No Body

by Nancy Pickard

  “Such a deal.” Geof yawned widely again. “ ’Scuse.” He walked over to me and held up his end of the bargain. Then he accepted the cup I gave him, carried it to the kitchen counter, and sat down on a stool. From that perch, he observed me with a fond expression. Immediately, guilt poured over me as if I were taking a shower in it. And it only got worse when he said, in a lazy, intimate, lovers-in-the-morning sort of voice, “It’s nice to see you when we’re both awake. We’ve got to keep meeting like this. So what’s on your schedule, Jenny? What’s up at the foundation today?”

  Oh, I thought wildly, nothing at all. I’m just busy playing cop, just kind of casually waiting around to hear the trap spring on a murderer, but other than that, really nothing special. Why? Do you want to have lunch?

  “Oh, nothing much.” I smiled, shrugged, turned quickly away to stick two slices of bread in the toaster. So what now, I inquired sarcastically of myself. Now that there is time and opportunity to tell him, are you going to do it? Behind me, Geof began to talk about the seminars in Philadelphia and about the cases he was working on at the station. It had been easy for me to avoid the issue the last couple of days, but now, faced with the man himself—the policeman himself—it was impossible to dissemble. I couldn’t possibly lie to him, or even chatter on about the weather or business as if matters of life and death weren’t pending. By keeping important secrets from him, I was creating a distance between us that would only lengthen if I didn’t close it at once. My excuse for not telling him—that he would say it was Ailey’s case-seemed pretty weak to me now; I suspected it was, at least partly, pride and the fear of looking foolish (again) that had propelled me along this far without consulting him. But as Ailey had said, living with a cop didn’t make me one. Who did I think I was, playing private investigator without a license? I had ideas and information that belonged in police hands, and the hands of a policeman were wrapped around a coffee cup right across from me. The toast popped up. I buttered it, cut it in half diagonally, put it on a plate, and turned around to hold it out to him.

  “I’ll trade you this toast,” I said, “for a little forbearance.”

  He raised his eyebrows but reached out for the plate.

  While he ate slowly, I gave him a complete rundown on my activities in the last two days. At no time during my recital did he express, vocally or facially, a judgment, so that my nervousness, my dread of once more having dived headlong into an empty pool, only increased as I talked. When I finished, I waited apprehensively for him to comment, still having no idea what he was thinking, either of the theory or of the woman behind it.

  “You’ll have to take this to Ailey.” He spoke in a surprisingly mild, noncommittal tone as he brushed crumbs from his mouth, then off his fingers, then off his lap with a napkin. “I guess you know that, though, or you would have told me sooner.”

  I turned away from him, fiddled with the cream pitcher, the sugar bowl, and my coffee cup, before finally saying, “Geof, my face is still burning from the last time I took one of my ideas to Ailey.”

  “Damn him.”

  I looked back at him, startled. His expression had turned hard, further unnerving me. “Nothing like that will happen again, Jenny,” he said in a voice that was tough enough to make any suspect confess to any crime. “You know, I’ve kept my nose out of this case, I’ve kept my mouth shut, I haven’t wanted to criticize his conduct of this case. But the way he treated you, not to mention Mr. Davis, was unconscionable, and it won’t, by God, happen again.”

  His anger gratified me more than I would have thought possible. “I’m incredibly glad to hear that,” I said with a certain wryness, “but please don’t ask me to tell him yet. Let me wait long enough to get the news from Francie, and then maybe I’ll have evidence for him, not just ideas.”

  “I don’t know. Well, by tonight, you’ve got to tell him, otherwise you take a chance of jeopardizing an ongoing investigation.”

  “I don’t see how.” I couldn’t help but object. “He thinks he already has his man. He’s not investigating any other possibilities.”

  “No, he isn’t.”

  I gazed at him in surprise. “You don’t think Spitt did it!”

  “Let’s just say I’m keeping an open mind.” I watched him drain his coffee cup, waited for him to say more. But when he had swallowed the last drop, he looked up, noticed me observing him, and only smiled.

  “Well?” I demanded.

  He shrugged. “It’s still Ailey’s case.”

  But cracks were beginning to appear in Ailey Mason’s credibility in the eyes of the senior detective. That was enough to satisfy me for the time being, so I didn’t press him. At least, not figuratively. I did, however, walk over to him, put my arms around him, press my chest against his, and peer into his brown eyes. “Are you stunned by the sheer brilliance of my deductions? Are you very annoyed?”

