Murder On Ice

by P. J. Conn

  Joe waited for one of them to plead with him not to go to the police, or to offer something of value to silence him, but neither did. "Tom, I'm going to untie you so you can hoist Brett off the ground and stuff him into the backseat. I should make you ride in the trunk, but I'm in a generous mood." When Brett was tucked into place, Joe continued. "You're going to drive, Tom, while I keep my eye on both of you.

  "By the way, Brett, several people knew I intended to talk to you, so you'd never have gotten away with this pathetic stunt. By now, the police have already been to your place looking for me, so don't think you can avoid the grief that's coming. You'll richly deserve every bit of it. Get into the driver's seat, Tom, and let's go."

  Joe had considered it a good plan to get back into town without causing himself any additional pain, but Tom skidded into a curve on the uneven road, lost control, and sent the Ford flying into the air. Coming down hard, it rolled over twice in a clattering, gravel spewing screech, and landed with a loud thud on its roof. Already hurt, Joe choked on the flying dust and again lost consciousness.

  * * *

  The first pale light of dawn shone in the eastern sky when Joe awoke. He was lying half out of the badly damaged car in a bloody pool of broken glass. His jacket had protected his arms, but blood dripped into his eyes from a gash above his left eyebrow. He yanked his handkerchief from his hip pocket and applied pressure. It seemed to help, and he risked moving his legs to crawl away from the wreck.

  He could see Brett from where he sat, but the writer's legs were twisted at an odd angle. "Brett! Can you hear me?" All he heard was the desert's eerie silence.

  "Tom! Are you all right?" Again there was no answer, and he feared the kid had thought them both dead and run all the way home.

  "This is a fine mess," he murmured, again reminded of Laurel and Hardy. He'd stemmed the blood dripping from his head, but his handkerchief had been soaked in the process. He dropped it into the sandy soil and pulled off his tie. It had been one of his favorites, but he needed a bandage more. He tied it tightly around his head the way he'd once used a strip of cloth when playing cowboys and Indians.

  He sat still, but ached all over. At least it was October rather than August when the desert temperature would be over one hundred degrees. "That's indeed a blessing."

  The radiator could be drained for water, but when he edged around the car, he found the front end badly damaged. Whatever water the radiator had once contained had dripped into the desert floor.

  He lay back down to think. The natural landscape was perfect for Western movies, and that's how Brett and Tom could have known about this back road. He wouldn't hope that the cast and crew of such an epic were about to appear on the horizon.

  "Where's the cavalry when you need them?"

  A lizard appeared atop a nearby rock. It studied him with a quick glance before continuing his daily run. Joe wondered if he'd get hungry enough to eat a lizard, but in his present state, he wouldn't be fast enough to catch one.

  By now, Mary Margaret would know something was wrong. Gladys could have called her. The police might be looking for Brett's car, but not out here in the desert. He continued his crawl around the Ford and found Brett looking horribly forlorn, but alive.

  "Good morning," Joe greeted him. "I'd pull you out of the wreckage, but I'm too woozy to stand. I can free your hands though." He reached into the partially flattened car to untie the cord, and his knot was a lot easier to loosen than Brett's had been.

  "Thanks. It hurts too badly to do more than snap my fingers," Brett murmured. "I'll stay put until the ambulance arrives."

  "What an optimistic view," Joe chided. He pulled the cord through his hands. "Do you think Tom will call for one when he reaches civilization?"

  "Why wouldn't he?"

  Joe slumped down facing him. "Facing a murder charge might be a bit intimidating."

  "Neither of us killed Cookie," Brett insisted, his voice tired as gravel.

  "You intended to strand me out here in the desert with only lizards for company, and that's attempted murder. A donkey might stray by that I could ride into town once I convinced him to follow the road."

  "We would have come back to get you in a day or two. Casper just wanted to frighten you off, not kill you."

  "That's encouraging. While we're waiting out here with nothing else to do, why don't you tell me who did kill Cookie?"

  Brett sighed sadly. "I'll deny it if you repeat a word of this to the police."

