by Eric
How long would it take for anyone to make up a search party to come looking for me if I should get myself killed or gone missing? Living alone the way I do, going off here and therefor days, even weeks, at a time, who the hell would even know I wasn't where I was supposed to be? Certainly not Mrs. Dunleavy, my landlady back in Omaha. It was enough to make a man feel sorry for himself.
When George came back to the station, he had a dozen men with him. At first I thought Freeman was walking alongside him, but then I saw it was, a stout woman, wearing a blanket coat and a small-brimmed Stetson, who looked a lot like him, even down to the foggy specs.
Freeman was walking just behind her, but he speeded up and passed her when he spotted me.
"Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you find your ass out there in the breeze, don't you?" he said, grinning. "Is our friend . . . I mean friends . . . still around? I'd like to have another look."
"Bosley took them back to Denver in the ambulance."
"The whole kit and caboodle?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean is Denver taking over the case and are we just going out like errand boys to find the extra pieces?"
"I don't think there's any question about any glory in this."
"That's not exactly what I meant." He flushed and found another start. "He find anything else on the bodies?"
"Like what?"
A frown popped up between his eyebrows. The high color paled like it was just washed out. "Did George give you his wild hair to stick up your ass?" he said, low and soft. "I'm the coroner around here and I just asked you if maybe the medical examiner found any other evidence of who those unfortunates might be."
"And I just asked you what sort of evidence you had in mind?" I said blandly. "I've got no quarrel with you and don't want any, Mr. Freeman."
"I didn't mean—"
"The M.E. didn't find anything else. You can be sure if he had we'd have no reason to hide it from you."
He shook his head and grinned again. "Please don't mind me. I've been a little touchy the last couple of days."
"The cow."
"What? Oh, yeah, the cow. First I'm called out to certify a body that's been cut in half. Now here I am volunteering to go tramping around in the mud and cold." He reached out and took the woman's arm and drew her over. "This is Dixie Hanniford, lives down the road from my place."
"My name's Jake Hatch."
Dixie stuck out a hand as big as a man's and we shook. "Pleased to meet you."
"Likewise."
George got up on a baggage wagon. "People," he said, not raising his voice any louder than he had to.
"We only got the one speeder. For those who don't know what a speeder is—"
"Give us a little credit, Lord's sake," Dixie said.
"—it's a little electric cart that runs on the tracks."
"I used to ride one of them what had the seesaw handles when I was a girl," Dixie said.
"All right, Dixie," George said. "We can't all get aboard the speeder at once, so I'm going to break us up into two parties. One party'll take a couple of four-wheel drives along the road as far as Wager's Crossing. That's two miles west of where the train was stopped. Coroner Freeman'll lead that party."
"Howard couldn't find his ass with his hand in the dark," Dixie said. She winked at me through her granny glasses as Freeman gave her an affectionate shove with his shoulder.
"So you'll hold his hand, Dixie," George said. "I'll take the other party with me on the speeder two miles the other side of where the train stopped. The railroad detective, Jake Hatch, over there, tells me the spot is marked with flags. First party will move east, second party west to the flags. We've got to search the slopes along the grade. What we're looking for is two body halves."
"Sheriff," somebody piped up, "we'll have a hell of a time trying to find anything on those muddy slopes in the dark. We're not half as many as we should be."
"I know that, Charlie. I'm just taking a wild shot until we can gather together a bigger crowd to go out in the daylight."
"Why don't we just wait until we got it, then?"
Charlie said.
"Two reasons. One, I can't just stand around with my thumb up my . . ." He stopped and glanced at Dixie.
She laughed and said, "I just used the word, George."
"And plenty more, no doubt," he said, working the joke for the good that was in it. Loosening the men up. Pointing it out without pointing it out that the one woman among them was making wisecracks instead of complaining. "The other reason is I'm afraid some animals could be out on the hunt now that the rain has stopped and I'd just as soon we found the pieces before they do. Okay, Freeman, pick your crew, but leave Jake Hatch with me."
Before Freeman moved away from me I said, "How come George is sending you by the road? I thought the bridge wasn't safe."
"Didn't look safe last night while it was raining," Freeman said. "It's not raining now and the river's down."
I went to the tracks and hopped aboard the speeder.
The wind cut my face and hands as the speeder rattled along toward the place on the tracks marked by the flags.
"Would a train running over a body make a bump?" George said.
"Not so's you'd notice," I said.
"So, it could've run over these people a good ways back from where we're going and dragged the two pieces?"
"Could've; they were dragged the distance it took for the train to stop after the emergency was pulled, but they'd be a lot more battered than they are if they'd been dragged much farther."
"Any idea about who pulled the emergency?"
"I questioned the Amtrak employees and made an announcement to the passengers. I was saving the Burlington Northern personnel until I got to Denver, but then I got left behind. I expect, if they'd seen anyone pull the cord, they'd have come forward already."
"This's been a long watch for you," George said.
"I'm feeling okay."
"Got some sleep over to the Widow Wister's, did you?"
