Give Up the Body (6 page)

“He didn’t go up hill,” he said. His voice was flat and empty, as if he were too tired or too shocked to express any emotion. He called, “Mr. Willow, could you get the Larsons down this way?”

We could hear Willow going back up the gravelled pathway and shortly he called to Big Swede and Tim. We were both standing motionless, looking at the spots of blood on the stones.

I said, “They just quit here, don’t they?” Hilton was silent, and I added, “Maybe he—he floundered across the creek here. If we went to the other side …” I stopped, shivering. My imagination was too vivid. I could picture Delhart, bleeding, and floundering horribly, unable to walk. And I remembered Glory’s awful phrase, “Sprawled all crazy like he didn’t have any bones.”

Hilton’s precise, flat voice brought me closer to normal. “Possibly,” he said. He flashed his light on the stagnant, scum-covered water of the little creek. He started across the slippery, treacherous rocks and I followed him. It was a nasty business in high heels but I wasn’t going to let him get very far away from me.

We stopped when we reached the thicket of brush on the other side. I flashed my light downward. There was nothing. We both took a few steps toward the river and then we found blood again. There was a ghastly, dark puddle in a hollow of the rocks.

“He stopped to rest,” Hilton said.

I said, “But how could he have hurt himself like that?”

It was a foolish thing to say; I knew the answer as well as Hilton. He said, “I don’t know. I didn’t think of it that way.”

We went on toward the river. There were drops of blood all along. More scattered now, and fewer. At the river the creek made a three-foot drop. We stood on the bank, looking at the white water running by, listening to the river sounds. They weren’t pleasant now. The river wasn’t singing as it usually sang to me. Instead I heard a soft, sibilant funeral song.

“We’d better go and get help,” Hilton said.

There was nothing more we could do now. He had obviously fallen into the water. And from there—where?

“We can call the sheriff’s office and have them watch downstream,” I said. I tried to bring a note of hope into my voice. “The water may have revived him so he swam across.”

I didn’t say it but I knew the Teneskium too well to believe anyone but a fairly strong and healthy person could swim across it here. There were too many potholes, cold and deep, to make fine traps for a body.

We retraced our steps and finally crawled, panting, to the path again. Willow and Big Swede and Tim were standing there.

Big Swede was still a handsome man, big and blond and usually grinning. But now he was sober, looking worried and anxious. Tim, who was a younger replica of his father, was nervous. In the light of Willow’s electric lantern he looked anything but the usually phlegmatic man I knew. He was pacing up and down. When he saw me he said without surprise, “Hello, Adeline, did you …”

Hilton answered for me. “No,” he said. “He went into the river.”

“I don’t understand how …” Big Swede began. He choked off his words and bent a little toward Hilton. “We better look then. There’s lots of snags in the river, Mr. Hilton.”

Hilton nodded at him. He took charge quickly. He said, “Mr. Willow, if you’ll escort Miss O’Hara back to the house and then call the sheriff’s office for us. Tell them to watch downstream for—for a body.”

“I can go alone,” I said quickly. “Mr. Willow can help you.” I handed him my flashlight and took his lantern. “I’ll do the calling.”

Hilton said, “All right.” He looked around. “Where is Frew?”

“He went back to the house,” Willow said. He didn’t look too happy at the prospect I had dumped on him but there wasn’t much he could do but tag along.

“I’ll send him back, too,” I said.

“He can stay and direct the sheriff’s men,” Hilton said. “They’ll send somebody out here.”

They moved toward the creek bank and I started to the house. Tim Larson turned around and came beside me. “Adeline,” he said. “You stay at the house. We can find him.”

I almost smiled. Tim knew me too well to expect me to sit back docilely. “This is my story,” I said. “Besides, maybe I can help some more.”

Tim took my arm savagely. He was no longer kidding like I had known him to be. He shook me a little. “It’s dangerous, Adeline.”

“What’s dangerous, Tim?”

He was glaring down at me. He looked strange, half angry and half frightened. I said, “Tim?” questioningly.

“Stay at the house,” he said roughly, and turned away. I could hear him crashing through the brush, following the others. I stood still, trying to understand this change in him. And then I realized I was alone, with only the dark, brooding trees around me. Terror reached for me and I ran.

