Body For Sale

by Deming, Richard

  It was two A.M. by the time I had all the details worked out in my mind. Then I fell into the bed and was asleep instantly.

  16

  HELEN PHONED MY OFFICE AT TEN A.M., PRESUMABLY just after her husband left for work.

  “Everything’s set,” I told her.

  “Shall I meet you somewhere for lunch so we can talk it over?” she asked.

  “We’d better not risk being seen together,” I said. “We can discuss it at the cottage.”

  “When are you coming up?”

  “Tonight after work.”

  She said in a dubious tone, “Suppose he arrives before you do?”

  I hadn’t thought of that. Just because Mathews had told Helen not to expect him at the cottage until Monday, it didn’t necessarily follow that he wouldn’t get there before then. He might be planning to perform the murder that afternoon, drive back to Raine City to establish an alibi for the weekend, then return to the cottage on Monday and “discover” that his wife was missing. With his habit of taking off anywhere from two to three hours before quitting time, he could drive to the cottage, perform the murder and be gone again before I got there.

  I said, “Would he think it funny if you changed plans and didn’t go until tomorrow?”

  “He might.”

  I considered for a moment, then said, “I don’t think you’d better go out there alone. Suppose you leave the house after lunch, but don’t drive to the cottage. Spend the day shopping or something. We’ll meet somewhere and arrive at the cottage together. Where is the place?”

  “Beyond Dune Point, on the west side of the lake.”

  I placed Dune Point on a mental map. “There’s a roadhouse called Gill’s Grill on Route 17 about a mile past Dune Point. I’ll meet you there about seven. By the time I stop home for a bag, it will take that long, even if I get away from here at five on the dot.”

  “All right,” she said. “Gill’s Grill at seven.”

  I had one more minor matter to take care of. Not knowing exactly when George Mathews intended to arrive at the cottage, I had to consider the possibility that he wouldn’t get there until the time he had told Helen. And I could hardly make it to work on Monday if the murder wasn’t going to take place until then. I phoned Henry Hurlington and told him I had to go out of town on some personal business and might not make it back by Monday.

  “That’s okay, so long as your work’s caught up,” he said. “You’ll be in if you do get back by then, though?”

  I told him I would.

  The rest of the day I threw myself into my work and didn’t even think about murder. At four p.m. Esther phoned my office.

  “I thought you were going to call me,” she said. “Am I going to see you tonight?”

  In my preoccupation with my weekend plans I had forgotten Esther entirely. After being put off all week, naturally she would expect to spend most of the weekend with me.

  I said, “I’m afraid I won’t see you over the whole weekend, Esther. I won’t be in town.”

  “Oh?” she said in a disappointed voice.

  “A friend invited me up to his place for some fishing.”

  “I see. Up at Weed Lake?”

  My heart skipped a beat. I said cautiously, “No. What made you think of Weed Lake?”

  “If you were going to fish the lake here, you wouldn’t be leaving town,” she said reasonably. “And Mr. Mathews mentioned that he won’t be in next week because he’s going up to his cottage at Weed Lake. I thought maybe he was the friend who had invited you.”

  “No,” I said. “We don’t move in the same circle. I’m going trout-fishing up in the hills.”

  “Will you be back Sunday evening?” she asked wistfully.

  “I don’t know how early. I’ll phone you if I get in soon enough.”

  “All right, Tom. Have luck.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I hoped I wasn’t going to need luck. My murder plan was carefully enough worked out so that luck shouldn’t have to be a factor.

  I got away from the plant at the stroke of five and drove home to pack a bag. I put two articles in it aside from clothing and toilet supplies: a length of strong clothesline and my army automatic.

  I reached Gill’s Grill at five minutes of seven and found Helen already there. She was seated at a table wearing a flowered sundress, which in this summer vacation area was acceptable evening attire. She had a Manhattan before her.

  Joining her, I ordered a Gibson when a waitress came over. As the girl moved off, I asked, “Have any trouble wasting the day?”

