Mother Finds a Body (25 page)

“It's all over now, so why let yourself get upset?” the sheriff asked.

Mother wanted to be the judge as to what was upsetting. That was obvious, so the sheriff told her the truth.

“It was hashish, I think, a form of dope,” he said wearily. “But you didn't get enough to make . . .”

Mother thought over the word hashish. I could see her mouth form the pronunciation. Her hands began to tremble and her face turned white, a chalk white.

“You mean I'm a cocoon sniffer?” she asked.

Gee Gee laughed. She should have, because Mother really played the scene well. She was deserving of more than laughter, and I told Gee Gee so.

“That's all right, Louise,” Mother said, pulling herself up from the chair. “I would expect something like that from anyone as inconsiderate as Gee Gee.” Mother went to the door and opened it. ‘If you'll fix my bed, Biff, I'll retire.”

Mother let her eyes stray around the room. She was unsmiling. No one was going to laugh on her exit line, and Mother knew it.

“You can stay, Louise, if you wish, but I find the company very uncongenial.”

21
BIFF LOOKED AT HIS WATCH. IT WAS TWO-
thirty. I could hear the even breathing of sleeping people coming from the trailer. Mandy was in the bedroom. Mother was in the car, and the two girls were in the living room. They had been asleep for hours, it seemed. Really, it was less than that.

“Do you think something could have happened to Mamie?” I whispered to Biff.

He shrugged his shoulders. Then he lifted the glass to his lips and drank. We were on our second bottle of Old Grandad, but I couldn't even get a glow. It might have been the humidity that kept me from feeling gay. Maybe it was a case of the nerves.

“She might have eloped with the insurance man,” Biff said seriously. “Or maybe she's filling in at the saloon for Dimples.”

I was certain that the rye wasn't wasted on Biff, anyway. But he didn't look drunk. Every now and then he would sit forward in the camp chair as though he heard something. He had turned down the gaslight and we were sitting in the shadow under the lean-to. Mosquitoes and gnats swarmed around the lamp. The odor of rye and citronella filled the air.

“I think we'll be able to get away from here tomorrow,” Biff said suddenly.

“Sure, honey.”

“I mean it,” Biff said. “The hitch should be finished by now. I think it's been fixed since yesterday. Hank just wanted to make sure we'd hang around.”

“And now it's fixed we just jump in the car and drive away, huh? Just leave the bodies in the morgue, don't bother waiting for the inquest, forget all about a trial and everything.”

“The inquest is at nine in the morning. By two we ought to be loaded and on our way.” Biff leaned back his chair and braced his feet on the rickety table. “You see, I'm going to give the sheriff his murderer. I thought I'd wait and spring it during the inquest. That gives me a little time to get some facts together.”

Now, I would never have married Biff if I hadn't had a feeling of affection for him. I had known him for years and we
always had fun together. I laughed at most of his jokes because they amused me. I liked the way his eyes twinkled when he looked at me. Being married to him gave me a sense of security I had never known. I usually respected his judgment, but at that moment I wondered if any of those things really mattered.

“Look, funny man,” I said. “I want you to know that from this minute on the honeymoon is over. You are going on the wagon. You aren't even going to get a chance to feel the outside of a beer bottle. What drinking there is to be done in our little family will be handled very nicely by me.”

I shoved the cork in the Granddad bottle and put it on the ground next to my chair.

“I suppose you think I don't know who the murderer is?” Biff said. “Well, at that rate, my pretty, unsullied bride, you have a bit of a surprise coming to you. Want to play a game, a game of guess who?”

“No.”

“All right then,” Biff said. “Now, this is how we play it. You ask me twenty questions and I answer ‘yes' or ‘no' to 'em. Like for instance I was thinking about Joe Doaks. You ask me, ‘Is he living?' and I say, ‘Yes' again. That goes on until you use up your twenty questions. If you don't guess him you lose. If you lose, you go on the wagon, and what drinking there is to be done in our little family will be handled very nicely by me.”

“I'm going to bed,” I said, rising to my feet with great dignity. Then I remembered I had no bed to go to. So I sat down again.

“Is it a man?” I asked.

“Yep,” Biff said, grinning at me.

“Is he from one of the five leading countries?”

“Yep.”

“Living?”

“Yep.”

“Please answer ‘yes' or ‘no,'” I said frigidly. “That yep business makes you sound like an acrobat getting ready to leap.”

Biff's grin stretched into a broad smile. “Look, Punkin,” he said. “I'll give you a hint. One of the answers is a saloon keeper
with ideas that he oughta carve a niche for himself in show business.”

Biff leaned back in the chair and made a tent with his hands. He was quite pleased with himself.

“That's all, brother,” I said. “If you're going to get up on a stand tomorrow morning and say that Cullucio murdered all three of those guys, you are going to attend the inquest without me. I won't sit around while you make a damn fool of yourself. How, for instance, are you going to explain how he murdered the guy in San Diego?”

“Who said anything about murder?” Biff said. It was obvious that I had insulted him by even suggesting such a thing. Not only insulted him, but hurt his feelings, too. “We were just playing an innocent little game,” he said. “Right away you have to talk about murders. Ghoulish, I'd say if anybody asked me.”

“Nobody asked you, so why don't . . .”

Biff had turned off the lamp. With a quick motion he jumped to his feet. I heard the chair as it was turned over. Then I felt his hands on my shoulders.

“Duck!” he whispered hoarsely.

I fell to my knees and Biff rolled me under the trailer. My head hit the steps with a thud, but Biff kept pushing me until I could feel the wheels pressing against my arm. Then he was beside me breathing heavily.

“Look, Joe,” I said, “if you want a drink, ask for it. You don't have to go through all this for . . .”

