Once a Widow (5 page)

As from a great distance he heard Mr. Sprang’s voice, mumbling, as if talking to himself. “Let’s see, where did I put that pass book…”

The boat was well out from the island now and Mortimer Watson shifted the motor into forward gear. They circled and picked up speed, heading for the open lake. Far ahead the taller buildings of Harbor City were like gray child’s blocks on the misty horizon. Lewis Sprang smoked and gazed back at the little island. “Lucky we could put in there,” he said.

Still George Yundt did not speak. Ten in the morning, he thought. Ten o’clock…

Suddenly he felt the lawyer’s hand clutching his arm. “Look over there!” Sprang cried, pointing at the island. “What’s that—on the beach, right at the edge of the water?”

“What?” George said stupidly.

“It’s a woman!” Sprang cried excitedly. “In a bathing suit. See her?”

George’s gaze followed Sprang’s pointing finger. He saw the figure then, lying face down on the beach between two large rocks, the feet in the water. It’s a woman, he thought dully, in a white two-piece bathing suit. She’s drowned, he thought, dead, washed up by the lake. Ten o’clock tomorrow morning…

Lewis Sprang turned and yelled into the cabin, “Turn her around, Mort! There’s a woman on the beach back there.”

As the boat approached the island slowly, Lewis Sprang, perched in the bow, plumbed the depth of the water with a fishing rod. When they were thirty feet out from the shore he called to Watson, “Easy, Mort. I can feel bottom.”

Watson cut the motor to idling speed and the boat drifted easily in the long, slow swells. Sprang called again. “Do you want an anchor out?”

“Naw, I can hold her here.” Watson peered ahead at the figure on the beach. “How’re we gonna get her aboard?”

Sprang looked at George Yundt. “Think you can get her, son?”

George nodded silently.

“What’s the matter?” Sprang asked curiously. “Don’t you feel well?”

“I—I’m all right.” George nodded toward the figure on the beach. “Do you suppose she’s dead?”

“I’m afraid so,” Sprang said grimly, “but the least we can do is take her to Harbor City.” He touched the young man’s arm. “If you don’t feel up to it, I’ll get her—if Mort can put in closer so I can wade. I don’t swim so well any more.”

“No, no,” George said hastily. He began to remove his sodden slacks and shoes.

“You’ll only have a little way to swim,” Sprang said. “I’ll help you get her aboard.” He peered at George intently, puffing on his cigar. “You sure you’re okay?”

George nodded and slipped over the side, wearing nothing but blue shorts. Three strokes took him to shallow water and he waded to the beach, stepping carefully on the rock-strewn bottom. He reached the woman and knelt beside her. He had seen several drowned persons and knew instantly that this one had not been in the water long at all. She lay with her legs spread, one arm doubled beneath her, the other flung out on the sand. He could not see her face, because it was turned away from him and covered with short, tangled, yellow-brown hair. Her body was slender and smoothly browned, except for a cream-white ribbon above the top of the bathing shorts where they had slipped, exposing untanned skin just above her hips.

It was a beautiful body, George thought vaguely. She must be fairly young, maybe thirty. He saw a blue bruised area on the inner side of one thigh and a thin red scratch across her back on the left side of her waist. She was covered with sand, some dried, some still wet, and it was in her tawny hair. He saw that the fingernails of the one exposed hand were painted red.

He reached out a hand to brush the crusted sand from the woman’s body, and then paused. He had never touched a dead person before. She will be cold, he thought, maybe stiff by now, and a feeling of revulsion went over him. He hesitated, aware that Mr. Sprang and Mr. Watson were watching him from the boat. He touched the woman’s shoulder then. The skin was cool, but not cold, and very smooth. Gently, using both hands, he turned the woman over on her back. She was limp, not stiff at all, probably because she had not been dead very long. He brushed the damp hair away from the still face. The eyes were closed, bronze lashes lowered to tanned cheeks dusted with tiny freckles. Didn’t people die with their eyes open?

The woman’s face was not beautiful, George thought, but the features were regular, with high cheekbones and a full mouth still bearing the residue of lipstick. He noted the tiny wrinkles at the mouth and eyes and realized that she was not as young as he’d first thought, not as young as her body appeared. As his gaze went over her he saw a white scar on her abdomen to the right of her navel. Once more he peered at her face. He knew this woman, he thought with sudden surprise. He had seen her before. Then he remembered; she had attended the swimming classes at the Y and he had talked to her. Because he worked Saturdays at the bank, Wednesday was his week day off, and on Wednesday mornings he usually helped the Y swimming instructor with the class, just for something to do. He didn’t know her name, but she had been pleasant and had really learned to swim quite well. He placed a thumb against the inside of her left wrist, but could feel no pulse, had not expected any. She was dead and he was sorry. And Mr. Sprang was coming to the bank at ten in the morning.…

George had learned how to give artificial respiration at the Y and although he knew it was hopeless he turned the woman on her stomach again and went through the motions. A little water dribbled from her mouth, but that was all. It was no use, she was gone. After a time he stopped, squatted on his heels, braced himself, placed his arms beneath her knees and shoulders and lifted her slowly. When he stood erect, holding her, he was surprised at the lightness of her body. Cautiously he waded into the water and when it was chest-deep he crooked his left arm beneath the woman’s chin and struck out strongly with his right, keeping her face above water, even if she was dead. And all the while he thought of what was going to happen at ten in the morning. What could he do about it?

