"I don't, really. Mr. George Warden committed suicide last night. It
gives us a lead to what might have happened to your husband."
"He was killed and he was killed down there. Maybe that woman did it.
I don't know. Now I hear that man Grassman is missing. I talked to him
before he went down there. When are you people going to wake up down
there? What kind of a place is that, anyhow?"
"What makes you think your husband is dead?"
"Henry was no damn good. He'd chase anything in a skirt. I knew it.
That was the way he was. He'd always come crawling back. He even liked
crawling, I think. This business with that Warden woman was more of
the same. It wouldn't last any two years. He had fourteen hundred
dollars in his personal checking account. That's all tied up. He's
never drawn on it. He owed payments on the car. The finance company has
never been able to find the car. We've got two kids in high school.
I'll say this for him, he loved the kids. He couldn't go two years
without seeing them. Not Henry. Personally, believe me, I'm convinced
I'll never see him again and I don't care. But he had a couple of big
insurance policies. I insisted on that to protect me and the kids. What
protection have I got? The companies won't pay off. It has to be six
years from the time he dropped off the face of the earth. Four more
years I have to get along. What about college for the kids? I tell you,
you people better wake up down there and find out what happened to
Henry."
There was more, but she merely repeated herself. The conversation
ended. I hung up and looked at Ruth. Her smile was wan and she shivered
a little.
"That was pretty convincing, Tal," she said.
"Very."
Peary came into the outer office. He looked thoughtful. "Suppose I was
the blackmailer. I find the bodies. I came across them by accident. Or
maybe I was smart enough to look for them. Okay. What do I do? I make
damn well certain that nobody else finds them and spoils the game. I
want to do a better job of hiding them than George did. But I don't
want to completely dispose of the bodies. I want them where they can be
a threat. I want them where they can be dug up."
Ruth said, "That man Grassman. We saw him out at the lake, Tal and
I did. And now he's disappeared. That could mean that he found the
bodies."
"And found the blackmailer, too," Peary said.
I found myself remembering the odd conversation with George. When he
had said he couldn't give me a job. And had offered me a gun out of
stock. He had known I had come from Fitz. He had thought I was a friend
of Fitz, cutting myself in on the take. It was obvious that Fitz was
the blackmailer. I remembered the expensive look of the suit he was
wearing when I had seen him at the Inn. He had come to Hillston with
the idea of finding the money Timmy had hidden. He had stayed in the
cabin out at the lake. He made a point of telling me that the money
wasn't hidden out at the lake. He had looked there. And found something
profitable and horrible.
But what was most convincing was Fitz telling me that he was certain
Eloise hadn't taken the money with her. He must have appreciated his
own joke. Eloise had never meant to leave permanently. She would have
been a fool to leave as long as there was a chance of Timmy coming
back. She knew about the money. Yet Timmy had been shrewd enough not to
trust her with information about the hiding place.
I thought of that first conversation that must have taken place between
Fitz and George after Fitz found the bodies.
"What should we do?" Ruth asked. "Should we talk to Captain Marion?"
At four-thirty that gray Wednesday I stood on the lake shore with Ruth
and Allan Peary, Sergeant Brubaker and Lieutenant Prine. We were in
front of the place that had belonged to George Warden before he had
sold it. The narrow dock had been hauled out onto the shore for the
winter and hadn't been replaced. The wind had died and the lake was
like a gray steel plate. Voices had an odd resonance in the stillness.
Captain Marion came out of the cabin with a husky young patrolman. The
patrolman had changed to swimming trunks. He wore an aqualung with the
face mask shoved up onto his forehead. He walked gingerly on the rough
path in his bare feet. He looked serious, self-important, and chilled.
Captain Marion said, "Try to stay on this line right here. The water
looks kind of murky. How's the light?"
The patrolman clicked the watertight flashlight on. "It looks bright
enough."
Prine said in a low voice so Captain Marion couldn't overhear, "This is
nonsense."
No one answered him. Brubaker moved away from us. I glanced down at
Ruth's face. Her lips were compressed. She watched the patrolman wade
out into the water. It shelved off abruptly. He thrashed and caught his
balance, the water up to his chest. He adjusted the face mask, bit down
on the mouthpiece. He glanced toward us, then moved forward and was
gone, leaving a swirl of turbulence on the surface. The ripples spread
out, died away.