  Her bare shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I managed.”

  She didn’t seem particularly nervous tonight, but she acted depressed. I asked if something was bothering her.

  “Nothing new. This morning I established to my own satisfaction that there isn’t any doubt about George’s intentions. I knew them anyway, but I guess seeing the evidence with my own eyes made me a little moody.”

  My eyes narrowed. “You haven’t done anything to tip him off that you know he means to kill you, have you?” I asked sharply.

  “Of course not. I merely checked his car before he got up. There wasn’t any danger. He always sleeps until nine. The weights and sash cord were in the car trunk. The pistol was in the glove compartment.”

  We stopped speaking because the waitress brought my drink.

  “Want to have dinner here?” I asked Helen.

  “We may as well,” she said listlessly.

  After dinner Helen led the way to the cottage in her car. We passed under the white wooden archway marking the entrance to the public beach at Dune Point, turned right on the gravel road that circled the lake, and followed it past two small private beaches clustered with summer cottages. A half mile beyond the second cluster she turned left into a dirt lane, which ended in a strip of white sand at the lake edge.

  A white cottage was situated a dozen yards back from the strip of sand. I knew Mathews hadn’t arrived yet, because the lane was coated with powdery dust that would have shown his tire tracks, and the dust had been undisturbed since the last rain.

  Weed Lake gets its name from the tremendous amount of seaweed in it, which makes it an excellent breeding ground for muskellunge. Horseshoe-shaped, it is only about five miles long and nowhere wider than a couple of hundred yards. Yet its average depth is fifty feet and it contains holes over a hundred feet deep. I’ve seen fifty- and sixty-pound muskies pulled from it.

  The Mathewses’ cottage was on the west side of the horseshoe in a relatively isolated spot. While several other cottages were visible from it, the nearest was a good four hundred yards away on the opposite side of the lake. Heavily underbrushed timber screened it from the view of the cottages on this side.

  I made use of the timber to conceal my car fifty yards from the cottage so that when Mathews drove in he wouldn’t suspect Helen had company.

  When the car was hidden to my satisfaction, I checked the small boat Mathews used for muskie fishing, a twelve-foot skiff turned bottom-up on the beach. The seams all appeared tight enough. Helen showed me its outboard motor, which was stored in a shed attached to the cottage. While she watched for his possible arrival, I tinkered with it until it ran smoothly.

  Among other items stored in the shed I noted that there were a number of buckets and a Coleman gasoline lantern. I checked the lantern to make sure it worked properly and contained an adequate supply of white gasoline.

  The only other immediate preparation necessary was to make sure Mathews couldn’t walk in on us unexpectedly while we were asleep. As the cottage contained only one window in each of its three rooms, and there was only one outside door, this didn’t present much of a problem. The windows were heavily screened and the door had an inside bolt.

  All we had to do was sit back and wait for him to walk into the trap.

  Before we went to bed that night, I explained my murder plan to Helen. It was a sound plan, having the twin virtues of being simple and foolproof
. It’s the elaborate plans that put murderers in the electric chair.

  I explained how we could make it seem that she and her husband had been night-fishing, tipped over the boat and he drowned.

  “We’ll pick some lighted cottage,” I said. “Tip the boat about fifty yards from it, then you yell your head off. You swim toward the cottage, I’ll swim back here, jump in my car and take off. It can’t fail.”

  She said dubiously, “I thought you intended to drown him in the bathtub. Isn’t this way going to be dangerous? Suppose he manages to drown you before you drown him?”

  “He’s going to be drowned before he ever gets in the boat,” I assured her. “It’s only going to seem that you and he went out fishing together.”

  While we waited for Mathews to show up, Helen was kept pretty busy getting the cottage ready for occupancy. All we did Friday night was air the place out and start the electric water pump. But Saturday she had a lot to do. In the morning she drove to the shopping center at Dune Point to lay in a supply of groceries. She spent the afternoon thoroughly cleaning the cottage, even washing the windows.

