The Floating Corpse

by James Walker

  “Mr. Gillette. What’s this all about?”

  William took off his hat and nodded the very picture of civility. “Susan. Good afternoon. I seemed to have stumbled onto a bit of unfortunate happenstance.”

  She snorted and then bent at the waist to look closer. “I doubt it will prove fatal.” She turned her cold look to me, “And who is your two-legged crutch? The one bent on breaking down my door and yelling to wake the devil?”

  William replied calmly, “This is Collin Frohman.”

  Her eyebrows went up, “Your friend Charles’ son?”

  “I’m afraid so,” I answered for him, “Pleased to meet you.”

  She looked me up and down, then reached out with a slender finger and tapped the pocket in my jacket that bulged with the outline of my flask. My gun she either ignored or didn’t notice. “I see you inherited his love of spirits. One can only pray you didn’t get his penchant for foolishness!” Before I could come back to that, she went on. “Well, you might as well drag him inside. I’ll see what I can do for him.”

  With that she opened the front door and walked inside, holding it open for us to enter. Once inside, she closed the door behind us and pointed to a rocking chair that sat in front of the hearth, a large ball of crimson yarn, stuck through with knitting needles, sat in a basket besides it. She made it sound like a sigh when she said, “I’ll get some things” Then she bustled off into the bedroom as William settled into the chair.

  I looked around as we waited for her return and was impressed with the home’s design. It was a charming one-level, with an enormously long hearth that split the house in two. We were in the living room with a table and some sturdy chairs. The doorway to the right led to a bedroom and on the opposite corner, an area was set up as a parlor, with nice furniture and well carved side tables draped with lace. The back left was walled off for the kitchen and on the other side of the hearth was the dining room. Each room had ample windows and each had a view of the river.

  Mostly though, my attention was drawn to a harpoon that was hanging above the fireplace and the various carvings and knick-knacks that lined the mantle. There were scrimshaw pieces, some quite good, and a variety of small carved figures of strange looking animals, all in bone. It suddenly occurred to me who the woman was.

  Making sure she was still out of the room, I leaned over uncle and said softly, “This is the woman who used to work for that old sawbones, isn’t it?”

  He looked up at me and grinned, “Excellent Frohman. There is hope for you yet!”

  I let that pass. “Then you knew she lived here.” He looked like he was about to protest, so I cut him off. “Don’t try to deny it! She was twice as surprised to see you as you were to see her!”

  He gave me a bored look. “Obviously.”

  I would have carried on, but the woman suddenly appeared carrying a bowl of water and a satchel. I stepped aside as she nudged a hassock forward with her foot and sat before my uncle. She put her knees together and gestured for him to raise his leg.

  William did so with a minimum of theatrics and she began to probe the wound with her hands.

  “How did this happen?”

  William winced as she squeezed the flesh around the burn and answered through clenched teeth, “My rear tire hit a patch of sand and the bike went out from under me.”

  “Ouch!” She grunted. “You men and your contraptions! They’re bad enough with four wheels-never mind two. You’re lucky you didn’t crack your head open!” she had the bit between her teeth now. “Faster! Higher! Deeper! Why can’t you men ever be satisfied?”

  William nodded, as if he agreed she had a point. “Speaking of deeper, I understand your brother has taken his work to Long Island sound.”

  She gave him a look. “Yes, he did. Picked up at the beginning of last summer and told me he was going to work on some new designs, and he’d be gone the better part of a year or more. Left half his junk in the shed and boathouse and off he went, leaving me to keep this place up all on my own!”

  William tried a little sympathy. “It must be very hard for you, Susan. Please, feel free to ask me for help. I would be happy to send some men over to do any repairs you need.”

  She waved the offer away. “There’s no need, Mr. Gillette. I manage just fine, and my husband is due home at the end of next week.”

  “Ah! Well, you must be excited!”

  She ignored the statement and picked up the cloth, dipping it into the bowl of water. “Well, it doesn’t look too serious,” she assured us as she rinsed the area of dirt. “Nothing’s broken and the burn looks like a second degree. Just keep it clean and cooled. It may be tender for a day or so, but you’ll be fine. Just like any other child who stumbles and falls.