Prine lit a cigarette, threw the match aside with a quick, impatient
gesture. He had looked tall when I had seen him behind his desk.
Standing beside me he was not tall at all. His trunk was very long, but
his legs were short and heavy.
The long minutes passed. We made idle talk, but we kept our voices low.
The pines on far hills looked black.
The man came abruptly to the surface about forty feet off shore. He
swam to the shore and waded out of the water, dripping. He pushed the
face mask up onto his forehead. He was shivering.
"Man, it's cold down there," he said.
We moved toward him. "Well?" Marion demanded.
"Here, sir." He handed Marion something. We looked at it as it lay on
Marion's hand. It was the dash lighter out of an automobile, corroded
and stained. "I came right up from where it is. It's in about fifty
feet of water, half on its side. Gray Studebaker. Illinois plates. The
number is CT5851. Empty. Rock bottom. It's on a pretty steep slope. I
think it can be hauled out all right."
"That number checks out," Prine said in a reluctant voice. "Damn it,
how can you figure a thing like that?"
"Steve," Marion said, "I guess maybe we goofed on this one. I guess
maybe that Rose Fulton was right."
* * * * *
Ruth had gone back to town with Peary in his car. She had seemed
subdued, thoughtful. As Peary had credited me with making the guess
that led to the discovery of the car, I was in Marion's good graces.
I had not told them the second installment of the guess--no longer a
guess, actually--that Fitzmartin was the blackmailer.
The tow truck had arrived. It stood heading away from the water, brakes
locked and wheels blocked. The taut cable stretched down into the
water. At dusk they had turned on the big spotlights on the tow truck.
About twenty people watched from a place just down the lake shore.
Captain Marion had herded them down there out of the way. More men had
come out from town. They had been searching the area, prodding into the
soft earth with long steel rods.
The tired patrolman surfaced again and came to shore. "It ought to
do it this time," he said. "I got the hook around the rear axle and
fastened back on the cable." He stood in the light. He had scratched
his arm on a rock. There was a sheen of water-diluted blood on his
forearm.
"Try her again," Marion called.
The winch began to whine again. The cable tightened visibly. I watched
the drum. The cable began to come in a few feet at a time. The progress
was uneven. At last, like some surfacing sea monster, the gray back of
the car emerged from the water. The car was resting on its wheels. It
came backward out of the water, streaming. Bright metal showed where it
had been dragged against rocks. The big truck moved forward until the
car was entirely on dry land. Water ran out of the car, runneling back
into the lake. There was a smell of dampness and weed.
"Get yourself dried off, Ben," Marion said quietly. "George, open up
that back end with a pry bar."
The cold, weary underwater swimmer went up to the cabin. A stocky
man in uniform opened the trunk expertly. The county police who had
arrived moved closer. I could hear the spectators talking excitedly
to each other. The floodlights illuminated the interior of the trunk
compartment brightly. There was drenched luggage in there, sodden
clothing. Water was still running out of the trunk.
Marion said, "Well, that's one place they ain't. Didn't expect them to
be. Tight fit for two of them. But you can see how it was. Those shirts
and socks. That stuff wouldn't jump out of the suitcase. He found them.
After he killed them he just dumped their stuff in the back end, loose
like. Then he aimed the car at the slope and started it up. It would
be night and he wouldn't have the car lights on because that would
attract attention. She got going pretty good. He knew it was deep right
off here. Hitting the water probably slowed it a lot, but once on the
bottom it would keep right on going down the underwater slope until it
wedged in those rocks where Ben found it."
I could see a woman's red plastic purse in the back end. The red had
stayed bright. It looked new enough to have been carried by Eloise
yesterday. Captain Marion reached in and took it out. He unsnapped it
and poured the water out of it. A corroded lipstick fell to the ground.
Marion grunted as he bent over and picked it up. There was a wallet in
the purse. He took it out and shook the water off it, and opened it. He
studied the soaked cards.
"Mrs. Warden's, all right. Al, can you tow the car on into town all
right?"
"Sure, Captain."