He put his hand against my mouth. At least I thought he meant my mouth. In the darkness it was closer to my ear, but I suddenly got the hint that he wasn't clowning.

Then I heard the footsteps. Someone was tiptoeing through the grass. They were walking toward our trailer. Biff fumbled for something in his pocket. I felt the chill steel of a gun. I heard the dull click of the safety catch being released. Biff's hand, holding the gun, trembled.

I heard someone whisper his name, “Biff?”

It was a woman's voice.

Biff let his breath out in a deep sigh of relief. “O.K.,” he said quietly.

He rolled out from under the trailer leaving me there alone. He moved toward the table and scratched a match. Then he lit the lamp. I saw the silver dancing shoes with the run down heels first. They were dusty, the bare legs above them were scratched and bleeding.

“Thank Gawd you're here,” the female voice mumbled. The feet moved over to the chair, and I heard the canvas creak as the weight of a body stretched it. Biff's hand reached for the bottle near the chair, but not quickly enough.

Bottle and all I rolled out from under the trailer. Before I got to my feet I greeted my friend Joyce Janice.

“It's so nice of you to drop in on us,” I said. “Biff and I were thinking of fixing up a little guest room under the trailer. It's so cozy down there.”

Biff didn't seem to think that was funny. He snatched the bottle from my hand and pulled out the cork. Then he handed it to Joyce and watched her while she gulped it down.

Unaided I scrambled to my feet. When I got my first good look at Joyce I suddenly knew why Biff thought she needed a drink.

Her dress was ripped up the side, showing her naked, scratched leg. Her arms were cut and bleeding from her wrists to her shoulders. Her makeup was smeared over her sweaty face. She was terrified.

“Get some hot water,” Biff said.

Without thinking about waking the sleepers, I ran into the trailer and lit the stove. I pumped some water into a pan and put it over the flame. Then I grabbed a clean towel and a bottle of iodine from the drug shelf. Dimples mumbled in her sleep. Then she rolled over and was quiet.

Gee Gee sat up from her floor bed and yawned loudly. “Wassa matter?” she asked.

“Bring out the water when it gets hot,” I said. I stepped over her and went outside again.

“I'm all right,” Joyce said weakly. “I just ran so fast that I must have scratched myself on the bushes or something.”

She swayed dizzily, and Biff made a motion to hold her. I got there first. The shock of seeing a half-naked woman coming out of the darkness was wearing off, and if there was any holding necessary I intended to do it. Not only that, but I had an idea Biff had almost expected a visitor and I didn't like it.

Gee Gee stumbled down the trailer steps with the pan of water. She looked at Joyce and put the water on the table calmly. Then she stopped short and looked again.

“What the hell's this?” she said.

“Close your mouth, dear,” I said slowly. “Miss Janice has been running through the bushes. She was so anxious to get here she couldn't wait for the streetcar.”

I dipped the towel into the water and began washing off the dust and blood from her shoulder. She winced a little from pain.

“These don't look like bush scratches to me,” I said. One of the scratches was deep, as though a knife had slashed the flesh. I patted the wound more carefully.

“Get Mandy up,” I said to Gee Gee. “Tell him to call Dr. Gonzales and tell him to bring whatever he needs to sew up knife wounds.”

Joyce had fainted.

“Poor kid,” Biff said as we carried her into the trailer.

Mandy threw back the sheet from his bed and put the pillow under Joyce's tousled head. He snatched up a pair of trousers from the chair and began stepping into them as he ran toward the office.

“She was trying to help me,” Biff said. He rubbed her wrist being careful to avoid the cuts, and in a minute she opened her eyes.

“They've got her in the back room . . .” she said. “I tried to listen like you told me, but I couldn't hear everything. She was crying and screaming like a crazy woman. She kept saying, ‘You did it, you dirty dog.' Then I'd hear a slap and a muffled scream. She said, ‘You can't get away with it, and things like that. I—I
was standing near the door. It was dark. I didn't think they could see me, but suddenly the door opened and something hit me . . .”

Joyce put her hand to her head. Then she pulled it away quickly. There was a blue bump on her forehead. She moaned softly when I patted it with the hot cloth.

“I ran as fast and I could and when I rushed out of the place I felt the hot sting in my arm. If I hadn't been running the knife maybe would have killed me.”

She looked up at Biff and started to cry. Not a real cry, but like a hurt child, a small choking whimper.

“They tried to kill me, too,” she sobbed. “I—I think they've already killed her . . .”

Joyce trembled violently for a second. Then she grabbed my hand tightly. She tried to say something, but nothing like words came out, just a frightened little gurgle and she was still again.

I spoke to Biff. “Is it Mamie now?”

Biff, looking down at Joyce, shrugged his shoulders. He touched her forehead gently.

“She'll be all right,” he said. “It's more fright than anything. Poor kid, she must have run all the way here. Get those clothes off her, Punkin. When Mandy gets back, lock the door and don't open it unless you hear my voice. That means don't open it for
anybody
but me. I've work to do and it might take me a little while.”

He dropped the gun on the dresser and opened the door. As an afterthought he kissed me on the nose. Then he was gone.

“Biff!” I ran to the door and threw it open.

My only answer was the loud knock of the truck motor turning over.

22
BEFORE GEE GEE COULD LOCK THE DOOR
, Mother hurried into the trailer. She was barefoot and wild eyed. Her Life Everlasting was clutched in her hand.

“Well,” she said, “I just heard Biff leave. I also heard what he said. Lock the door and don't open it for anyone! Indeed!
And what about me out there alone in the car? Am I to be bait for the murderer? Are you deliberately trying . . .”

“Mother, you know better than that. We naturally thought you had the car locked.” I put my arms around her shoulders and led her toward the bed. Dimples was sleeping soundly, so I rolled her close to the wall and made room for Mother to lie down.