A few bruises?” Muriel burst out. “You should see her—”

“You don’t have to draw them a blueprint,” said Janet with an old-fashioned glance at Arthur. “Anyway, there I was, trying to wiggle out from under and wondering if I was going to bring the rest of the barn down on me and there he was, out in the road pinching my car, if you please. If that wasn’t enough to curdle the milk of human kindness, I’d like to know what is. You don’t have to write that down, Arthur.”

“About this explosion, Mrs. Rhys,” said Arthur. “You’re sure it was the truck? I mean, mightn’t the man who took your car have blown up the barn and then gone back with a crane or something to get the truck away? The thing of it is—”

“I know,” Janet interrupted. “You’re going to tell me you didn’t find any wreckage in the road. All you found were the remains of an old red chesterfield and a couple of armchairs.”

“Well, as a matter of fact, yes. What we think was, it must have been a moving van and some of the furniture inside it caught fire so they shoved it out, but the truck itself—”

“Arthur, I stood there for darn near two solid hours watching that truck burn down enough so I could get safely past it to the path into the house. Fool-like, I never thought of trying whether the crust would bear my weight. I was too scared about what might happen to me if it didn’t.”

Madoc’s arm tightened around her till she squeaked. “I’m sorry, Jenny. Darling, what happened to the burned truck?”

“They came and took it away. With a wrecker, I think.”

“Who did?”

“The men who set fire to the house and barn. I never did get to see them, but I heard them talking. I’d built a fire in the parlor stove to keep from freezing, and fallen asleep. When I woke up, I decided I’d better go back to the woodshed for some more firewood, and luckily I was still out there when they came into the kitchen. They had a bottle of brandy they were drinking. I’d taken a little nip of it myself earlier on. What happened was this.”

Janet told them every bit she could remember, except what she’d really been doing in the woodshed and what they’d said about having fun with her. She was not about to let anything of that sort sneak into Arthur’s notes. The wife of a detective inspector ought to be
sans peur et sans reproche,
and what Janet hadn’t learned about
reproche
growing up in Pitcherville wasn’t worth writing home about. Maybe things were different in Fredericton, but she didn’t intend to find out the hard way.

They let her talk almost without interruption until Arthur had got it all down in his notebook. Then everybody had another cup of tea and a piece of the cake Muriel’s husband Jock had brought over as an excuse to get in on the excitement, naturally enough. Then Arthur said he’d better clear out and let Mrs. Rhys get some sleep. Muriel and Jock took the hint, though they’d obviously have preferred to stay and hash over the details.

Madoc started taking off his clothes, putting his shirt, socks, and underwear in the hamper, leaving his shoes where he could jump into them, not taking the stuff out of his trousers pockets because a man in his position never knew when he’d have to get dressed again in a hurry. Janet had spruced him up a good deal, but he still bagged about the breeches. All the Rhys men bagged, Janet had learned on her honeymoon visit to the ancestral sheep farm. Sir Caradoc bagged the most, of course, because he’d worn his trousers longest. Madoc’s brother Dafydd bagged the least because if half the rumors were true, and she could well believe they were, he never kept his on for long at any given time.

“I suppose you’d like to go straight off to sleep,” Madoc said in his gentle, wistful way as he reached for his bathrobe.

Janet was still propped up against the pillows, wearing her fluffy bed jacket. “Go take your shower and let me think about it,” she answered. By the time he got back, she’d taken off the jacket and hidden his pajamas.

“S
LEEPY NOW, LOVE?”

Madoc had been very gentle with his wife. Janet’s bruises were every bit as spectacular as Muriel had intimated. As far as his extensive researches could show, however, nothing was broken. He still thought she ought to have X rays in the morning. Janet didn’t.

“I’m all right. Truly, Madoc. It’s just so good to be home.”

She tried to burrow closer to him, but that was hardly possible, so she stayed where she was. “No, I’m not sleepy. I suppose I’m still keyed up. You know, those hijackers or whatever they were must have been awfully well organized in some ways. Putting out detour signs to keep other cars off the road till they could clear away the wreckage took some doing, wouldn’t you say? Those were great big hunks of metal. I don’t see how they could have managed it all by themselves.”

“I expect they’d brought acetylene torches to cut the wreckage into manageable pieces. One of them was probably driving a dump truck to cart the junk away in, and the other a tow truck to hoist it aboard. It’s a wonder you didn’t see them.”

“If I had, I’d probably have charged out and got carted away with the rest of the wreckage.” Janet could say it matter-of-factly now that the risk was over. “It must have been that awful brandy I drank that put me to sleep and saved my life. I do remember having a weird dream about dinosaurs prowling around outside. I suppose that was the noise they were making.”

After an interlude for comforting, Janet went on. “You know, Madoc, the scariest part of it all was watching that truck tip over. I’d swear it didn’t skid or anything; it simply flopped. Like a toy rabbit I had when I was little that was supposed to sit up, but its bum wasn’t padded right. I’d get Bun all settled and then over he’d go. You know, I think the truck must have been top-heavy to begin with, like that old bull box Perce Bergeron’s got sitting by his barn back home in Pitcherville. His father built it to haul his stud bull around to service the cows on the different farms. He heightened the box in case they happened to be in the mood for privacy. Some cows are awfully prudish, you know.”

Janet managed to smile despite her battered face. “And I think they’d aggravated the situation by loading it too high inside. You know how that bamboo coatrack of Maman Dupree’s falls over if you pile too many coats on the same side? I’ll bet the load shifted coming up the rise and when the truck got to the top of the hill where a big gust of wind hit it, that was enough to finish the job. Does that make sense to you?”

“All the sense in the world, Jenny. I’ve been thinking pretty much the same thing myself. No doubt it’s also occurred to you why they went to such lengths to get rid of all the wreckage.”

“Because they had something in the truck they didn’t dare let anybody find out about. What do you suppose it was?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, love. Any ideas?”

“Well, of course livestock came into my mind on account of Perce Bergeron, or maybe that was the brandy. I remember something about giraffes. But that couldn’t be it, Madoc. Anything alive would have made plenty of noise when the truck went over, and smelled like cooking meat when it burned. And it didn’t burn like that.”

“How did it burn?”

“Hot. Really hot, I mean. Hotter than—hotter than I’d ever have imagined a truck could burn, not that I’d ever seen one afire till then. But I think I must have been lying there in the barn for a while before I came to and got out, and I could still feel the heat like a blast furnace. I had to back off down the road a way, and couldn’t begin to get closer for at least one solid hour. By then, the snow had melted all around and the water was running down the hill in a steady stream. I had to climb up on some of the debris from the barn to get out of the wet. And it kept going for another hour. Wouldn’t you say that was no ordinary fire?”