  "There are no officers in sight." Joe looked down the road and hoped Tom hadn't been too badly hurt to reach a main highway and summon help.

  "When the Thornton's left in the middle of the night, it gave me an idea for a noir mystery. I went to Casper's to pitch it. Maybe a prison escapee, who busted out to prove his innocence, or a woman hiding from a jealous lover could stay there. There had to be a threat of imminent discovery that would bring absolute disaster. Casper liked that angle, and urged me to devise a plot that would appeal to Humphrey Bogart and Lauren McCall.

  "We were working in the house, and Tom and Cookie were in the pool. When it got quiet, Casper looked out the window, and murmured Tom was making good use of the pool house. He soon excused himself. I don't know how long he was gone, but when he came back, he told me there had been a horrible accident, and Cookie was dead.

  "I thought she'd drowned, and wanted to call the police, but Casper said we couldn't let anyone know she had died there. He seized upon the idea of using the vacant apartment in my building as a good place to hide her body."

  "And you obviously went along with it," Joe murmured.

  "Not for a long while I didn't, but Casper swore he wouldn't buy another of my scripts, and no one else in Hollywood would either, unless I helped him. What choice did I have?"

  "So he threatened to end your career?"

  "It was no idle threat, Joe, he meant it. Tom was beside himself and ranting about how he'd invited pretty girls home for his father. He'd never thought Casper would play so rough he'd kill Cookie though. Casper yelled at him to shut up. It was awful."

  Joe's opinion of Tom went up a several notches. "What happened to Cookie's purse and clothing, any evidence that she'd been there?"

  "I don't know, but Casper must have gotten rid of them by now. We just wrapped her in a blanket, put her in my car trunk, and Tom came with me. Our building is so quiet in the evenings, no one saw us bring her inside apartment three. We left her in the refrigerator so her body wouldn't decompose before she was found."

  "How thoughtful of you." Joe had to swallow hard to tamp down a surging wave of nausea. "When you strolled up to join us on the morning we found Cookie, you appeared to be merely a curious neighbor. You may have missed your calling, Brett. You might be a better actor than screenwriter."

  "I don't feel well," Brett moaned.

  "Neither do I, so let's relax and conserve our energy." He hoped help was on the way, but then had the awful thought Casper might come for them. The director could seize the chance to be rid of a witness to Cookie's death as well as a troublesome private eye who knew too much.

  Alarmed, he crawled to the open trunk and rooted around for the tire iron. He couldn't mount much of a defense against an able bodied man holding a gun, but that was no excuse not to try.

  He stationed himself at the front of the partially crushed Ford to have a clear view of the road. There would be a flowing dust trail heralding anyone's approach, and he wouldn't be caught off-guard as he had been at Brett's. Concerned about the writer, he moved down the side of the car to where Brett lay, but he was asleep or unconscious. With his arms tied behind his back, he'd had no way to brace or catch himself when his car had gone airborne and rolled. He hadn't blamed Joe for his injuries, but he might later.

  If there were a later. The morning temperature had dropped several degrees, and ominous gray clouds churned in the northern sky and cast deep shadows across the desert floor. The air had gown remarkably still, and Joe feared a flash flood might
be brewing. People had drowned in the desert, and he didn't want to join their sad ranks. The car had come to rest in a shallow dip that would quickly fill with rushing rainwater in a storm.

  "Brett?" He didn't want to shake him, and instead squeezed his hand. "Brett?"

  "What?" the writer whispered in a soft moan.

  "It may rain, and we should move to higher ground."

  "Wake me when the first raindrops hit. My legs may be broken, and I won't move unless I absolutely have to."

  "That's undoubtedly wise, but flash floods hit with a powerful force, not a beginning trickle that will leave us time to relocate at our leisure."

  "Sure, I know, but give me a few more minutes to rest."

  The cloud-filled sky had darkened to an even more threatening hue, and Joe doubted they had any time to waste. Then again, if Brett had internal injuries, moving him could prove deadly. Choosing which way to let him die wasn't a choice he cared to make.

