by Jack Ewing
“I don’t remember,” Mrs. Colangelo said. “Is it important?”
“Not at all, just curious. What can I do for you?”
“Do you do interiors?” She had a lisp that turned every “s” into “th.”
“Sure. It’s a specialty of mine.” Damn! He hated interior work, especially in summertime. Many older city houses didn’t have air conditioning. He’d lose gallons of sweat coating one stifling room after another. People were often too lazy in warm weather to bother moving furniture and other possessions, so he had to be extra-careful where he draped drop cloths and doubly alert about where he stepped. Worst of all, homeowners expected miracles. Clients who didn’t want to pay for prep work bitched bitterly when paint failed to cover cracks, gouges in plaster, ceiling sags or old wallpaper seams.
The woman said, “I need the whole interior painted. I’m hosting a big party this fall and I want everything spiffy.” Her lisp made the last word sound as though she was spraying saliva like a lawn sprinkler.
Toby ducked his head away from a sloping wall to sit in a rummage-sale chair. “How many rooms?”
She hadn’t been asked that question before. “Living and dining rooms, hall…”
Toby mentally counted along with her. Upstairs and down there were approximately twelve rooms or areas in all: a big, potentially lucrative job. “What about the exterior?” It didn’t hurt to ask. If he could add extra weeks of work at the same place, he wouldn’t have to scrounge for new customers.
“Most of the house is stone, very little wood and that was painted three years ago.” Her voice got pinched. “Although it’s already peeling in places.”
“I could look at the exterior when I come over to give my estimate.”
“Can’t you give an estimate over the phone?”
Duh! Could you hold the house a little closer to the receiver? “Not till I’ve seen your home,” he said. “Depends how big the rooms are—”
“They’re quite large.”
“—or what shape your walls are in. They may need prepping.”
“Prepping?”
Was he speaking Greek? “Preparation. Could be as simple as dusting away dirt and cobwebs, or more complicated, like repairing holes or stripping wallpaper.”
“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Colangelo said. “Some rooms have wallpaper. Can you remove it before you paint?”
Crap! If there was anything he hated more than painting inside on warm summer days, it was scraping away layers of stubborn paper a square inch at a time. It sometimes took forever to finish a single wall. But if it meant the difference between winning or losing profitable work—“I can handle that, too,” Toby said. “I’ll give it a look when I come by, to see if I need to.”
“How long will it take to complete everything?”
“Impossible to tell without seeing your house.”
“When can you come over?”
They arranged to meet in two days. That would give him time to finish the Cratty place. The Colangelo job, it turned out, was located in a nice upper-middle-class neighborhood with old, established homes near Thornden Park, about halfway between the campuses of LeMoyne College and Syracuse University. Toby scribbled down directions, the address, and a phone number to call in case something came up and he couldn’t keep the appointment. They both hung up.
The third beer seemed to have evaporated. Toby opened a fresh can and sat again at the table in the nook to take up where he’d left off with the not quite empty papers.
There were more than three hundred pages. Just putting them in order took over an hour. Pages 12, 44, 78, 89, 191 and 228 had blood across the writing, from a few drops to full-blown blotches as big as a saucer. He’d tracked blood on the backs of a dozen other sheets. No telling, without a magnifying glass, how many he’d gotten paint on—the stuff dried flat white. Now they all bore his fingerprints, too.
Toby’s stomach grumbled. He glanced at the wall clock: after seven. No wonder he was hungry. He checked his larder. A few cans of beans, a couple cans of tuna beside vinegar, sauces, and spices in the cupboard. Inferior bulk raisin bran on the counter in a recycled screw-top jar to keep out bugs—it had been sitting there for months. There was a half-loaf of day-old wheat bread from the bakery outlet, now aged by a week and going green in places. Several plastic airtight containers of leftovers had been shoved to the back of the fridge. When opened, they revealed smelly things covered with fuzzy mold in three different pastel colors. He’d dine out tonight.