  Let me bandage it up,” she said as she reached into her bag.

  William held up a hand to stop her. “There is no need to trouble yourself further, Susan; Ozaki can dress the burn when I return home.”

  She gave him a flat stare, “So your heathen is a nurse too? I’ll just put something over it, so you don’t coat it with dirt or rub it with your pants.” She fished around in her bag and pulled out a white linen cloth. When she held it up to fold, you could see the beautiful laced edging.

  “Susan,” William protested. “You should not waste such a fine napkin on my old leg.”

  Susan sighed and replied, “It WAS a fine set at one time, straight from the old country, but others got ruined, so you needn’t worry about it.”

  As she wrapped the cloth around his leg, she advised, “If you have any ice at that fancy castle of yours, apply it until it melts before you cover it up again. That’s about all you can do. Maybe some aloe, if you can find any this time of year.”

  William leaned forward. “I thank you for your care Susan. You have been very kind.” He lowered his foot to the floor and slowly pulled his pant leg over the bandage. I could feel the air in the room change as he looked her straight in the eye and asked, “I wonder if I might impose on you just a little further?”

  She leaned back at his intensity, to sit stiffly. “In what way?” she asked with wariness in her eyes.

  “Oh, just a question. Nothing more.”

  She didn’t answer him, but it was obvious she was waiting for it. William stared at her intently. “I was wondering whether you had known of or participated in any births this year. Around the first of the year?” His gaze became even more focused, “One, perhaps, that might not have been recorded?”

  Her eyes popped open in surprise at the question but quickly narrowed to slits that screamed of suspicion. “My, how quickly you go from patient to policeman, Mr. Gillette!” She stared at him for a minute, and then answered, “I have kept to myself since I left the doctor’s employ, Mr. Gillette. I have not left this property and don’t intend to until my husband returns from Iceland later next week. Why would you ask me such a question?”

  William sat back and folded his hands in his lap. “To be blunt Susan, out of desperation. This morning, some workers of mine found an abandoned baby on my property, some distance from my home.”

  Her face flushed and she made the sign of the cross. “Is the child safe now?”

  William shook his head sadly, “I’m afraid not. The baby had been dead for some time. I have no clue to the identity of the child and so far no one knows who she could be. You seemed to be a logical …”

  The woman suddenly jumped to her feet and snapped at him, her eyes ablaze. Logical what? How dare you ask me if I had anything to do with the mistreatment of any child! I am a trained nurse and have taken the same medical oath as a doctor!”

  “Susan,” William tried to speak reasonably, “Your training is why I …”

  “Stop!” She nearly screamed. “Not another word! Your wound is tended! Now leave my house and take that fool’s git with you! Immediately!”

  I wanted to say something to her, puzzled by the venom in her voice, but she stared at the ceiling and began to tap her foot.

  I p
ut an arm out for my uncle and between that and the cane, he got to his feet. He looked down at Susan.

  “I am sorry if I have given offence.” He started calmly.

  Her head snapped down and she spoke over him, “You don’t give offence-you bring it! The last time I saw you, a horribly mutilated man was brought to the office and another young man had been murdered and now…now a dead baby! These tidings are exactly why I keep to myself! You are a harbinger of death! Leave my house!” She pointed to the door, shaking like a leaf. I couldn’t believe how angry she was! I was afraid we might have to shoot our way out.

  She kept pointing at the door and throwing daggers with her eyes. William, who had walked away without saying another word to her, turned at the entry and said in a strong, but serene tone, “I will find justice for that little girl, Susan.”

  The whole scene was getting too macabre for me, so I pulled William through the door and slammed it shut. I could hear her sobbing as we crossed the porch. We made it down the steps and halfway across the yard when I said, “Gee, Uncle Will! You sure got a smooth way with women!”

  He gave me a smirk, “Yes, well, Harbingers of death are rarely suave, Frohman.”