"Well, when you get there, spread all this stuff out in the back end of
the garage where it'll get a chance to dry off." In ten minutes the
car had been lashed securely and towed off. I heard the tow truck motor
labor as it went up the hill toward the road.
"Captain," Prine said, "shall I have the men keep looking? It's getting
too dark to do much good. They haven't had any luck."
"Might as well save it until morning. Tom, can you detail some of your
boys to help out in the morning?"
"I can send a couple around."
The spectators had gone, most of them. A wiry little man came over to
where we stood. The swimmer, back in uniform, had come down from the
cabin. I could smell a strong reek of liquor on his breath. Somebody
had evidently found a cold preventative for him.
Prine said to the elderly little man, "I told you people to stay back
there."
"Don't you bark and show your teeth at me, boy. I want to talk to you
fellows. Maybe you might learn something."
"Get off the--"
"Hold it, Steve," Captain Marion said in a mild voice. "What's your
name?"
"Finister. Bert Finister. Looking for bodies, somebody said. That's
what you're doing. You could listen to me. I live off back there, other
side of the road. I do chores around here. Most of the camps. Everybody
knows me. Carpentry work, plumbing, masonry. Put the docks in. Take 'em
out in the fall. I know these camps."
"So you know the camps. If you were hunting for bodies, Finister, where
would you look?"
"I'm getting to that. I know the camps. I know the people that come
stay in them. Knew George and Timmy Warden and their pa. Knew that
Eloise, too. Knew when Timmy used to come up and swim all the way
across to see Ruthie Stamm. Showing off, I guess. Then last year there
was a fellow named Fitzmartin up here. Guess he rented this place
from George. First time it was ever rented, and now it's been sold,
but that's beside the point. You know there's all this do-it-yourself
stuff these days. Takes the bread out of a man's mouth. Takes honest
work away from him. People do things theirself, they botch it all up.
Me, I take it like an insult. That Fitzmartin, he was digging around.
Didn't know what he was doing. I figured whatever he was doing it was
something he could hire me to do. Then by God, he trucks in cement and
he knocks together some forms, and I be damned if he doesn't cement the
garage floor. Pretty fair job for an amateur. But it was taking bread
out of my mouth, so I remember it. He put that floor in last May. If
I was looking for any bodies I'd look under that floor because that
Fitzmartin, he's a mean-acting man. I come around to help and he chases
me clean off the place. Walks me all the way up to the road with my arm
twist up behind me and calls me a trespasser. Nobody ever called me
that before. Folks are friendly up here. That man he just didn't fit
in at all. And I'm glad he wasn't the one who bought it. The folks who
bought it, people from Redding, they seem nice. Got two little kids.
I let them know when they want anything done, they get hold of Bert
Finister."
We stood in the glow of car lights. Captain Marion looked at Prine.
"Fitzmartin?"
"Runs the lumberyard for George. Shall I go get him?"
"We better look first, Steve."
"That cement floor fooled me. I went over it carefully. It hadn't been
dug up and patched. It never occurred to me that the whole floor had
been--"
"I saw a pickax in the shed," Captain Marion said. "Maybe you better
swing it yourself, Steve. Maybe you need the workout."
"Yes, sir," said a subdued Lieutenant Prine.
They parked the cars so that the headlights made the inside of the
garage as bright as a stage. Prine swung and grunted and sweated until
Captain Marion decided the punishment was enough. Finister came back
out of the darkness with another pick and a massive crowbar. The work
began to go faster. A big slab was loosened. They pried it up, heaved
it over out of the way, exposing black dirt. The men worked silently.
For a long time it didn't appear that they would get anywhere. I was
out in the darkness having a cigarette when I heard someone say
sharply, "Hold it!"
I started toward the garage and then thought of what they might find
and stopped where I was. The one called Ben came out into the night. He
bent forward from the waist and gagged dryly. He stood up and coughed.
"Find them?" I asked.
"They found them. Prine says it's her. He remembers the color of her
hair."
* * * * *
I rode back in with Captain Marion. Prine had gone on ahead to pick up
Fitzmartin. Captain Marion felt talkative.