  "Why didn't you bury Cookie's body out here?"

  "It would have taken too long, and Casper was eager to remove any sign of her murder from his house."

  "That's awfully cold." Joe grabbed hold of the side of the Ford and hauled himself to his feet. Other than the low place where they'd landed, the surrounding desert was a monotonous flat landscape. "I don't see any higher ground, but we have to get out of this ditch."

  "Easy for you to say." Brett made the effort to drag himself out of the car using his elbows for leverage, but cried out in pain. "I can't do it. It hurts too badly, and drowning might not be such a bad way to go."

  Joe withheld his opinion on that dreary subject.

  When the ground had been scraped clean for the road, boulders had been pushed to the sides. If he wished to build a dam to keep the wreck dry, the materials for a high stonewall were handy, but he lacked the strength to pick up a rock larger than a baseball.

  "Do you hear that?" Brett asked. "Is there a small plane in sight?"

  Joe scanned the sky but saw only fearsome clouds. "Do you hear one?"

  "Thought so. Can you gather enough rocks to spell out help?"

  It worked in movies, and Joe was on his feet, but he hadn't regained enough strength for such an ambitious project. "I'll shoot for a giant arrow," he suggested instead.

  He lined up the rocks he could carry to form the arrowhead pointing to the wreck, but then had to sit down to rest. A high-pitched whine, while faint, could be a small plane, and he looked up. Far to the south, a mere speck moved against the clouds, but at that distance, the pilot wouldn't be able to see the wreck, or his makeshift arrow.

  "Is that a plane?" Brett asked.

  "It is, but it's too far away to see us."

  "If he's searching for us, he'll fly in big circles and come closer soon."

  "Stop dreaming," Joe countered. "Tom knows where we are, and any help he sends will come by the road. There are people who know I'm missing, but they wouldn't hire a plane to look for me way out here. That's probably a flight instructor and student pilot getting in a few hours of practice."

  "Still, they might see the arrow." Brett rested with his head on his outstretched arm. He jerked up suddenly. "I felt a raindrop! Come on, get me out of here."

  Another huge raindrop splattered on the sandy soil near Joe's foot. He scrambled to his feet rather than risk being swept away in a flash flood. He bent over to grab Brett's arms in a firm grasp. "Scream all you like, but I need to drag you at least ten feet."

  "Just do it!"

  Joe hauled the writer away from the ditch as fast as he could travel hunched over and moving backwards. A chilly wind swirled around them, masking Brett's frantic cries until Joe had to stop to rest. He could no longer ignore Brett's sobs.

  "That should be far enough," he told him. "Now I need to find something to use for splints on your legs."

  "Don't you dare touch my legs," Brett growled. "I want to lay here and die in peace."

  They heard the small airplane circling nearer. Joe took off his jacket and waved it in a frantic arc, but the pilot flew on without acknowledging him.

  Raindrops splashed against the ground all around them, and Joe feared he might have to move Brett again. "I wish you'd had an umbrella in your car."

  "A flare gun to shoot emergency flares a pilot could see would be even better," Brett posed. "Remind me to get them when I buy my next car."

  "You don't see serious jail time in your future?" Joe asked.

  "I didn't kill anyone, and Casper forced me to help him."

  "Good luck with that defense." They were both getting wet, and the scrub brush was so sparse Joe couldn't raise even a humble shelter. He walked back to the ditch, and found it already running with several inches of water. "We moved you just in time."

  Brett responded with a sarcastic grunt.

  Joe let him be. Water rose around the wreck, threatening to become the horrendous torrent he'd feared. He sat down where he had a good view of the car and road, but the dark, miserable day hid anyone who might be approaching. He was too tired and sore to be hungry, but if help didn't appear tomorrow, he'd have to hike down the road and hope he met a geologist collecting rocks, or a lizard fancier out on an excursion who could give him a ride into town.

  "How long did you drive on this back road, Brett?"

  "Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. We just wanted to go far enough to make it difficult for you to get back into town on your own."

  "It's a shame you didn't realize your own health would depend on it."

