Give Up the Body (23 page)

He gave me two blank envelopes. I found the bathroom easily enough, but it was occupied!

I
KNEW IT WAS
the right bathroom because the room in which I stood was obviously male—Willow’s. Even if I hadn’t flashed my light around quickly there was that indefinable odor of masculine occupant. And the room was without frills.

I stood very still with one hand on the doorknob and the other gripping my flashlight club fashion. The door was locked on the inside; if I needed further proof that someone was there, I could hear slight rustlings like mice in a trunkful of taffeta.

I couldn’t think of what to do so I knocked on the door. “Next,” I said in an off-key voice.

Whoever was inside let out a gusty breath. I knocked again and I heard a frantic scrambling sound and the noise of a window being thrown up.

“Jeff!” I bawled. He came fast enough. “They’re getting away,” I wailed. “In there.”

Jeff tried the knob and then he relaxed. I could almost feel his grin. “I cased this joint,” he said. “It’s a slippery slate roof above and a straight drop down. No one’s getting away.”

“Come on out,” he called invitingly. For all the silence we maintained now we might as well have got on the phone and called the police over.

Someone walked to the door and then hesitated. “We’ve got you covered,” Jeff said, shifting his flashlight. The person inside made a familiar whimpering sound. I said:

“Come on out, Glory.”

She opened the door. I was right. It was Glory and she was drunk again. In the light of Jeff’s flash her face showed all twisted. She was on the verge of a crying jag.

“Why didn’t you say it was you?” she demanded.

I took her arm and led her to the bed. She sat down. Jeff snapped on the bathroom light and I could see her quite plainly. She was going to be a mess. Through the bathroom door I noticed an empty bottle, a fifth, I thought, and a pair of shoes and one bobby sock. The rest of my clothing she still had on; it looked a little crumpled.

Jeff went into the bath and rummaged around. He brought the shoes and the sock and the empty bottle and gave them to me for the two envelopes. Glory sat and snuffled exasperatingly. I put the sock and the two shoes on her.

Jeff finished his work and came out, shaking his head. “She’s stinko,” he said. “There’s another door connecting the bath and she didn’t even try to get out that way. Ready, O’Hara?”

“Are we through?”

“We’ve made enough noise for one night,” he said. “All I could find was his bank balance. I copied entries.”

“Did you expect him to leave a transcript for you?”

“Sure,” Jeff said. He touched my arm. “This time dear Glory doesn’t get away from us.”

“And I get a story,” I said. Jeff made a final check to see that nothing looked too disturbed. Glory was being amazingly docile. It worried me. But she walked quietly with us and sat quietly in the car and went without protest to my room in the hotel. Fortunately the lobby was deserted so there was no one there to ask us questions.

Daylight was coming along nicely by the time we were settled. Glory looked worse than either of us, and we were both hollow-eyed for sleep. I was hungry besides. And I was a little peeved. My slack suit looked very well on Glory but she had managed to put liquor stains on the blouse and jacket.

“Now,” Jeff said, “how about a drink?” He took the empty fifth I still had and dropped it in my wastebasket. “Adds to your reputation, O’Hara,” he said. He smiled brightly at me.

Glory said her first words since we had taken her from the bathroom. “Yes,” she said. “A drink.” Her slowly running tears dried up amazingly.

Jeff went across the hall and came back with his bottle. Glory had a good big shot, not bothering with a glass. “Thanks,” she said. “I was scared stiff.” She hiccoughed and patted her lips and giggled. She never slurred her speech when she was drunk but she had a way of prolonging her words so that her “I was scared stiff,” came out like, “I wa-as sca-ared sti-iff.”

“Of what?” I asked.

“Thought it was Titwillow himself. Chubby old Titus come home.” She giggled again. “Another minute and I would have been in the bathtub. Shocked Titus. Never would have got away.”

“You didn’t anyway,” I told her. “What were you doing there?”

She put a finger to her lips. “Sh-h. Secret.”

“Tell for a drink?” Jeff asked craftily.

“Ye-es.” He gave her the drink. She smiled slyly. “I went in there to take a bath.”

I turned to Jeff. He looked so completely disgusted with himself I had to swallow hard to keep from laughing. He didn’t know much about women, that was obvious. Glory would have done that trick, drunk or sober.