"It isn't going to be too easy with this Fitzmartin. What can we prove
that will stand up? Blackmail? We'd have to have the money and George's
testimony. Concealing the evidence of a crime? He can say George told
him to put a cement floor in the garage. He can say he didn't have
any idea what was under it. No, it isn't going to be as easy as Steve
thinks it is. Sometimes Steve worries me. He gets so damn set in his
mind. He isn't flexible enough."
"But you think it was Fitzmartin."
"It has to be. He milked George clean dry. George didn't have much
choice, I guess. Pay up or be exposed. If he was exposed, my guess is
he would have gotten life. A good defense attorney could have brought
out some things about Eloise that wouldn't sound very pretty to a jury.
George could have figured that when he ran out of money, Fitzmartin
might--probably would--take off without saying a word. That would leave
him free to walk around broke. Better than not walking around at all.
What I can't figure is how Fitzmartin got it in his head to look for
those bodies. He wasn't in this town when George killed the pair of
them. I understand he was in prison camp with Timmy. But how would
Timmy have any idea about a thing like that. There's some angles to
this we won't know unless that Fitzmartin wants to talk."
I could sense the way his mind was turning. He glanced at me a couple
of times.
"You gave us some help, Howard. I grant that. But I don't feel right
about the way you fit in, either."
"What do you mean, Captain?"
"Aren't you just a little too damn convenient? You hit town and
everything starts to pop open. Why is that?"
"Coincidence, I guess."
"You knew Timmy and you know Fitzmartin. Maybe before you came here you
knew Fitzmartin was milking George. Maybe that's why you came here,
Howard."
"I didn't know anything about it."
"I'm not through with you, son. Don't take yourself any notion to
disappear. I want you where we can talk some more. You're just too damn
convenient in this whole thing."
At that moment, about a mile from the Hillston city limits, a call came
over the radio. Marion answered it. I could barely decipher Prine's
Donald Duck voice over the small speaker.
"He's gone, Captain. Fitzmartin is gone. I've put out a description of
him and his car. He was living in a shed at the rear of the lumberyard.
All his personal stuff is gone. I felt the space heater. There was
a little warmth left. He didn't leave too long ago. How about road
blocks?"
"Damn it, Steve, I've told you before. Road blocks aren't worth a damn
around here. There's too many roads. There just aren't enough men and
vehicles in this area to close all those roads. That stove could have
been turned off three hours ago. You'd have to have your blocks set up
right now this minute on every road within a hundred miles at least."
"What do you suggest, sir?" Prine said more humbly.
"Wait and see if somebody picks him up."
Marion broke the connection. "Okay, Howard. You seem to know Fitzmartin
pretty well. Where does he come from?"
"Originally from Texas, I think."
"What's his line of work?"
"I think he worked in oil fields."
"Ever say anything about his relatives?"
"He never talked very much."
"That's not much help, I guess. Where can we drop you off?"
"My car's parked across the street from Peary's office."
"Want to tell you that I appreciate you making a pretty good guess
about this whole thing, Howard. I can't help telling you I wonder just
how much of it was guessing. And I wonder why you came here. I'd like
it if you'd play the cards face up."
I had thought him amiable, mild, ineffectual. Hour by hour I had
revised my opinion. I had thought Prine was the dangerous one. Prine
was the fool. Captain Marion was something else entirely.
"I'm not hiding anything, Captain."
"We've got George dead, and that Grassman missing, and we've got those
two bodies, and now Fitzmartin on the run. It has to get tied together
a little better before I feel right about it."
"I'm sorry I can't help you."
"I'm sorry you won't help, son. Good night."
They drove away. It was after ten and I was famished. In twelve hours
I would be picking Antoinette up. With luck, in twenty-four hours I
would be gone. Either with her or alone. I didn't know which it would
be. Call it a form of monomania. I had thought about the money for too
long. I had aimed toward it for too long. Tomorrow I would have it.
Once I had it, maybe I could begin to think clearly again.
I found a place to eat. I was just finishing when Brubaker came in. He
sat beside me at the counter and gloomily flipped the menu open. "A
hell of a long day," he said.
"It has been."
"And not over yet. At least they're giving me time to eat. And then
back on the job. Until God knows when. Nobody will get any sleep
tonight."
"I thought Captain Marion said he'd just wait and hope Fitzmartin gets
picked up."
"That's right. I mean about the girl."