  Quickly we reached the top of the hill and William took his arm off my shoulder and limped the rest of the way to his Chief. I stood there, dumbfounded, until it came to me.

  “You faked the accident! Or, at the very least, you caused it on purpose JUST so you could talk to her!”

  He tilted his head at me, “Did this just occur to you? Of course, I did. Nothing less than a play on her medical ethics would have gotten us an interview. Of course, I had not planned on setting the exhaust pipe across my leg. The bike was heavier than I calculated. Careless on my part, but it was quite convincing, don’t you think?”

  “Right now, the only thing I’m convinced of is that you are acting crazy! If all this was just a sham, why didn’t you let me in on it?”

  He gave me a big grin as he suited up and straddled his bike. “I have found that most people are better actors if they are not aware they are playing a role.”

  I was a bit put off and didn’t like to be a stooge. “So we came all the way out here, so you could burn a leg and I could break a leg? Still got us nowhere. It was a waste of an afternoon.”

  “Was it?” He kicked over the engine and dropped it into gear, cutting off any more discussion.

  19

  To my surprise, instead of heading up the road towards home, William turned his machine around and took off like the devil towards town. I was a little miffed at his disregard for his wound but was satisfied when he led me straight through the burg to Dr. Blum’s office. Instead of dealing with the surly nurse, we went around to the back and directly to the doctor’s cubby hole.

  When we walked through his door, the doctor was sitting behind his desk, or rather, lounging there. He had his legs crossed and up on the desk as he leaned back in his chair and sipped amber liquid from a low tumbler. My first thought was to join him, but the smell of the room made me a trifle queasy.

  “Well, hello boys!” He raised his glass in salute. “I figured you’d be by. Thought you’d be here an hour ago. ‘Spect you want to hear about the pilot, Mike, they brought in today.”

  William pulled off his gloves and sat in the visitor’s chair. “Actually, we just spent a rather unpleasant half hour with your ex-nurse, Susan.”

  The doctor pulled his legs down and sat forward. “Susan? What the devil did you want with that nag?”

  William shrugged. “She fits the criteria. I thought she might have some insight into the babe.”

  Dr. Blum snorted loudly then laughed. “I’ll admit she’s still on the tail end of her childbearing years, but who would want to put up with her long enough to impregnate her? Even her husband is happier beating baby seals to death in the frozen Artic than warming her bed!”

  Uncle Will rolled his eyes and sighed. “Given her training and profession, I had thought she might have had some involvement in a mid-wife capacity.”

  “And did she?”

  “Never found out,” I chimed in. “Called Uncle Will a ‘harbinger of death’ and threw us out.”

  William gave me a sharp look, but Blum laughed. “She’s right, you know, William. Every time you show up here there’s a fresh corpse.” He drained his glass.

  Uncle Will was annoyed. “How very amusing, Doctor. Now, if you can give that bottle a rest for a moment, perhaps we can return to the business at hand.”

  “First,” I said loudly. “My uncle needs some medical attention.”

  William stiffened but said nothing as the doctor put his glass down on the desk. He looked William in the eye. “What’s this?”

  “It is nothing, Doctor. Frohman is just being a mother hen.”

  I shook my head behind his back, “He’s got a bad burn on the inside of his right calf from his motorcycle’s exhaust pipe.”

  William went to protest, but Blum was having none of his objections. He got up from his desk and walked around to stand over my uncle.

  Looking resigned and irritated, William pulled up his pant leg and propped his foot up on the desk. Blum put on a pair of glasses and bent close to look it over carefully. He peeled back a portion of the cloth wrap, grunted after a moment, and then replaced the bandage.

  “Not too bad. Susan do this?” William nodded and he went on, “I think I’ll just let it be. Put some ice on it when you get home and keep it clean.” He looked at William and smiled, “No charge for the examination.”

  William shot him a look as he rolled down his pantleg and put his foot back on the floor.

  “Now,” William said in a voice that brooked no nonsense. “If you and my nanny are satisfied, could we please hear the findings of Mike’s autopsy?”

  Dr, Blum grew serious. “Be better if I show you, William. There are a few things I don’t understand.”