Toby arranged the heap of papers into a tidy block. Where to put them for safekeeping? He glanced at cabinets over the sink. He gazed down the hall toward the bedroom where his mattress rested on the floor. He looked the opposite way at the sparsely furnished living room. He considered the bathroom, not much bigger than a closet. Finally, he tugged open the oven door and laid the block of papers on a single wire rack dividing a box barely big enough to cook a chicken: as good a place as any.
Toby quickly lathered and rinsed himself in the coffin-like stall shower. He changed into shorts and T-shirt. Then he locked up and nipped over to an air-conditioned family-style cafe that served large portions of bland food for little money.
After a leisurely meal—tossed salad, homemade meatloaf, real mashed potatoes and gravy, mixed vegetables and fresh-baked apple pie—Toby returned home. He clicked on the TV and a small oscillating fan to move stuffy air around, then plunked himself into his second-hand easy chair. On a New York cable station, the Mets were playing the Padres. Toby immersed himself in the game—meaningless to the pennant race since both teams were far back in their respective division standings—blocking out of his mind the startling events of the day until drowsiness caught up with him.
He crawled off to bed. Toby slept restlessly, dreaming of a brown-skinned man covered with blood who rose from the floor to point at a pile of papers at his feet, only to be knocked down again by a faceless dark-haired man with a poker in his hand.
Chapter 7
In the morning, Toby decided to finish the Cratty job that day, no matter what. There was more work coming. He wouldn’t think about the blue house, the Puterbaughs, the cops, the dead man, that bundle of papers in the oven. He wouldn’t think of anything but just lose himself in work. After instant coffee and toast made from bread with spoiled parts torn off, Toby dressed. He locked up and went down to the garage. His was farthest left of the half-dozen cheaply constructed interconnected cubicles erected two decades before when the house had first been subdivided. Other garages, except for Bart’s at the far right, were empty, their doors ajar.
It was barely nine o’clock, yet the confined, windowless space was already warm when Toby opened the sturdy brass Yale padlock and swung the doors wide. The air inside was redolent with dust, crankcase oil, paint and a faint, sweet-sour undertone he could not identify. He wormed along a narrow path between truck and wall to the crude but sturdy shelves the landlady, Mrs. O’Dwyer, had allowed him to put up at the back to hold painting supplies. He took down fresh five-gallon containers of “Cultured Pearl” to replace those emptied the previous day. He grabbed gallon cans of battleship gray for trim, and fresh brushes of assorted sizes.
Toby lugged everything to the rear of the truck in five round trips. He selected one of his half-dozen white coveralls—identical, except for different colors and patterns of dripped paint—hanging from nails. He started to load the gear. Something funny about the ropes securing the tarp to loops on the truck bed’s sides. Toby examined the knots: grannies. He always used double slipknots so he could get at his equipment with a couple efficient yanks. Had he been so panicky leaving the Puterbaugh house that he’d changed his routine? Toby didn’t think so, but there was no other explanation. He worked counterclockwise around the truck, freeing knots, then flung back the tarp. The sickly sweetish smell intensified.
“What the hell?” Somebody had been in his truck. Everything was rearranged. Empty containers carelessly flung in the day before were neatly nested in a stack.
Smaller buckets, brushes, cans of thinner and cleanup rags nestled in the topmost. It was obvious why the bed had been tidied. Someone needed space for an additional item: a long, bulky bundle swaddled in drop cloths and laid-out full-length.
Toby suspected before unwrapping it what the package contained. But he had to look. He let down the tailgate, climbed into the truck bed. Dodging the collapsible ladder sloping backward from its cab roof clamp, Toby worked up a sweat tugging at paint-dappled canvas, his gut heaving. When the cloth dropped away, and he’d unwound layers of newspaper and a stained plush carpet, he stood, head ducked under the rafters, looking down at the unwanted gift.
It was the body from the blue house, of course, still dressed in his natty summer-weight suit. The man lay on his back, wrists crossed on chest. He looked much worse than when Toby had first found him. Blood on his face was dried black and crusty. His mouth hung slack, revealing a broken front tooth. The half-open eyes were cloudy. His skin looked greenish, like copper starting to corrode.
