Give Up the Body (12 page)

“I don’t care,” I said. “Tim wouldn’t do a thing like that. And she wouldn’t either. I don’t care.” I wanted to cry. I felt miserable. I stood there, fighting back tears and reasoning with myself. After all, I was supposed to be an impartial reporter in this case. If I let my emotions take control I would be of little use to anyone: myself, The Press, or Tim Larson.

“Now, Addy,” Jocko said, “they did fight. He admitted it. He knew she was cheating on him.” I waited for him to go on. When he did I was startled, but not stunned as I had been by Mrs. Larson’s statement. Jocko said, “She was cheating on him with Hilton.”

After I had absorbed that one I managed a laugh. “In that case, Jocko, he wouldn’t have killed Delhart. He would have killed Hilton. And anyway, Glory wouldn’t be an accomplice.”

“Tim Larson,” he said, “thought Delhart was Hilton. He admitted he killed the wrong man. Glory told him Hilton was bothering her and egged him on. He found out too late that it was she who had been bothering Hilton.”

“Oh, Jocko,” I said, “and you fell for that. You know Tim Larson too well to be such a sucker.”

Jocko shook my arm a little. “Addy, a man in love like Tim was will do most anything. Tim said it was after he did the killing that he fought with her. He even tried to kill her he got so mad. He threw her in the water. That’s why she got so wet.”

“Take it easy, Jocko,” I said. “That doesn’t fit in with her story.”

“Of course not,” he said. He snorted like a horse. “Think she’d implicate herself by telling you?”

“It doesn’t hang together,” I said stubbornly.

“Yes it does. Tim didn’t even know he had killed the wrong man until Hilton called him to go on that search. It makes sense, Addy, and we’ll prove that it does.”

“The confession won’t hold in court,” I said.

“We won’t need it. We’ll get plenty of evidence without it. And enough to put her right alongside Tim.”

I didn’t say anything but I was thinking, “That still doesn’t account for everyone else in this household being scared half to death.” And not only after Delhart’s murder but the day before as well.

I did the only thing I could to save face with Jocko. I walked out on him. I went upstairs, straight to Glory’s room. The deputy at the door refused to let me in. I did everything but kiss him and he only got red and mulish. It was obvious that I lacked charm and technique, maybe both. I went away from there feeling low. I wanted to be in on Glory’s reaction when the confession statement was broken to her.

I heard movement as I drifted past Daisy Willow’s room. On impulse I knocked. There was no guard here, so evidently Tiffin regarded the case as all but closed.

“Yes?” The voice didn’t sound like Daisy.

“It’s Adeline O’Hara,” I said. “Could I see you for a moment?”

The door opened and Mrs. Willow stood there. By daylight she looked rather formidable. She was still short and tubby but she held her ground like an Irish fishwife. She had been pretty once, not many years ago, but it was obvious that she hadn’t bothered to fight her middle-aged spread and had turned dowdy. Her hair was still a nice, rich brown and well cared for. Her makeup was well done. But her dress was atrocious.

“May I come in?”

“We have no statement to make,” she said flatly. She wasn’t being so sweet today. I liked her even less than I had last night. I looked over her shoulder and saw Daisy standing at the vanity in a slip. She looked as if she had been crying.

“I just came to see if Miss Willow is feeling better.” I said. Mrs. Willow filled the doorway and there seemed to be no chance of getting around her. “And,” I added, trying again, “to get your reaction. The feminine viewpoint.” I watched her closely to see if she bluffed easily. “I have to send in a story of one kind of another.”

“At the proper time …” she began.

“Do you want the publicity to be good or bad?” I demanded. I said it more sharply than I intended but I could see Daisy making pleading motions at me, beckoning me in. So I shot my bolt. And it worked. People as precariously and necessarily in the public eye as the Willows were couldn’t afford bad publicity very often.

“Your taste is extremely bad,” Mrs. Willow informed me. Her dark eyes glowered at me and she set her mouth like a trap. But she stood aside. Once, I imagined, she had a pretty cupid’s bow mouth. But I was willing to bet that a bad disposition had made it turn down at the corners like it did. She looked about forty-five.

“Get a robe on,” she told Daisy tartly. She shut the door behind me. Daisy got into a robe all right but not before she had given me a chance to see purplish marks on her shoulders. I could easily imagine Mrs. Edna Willow doing that.