"Well, yes, I got some."
The flags went by, hanging as still as crepe in the windless night until the breeze of the speeder's passing lifted them up like handkerchiefs waving us good bye.
In another several minutes we were stopped two miles away.
Everybody piled off, breaking up in two parts, moving up and down the slopes on either side of the rails, shining bright-beamed torches everywhere, making a landscape of moving shadows.
When we found another half of a body, it was about a mile and a half from where we started searching and half a mile from the flags. It had taken our party two hours to get that far.
Charlie Preacher, the fella who'd raised the practical questions, yelled out and lifted up his arms until all the flashlights were turned on him. He looked as white as a ghost in the harsh glare of so many torches, but he was as self-possessed as anyone could expect when we all gathered around.
There was a dark bundle at his feet.
"It's the other half of the man," Preacher said.
"The animals been at it?" George said.
"Now, how the hell would I know that, the condition that poor bastard's in?"
"Tracks," George replied.
"Oh." Preacher moved his light all around the body. "No, nothing's been at it."
We searched with extreme care all around the spot, both sides of the tracks, reckoning that if three pieces had been found that close together, the fourth piece might not be far away. But by the time the other search party joined up with us about three hours later, we'd had no more luck. The only thing we'd found was a soft felt hat, caught on a bush, which could have belonged to the dead man, and just as easy could've not.
The upper half of the woman was still missing.
We stood around listening to the swollen stream rushing along at the bottom of the southern slope.
"She could be down there," I said.
"Just what I was thinking," George said.
; "This isn't the time to be wading around in running water," Dixie said.
It was getting on to midnight, so George decided to call it quits until the next morning. He put Freeman, Dixie, Keely, himself, me, Preacher, and another fella on the speeder with the half a body and left the rest to go tramping back the two miles to the vehicles waiting at Wager's Crossing.
NINE
Back at the station, Keely and the other man went home. Dixie, Freeman, and Preacher hung on while George and I went through the pockets. A set of keys, a handkerchief, thick with mucus.
"Must have had a hell of a cold," George said.
There was thready blood in it. "Busted a blood vessel blowing his nose too hard," I said. Some of the mess was on my fingers. George wiggled his rubber gloved fingers, telling me I should take up better habits. I cleaned my fingers on my own handkerchief, feeling the nickel in the corner of it, still not willing to hand it to George with Freeman around.
George daintily dropped the last item into the manila envelope Freeman was marking. "Sticky little mess of half-melted roll candies. Still no billfold or wallet."
"So the woman had the money in the clip but this fella had nothing," I said.
"Or she had his money, like we said before," George said.
Freeman got up out of his squat. "Well, okay, that's that. I certify this fella's dead too. Anybody brings in any more pieces make up your minds for yourselves and don't call me till morning."
He walked off with Dixie.
"Funny fella," Preacher said, then went home too.
George and I wrapped the pelvis and legs in a tarp and stowed them in the equipment locker off to the side of the platform. I laid the hat on the knees. We hung around, waiting for the others, just to show them that we were the kind of leaders who wouldn't go to our own warm beds before the troops were sent to theirs.
When they came back, a few of them were loud and boisterous, having consulted a bottle somebody'd brought along to guard against the chill. George sent them all home with his thanks.
I said I'd be going over to the hotel but George invited me back to his place instead.
"You sure we won't disturb Bess?" I said.
"No, she'll probably still be awake. We'll just lock this property up first."
His offices weren't much. Just a bare-boards reception area with a counter. Nobody behind it. The switchboard had a red patch light on. In George's office there was just a desk, an old worn leather chair, a beat-up green file cabinet, a wooden chair, a waste basket made of wire, and a fat safe. I stood there looking at a big topographical map of the area. It was the only decoration on the walls except for some framed citations. George pulled open the unlocked safe and put the envelope into a green metal box.
When we got to his place, a big, comfortable old house at the end of a tree-lined road, Bess greeted us with smiles.
She was in her flannel nightgown and robe, slippers on her feet and her long hair in a single braid down her back.
I thought about how much trouble and pain doing that with her hair every night must cause her. Or did George usually braid it for her?
She put her cheek to my cheek, her poor twisted, swollen hands resting on my shoulders for an instant.
"Come into the kitchen where it's warm," she said.
There was a cat curled up on a rag rug by the heavy cast-iron stove which was throwing out plenty of heat and holding back the night chill that filled the rest of the house. There was a pot of soup simmering at the back. Bess moved a big coffeepot onto a spot glowing red, wincing as she did so.
George winced too. He laid out two bowls without asking, took bread from the box and butter from the keeper, and brought over the soup pot. I ladled out the portions.
When the coffeepot started to steam, he was up and there to pour before Bess could get to it.
"I'm going to do without the coffee," I said. "I need my sleep."
Bess sat down with us, warming her hands around her coffee cup. "So, tell me."
We told her everything we knew.
"What do you make of it?" she said.
"Not very much, so far," I said. "We know that one of them was aboard with a ticket. We don't know about the other."
