Give Up the Body (22 page)

“Here’s the Willow and Delhart dope, O’Hara,” he said.

“Jeff …”

“Now what did you get today?” “Jeff …”

“Any news of Glory? Here’s my dope on it. Delhart is—was her guardian. She’s over age now, of course. Her folks were old friends of his. Helped him get his start, in fact.” The words tumbled out of him. “She has a small income of her own, but he paid most of the bills. Her parents drank themselves to death. A car wreck helped.”

He took a fresh breath. “She’s been married twice, though. Annulled both times. While she was in school. She got kicked out of college for excessive drinking.”

“Jeff …”

“Those guys in there are crazy,” Jeff said. He was bending over my chair, poking a lean finger at the clippings. “It’s a rib. You know a … well, a rib.”

I pushed back my chair and stood up, facing him. He was sweating a little, though it wasn’t hot in there. He looked like a small boy caught with jam on his face.

“Was it a rib?”

“Ah-h, well, I might have said something, O’Hara. Just an idle thought or two.”

“Not to me you didn’t say it.” I tapped my foot and waited, staring him down.

“Didn’t I?” Jeff clucked his surprise. “Consider it said, O’Hara.”

And what followed was probably the finest kiss ever registered in that room. And then I sat down and got ready to work.

“Not a rib at all,” Jeff murmured. “It’s your cooking, of course.” He scooted his chair over.

“We work now,” I said frigidly. I elbowed him away from me. “Let’s see your notes.”

We did work too. We shuffled Jeff’s notes and added my data to them and then condensed the whole into a workable outline. At midnight Jeff led me to a typewriter to make a legible copy and he went off to a booth to do some phoning.

I was through when he returned. “Put on an addendum,” he said. “Daisy is doing well but she won’t talk. Mama is camped with her. Every time Daisy comes around and sees Mama she has hysterics. They finally double-dosed her with sleeping pills (since they can’t pry Mama loose) and all is quiet at the county jail.”

“Tiffin didn’t tell you all that.”

“No, your friend Jocko.”

Jeff was grinning oddly at me. “What else?” I demanded.

“Willow and Hilton and the Larsons have all been rounded up and put in a hotel at the county seat to be handy for the inquest.” He kept on grinning. “Oh yes, they found Nellie. She’s unhurt and parked in your garage. Courtesy of Jocko. She was on an old logging road by the river. No sign of Glory yet.”

“What else?” I repeated. I knew by that grin that he was holding back and not even the news of Nellie’s recovery could stop making me worry until I knew.

“Friend Frew has been running around trying to get a writ for Daisy’s release,” Jeff said. “And he got so excited he tried to make a trade with Tiffin.”

I closed my eyes and prayed. But it was no use. Jeff’s voice said, “So Tiffin knows who threw the chopper into the pond.”

“I
S
T
IFFIN GOING
to arrest me?” I demanded.

We were in Jeff’s room at the hotel. It was a cozy place and he had fixed it semi-permanently. There was an easy chair and a typing table and a filled bookcase crowded in with hotel furniture. I sat in the easy chair while Jeff sprawled on the bed and worked over our notes.

“Arrest you?” He grinned maddeningly. “Probably—after the inquest.”

“You’ll bail me out. Won’t you, darling?”

“No,” Jeff said. “You’ll be safer in jail, O’Hara. Not only will I keep an exclusive right to your cooking but …” He broke off and stopped grinning. He looked grimly serious now. He punched his finger on the notes. “You’ve talked too damned much to Hilton.”

A shiver ran over me. It was ridiculous, here in this room far away from everything that had happened. I looked at Jeff. He was nice and solid and safe looking. But just the tone of his voice brought back to me the strangling dark woods, the horrible splotches of blood that had marked Delhart’s trail, and that so-strong feeling of tension that had hung over everything at the ranch.

“What has Hilton got to do with my safety?” I said. I forced myself to lightness.

“You guessed too well,” Jeff said. He sat up, his tousled red hair glinting from the overhead lights. He gave me a friendly grin. “And I’m going to see you stick close, O’Hara.” Despite the grin his words were forceful. He meant what he said. And it comforted me. He looked strong, and he looked capable. But I wouldn’t have let him know it for anything.

I stuck my tongue out at him.

He said, “Here’s what I’ve put together. And the police will have it as soon as they stop trying to pin everything on Little Swede.” He waved the sheaf of notes at me. “Willow has done exactly as you said—appropriated funds.”