I made myself comfortable in a pinkish boudoir chair and lit a cigaret. Mrs. Willow wasn’t going to change her antagonism and I certainly wouldn’t bother to put myself out to conciliate her. She sat on the edge of the bed, very stiff and defiant. Daisy was at the vanity bench, playing at making up.

“You know the news, I suppose,” I said chattily.

“I was being interrogated when the young man confessed,” Mrs. Willow said.

“Then there’s no point in my asking whose felt hat is missing, is there?”

I couldn’t have asked for nicer reactions. Daisy went white, as if she would try her fainting act again. She held onto the sides of the vanity until her knuckles showed the strain. She said nothing at all.

Mrs. Willow was far less flamboyant about it, but it would have taken a blinder person than I to miss seeing that it got under her skin. And deeply.

She tightened her lips and looked poisonously at me. She held that a moment and then she expelled her breath. “You insolent creature!”

“Well, whose hat was it?”

Mrs. Willow took a moment to get control of herself, and then decided to play the scene differently. “What is this absurd story of a hat?”

“It seemed to upset Miss Willow,” I said, nodding in her direction. Daisy was staring hopelessly at me.

“I don’t know why it should upset her,” Mrs. Willow said. “She is upset over this horrible thing, naturally. It has been a ghastly experience. I tried to calm Arthur. But he is very excitable. Very.”

What this lovely gibberish had to do with a hat, I didn’t know. I said, “You mean it was Arthur Frew’s hat?”

“Stop it!” Those were Daisy Willow’s first words and she shrieked them hysterically. “Stop it—please! It was father’s hat and you know it.”

That was what I had been waiting for. And for Mrs. Willow’s reaction to it as well. But she disappointed me. She even seemed to expand under this statement. “Oh, that hat?” Her voice was a masterpiece of indifference. “Why didn’t you say so, dear?” She asked Daisy. She looked at me and shrugged. “She is so upset. You see, Titus brought an old fishing hat along. Yesterday he misplaced it. He was annoyed.”

“Miss Willow seemed to think the hat is connected with the murder,” I said.

But Mrs. Willow was equal to anything I could hand out. She certainly was taking this back-handed accusation of her husband in stride. She said, almost amiably, “Don’t be a fool, child. Someone borrowed Daddy’s hat. Or he misplaced it. This is another hat—if there is one at all. There are a lot of disreputable hats, you know. Any number of them.”

She was too calm about it. And she was overdoing the scene as well. I sought for a way to puncture her. I wanted to get under her skin again as I had at first mention of the hat. It was one thing I had over Tiffin. As yet he didn’t seem to know about it. And I was going to play it for all it was worth.

“The police will have to take that into consideration, even with Tim’s confession,” I said.

“Even if it is Titus’ hat,” Mrs. Willow said comfortably, “it is ridiculous to connect him with it.”

“Absurdities make good copy,” I told her.

It worked. She came up off the bed as if I had jabbed her in her widest part with a hatpin. “You wouldn’t dare! You wouldn’t dare libel us, young woman!”

“No,” I agreed sweetly. “I’d have proof first.” I knew I had no right to be talking this way, to be throwing accusations and innuendos around so carelessly. But she did irritate me so.

“What do you mean?” she fairly screamed it at me. I had her going now. I pressed my advantage.

“You have to admit,” I said, “it was a rather disconcerting scene for a father to stumble on yesterday—there by the river.”

“You’re a fool, young woman. Mr. Willow understood perfectly. In fact, he was amused.” She was a little calmer now, but she was still shaking.

“Amused at Frew’s misinterpretation?”

Daisy was blushing delicately. Since her outburst she had sat quietly. She seemed oddly retiring today. Mrs. Willow said, “Yes. Yes.”

“But Frew hasn’t seen the humor yet, has he?”

“Arthur is such a child,” Daisy said unexpectedly. And just as unexpectedly she laid her head down on the vanity and began to cry. Her little fist beat on the glass top in rhythm to her sobs. Her mother rose quickly and went to her. She touched her shoulder. I couldn’t see either of their faces, Mrs. Willow’s broad back successfully blocked my view.

“Now, baby …”

Daisy did not move. “Go away,” she sobbed. “Haven’t you done enough? Go away. I don’t want you touching me again—ever.”

“Baby …”

It was a disturbing scene and very embarrassing. I felt as if I had uncovered the poor kid’s innermost thoughts. And that was something I had no right to do. Unless they were connected with this murder. And that hardly seemed plausible right now.