  He smiled, kissed the side of my face. “I don’t know yet,” he said, without indicating which question that reply was meant to answer. He kissed the edge of my mouth, touched my lips with his tongue. “Ask me later, after you find out if you’re right.” He pressed his mouth full onto mine, so that his words whispered seductively into my open mouth. “Will you call me as soon as you get the report from Mrs. Daniel? And will you talk to us before you talk to that reporter?”

  “Oh, you silver-tongued devil, you.” My own mouth began to reply actively to his probings. “You know that right about now I would do anything you wanted. And, by the way, thanks for the forbearance.”

  “You ask a hell of a lot for two pieces of buttered toast.” His hands were moving under my suit coat. “Is there anything else in this deal for me?”

  “Ask me later,” I whispered.

  “No,” Geof said urgently. “Show me now.”

  We were a little late getting to work that morning.

  When I did finally reach the office, I felt better about life in general and my investigations in particular. At least now there was a competent, intelligent policeman who had heard my theory and hadn’t laughed at it, hadn’t demanded that I stop at once, as he had every right to do if he thought I was nuts. I knew he would also have asked me to cease and desist if he thought there was any danger involved, but it was clear that from here on, the investigation was a dry, safe matter of paperwork. The salespeople would turn in their cash and contracts to Francie, she would report her findings to me, I would turn them over to Ailey. No knives, no guns, no physical jeopardy, just paperwork. Clean and press, as the weight lifters say. In and out. I would be out of the case, and safely out of harm’s way, when the time came to confront and arrest a killer.

  “And if it turns out to be Spitt, after all?” I asked myself.

  I would turn in my badge.

  The workday went surprisingly fast, but then I had a lot of lost time to make up for, phone calls to return, letters to dictate, applications to read, meetings to attend. I worked myself and the staff frenetically in an attempt to take my mind off the phone call I was expecting at any minute of the day from Francie. By 4:55, Faye, Derek, and Marvin were staggering from my desk to theirs like marathon runners on their last lap.

  “Go home,” I suggested. “You deserve it.”

  Derek looked pointedly at the clock behind my desk. “Golly, a whole five minutes early.” He grinned, and said to the other two, “Come on. Let’s get to our bunks, so the next shift of slaves can take our places at the oars.” With the quick steps of someone who’s escaping, Derek fled through the front door of the office, letting it slam behind him.

  “ ’Night, Jenny,” Faye waved on her way out.

  “You’ll get your expense vouchers in to me, won’t you?” Marv inquired, and when I promised I would, he, too, waved good-bye and departed.

  It was 4:57.

  The Harbor Lights offices closed at five, like ours.

  I stared at the phone and drummed my fingers on my desk.

  Four fifty-eight.

  What if I were wrong? Or w
hat if I were right but the killer were clever enough not to cheat on this particular contract? Maybe he wouldn’t, thinking it would be too risky to try it with a customer like Lewis or me, who might be too savvy about business. Or maybe I was right, but some of the salespeople were slow in turning in their contracts, so Francie didn’t have a complete report for me. Damn, I had been through so much in this case—being there when Sylvia was discovered in the coffin, seeing the body of Muriel Rudolph, enduring the humiliation of picking the wrong suspect—and I wanted it to end, now, here. Please, I pleaded with the phone, ring now with the news I want to hear.

  The phone rang.

  “What do you hear?” asked Lewis, for the fifth time that day. “How’s my Pulitzer coming along?”

  “I’m still waiting,” I told him.

  “Good-bye,” he said, and hung up.

  The phone rang again, and I grabbed it.

  “Jenny?” said Geof. “Are you coming down to see us?”

  “Nothing to report yet,” I said, “but soon, I hope.”

  “What time do they close up shop?”

  “The funeral home?” I stalled. “Oh, the usual, I suppose.”

  “Like now.” I heard amusement in his voice. “Look, if you don’t hear anything from her by six, you probably won’t today. But come on down here and talk to Ailey anyway, all right?”

  “All right.” I tried not to sound grudging. “ ‘Bye.”

  Four fifty-nine.

  At 5:00, I couldn’t stand it anymore and called her.