The corpse was dumped while he was phoning the cops, Toby guessed. It hadn’t been done in the night: his garage padlock hadn’t been tampered with. But why pawn off the dead guy on him? Simple: while whoever was cleaning up the mess in the den, they must have spotted Toby’s truck parked in Mrs. Cratty’s driveway. At that time it would have been the only vehicle visible anywhere in the immediate neighborhood: a convenient place to dispose of a body—especially while its owner was traipsing around on foot.
Toby, the perfect patsy, had driven off unaware with the dead man. Those who put the body in his truck probably got a big laugh about it. What balls they had to run the carcass across the street from the blue house! Even wrapped in cloth and paper, the stiff looked exactly like what it was.
What was he supposed to do with it now? He could call the cops—he should call: there must be some law about reporting a dead body. But who knew how they would react? Look how Dixon and French treated him after he called in the murder, like he was the criminal instead of an innocent witness! They might arrest and charge him with the killing. Who else more convenient could they pin it on?
This situation was going to take thought. It wouldn’t do to act in haste. He’d work it out while he finished Mrs. Cratty’s house.
Meantime, he couldn’t drive around with this pile of dead meat. The guy was already ripening in the heat. Toby re-wrapped the body. He lowered the heavy, awkward bundle over the side of the truck onto the grease-stained concrete slab floor of the garage and then climbed out after it. He squatted, got a good grip on the canvas.
“Whatcha doin’?”
Toby’s heart leaped. He looked around so fast his neck made a snapping sound, like a tendon had popped.
Barton Hughes, in faded jeans and tank top, stood in the doorway, lit up by the sun. He peered in, scratching his potbelly with stubby fingers. Under hair covering his arms and shoulders like mangy fur, tattooed crosses stood out bold against pale skin.
Toby managed a weak chuckle, worked up spit to unglue his cottony mouth.
“Just storing stuff.” He made an aimless gesture.
“Need help?”
“Thanks, Bart, I can handle it.” Toby began dragging the heavy bundle towards the shelves in back. “Besides, it’s kind of tight in here.”
“What is that?” Bart answered his own question. “Looks like a body.”
“Just a bunch of drop cloths I’m putting away. Don’t need them any more on the job.” Toby’s voice sounded sick to his ears. He breathed easier when Bart lost interest and wandered away towards the nicely restored ’57 Chevy sitting in his garage. The tattooed man mumbled something about heading to the drugstore to stock up on condoms because Barbara, his squeeze of the moment, was in heat again.
With some difficulty, Toby wedged the uncooperative packaged dead man into a yard-high space between the floor and the bottom shelf of a wall of paint cans, piled empties on top. He loaded paint and clean brushes in the truck bed where the body had been, tied down the tarp, backed out of the garage and locked up.
In a half-hour, Toby was again standing on the ladder, slapping fresh paint onto the clapboards of the Cratty place. He dipped deep and worked with great sweeping motions of his arm, slathering the space above the front windows in an attempt to finish fast so he could dispose of that pesky body.
What to do with it? Leave it someplace? Where?
Dump it in the lake? When?
Bury it in the woods? How?
Every plan presented problems. It didn’t get dark till well after nine. The whole town stayed out late these days, enjoying warm weather. If someone saw him getting rid of the stiff, Toby would be in real hot water. “Maybe I should just give him back to the Puterbaughs.” He stabbed his brush into the paint can. “Serve them right.”
“Yoo-hoo, Mr. Rew,” called somebody below and behind him. Toby whirled around so fast he nearly fell off the ladder into the bushes.
Mrs. Puterbaugh, as though conjured by mention of her name, stood at the foot of the ladder smiling up. From his elevation, Toby could look right down the front of her skimpy halter-top. She held a glass of amber liquid in each hand and her half-exposed breasts rose gleaming as she raised one glass to him. “You looked so hot working out here in the sun. I thought you could use a cooling drink.”
His lips were stuck together. He pried them apart to speak. “Yeah, I’m parched. Thanks.” Careful, his brain warned.