My heels wobbled and once my ankle turned half way on the rough gravel. But I kept on running, holding my dress higher so I could go faster. I reached the warm, yellow light that spilled from the French doors of the living room onto the little garden that faced them. Gasping, I jerked the doors open and tumbled inside.

Frew was there, nursing a drink again, standing by the bar. Daisy was sitting in a big chair, looking dull and hopeless. She raised her head when I came in.

I answered the unspoken question in her eyes. “They’re hunting down the river,” I said. I gave Frew quick instructions to wait and, if necessary, guide the sheriff’s men down to the dam. I stumbled across the living room. Glory lay asleep, her mouth slack, on the couch. Mrs. Willow was not around.

I went into the den across the hall and half fell into a desk chair. I took up the phone and put a call through to the sheriff’s office at the county seat.

It was late enough so that all the officials should have gone home. But I got hold of one man I did not want to talk to. It was Godfrey Tiffin, the Assistant County Prosecuting Attorney. We despised each other, and it was my luck to have him answer the telephone. I nearly hung up when I heard him announce with his usual oratory, “Teneskium County Sheriff’s Office.”

I realized that this was too important to let my feelings push in. I said, “This is Adeline O’Hara. I’m calling from Carson Delhart’s residence in Teneskium. Mr. Delhart has been badly injured. We want you to station men downstream right away.”

“Downstream? Adeline, is this a joke?”

I was trying to be businesslike. So much so I realized that I had left out the necessary details. “He fell into the river,” I said. “He was bleeding badly. It’s no joke, Godfrey.” That was Tiffin’s way, to look on everything and anything with suspicion. Especially if I was connected with it.

He said briskly, “Give me the details.”

Details, now! “Post someone downstream,” I said, “and send some men out here to help us.” I slammed down the phone. Godfrey Tiffin and his officiousness! And he wasn’t even connected with the sheriff’s office.

I jumped up and ran down the hall toward the front door. Frew was standing in the entrance to the living room, looking curiously at me. I went right by, ignoring him. I was in too much of a hurry to do any explaining to him.

There was a hall closet near the front door and I opened it and peered hopefully inside. I found an old leather jacket and a battered man’s felt hat that smelled of old fishing flies. Nothing else in the welter of raincoats, mackinaws, and moth-eaten topcoats was of any use to me. I tucked the hat and jacket under my arm and half ran back to the study. Frew had disappeared from the doorway.

I remembered I had a job and so I sat by the telephone and asked to be connected with the Portland Press. Carson Delhart was big news in Portland. And this would be the biggest story of all about him. I poured out my story to a rewrite man, not forgetting the details this time, and then asked to be connected with the night editor, whom I knew slightly.

“I’m going to follow the search,” I panted at him.

“Good girl. Looks big, huh?”

In repeating my story I had crystallized the suspicions that neither Hilton nor I had mentioned by direct word down there in the creek bed. I don’t know why I gave them to the editor unless it was to justify my excitement. I said, in what I hoped was a matter-of-fact voice, “Looks like murder to me.”

Instantly I knew I had made a mistake. But the damage was done. I heard his thoughtful whistle. Then: “How about my sending a man out to help?”

“I can handle this story,” I said. “I can handle it alone.”

“Sure, O’Hara, sure,” he said, “But if all the papers come clattering down on you, a man will help.”

I couldn’t do anything but agree. He would send a man anyway. I said, “All right,” and hung up. I wanted to bawl. Here I had a chance to show how good I was and I had spoiled it. I was too damned clever with my mouth. I kicked at the desk where the phone sat. I hurt my toe and that made me feel a little better.

A press reporter was the last thing I wanted. Some by-line hunter, I thought. A glory hound. I scooped up the leather jacket and old hat and stalked into the hall and up the stairs to the second floor.

This hallway was panelled in knotty pine too. Soft lights glowing from wall fixtures showed me a series of doors. For a moment I was stumped. I wanted Glory’s room. My idea was to find some old, serviceable clothing to wear while I helped search for Delhart. I could think of no one else whose clothing might fit me.