“I’ll get some coffee,” he said wearily. “There’s a Night Owl around the corner.”

While he was gone I turned persuasively and managed to work a little information out of Glory. I started by suggesting that she owed me something for the use of the slack suit. She had herself peeled to my own fancy underthings before I could stop her. I was glad I had not started this with Jeff around.

I got her back into the slack suit without too much trouble and reminded her that she had also borrowed Nellie.

“Give you my station wagon,” she said handsomely.

“It’s wrecked,” I objected.

She thought this over. “Nellie isn’t much of a car.”

“She runs,” I said. I didn’t confuse the issue by doing battle over Nellie’s merits, but I had to restrain myself to keep from doing it.

Glory thought a little while longer and decided she owed me something. So I got a little information. She had passed most of the day in the woods, going to the ranch and into Larson’s house in the afternoon. It amused me to think that she had slipped in under the noses of Tiffin and his men. And it amused me a lot more when I heard she had ridden to the county seat on the floor of Larson’s station wagon and had taken a bus to Portland from there. Wouldn’t Tiffin howl at that!

I got quite a reaction when I mentioned her talk with Hilton. “It’s a dirty lie,” she said stridently. “Don’t believe him. Pansy-puss is a liar. I didn’t say it.”

“Didn’t say what?”

“What he said I said,” she answered slyly.

“Then what did you really say?”

Glory hiccoughed gently. “All I said was he’d do it again. And he would.”

“Sure,” I said. “He would. Do what again?”

“What he did before.” Glory closed her eyes and leaned back. I was so mad I felt like slapping her. Evidently I didn’t know much more about women than Jeff.

He came in then, carrying a quart milk bottle filled with coffee.

“Pour it over her head,” I said disgustedly. “I’m tired.”

He looked at his watch. “Five o’clock,” he said. “You take my room and nap for two hours.”

“And let you swipe my story?”

“Swear I won’t.”

“Not only that,” I said pointedly.

“Swear I won’t,” he said. I was so tired I left the field to him and staggered across the hall. I kicked off my shoes and fell on the bed and that was all.

Seven o’clock came around too quickly, but enough cold water on my face brought me around. Jeff finished waking me and then went back to my room. After a quick job with make-up and a quicker one with my hair I joined him.

He looked terrible. He had his coat off and his shirt open at the throat and his collar was all wilted. He had taken his typewriter from his room and put it on a little table. He had a goodly pile of notes. His face was weary, his hair all rumpled, and there was the start of a beard of his chin. But Glory looked worse.

She looked like a hangover without even the benefits of sleep. She showed her age and more this morning, and without fresh make-up she had a hard haggardness about her. She sat sullenly on the bed, glaring at Jeff.

I lit a cigaret and leaned against the door and watched the process. Jeff said in a weary tone, “Now just what have you got on Hilton, Glory?”

“That’s my business.” But there was no snap to it. She closed her eyes and looked as if she were asleep. Jeff got up, grinning apologetically at me. He went to the washbowl and came back with a wet towel. He rubbed it vigorously over her face. She came up cursing and sputtering.

“Want me to call the cops?” he asked. He looked at me. “Been going on and on. I’ve got most of the answers but not that one. Come on, Glory,” he urged.

“Go to hell.”

“No talkie, no sleepie,” Jeff said.

“Ask Hilton.”

Jeff sighed. “O’Hara, order up breakfast. For two, huh? Phone number is on the wall in my room. Place called the Night Owl.”

“What about Glory?” “Glory won’t play.”

I left and made the call. I ordered everything I could think of and the mere thought of it made my salivary glands start working. It was tough on Glory, I thought. I wondered what a real third degree was like. I didn’t care much for Jeff’s sample.

By the time I had finished my call, he came in. He shut the door and peeled off his shirt. He went into the bathroom and did things about shaving. I stood in the doorway and watched him, fascinated by the sound of the razor cutting his whiskers.

“Was all that necessary?”

“She’s scared of the cops,” he said. He pulled the skin of his face taut and made a stroke with the razor. Then he went on, “And she’s holding out plenty. The answers will help a lot.” He put some more lather on his face. “I got enough so she was of some use. She blows Tim Larson’s confession all to pieces. But she’s still holding back.”