Mrs. Puterbaugh watched, mouth curved into a smile that didn’t reach as far as her eyes, while Toby descended. He took it slow, pausing to mop his damp face and neck with a faded blue bandanna. She didn’t move away as he neared, so Toby stopped on the final ladder step.
For a woman over forty, Mrs. Puterbaugh looked a healthy thirty-five in clinging top and skin-tight shorts. She had the arms and legs and waist of an athlete, the bust and hips of a mature woman. No visible tan lines.
Watch it now!
She handed him a tall, frosty glass. After a moment’s hesitation, Toby took it. She wouldn’t try anything in broad daylight, would she? Not with that guy down the block mowing his yard, and that lady across the street weeding flowers. He swallowed half the drink in one gulp and nearly choked. Not tea this time, but rum and Coke, whisper of mint. The cold of the liquid made his teeth ache. The strength of the liquor took his breath away and seared a fiery path towards his stomach.
Mrs. Puterbaugh sipped. “Tasty, isn’t it? One hundred-fifty-one proof.” She stared at him over the rim of her glass. “We drank these in Mexico. Believe it or not, after a couple, you begin to feel cooler.”
She giggled as though she’d had more than one of her concoctions. “Consider it a peace offering. We got off on the wrong foot the other day.”
“Not bad.” Toby took a more cautious taste. “Thanks, Mrs. Put—”
“No need to be so formal. Call me Sandy. And you’re—?”
“Toby.”
They shook hands. “Pleased to meet you unofficially, Toby.” She drew him off the ladder. Her fingers held the chill from her glass.
“Sandy, like I was saying, thanks for the drink. But I’d better take it easy. Alcohol and ladders don’t mix.”
“You mean don’t drink and climb?” She giggled again.
“Look, I ought to get back to work—”
“Oh, you can talk to me for a minute, can’t you, Toby Rew?” She tugged at his free hand. “Please? While we finish our drinks?”
“I can spare a minute.” He let himself be pulled towards the side of Mrs. Cratty’s house. “What do you want to talk about?”
She scuffed at the lawn with scarlet-tipped bare toes peeping from her sandals. “About what happened yesterday. I just wanted to go over events of the day. Discuss what you think you saw.”
Toby freed his hand from her grasp. “I know what I saw.”
“Of course.” She backed towards the driveway. “Could we chat in private?”
Toby shrugged and followed her down the concrete pat
h. He glanced over a shoulder at the blue house across the street. Was Mr. Puterbaugh watching them from a window? Couldn’t tell. Sandy paused as she neared his pickup then veered into the shadows of Mrs. Cratty’s tiny back porch. She lowered herself onto the second step, her long, smooth, tanned legs stretched out straight. She patted the wood beside her, beckoning with a twitch of her head.
Toby sat, inches away. He could feel heat radiating from her. She gave off the smell of tropical flowers. He watched a glassy worm of sweat wriggle south between her bronzed breasts. He wet his lips with drink. “What’s on your mind, Sandy?”
She turned toward him so their knees touched. Her washed-out blue eyes captured his. “Yesterday, Toby, you mentioned seeing some papers in our den.”
“I also mentioned a body.”
“Toby, dear, you saw for yourself when you visited with the police: there was no dead man nor any sign of murder.” Sandy spoke slowly, as though giving important instructions to a small child or an idiot.
“A couple hours earlier, a guy was bleeding all over your rug. I don’t know how or why, but you cleaned everything up.”
Sandy sighed. “This is so tiresome, Toby.”
“What have you got to hide? What did you do with the stiff?” Toby already knew the answer to the last question, naturally, but he wanted to hear it from her.
She made an exasperated sound. “Forget that for now. What became of the papers?”
“What makes those papers more important than a dead man?”
She flapped a hand, dismissing the question. “The manuscript is Jim’s dissertation, required for his doctorate. Poor Jim has toiled over it for ages. He finally had it in perfect shape. He typed the final draft in Mexico, on his old portable typewriter, because the climate is hard on laptops and they’re prime targets for thieves. I was going to retype it on my desktop when we got back, and burn the master onto CD, but—”
“But somebody took it first. You never got the chance.”
“Yes. The original and carbon copy are gone.”