  “Harbor Lights,” Francie answered promptly in her usual cheery voice.

  “It’s Jenny,” I said. “Do you have the contracts?”

  “Oh!” Her voice became an excited whisper. “All of them! Just now! Yes!”

  And then she put me on hold.

  “Damn,” I said to the unresponsive receiver. And then, a few minutes later, tentatively: “Francine? Francie, are you there?” Well, I had waited all day, I could wait another minute or two. But even after that time, she didn’t return to the phone. “Francie?” I said into the silence that was beginning to seem ominous.

  Maybe we had been disconnected and she was trying to get back in on my line. Yes, that was it. I hung up the receiver, then called the funeral home number again. But this time, nobody answered at all. “Francie! Please!” I let it ring fifteen times, and still nobody answered. I hung up, dialed again, let it ring twenty times, but nobody answered the phone. I called the operator, told her I was having trouble with a number, asked her to call it, but still nobody answered the phone in the management offices at the funeral home.

  “Oh, God,” I murmured, to which the operator replied, “Thank you for calling AT&T.”

  Once more, I replaced the receiver.

  She had just forgotten to pick up the phone again, that’s all, and she had gone on home. No, that wasn’t likely, if she was as excited as she sounded about the information she had for me. Well, then, she had gone to the rest room and hadn’t been able to get to the phone in time. Yes, that was it, and I would just sit here patiently until she got out of the rest room and called me back. Or better yet, maybe I would just drive over there and get her report in person, make sure she wasn’t sick or anything, yes, that was the thing to do.

  My hands were shaking as I threw on my suit coat. “Oh, Francie, what do you know, and who else knows it, and where are you? Where are you?” Ignoring purse and briefcase, I ran out of my office with only my car keys in my hand. If I could have got to my car faster by jumping from my fourth-floor window, I would have done it. But figuring that two broken legs wouldn’t help me find Francie, I settled for the elevator, and then for running to my car. All the way over to the funeral home, I told myself I was being ridiculous, there was nothing to worry about, and that when I arrived, I would find Francie very annoyed with me for not staying by the phone so she could call me back. This was only a matter of paperwork, after all, nothing more.

  Paperwork . . . sitting on her desk for anyone to see?

  How seriously had she taken my rather perfunctory injunctions to guard it carefully and to keep confidential the material she gathered? She was an open, trusting woman, the very traits that made her likable. And vulnerable?

  Because of the rush-hour traffic and a sudden downpour of rain, it took me longer than usual to reach the funeral home. By the time I got there, it was 5:45, and there were only two cars in the parking lot. One was a late-model Cadillac. The other, I was overjoyed to see, was a station wagon with a bumper sticker that said, “Happiness Is Being a Grandmother.”

  “Oh, thank God!” I patted its hood as I trotted past the station wagon. Francie was here, perfectly all right, probably just had an attack of indigestion, couldn’t get to the phone, would be right inside the door waiting for me.

  Dodging rain puddles, I ran up the steps and pulled at the door, only to find it locked. When pounding on it didn’t raise anyone, living or dead, I made binoculars with my hands and peered in. The only light showing was one on Francie’s desk. As I turned away and ran back down the steps, I thought: Well, there is bound to be somebody in the public wing, some mourners or some employees working a visitation. I would get in that way, probably find her there. . . .

  My breath came in gasps as I ran through the steady rain in the early darkness accompanying the storm. My hose felt like sodden washrags pasted to my legs; my good wool suit hung on me like heavy wet towels, raising a faint odor of dry-cleaning solvent, which I inhaled as I ran. I didn’t want to think about what the rain was doing to my silk blouse or calfskin heels. When I reached the front steps of the public wing, I raced up them and jerked at the front door. It, too, was locked. Again, I made binoculars with my hands and peered in, this time seeing nothing in the darkness beyond the lobby. Again, I pounded furiously on the door.

  “Stan!” I screamed. “Francie! Freddy! Somebody!”

  Where were Freddy and Lennie? Was everybody gone, even the maintenance crew? Business was bad, of course, what with the owner in jail and bodies missing, and extra bodies showing up in caskets.

  I leaned my forehead against a wet pane of glass in the door. “Oh God, what have I done to Francie?” Then I realized I wasn’t helpless; I could take off a shoe and knock out a window to get to the lock, and then inside to search, and to a phone to call the police. But there were other entrances; surely one of them was open.