“She’s sleeping now?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “I told her I’d call the clerk and pay for the room and she can sleep all day and all night if she wants to. I advised her to grab a bus to your place when she wakes up.” He turned and smiled sourly at me through the lather. “Soft hearted Jeff,” he said. “I got to thinking how sleepy I was and I couldn’t do the job. I’d make a hell of a cop.”

“If doing that is being a cop,” I said, “I’d rather have you be a good husband.”

“Swear I will,” Jeff said. He went back to his shaving.

By the time a boy came up with breakfast, Jeff was through and into a clean shirt. He looked a good deal better. He paid the boy and tipped him and shooed him out.

“We have two hours until the inquest,” he said. “So let’s relax.”

“Jeff—will Tiffin arrest me?”

Jeff grinned and drank his orange juice. “I suppose so. Or try to. He’s only got Frew’s word. And I might get Frew to change his mind.”

“Maybe I’d better join Glory in hiding.”

“It’s a lousy career,” Jeff said. “Now, here’s what I got from her.” He pulled his notes from his pocket and handed them to me. We were eating on his little typing table and it was so small I had to push back my chair so I could read without dabbling the notes in my food.

I read and ate at the same time. He had been taking down her speech verbatim so there was a mass of irrelevant material. But sifted down they gave us a fairish picture of Glory’s movements of the night of the murder:

Not wanting to eat with the Willows and Delhart and feeling slightly let down from the afternoon of drinking, she had an early dinner with Tim Larson and then they went for a walk. They did quarrel. Tim accused her of letting Hilton think he had a chance with her. She made it plain she had to look out for her future. He got sore and walked off. She waited a while and then followed him. But while she was hunting him Delhart came up to her. He was angry and in a bad mood. He gave her hell about Tim and threatened to kill Tim.

At this point Jeff asked her why Delhart was so violent if he were interested in Daisy.

“He wanted to eat his cake and have it too,” was Glory’s answer.

She went on to describe how Delhart worked himself into a lather and she ran off. He came after her. She saw Tim ahead of her, going toward the dam (they were on the far side of the pond.) She ran and caught up with him. She made him run too and they hid in the trees. She wasn’t afraid for Tim but of him. She knew that if Delhart provoked Tim he might easily fight. And he was so big he could kill Delhart without meaning to.

This running episode must have been what Frew had seen. When Glory and Tim got into the forest it was darkish and even though Delhart followed they soon lost him. She talked to Tim and finally got him to calm down. He promised he would go back to the house and he left her.

Glory waited a few moments and went back to the footpath. It was darker now and she didn’t like staying in the woods.

There was a gap in Jeff’s notes here, and a question mark.

“This is where you think she starts holding back?” I asked.

Jeff nodded, looking at the notes I held toward him. “She talked right along up to there—once I had her started—and then she dried up. It took me fifteen minutes to get her going again. My guess is that she was trying to smooth her story together so the gap wouldn’t show.

“Hilton?”

“No,” Jeff said. “Willow. I tried to break her down and suggested a few names. When I came to Willow she cursed me from top to bottom.” He grinned suddenly. “Hilton doesn’t seem to be worth cursing.” He looked at his watch. “Time to roll, O’Hara. Inquest at ten.”

I could see Tiffin waiting for me. It wasn’t a pleasant picture.

I
WENT INTO MY ROOM
and got my bag. Glory was sprawled on the bed, sound asleep. I hated to see my slack suit get so wrinkled so I took it off her and draped it over a chair and rolled her under the covers. She hardly stirred. I left, wondering where she would turn up next.

On the way to the inquest Jeff stopped at the laboratory and left the samples of hair and powder he had gathered at Willow’s. Then we rolled out of town, going southeast out Powell Boulevard.

I left the driving to Jeff (we were using Jud’s car) and concentrated on the remainder of Glory’s story. When she picked it up again after stopping, she was getting ready to find the body. And even in the third-hand way I got it, it was grisly.

It was obviously after nine o’clock when she resumed her narrative. Jeff’s notes made no mention of the time and she evidently thought it perfectly plausible that he would accept her wandering in the dark from shortly after Tim’s departure until she happened by the dam.