"Which one had the ticket?"
"The woman. She was using it for a bookmarker. Assuming it's her book. There was no ticket on the other person, but there was no wallet either. It could've been stolen. Or it could've fallen out along the tracks. The woman had a money clip in her pocket which could've belonged to the man, but we've got no way of knowing that for sure either."
"Was she wearing jeans or dungarees?"
"She was wearing slacks or the trousers to a suit. What makes you ask?"
"Women don't often carry money in their pockets. We just never got into the habit because we've always got a purse or a bag in our hands. Young woman?"
"I'd say so."
"If she was at all stylish, the slacks would be cut just right. So that would be another reason why she wouldn't be carrying money in her pockets. It would ruin the line."
"I'd say the money in the clip could've been the man's money," George said.
"Anybody think to count it?" I asked.
"I didn't, did you?" George said.
"We're not much when it comes to being detectives, are we?" I said, disgusted with myself.
"What are you two on about?" Bess said.
"Well, depending on the amount of money in the clip, we could make a fair guess about whether the woman stole the money from the man or if he'd turned it over to her," I said.
"How could you do that?"
"If it was a payoff of some kind, it would be a fairly big amount and would probably count out to the nearest hundred."
"I'd never think of that," Bess said, with a touch of admiration in her voice.
Feeling better for the praise, I said, "George would've, sooner or later."
"What sort of a book was it?" Bess asked.
"Poems."
"You wouldn't happen to remember what sort of poems."
"Collected Sonnets."
"A small book?"
"Very small; smaller than a paperback. Just a little thing about so big."
"Hard cover or soft?"
"Hard," I said, wondering at the way a woman's mind worked.
"A little present from a man, I'd bet," Bess said.
"The lipstick on the handkerchief in her pocket," I said. "He could've got some on him if they kissed and she could've wiped it off with his handkerchief, then put it in her own pocket."
George reached across the table and touched his wife's hand and said, "It's getting late. Jake's about to fall face-first into what's left of his soup." He looked at me. "How long's it been since you saw a bed? Not mentioning the Widow Wister's?"
"The Widow Wister?" Bess exclaimed. "Whoever says that anymore?"
"Well," I said, "I've been up, except for a short nap at Maggie's, since seven o'clock in the morning day before yesterday. Thanks for the offer, but I think I'll sleep on the train."
"Train doesn't leave for Omaha until eleven tonight."
"I'm not going home, I'm going to Denver. That train leaves five minutes before five this morning."
"What're you going to Denver for?"
"I thought I might take the rest of the man with me. I'd like to be there when Bosley finishes the autopsy on him."
"Well, if you're sure you want to be such an eager beaver."
"Thing like this, the sooner you get to it the better."
"Eager beaver," Bess said.
"What's that?" George said.
"Nobody's said that for years, either."
Her saying things like that made me feel a little old. I thought of Janel Butterfield's wonderful country breakfasts and Charlotte Shumway's cottage garden over to McCook in Nebraska and Maggie Wister's lovely feather bed not half a dozen miles away. For a minute there I was ready to change my mind and go toddling off to bed in the McGilvray guest room but George sighed, stood up, an
d went to get his coat off the hook.
"Where you going?" I said.
"Help you get the body aboard."
"I can do that with the baggageman. You don't have to go out again."
"You might as well take the personal property along with you. If we're going by the book, that stuff should stay with the bodies."
"I notice you don't lock your safe—"
"Nothing in it to steal."
"—so why can't you just give me an extra key, and when I'm through, I'll leave it on the desk. The Yale lock'll latch itself."
"I've got a radio transmitter in the other room. I'll call the deputy in the cruiser and tell him not to shoot you if he sees you in the office." He stood there with one arm in the sleeve of his coat. "On the other hand, maybe it would be just as easy if I drove you on down."
"It's six blocks," I said. "The walk'll fool my body into believing it's had a good night's sleep."
"For heaven's sake, you two," Bess said. "Alphonse and Gaston. Who's going to be the most polite. Hush up, George, give Jake the extra key and thank God for considerate friends."
I was glad she'd spoken up. We could have gone around the mulberry bush for days. "Why don't you two go on up to bed? I'll let myself out when it's time for me to be going."
Bess smiled her thanks at me behind George's back. She was as concerned about his health and welfare as he was about hers.
They went off to bed. I sat there remembering the first line of the poem on the page marked by the railroad ticket.
"How do I love thee, let me count the ways."
Then I thought about the three cigarette butts in the man's pocket. It was a soldier's habit.
TEN
I almost nodded off sitting there by the warm stove. My chin touched my chest and I jerked my head up quick. I sat there listening to the night sounds of the house, all the creaking, clicking, and sighing.
There's a different voice to a house with more than one person living in it than a house with nobody in it but yourself.
I got out of there and on my way before I started feeling really sorry for myself.
After a rain like the one we'd had, the temperature usually cranks up a notch or two, but it was almost balmy outdoors.