The Corpse Without a Country

by Louis Trimble

  She put her whole self into the matter at hand.

  The gun lay forgotten. When Ilona lifted her lips off mine, her eyes were soft and dreamy, showing nothing but interest in our present procedures.

  She rolled to a sitting position. She murmured, “Help me up, Peter. The floor is much too hard.”

  What it was too hard for, I didn’t ask. I got to my feet and held out my hands. She took them, lifted both feet and planted them in my middle, pulled on my hands, and rolled.

  I did a beautiful imitation of a broken-winged swan ballet and landed on my back on the bed. The frame gave way, dropping me with the springs. By the time I was on my feet, Ilona had the gun again.

  She said, “You will now give me your clothing, please.”

  “I was about to when you got rough,” I said.

  “I am no longer in the mood for play,” she informed me.

  I agreed. The gun looked ugly and it was aimed at me in very definite fashion. I looked around for the bath, found it, went in, and peeled. I tossed my clothes out to her. She kept them all except for my shorts and socks which came back almost at once.

  I sat on the edge of the tub and waited for her next move. Then minutes later, it occurred to me to wonder just what she might be doing. I listened. No sound from the room. I opened the door carefully. Not only was there no sound, there was no Ilona.

  But there were my clothes. They lay in a pile on the bed. A pile of strips and tatters. Every seam had been slit away. My shoes had been literally taken apart. My wallet and silver lay on the bed, but my keys were gone.

  About all I had left to wear outside my shorts and socks was Ilona’s lipstick. That she had left, generously smeared over my mouth.

  XII

  SOMEONE WAS LAUGHING AT ME. I turned toward the door to the living room and there was Maslin staring in.

  I said, “Did you get them?”

  “I just got here,” Maslin said. “Miss Rasmussen said they left about five minutes ago.”

  “Then go get them,” I yelled. “Go down to the Pad. I’ll bet you’ll find them there with Trillian.”

  “I just came from the Pad,” Maslin said. He sucked noisily on an empty pipe. “And Trillian isn’t there. Neither is this Emily Calvin dame.” He had stopped laughing and now he was giving me a fishy eye.

  “In fact, the dame that runs the place said they haven’t been there for some time.” He blew through the pipe. It gurgled. “But she said you’ve been there.”

  “Jodi and I were there earlier this evening,” I said. “And Emily and Trillian were sitting at the next table.

  “The one you busted up?” Maslin asked innocently.

  “I didn’t break up any table. What is this?”

  “That Willie dame says you did. She says you came in looking for Emily and when you couldn’t find her, you tried to take the place apart.”

  “She’s crazy!” I yelled. I wasn’t in any condition or I would have expected what came next.

  I was caught flat-footed when he said, “And she’s preferred charges against you.”

  I said, “Come off it, Maslin.”

  He said, “You’ll be able to post bail tomorrow and get out.”

  I yelled, “Did you ask Jodi? She’ll tell you we didn’t wreck anything. And she’ll tell you Emily and Trillian were there.”

  He said, “Take that lipstick off your face and let’s go ask her.”

  I scrubbed it off and started after Maslin into the living room. I was so sore I forgot how I was dressed. Jodi was wheeling a tray of coffee and cookies in from the kitchen and she stopped when she saw me.

  “Peter, not again!”

  I bolted back into the bedroom. Jodi called out, “There’s a robe in the closet, Peter.” I could hear Maslin guffawing.

  I got the robe and put it on. I didn’t enjoy wearing it. The breast had the initials RF monogrammed on it.

  I joined Jodi and Maslin on the divan and helped myself to coffee. I needed it. I said, “What did Ghatt do to you?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “He didn’t even talk. Then when Ilona came out, she said, ‘Nothing there,’ and they went away.”

  “And I came,” Maslin said.

  I said, “Jodi, Willie told Maslin that Emily and Trillian weren’t at the Pad tonight.”

  She stared wide-eyed at me. “But that’s not true!” she insisted, and not even Maslin could have doubted her sincerity. “Why I threw Emily onto a table myself, Lieutenant. I can show you the pieces of it.”

  I said feebly, “That’s all we broke, Maslin. And anyway Emily attacked Jodi.

  “Why?” His voice was interested.

  I said, “Trillian was clobbering me and Jodi kicked him.”

  “You mean you let a poet maul you around, Durham?” He gurgled into his coffee. “It sounds as if Willie was half right at that.”