  All this was necessary because I wanted it to look as though she was planning on her husband and herself spending a several-day vacation there.

  By Saturday night we had both completed every possible chore we could think of in the way of preparation. There was nothing left to do but wait.

  Helen fixed us some dinner, but neither of us had much appetite, and most of it went into the garbage disposal. After dinner she opened a fresh bottle of bourbon and both of us got a little drunk.

  About nine o’clock she said, “Let’s take a shower and go to bed.”

  “So early?” I asked.

  “We don’t have to sleep, do we? I want to take a shower together.”

  I was a little surprised. Last night she had fallen into bed in a state of emotional exhaustion and had already been asleep when I got there. She had been up and dressed before I awoke that morning. The prospect of committing murder probably had her too wound up to show any interest in sex, so I hadn’t pushed it. I hadn’t even tried to kiss her since our arrival at the cottage.

  Probably the whisky had relaxed her now. Then it occurred to me that as yet we had never had relations when she was completely sober. I wondered if alcohol was a necessary adjunct to her enjoyment of sex.

  “All right,” I said agreeably. “Then we’ll shower and go to bed.”

  Immediately, she walked into the bedroom, tugging at the knot at the back of her neck that held up the front of her sundress. She was out of the garment and had kicked off her shoes by the time I reached the bedroom door. She hadn’t been wearing anything beneath the sundress.

  She watched with a glitter of anticipation in her eyes as I undressed. Then she ran into the bathroom, adjusted the shower to the proper temperature and drew the curtains around the tub.

  She only washed my back for me, but she wanted me to lather her all over. She stood with a dreamy half-smile on her face, luxuriating in the feel of my hands on her body. By the time she was ready for a rinse, we had both became too excited to do a proper job of finishing the shower. We raced each other to the bed still half wet and tumbled into it in a dead heat.

  That night she was insatiable. But again I sensed some drive other than mere physical passion in her. She seemed almost compulsive in her love-making, as though she had to prove something to herself before committing the irrevocable act of murder. Perhaps she was trying to convince herself that she was making the choice she wanted in picking me for her next husband. Perhaps she was trying to forget the times she had lain in George Mathews’ arms by satiating herself with me. Or perhaps it was merely that she was beginning to dread the thought of what we had to do, and sex was the most convenient way to keep herself from thinking about it. At any rate, there was a desperate urgency in her that was both exciting and disquieting.

  We didn’t get much sleep until morning. Then we both passed out from exhaustion and slept in each other’s arms until noon.

  George Mathews arrived Sunday evening.

  17

  BY THAT TIME WE HAD GIVEN UP EXPECTING HIM TO ARRIVE before Monday, when he had said he would get there. I was lolling on the beach in swim trunks only a few yards from the cottage when I heard his car engine. Helen was inside preparing dinner.

  The instant I heard the car turn into the lane, I leaped up and headed for the cottage at a dead run. I was inside before he came into view.

  Helen had been lying on the beach with me up to a few minutes previously, when she had gone inside to start dinner. So she wore nothing but a bathing suit. Nervously, she wiped moist hands on her stomach and peered out the kitchen window to where her husband was parking his Lincoln next to her car. She was deathly pale.

  “Take it easy,” I cautioned, quietly moving into the bedroom.

  Getting my automatic from my bag, I checked the load, then pressed my back against the wall next to the door and waited. After a few moments I heard the screen door slam as Mathews came into the house.

  “Hi, honey,” I heard him say. “I decided to run up tonight instead of tomorrow. What are you fixing?”

  “Just cold cuts and potato salad,” she said in a steady voice. “It’s too hot to cook. Go put something comfortable on and I’ll feed you. I was just ready to sit down.”

  “Be with you in five minutes,” he said cheerfully, and headed for the bedroom, whistling.

  He walked right past me without seeing my figure flattened against the wall alongside the door, dropped his weekend bag on the bed and struggled out of his suit coat. He dropped his coat on the bed, started to loosen his tie, and then, turning, spotted me.