“There’s no definite proof,” I said. I was remembering how violent Hilton looked in his anger.

“Place your bets,” Jeff said. “I’ll bet that Willow and Hilton together took Delhart for a buggy ride. Look, O’Hara, the files are full of stories on how Delhart gave so much to this charity and so much to that one. His secretary, Potter Hilton, announced such and such a donation.

“Delhart had half a dozen businesses, lumber, mines, shipping—one man can’t attend to everything. Charity was one of Hilton’s jobs. That’s partly why he was a highly paid private secretary. Do you know he makes more a year than we’ll ever see working for a newspaper? His job was to show Delhart as a benevolent pal of the people, and not as a ruler of empire. That isn’t fashionable any more. Nowadays your financial giant must have that common touch.”

“If we’re going into a discussion of capitalistic philosophy,” I said, “then I’m going to bed.”

“I was just explaining why Hilton would have control of much of Delhart’s charity donation business, just as he would pay the household bills.”

“And that gave him and Willow the chance to milk Delhart?”

“You don’t milk a man that shrewd,” Jeff said. “No, here’s the way that would go. Delhart donates a certain amount of money to charity. As administrator of the funds, Willow takes out the necessary expenses. But he submits a detailed report to Hilton. Willow is audited in a sense. He can’t take more than his just share except with Hilton’s help. Then they can pad the accounts, and Hilton okays when he audits. They split the extra.

“Over a period,” he went on happily, “that adds up.”

I sat up straighter. “But Delhart got wind of it. How?”

“Business item in Delhart’s files,” Jeff said. “Rogers and Brown, Certified Public Accountants, have been detailed to audit Mr. Carson Delhart’s personal accounts. He’d been bleating about his income tax and wanted some more loopholes. The audit, by the by, has yet to take place.”

“Jeff,” I groaned, “if there hasn’t been an audit, why suppose that Delhart accused Willow and Hilton of fraud?”

“No supposition,” Jeff said. “Fact. Willow and Hilton were jittery. They schemed together. Glory was getting wind of it but didn’t know for certain what it was. She was putting pressure on Hilton, we know that. Or maybe Delhart didn’t know at the time he was killed. But he was bound to find out as soon as the audit was made—if he had lived. Right?”

“I suppose so,” I said. The word “audit” was enough to frighten me off. This was all Jeff’s show.

“All right, O’Hara.” Jeff got off the bed gracelessly. He was all long limbs and joints. He picked a bottle from the top of his dresser and poured out two small drinks. He added soda and handed one to me. “To crime—without it you and I would never have met.”

“How lucky I am,” I murmured.

Jeff went back to the bed, holding his glass. He ruffled his hair some more as if agitating it would help him think. “Now,” he said, “you swipe some funds. You’re going to be caught. You see it coming so what do you do?”

“I’ve never seen over fifty dollars at one time in my life,” I said, “But assuming all this, I’ll swipe some more and run like hell.” I looked brightly at Jeff. “Yes?”

“No,” Jeff said. “You’d swipe some more to replace the first missing funds.”

“You mean,” I interpreted, “that Willow and Hilton planned to dip into the coming donation to charity and fix the books with their cut?”

“Exactly. Auditors don’t usually check amounts to date but to the end of the last fiscal period. Now I’ve noticed one thing,” Jeff said with a touch of smugness. “Delhart made all of his charity donations that last two weeks in December. By then he had a fair idea of how much he would have to donate to charity to throw himself into a lower income tax bracket and save himself some money.”

“So,” he went on, “if Willow and Hilton could have got Delhart to make his donation now—in June rather than next December—they would have been able to cover their shortages through last December and fool the auditors. Simple, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said wearily.

“I got wind of it,” Jeff rambled on, “because Delhart’s file had a semi-social clipping that Willow was entertained at the Teneskium ranch partly for discussing a proposed donation of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. One quarter of a million skins, O’Hara!”

“That much money is as incomprehensible to me as a light year,” I said.

Jeff ignored me. “Then I noticed that all previous donations were made in December. Why was this one out of line then?”

“So with that and little Glory’s questions you put this hocus-pocus together?”

“It isn’t hocus-pocus,” Jeff said indignantly. “It’s irrefutable logic. What’s more, I’ll prove it to you.”