  William immediately popped to his feet and I reluctantly followed him as Blum pulled back the curtain that separated his work station from his office. In the center of the area, on the same table we’d examined the baby, was a bloody sheet outlining the shape of a man. When Blum stepped up and pulled back the sheet, I wished that I had insisted on a drink earlier.

  He had been an older man with salt and pepper hair and a neatly trimmed beard that stood out in stark contrast to his bleached-out skin. There was a long gash down the center of his chest that had been loosely stitched back together. His right arm was fairly well mangled, and his head was a bloody mess on the left side, his left ear dangling by a few shreds of skin and his lower jaw was out of whack. I stayed back and tried to close my nostrils to the stench of wet death as my uncle and the doctor began to discuss his wounds with meticulous detail. After a moment, William straightened up.

  “Cause of death?”

  “Oh, he drowned alright.” Blum replied. “Lungs were full of water and there were burst capillaries from his esophagus to his tonsils. Though I suspect he would have died from the blunt force trauma to his head, had he not drown.”

  “Then he was knocked unconscious and drowned as the result?”

  “Most likely, but I think whatever got him, grabbed him by the arm and held him under until he sucked a good part of the river into his chest.”

  Uncle Will was disgusted. “Bah! Do not waste my time with drivel, Doctor! You cannot have possibly joined the rest of those blithering sapheads who lay these events on the door of a mythical sea monster?”

  Blum looked at him like he had three heads. “For argument’s, we’ll put aside the extreme tearing of the scapula and glenoid and ignore the fact that the arm was wrenched so hard that it’s only attached by a few stubborn tendons and skin and we’ll focus on the wrist.

  “Whatever got him, crushed a four inch strip of flesh and bone so hard it was nearly severed in two!”

  I looked down at the wound in question and I saw that the doctor was right. A whole section of his wrist and forearm was flattened to less
than a few inches that formed a perfect rectangle. Summering in Amagansett when I was growing up, I had seen the results of a great white shark’s attack and I couldn’t imagine a creature having such a powerful bite.

  William rolled his eyes and replied through clenched teeth. “Yet, there is no puncture mark on the wound, or anywhere else for that matter. Predators have sharp teeth, Doctor. Would you not expect to find bitemarks where something clamped down so hard?

  “Or do you think your ‘Nessie” is an herbivore. A mad sea cow, perhaps?”

  Blum had nothing to reply to that and I couldn’t explain it myself. I might have pointed out that there were many species in this world we knew little or nothing about, but I thought my opinon would just get me another of my uncle’s ‘slap downs’. Instead, I put the burden of proof on him.

  “What do you think happened to him, Uncle Will? I mean, if he wasn’t attacked by some freak of nature…well, I doubt he fell into a laundry mangler running on the bottom of the river under eight feet of water!”

  Dr, Blum huffed and nodded his head once, but William looked like he was about to dress me down properly for a second or two. Then he slowly relaxed a bit as he got that concentrated look on his face. He didn’t speak for a few moments, but just stared up at the ceiling and taped a finger to his lower lip.

  Suddenly, he came alive and clapped me on the shoulder. “What would I do without a Frohman around.”

  Before I could question his comment, he wheeled about and said to the doctor. “Thank you, Doctor. I think I have all I need for now. Will I see you at the babe’s funeral? It’s set for the day after tomorrow. At eight a.m.”

  Blum was obviously used to my uncle’s quirks, so he just sighed. “I’ll be there.”

  “Then good day.” He gestured to me, “Come along, Frohman. The chase is on and we are still behind!”

  Uncle Will decided to forgo the ferry for our return trip, so we sped up the road to the train bridge. There was one disconcerting moment, while we were half-way across the span, when I saw smoke from an oncoming train headed in our direction. My heart skipped a beat at the thought of trying to share the space with a locomotive, but we were off the bridge long before the train reached the trestle. I realize there was no reason to panic because the train was moving at a pace slower than a running man. I thought it odd as it was a passenger train rather than a freight. The train I took here had sped right along.