  “Don’t panic,” I commanded myself, perhaps a shade late.

  I turned from the front door, ready to run back down the steps and to the back of the building.

  “Oh!” Coming off the first step, I immediately slammed up against the hard, warm body of a living person. It was a shock tantamount to running blindside into a wall, and it took my breath away. Even so, my first thought was, Thank God, but then I looked up to see that my passage was blocked by a teenager with spiked blond hair and enlarged black pupils. He grasped my arms so that I couldn’t back away from him.

  “I knew you’d come,” the Jackal said.

  35

  “Come with me, come with me. . . .”

  He began to back down the steps, hugging me to him, pinning my arms to my sides with his arms, pulling me along like a monstrous, struggling doll. When we reached the bottom step, he began to drag me in the direction of the memorial park.

  “Wait, for God’s sake, Jack, let me go!”

  He tightened his grip on me, kept moving. Every lecture I had ever heard on self-defense flitted through my mind like a slide show gone wild, with all the pictures zipping by too fast, until finally one stuck in the projector: I raised a knee to shove in his groin, but missed, lost my footing completely, so then he was literally dragging me with him. I went limp then, hoping to slow him down. But he seemed unbelievably strong, as if endowed with a supernatural or chemical strength; he hardly lost a step and only dragged me faster, as if I weighed no more than a rag doll. I tried to work my way upright, my feet scrabbling like crabs to find a purchase in the muddy grass, but I
stumbled with every step he took. When I could find enough breath, with his tight grip squeezing the air from my chest, I screamed, managing only intermittent, breathless shrieks, like those of a tormented cat. Once when he hoisted me up so that our faces touched, I tried to bite him, only to feel myself slip down and my teeth graze the leather collar of his jacket. We passed through the gate and on through into the memorial park. And all the while he dragged me, all the way down from the top step, he talked to me in a strange, high, tight, staccato voice that overrode my screams, my protests and pleas, his words running together, as if in a stream of consciousness, but in which there was no consciousness, only the mad, roiling stream of senseless words.

  “I chose you, Cain, my lady in the graveyard, my lady in the rain, from the beginning I chose you for this moment, and I knew you’d come to me because you’d know it’s time for you to come to me, and we’ll go together just like we’ve planned all week, just like we’ve talked about, you and me, and I’ll get the money together and we’ll go and they’ll never find us, I knew you’d come to me, my lady in the graveyard, my lady of the grave, my lady in the rain, my Cain, my Cain, come to me, come to me. . . .”

  As he dragged me, I had barely time enough and sense to wonder where he had been all week when the police had been looking for him; to wonder if he had been swallowing, sniffing, shooting, drinking drugs the whole time; to wonder if he even knew where he was, who I was, what he was doing, where we were going. . . .

  “You just have to wait for me now and I’ll get the money together, and then I’ll come back for you, and then we’ll get out of here and go away and they’ll never find us among the dead men, in the graveyard, in the rain. . . .”

  It was a hyperactive, helium-filled voice from another planet, and it scared the hell out of me. My face bounced against his leather chest. I closed my eyes to protect them from the open, biting edges of the metal zipper on his jacket, but then I couldn’t see where he dragged me. He smelled like an animal that has been caged in unchanged straw. Between some words he made low growls and grunts in his throat, as if the animal were hungry, and hunting. I began to hurt all over, from being dragged over the gravel walk, from being pinioned painfully to his body, from having my face jammed up against the ungiving leather and metal of his jacket. Just as I began to groan, low in my own throat like a second animal, but this one the terrified hunted, he stopped suddenly. I scrambled to my feet, twisted violently in his grasp in a last, desperate effort to escape, but he whirled me around, pushed me backward into space, so that I screamed, stumbled, began to tumble a distance that seemed an eternity until I hit my head and elbows on a floor. Through a kaleidoscope of pain, I saw the Jackal standing above me, and beyond him an evergreen tree, and above that a blue-black sky, and rain. Then he shut a door that slammed heavily, and the world went black, except for the spinning colors of pain. Soon, even those points of light receded, leaving me alone in a cold darkness with an odor of must and decay in my nose, on my tongue, in my lungs. The dead have no need of light or warmth: it was a burial vault.