“How, darling?” In the short time I had known him I had seen Jeff fumble over the complexity of tipping ten percent on a dinner check. I shuddered to think of his auditing someone’s books. Especially on the peek and run system. And Hilton certainly wasn’t going to hand them over to him. “How?” I asked again.

Jeff’s smile was too sweet and guileless to suit me. “By investigating Mr. Willow’s domicile,” he said cheerfully. He’s safely ensconced in the County Seat. We have a wonderful opportunity.”

“We have? I remember your last housebreaking job, Jeff. No, I’ll wait and treat your wounds when you return from the wars.”

“I need you, O’Hara,” Jeff said. He tried to look pathetic. He flopped. “Anyway, the place is deserted. They have a daily maid-service flat. No regular servant. It’s across the river,” he added as if it were an inducement.

“I don’t care if it’s on Mount Hood,” I wriggled in my chair, prepared for a stubborn argument.

Jeff got up, grinned at me, and reached for his hat. “Keep the home fires burning, O’Hara.”

I didn’t come out of my daze until the door was shut behind him. I felt awfully deflated then. He hadn’t argued a bit, really! I jumped up and opened the door and ran into the hall.

“Jeff Cook, you come back here!” He stopped and I ran after him. “You wait until I get my hat and coat,” I said indignantly.

Jeff looked politely and blankly at me. I ran back and got my things and joined him. He was still looking blank. We proceeded in silence to the garage where he had his car. It wasn’t until we crossed the river that he broke down.

“O’Hara,” he said severely, “you need an object lesson.”

“Yes, Jeff,” I said meekly.

He turned his head suspiciously. “Remember, O’Hara, the ceremony will have ‘love, honor, and obey’ in it.”

“Yes, Jeff,” sweetly.

“It’s better to get these little things straight beforehand.”

“Yes, Jeff,” very sweetly.

“O’Hara, are you sick?”

“No, darling, why?”

Jeff drove on, in silence again, but it was obviously a worried one this time. Before long he slowed, scanning house numbers. He found what he wanted, drove into dark shadows and waited. He slid around in the seat, studying me.

“Ah, O’Hara, maybe I shouldn’t have left so hastily.”

“No, Jeff,” I said softly.

He gave it up then. I sat back smugly and listened to his plan of action for the evening. Everyone seemed satisfied, at least I was. It was nearing two-thirty and shortly daylight would come in. We wanted to get away before then.

He talked for five minutes and then got out of the car. “All set?”

“I suppose so,” I said. I gripped the flashlight he had given me.

We walked back down the block a short way and stopped before a two-story building. “They have the upstairs,” Jeff explained. “Now go into your act. But give me time to get around back first.”

I stood beneath a sweet-smelling tree and counted to one hundred. I was awfully glad that this was not Tiffin’s territory. What he could do to us made me shudder.

Feeling none too happy, I went into the act Jeff had outlined for me. I walked boldly, staggering a little, to the porch of the building. I flashed my light waveringly on the cards by the door. The center door was the one of the three that I wanted. There was no bell, so I opened the door and walked loudly up the stairs. There was a bell at the top and I leaned on it. Then I banged the door. I counted to one hundred again and clattered back to the porch.

There I punched the doorbell of one of the two downstairs flats. It took a few minutes but I got results. The door opened a crack.

“What do you want?” a man’s voice demanded sleepily.

“My pal Daisy,” I said, slurring my voice. “Where’s Daisy?”

“Miss Willow is out of town, young lady.” The voice was rightfully indignant. Portland, despite its size, was notoriously full of home-loving and law-abiding citizens, and this one was no exception.

“Who told you?” I asked. I smiled beautifully and weaved a little. “How’d ya know?”

“Go home or I’ll call the police.”

“Killjoy!” I turned and weaved away. I got back to the shadow of a tree before I relaxed. I felt awfully silly.

A light blinked at me from an upstairs window. I blew a breath of relief and went around to the back of the building and up the service stairs. I moved quietly now, tiptoeing until I reached the thick rug of the living-room floor. Jeff was crouched over a secretary, picking the lock.

“How was it?” I asked in a hoarse whisper.

“Perfectly natural,” Jeff assured me. “You made enough noise so I could have chopped the back door out had I wanted to.” He picked industriously. “Ah, here it comes. O’Hara, go into the bathroom and try to find samples of Titus Willow’s hair and bath or shaving powder.”