By concentrating on the outside layout of the house I deduced she would be near the far end of the hall so that the windows of her room would have a better view of the lake. I trotted down that way and opened the end door on the lake side of the house. A strong masculine odor beat out at me from the blackness. I shuddered and closed the door hurriedly. The last thing I wanted was Carson Delhart’s room. I tried the door across the hall. I had it right.

I reached my hand around the door and snapped on the lights. Like the rest of the house they were copper imitation kerosene lamps and were bracketed to the walls.

The room was large and airy with rustic furniture and Indian rugs on the floor. A completely equipped vanity looked incongruous in the surroundings. The bed was low, without a headboard or footboard, and I threw the jacket and hat onto it. I locked the door and tried the inner doors, looking for the closet.

French doors at the end of the room opened onto a little balcony. I knew that it gave Glory a view of the lake. Her windows overlooked the driveway that came in from the county road. There were two doors opposite the end. One was a complete and luxurious looking bath, the other the closet I sought. I began to probe shamelessly.

I couldn’t see why anyone would object to my borrowing a few of her things, considering the circumstances. I was careful, though, to choose the oldest things I could find. I located a pair of flannel slacks that were just a shade tight for my post-WAC figure, a flannel hunting shirt that I could not visualize Glory wearing, and finally heavy ski boots. They were the nearest things to hiking shoes she had to offer me. I took them gratefully.

When I had everything piled on the bed I dared look in the mirror. I was a mess. My legs were scratched, and bleeding in one place. My dress was torn and dirty and bulged grotesquely in the place where I had tucked my stockings. My hair was a hopeless tangle of red yarn.

I took off my clothes and wormed into the slacks and shirt. I found the ski boots a better fit than the clothing. I tucked my hair under the hat, crammed my cigarets into the pocket of the leather jacket and felt ready to go. And then the reaction hit me.

Activity had kept me going up to now. But with everything ready for me to begin my part of the search the enormity of the implications of things struck me. My knees gave way and when I brought my eyes back into focus they were staring at the clock on Glory’s vanity. The time was just twelve midnight.

It seemed incredible that only two and a half hours had passed since Glory had stumbled so wildly into Delhart’s living room. I took a deep breath and shook my head and tried to relax.

It was very still about. Even the normal creaks of a house seemed to have been silenced. I sat a full five minutes in that deadly quiet before I realized I was tense, straining to hear the slightest noise. I got up resolutely. This was only making me worse, not resting me.

I ran downstairs and into the living room. Glory was still sprawled on the couch. Daisy sat in the same chair, only now she was crying raggedly. Frew was not in sight. I wondered if the bar had gone dry on him.

Daisy looked tired and frightened and miserable. I said, “Any news while I was upstairs?” My voice broke in the room like brittle china shattering. I knew there would be no news, or I would have heard someone. But I had to say something.

“No,” Daisy said.

I went up to her, “Where’s Frew?”

She dabbed at her eyes with a soggy scrap of handkerchief. “He got mad at me and went off—down there.”

The army, I thought, would have taught him to follow orders. I forgot about him when Daisy said, “Mother’s gone to bed with a sedative and I’m stuck with that.” She pointed at Glory.

“Has she been awake?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Can’t you get her to bed when she wakes up?” I should have known better than to ask that. Daisy was hardly big enough to handle Glory, even if she had known how.

“She won’t go to bed,” Daisy said. Her lips quivered and I patted her shoulder. She looked like a petulant child. “All she does is cry and drink and keep saying, ‘You killed him,’ to me. It’s perfectly awful!”

I felt sorry for the girl. I had handled enough drunks to know what she had faced. I said, “Let’s take her.”

“She won’t go,” Daisy said.

“Just come with me to the room.” I went over to Glory and slapped her face lightly. She had been asleep again and her mouth hung open. She wasn’t a pretty picture lying like that.

I took her by the shoulders and shook her. Her clothing was still damp. “It’s a wonder if she doesn’t catch cold,” I said. I shook her a little harder. Glory opened her eyes.

She began to cry. “No one thinks of me,” she wailed. “He’s gone and no one thinks of me.”

“Up you go,” I said to her. I put my arms under her and pulled. I got her on her feet. Her legs were rubbery. “Let’s go and have a drink,” I suggested persuasively.