  He froze in position, his gaze on the automatic leveled at his belt. His expression was incredulous.

  “What’s this?” he asked on a high note. “What are you doing here?”

  “Just keep undressing,” I said. “Right down to your shorts.”

  “Are you crazy?” he asked. “Have you switched from blackmail to housebreaking? How’d you get in here without Helen seeing you?”

  I grinned at him. “She knows I’m here. Do what I tell you, or I’ll put a bullet in your guts.”

  Flipping off the safety, I let the grin fade from my face. He raised a hand, palm out.

  “Don’t get excited, Cavanaugh. I’ll do what you say.”

  He stripped off his shirt and trousers.

  “The shoes, too,” I ordered.

  Stooping, he unlaced his brightly polished shoes and kicked them off.

  “Now get into your favorite fishing clothes,” I said.

  For a moment he looked at me blankly, but when I let my expression harden, he turned and quickly walked to the closet. He put on a faded T-shirt, worn denim trousers and some scuffed loafers. In this outfit he no longer looked like a business executive. He looked like any other man dressed in old clothes to go fishing.

  “Now let’s go sit down to dinner,” I suggested.

  Helen was backed against the sink when we entered the kitchen with my gun pressed into Mathews’ back. In a high voice he said to her, “What’s this all about, honey?”

  There was the same high tension in her that I had noted on her first visit to my apartment. She gave the impression that if she didn’t restrain herself, she would go into a violent fit of trembling. She said nothing, merely stared at her husband without expression.

  I said to Mathews, “Sit at the table and don’t ask questions.”

  Seating himself, he looked puzzledly from one to the other of us.

  “All right,” I told Helen. “Serve him up some dinner.”

  Quietly she filled his plate with cold cuts, potato salad and sliced tomatoes. Putting it in front of him, she moved butter and rolls within his reach and poured him a cup of coffee. Then she moved back against the sink.

  “Eat,” I ordered.

  “Why?” Mathews asked. “What is this?”

  “A game,” I said. “It’s called Forf
eit. Either eat or get shot.”

  He looked at me a little belligerently, decided I meant it and reluctantly began to eat.

  Halfway through his plate he asked with an attempt at nonchalance, “Aren’t you two going to have anything?”

  “Later,” I said. “Just keep quiet and eat.”

  I didn’t see any point in telling him the reason I wanted food in his stomach. In the event of an autopsy it might just strike the medical examiner as strange that Mathews had gone night-fishing on an empty stomach.

  All the time he was eating, Helen stood with her back against the sink, watching him from unwinking eyes. Aside from her paleness and rigid bearing, there was no indication of emotion in her.

  By then Mathews must have figured out that his wife and I were lovers. But I believe he thought I had been at the cottage only because he wasn’t expected until the next morning, and I had pulled a gun because I panicked when he caught me alone with her. I don’t think it occurred to him that we’d deliberately set a trap. Possibly he thought I was holding him under the gun merely as a time-gaining device while I tried to decide what to do about being caught in a compromising position.

  I’m sure he didn’t suspect for a moment that we meant to kill him, or he could never have eaten as well as he did. He seemed puzzled rather than frightened, and more amazed than angry at his wife’s infidelity.

  When he finished eating, I ordered him back into the bedroom. Helen followed us to the doorway and watched as I commanded Mathews to lie facedown on the bed.

  When he had complied, I said, “Put your hands behind your back.”

  Thrusting the gun under the belt of my swim trunks, where I could get at it instantly if Mathews made any unexpected move, I securely tied his hands and feet with the clothesline I had brought along.

  When I finished, he inquired in a pettish voice, “What do you expect to accomplish by all this nonsense? Maybe I’d be willing to discuss a reasonable divorce settlement if you weren’t behaving so idiotically.”

  Ignoring him, I said to Helen, “It’s only a little past six thirty and it won’t be dark until nine. We ought to wait until an hour after dark, which gives us three and a half hours. Those knots are tight enough to keep him. Let’s get things ready.”