Lewis Sprang, grunting and still clenching the cigar between his teeth, helped George lift the woman to the deck. “Dead, huh?” he panted. “Drowned?”

“I guess so,” George said as he climbed over the side.

Sprang placed two fingers on the woman’s left wrist, his lean old face grim. “No pulse,” he announced.

“I know,” George said.

Sprang stood erect. “We’d better get her to a doctor, just in case. And we ought to cover her with something.” He turned to Mortimer Watson, who had left the wheel and stood in the cabin hatchway. “You got a blanket or something, Mort?”

Watson shook his head slowly, gazing down at the woman. “I wonder who she is?”

“She’s a stranger to me,” Sprang said, “but there’s lots of summer people around. She could be from Toledo, Detroit, Cleveland, any place.”

George Yundt said, “I’ve seen her before—she took swimming lessons at the Y this summer. But I don’t know her name, or where she lives.”

“We’ll worry about that later,” Sprang said. “Come on, son, let’s carry her inside.”

When they had the woman laid out on the padded bench along the cabin wall, Lewis gazed down at her and shook his head sadly. “Too bad—she’s a right attractive woman. Fairly young, too.”

“She’s married,” Watson said, pointing to a thick gold wedding band on a finger of her left hand.

It was the hand that had been doubled beneath her on the beach and George Yundt had not noticed the ring. He said, “We really should cover her. It—it’s not right to just let her lay there like that.”

Sprang gave him a keen, curious glance. “You’re right, son.”

“There’s an old tarp in the locker,” Watson said, “but it’s pretty dirty.”

“Get it,” Sprang told him.

As they covered the woman with the stiff, soiled canvas, George thought he saw her eyelids flutter. “Wait,” he said excitedly, “she’s still alive!” He leaned close, peering at the woman’s face. Her eyes opened slowly and he stared into their clear gray depths. She gazed at him calmly for just an instant, and then the eyes closed and she sighed, very faintly.

“My God,” Sprang breathed. “You got any whisky aboard, Mort?”

“Sure. Just a second.” Watson moved to a locker.

George held the woman in his arms while Sprang placed the bottle to her lips. But she kept her mouth closed and the whisky spilled over her chin and down her neck, into the soft hollow between her breasts. “She’s too far gone,” Sprang said, dabbing at the woman’s chin with a handkerchief. “We’d better get her to a doctor—quick.”

Mortimer Watson scurried to the wheel. The motor roared as he swung the boat in a wide arc, away from Snake Island, and pointed the bow once more toward Harbor City, far across the lake. George Yundt, naked except for his shorts, held the woman’s head on his knees all the way to the harbor. For some vague and unknown reason he felt an odd tenderness for her. Maybe it was because she’d been so friendly and pleasant when he’d talked to her about her swimming progress during the classes at the Y pool. It had been obvious that she was afraid of the water, even in a pool, but she’d thanked him for his patience with her, and for his instruction. He had been pleased and flattered and had told her his name. She’d given him hers, Mrs. Somebody—he hadn’t caught her name because right at that moment Russ McClory, the physical director, had shouted to a group of teenagers that running along the edge of the pool was forbidden.

George touched the woman’s smooth, cool cheek and almost forgot what he must face in the morning—unless he did something about it before morning.

When the call came, Clinton Shannon, M.D., was enjoying a Sunday afternoon nap in a reclining deck chair beneath a maple tree in the back yard of his home on the outskirts of Harbor City. Sections of the Sunday edition of
The Cleveland Plain Dealer
lay on the grass beside his chair along with an empty beer can. The doctor’s five-year-old son, Jack, was playing nearby in a canopied sand box and a calico cat dozed in the sun on the top step of the back porch. The house was a one-story ranch style, brick, with a breezeway connecting to the garage.

The doctor’s wife, Celia, a small, pretty woman, dark-haired and blue-eyed, wearing yellow shorts and a short-sleeved blouse, came out on the back porch and called to her husband. “Clint.”

He opened his eyes and gazed at her sleepily.

“Phone,” she said. “It’s Mortimer Watson. He sounded excited.”