Daisy got up suddenly, knocking over the vanity bench and stepping away from her mother’s touch. What happened next changed my mind about this being unrelated to what had already happened.

Mrs. Willow’s mouth was back in severe lines, whatever expression it might have had when she was trying to comfort the girl. Daisy’s lips were quivering, her eyes red and swollen, and big tears streaked her cheeks.

“I won’t have you running—and ruining my life,” she flung out. “I won’t. I won’t do it!”

Mrs. Willow stepped forward and slapped her. Viciously. She hit so hard the girl stumbled backward and fell to the floor. Her mother stooped and picked her up as if she were nothing. And Daisy must have weighed about a hundred pounds.

Mrs. Willow laid her on the bed. She turned coldly to me. “She has these bouts of hysteria.” Her face was white, drawn around the mouth. She was fighting to control her anger, and the effort was making her shake. “I have to slap her to bring her out of them.”

Hard enough to knock her cold? I didn’t say it. “I think you had better go, Miss O’Hara,” she said.

“Delhart’s death affects her a great deal, doesn’t it?” I commented. “Maybe Frew had a good cause for his—childishness.”

But she was through letting me hit the target with my digs. “Will you go, please?” It was an imperious command. I took it because I knew I would get no more out of her now. And certainly not out of Daisy. The girl was coming out of it; I could see her frail body shaking. I hoped that by going I could save her further embarrassment. Being slapped publicly is hardly pleasant, no matter what the reason.

I left without saying anything more. I closed the door behind me, walked down the hall a short distance and then tiptoed back. The deputy was watching me from Glory’s door. I paid no attention to him. He didn’t move even when I put my ear to the panel of Daisy’s door. He just grinned in a sneering way.

I heard Mrs. Willow move to the door and click the lock. Her weight made the floorboards creak as she crossed the room again. There were voices, low and unintelligible but furious with anger. I heard a distinct slap. A few more followed it. Daisy cried out in a peculiar muffled fashion. I had a picture of Mrs. Willow hitting her with one hand and holding a hand over her mouth with the other. I felt ridiculous. This was hardly the middle ages.

But to make sure, I rapped hard on the panel. Mrs. Willow flung the door open. I said, “Leave that child alone or I’ll call the police.” It was none of my business but my mother confessor complex had taken hold of me.

I hadn’t been sure anything really had been happening. But I was now. I think that if Mrs. Willow had had a gun she would have shot me. I have never seen such fury on a woman’s face.

The impact of Mrs. Willow’s anger was still shaking me as I went downstairs to the kitchen. The door was closed and there was no one in the hall and so I leaned against the wall until I had a little control over my nerves. Then I went into the kitchen.

Mrs. Larson wasn’t around but Jeff Cook was there. He was on the phone, and he winked at me. I sat down and waited for him to finish dictating his story. He was nearly through and I didn’t hear anything new. He hung up at last.

“Rotten stunt,” he remarked.

“Mine or Little Swede’s?” I asked. I sat there listlessly, waiting for him to land on me for the trick I had used to get my lead in the paper.

But Jeff’s grin was friendly. “Did you pull something too, O’Hara?”

If he didn’t know I certainly wasn’t going to tell him yet. “Where is everybody?” I dodged.

“Out getting evidence,” Jeff said. “Hilton is helping them and the Willow-Frew combine is in mourning at the living room bar.” He perched on the edge of the workbench and began stuffing his pipe. “It’s washed up, O’Hara. The gendarmes are packing. Most of our compatriots are heading back to town. They’ll cover from the county seat. It’s miles closer to Portland anyway.”

“Is Tiffin really calling it closed?”

“He is.” Jeff lit the pipe. It had a nice smell, strong of tobacco and without any fancy perfumery to it. “He’s taking Tim Larson with him.” Jeff grinned wryly. “So all our suspects will stay here until inquest time. But there will be a guard on Miss Martin.”

“Tiffin is a darned fool,” I said angrily. “Tim Larson no more killed Delhart than I did. I’ve known him all my life and he’s a swell guy.” Just the thought of it made me want to bawl. “I don’t care how mad he got at anyone. Tim’s pure Scandinavian when it comes to a temper. It always did take him a month to work up a gripe at anyone. Tiffin’s crazy!”

Jeff Cook looked surprised and then he surprised me. Instead of kidding me about my defense of Tim he nodded solemnly. “I agree. That’s why I’m hanging around. Tiffin has no case—but there is one here someplace. Want to help me find the answers, O’Hara?”