  "Someone will come, won't they, Joe?"

  "Hold that hope. You couldn't have driven very fast on this wretched road, so you probably covered less than ten miles in twenty minutes. Tom should have been able to walk that far by now, unless he was hurt and had to stop often to rest."

  "What if he were bitten by a rattlesnake?" Brett asked fretfully.

  "It didn't occur to you that might happen to me if you abandoned me out here?"

  "No, I guess it should have."

  Joe stood up, and checked his watch to see how long he could remain on his feet without growing dizzy. It wasn't long enough to go more than twenty yards, let alone ten miles. Maybe he'd feel better tomorrow, but without food, the odds weren't good. He looked up, and opened his mouth to catch the fat raindrops on his tongue.

  Chapter 15

  The sky cleared as quickly as it had clouded over. Joe's clothes were a soggy mess, and Brett was too miserable to complain about damp clothing. Water had tumbled stones around, over, under, and through the wreck to leave whatever wasn't buried in mud heavily camouflaged. Unless a pilot saw Joe waving, he wouldn't fly close enough to see the arrow pointing toward the wreckage.

  Brett lifted his head. "Do you hear a siren?"

  Joe focused on the road. The rain had left it too wet for flying dust to signal a car in the distance, but the siren's high-pitched whine was unmistakable. Casper wouldn't be approaching in an ambulance, which meant rescue must be only a few minutes away.

  "Yeah, I hear it, but why would anyone need a siren when there's no traffic out here on the desert?" He pushed himself to his feet, shaded his eyes with his hand, and recognized a deputy sheriff's black and white car on the horizon. An ambulance followed in close pursuit.

  "What's our story?" Brett asked.

  "How about the truth? You and Tom kidnapped me, intending to leave me stuck out here to die. I foiled your plan, and Tom flipped the car driving us back to civilization. You and I were too badly hurt in the accident to walk out. That covers the pertinent details of our present situation."

  "That's awfully harsh. No one wanted you dead."

  "Easy for you to say now."

  The deputy sheriff parked ten yards away, climbed out, and came toward them. He was one of the tallest men Joe had ever seen and lean as a whip. "Afternoon," Joe called.

  "Are you Joe Ezell?" the deputy called. His deep voice rolled on the crisp air.

  "I am, and this is Brett Wayne. We're afraid his legs are broken. We're gr
ateful you came looking for us. How did you know we were here?"

  The deputy removed his hat, wiped his forehead on his sleeve and plunked the hat back on. "Tom Green flagged down a truck and reported an accident. He said you'd been out scouting movie locations. Is that how you see it?"

  "Yes!" Brett called. "That's what happened."

  "There are a few pertinent details," Joe added. "But they can wait until we're at the hospital to relate." When the deputy slanted his head and peered at him like he was nuts, Joe had the horrible thought the lawman, and ambulance crew as well, could all be from central casting. Maybe this wasn't a rescue after all.

  "May I see your credentials?" Joe asked.

  "Credentials? Are you kidding? You think I drive around in a sheriff's car with a star pinned on my chest for the fun of it? You must have hit your head awfully hard."

  "Yeah, several times, but I still want to see your credentials."

  The ambulance driver and his assistant had already carried a stretcher to where Brett lay. They looked as though they knew what they were doing, but actors would as well. Joe waited, and the deputy finally fished his wallet out of his hip pocket and flipped it open to his identification with the sheriff's star printed on the background. He stepped closer to Joe.

  "There, you see this? I'm Robert Jessup, and I've been on the force fourteen years."

  "Impressive," Joe responded. It had been a brutal day, and he couldn't stay on his feet much longer. "I'm going to go sit in the ambulance." He started in that direction, but wove slightly angling to the right.

  The deputy caught his arm. "Lean on me, and I'll get you there. I see people all the time who want their friends treated first, when often they're the most badly hurt."

  Joe stumbled along beside him and thanked him when he reached the back of the ambulance and could sit down. There were two narrow cots inside, and he definitely deserved one. "How is Tom?"