The doctor sat erect, rubbed his eyes, yawned, stood up and crossed the grass to the porch. The boy looked up from his play and called, “Daddy, if you go out, can I go along?” He was a black-haired boy, small for his age, with his mother’s blue eyes.

“We’ll see,” Shannon said as he followed his wife into the kitchen.

“I hated to wake you up,” Celia Shannon said, “but Mortimer said it was important.”

He grinned at her, patted her on one round hip, and picked up the phone from the top of the breakfast bar. He was a tall, slender man, thirty-six years old, with regular features, close-cropped brown hair and clear brown eyes. Usually he wore glasses with amber-tinted frames, but now they were folded in a pocket of his tan short-sleeved sport shirt. In addition to practicing medicine, he was also the county coroner. “Yes, Mort,” he said into the phone.

“Clint, I’m down here at the Yacht Club dock and I got a woman on my boat who’s pretty far gone. Can you come right away?”

“What’s the matter with her?”

“She damn near drowned, I guess. We picked her up on Snake Island and she hasn’t moved since we got her aboard. She—”

“If she’s still alive,” Shannon broke in, “she’ll have to go to the hospital. Where are you calling from?”

“A pay booth in the Lake Shore Tavern. It was closer than the clubhouse. Lew Sprang and George Yundt are with the woman.”

“All right. Now, listen; you call Lee Hoyt and tell him to get an ambulance down there, just in case. I’m on my way.”

“Thanks, Clint.”

Shannon replaced the phone and said to his wife, “I’ve got to go down to the yacht basin. Sounds like a drowning, or a near drowning. If I don’t come back pretty soon, you can reach me at the hospital.” He picked up a black bag from the floor beside the kitchen door. His wife followed him out to the porch.

The boy, seeing the bag, ran up to the steps and asked eagerly, “Can I go along?”

Shannon smiled down at his son. “Not this time, Jack. I may have to go to the hospital. You stay here with Mommy.”

The boy protested, but Shannon tousled his short black hair and went to a new green Ford sedan parked in the drive. He waved to his wife and son as he backed out.

Mortimer Watson was waiting for him on the curb in front of the Lake Shore Tavern. “You got here fast, Clint,” he said as he got into the Ford. “Park in the club lot. My boat’s tied up right near there.”

“Do you know who the woman is?” Shannon asked as he made a left turn and drove toward the harbor.

“Nope, never saw her before, but George Yundt said he’s seen her at the Y taking swimming lessons. We were trolling for perch and when the storm came up we anchored off Snake Island. We didn’t see her until we circled the island and headed home. She was on the beach on the south side. Lew Sprang spotted her and George swam ashore and got her.”

“Any pulse?”

“Lew and George said not—I didn’t touch her. She looked dead to me, but George says she opened her eyes once, right after we got her aboard.”

Shannon said nothing and swung his car into a black-topped area and stopped before a sign reading
Private—Members Only.
Carrying his bag he followed Watson out on a cement pier past rows of moored cabin cruisers, sail boats, speed boats and a few pretentious yachts. They stopped before Watson’s boat, which was tied up between a forty-foot yawl and a gleaming white cruiser. George Yundt and Lewis Sprang stood in the stern of Watson’s boat and Shannon returned their nods as he stepped aboard and stooped to enter the small cabin. Watson followed him inside, but the other two men remained on deck. George Yundt said to the old lawyer, “I guess you won’t need me any more.” He was now wearing his damp shirt and slacks. “I’d better get some dry clothes.”

“Sure, son,” Sprang said, “run along. I’ll see you at the bank in the morning.”

“Yes,” George said as he stepped up to the pier.

Inside the cabin Shannon knelt beside the still form on the padded bench. Watson said apologetically, “We didn’t have anything but that old tarp to cover her with. All she’s got on is a skimpy bathing suit.”

Shannon nodded silently and placed two fingers on the woman’s throat, over the carotid artery. He could barely detect a slow feeble pulse. He gazed at the calm face, saw that she was an attractive woman, even now, without cosmetics and with the bright afternoon sun slanting into the cabin revealing the tiny lines around her eyes and mouth. He looked up at Watson. “Is Hoyt coming with the ambulance?”

“Yep. Should be here now.” As Watson spoke, they heard the rising wail of a siren. “That’s him,” Watson said and added scornfully, “He’s even got the siren going—showing off on a Sunday afternoon.”

Shannon returned his gaze to the woman. “The hospital’s the place for her. She’s suffering from exposure and shock, probably swallowed some water.” He stood erect and pulled back the tarpaulin. His trained gaze went over the slender body and he noted that except for a bruise on the inside of her left thigh and a few minor scratches she appeared to be uninjured. He also noted the thin scar on her abdomen resulting from the removal of the vermiform appendix. As he gazed at her, she opened her eyes and stared at him dully.