  I said, “She’d already made the charge when I called you. That’s why you were so glad to find out where I was. You figured you’d have a lever to use on me.”

  He nodded as if that kind of trickery was regular business. “I have too, haven’t I?” he asked. He sounded smug. “What’s more, I’m going to use that lever right now. I want to know what you forgot to tell me back there at the boat where you found Fenney’s body.”

  He was being very clear. If I talked, he’d forget the charge. If I didn’t, he’d toss me in a cell until someone went bail for me. It was all a great joke to Maslin.

  I couldn’t afford the time to play games. I said, “I told you everything.” His expression said that I wasn’t satisfying him. I sighed and got up and went into the bedroom for my wallet. I brought it back.

  “I lifted something from Fenney before you showed up tonight,” I admitted. I dug in the wallet. There was nothing in it but my own stuff. “That damned blonde!” I said.

  Maslin finished his coffee and got up. “Let’s go, Durham.”

  “Listen,” I said, “I did take something. It was a color slide, one of those big 2¼ square inch ones.”

  “A picture of what?”

  That was what I didn’t want to tell him, but I didn’t want to spend a night in the pokey either. I said, “Of Ilona, the blonde, on Boundary Island. On the beach in the west bay.”

  “So?”

  “So, don’t you see? That connects her and Fenney.”

  Maslin shook his head. “Not good enough, Durham. Let’s go.”

  I’d told him all … well, almost all that I could, and I was fed up. I said, “Okay, take me down and toss me in. And then see just how much co-operation you get from our company on the rest of this case. And if you think you can do without it, try and play ball with Arne Rasmussen by yourself.”

  I should have thought of that sooner. His expression told me that I had him whipped. For the time being, at least. He said, “All right, Durham. We’ll play it your way for now. But if you do get anything and don’t bring it to me, I’ll see you inside if it means letting Fenney’s murderer go free.” He nodded to Jodi. “Thanks for the coffee, Miss Rasmussen.” And then he stalked out.

  I yelled after him, “Don’t forget about that blonde, Maslin.”

  He didn’t even bother to answer me. I heard the outer door slam and then looked at Jodi. “Willie was only an excuse,” I said. “Maslin knows I like to keep a few cards in my pocket and he doesn’t like it when I do.”

  “And you have some, Peter—really?”

  I didn’t want to tell her about the picture I’d seen on that slide either. I said, “Not any more. He cleaned me out just now.”

  We sipped coffee and thought about it. Suddenly Jodi said, “Peter, what were you and Ilona doing in the bedroom?”

  I could feel myself blushing. I said, “We were fighting for her gun.”

  “And she won?” I nodded. Jodi said, “I thought maybe she was trying to take your clothes off you.”

  I didn’t think that was funny. I said, “She got them, all right, but I can’t see why she’d rip them apart like that. I c
ouldn’t carry the report in the seams of my suit, damn it.”

  Jodi merely shook her head. We were back where we started. She said after a bit, “Just what is going on, Peter?”

  I said deliberately, “I think Arne might be able to answer that.”

  I wasn’t looking at her but at her reflection in the glass of the view window. Her body stiffened noticeably. I said, “I think you could supply a few answers too.”

  “Why do you say that, Peter?” She sounded genuinely puzzled.

  I couldn’t say, “Because you lied to me earlier.” I still had nothing definite to put my finger on to prove she had lied.

  I said finally, “I wonder if you aren’t protecting Arne or Reese?”

  I turned toward her in time to catch a quick smile. She said, “You just don’t like Reese, do you?”

  “I think he fits into the picture,” I said. “I can’t prove it, but I’m going to start trying come daylight.”

  She said softly, “I’m sorry you think that of me, Peter. I’ll answer any question I can if it will help prove that I’m not holding out on you.”

  I took her up on that. I said, “How is Reese’s financial condition?”

  “It’s very good,” she said.

  I said, “Considering you two are engaged, how come you waste so little affection on one another?”

  She said, “We ran into one another in England, by accident. And sometimes when two people a long way from home and from familiar surroundings find one another …”

  Even after that explanation, I had no right to feel possessive toward Jodi or jealous of Reese Fuller, but it was after midnight and the room was dim and Jodi was very close and warm.

  She said, “It was just a little over two years ago. Reese came to England to do a salvage job on a freighter that had run aground. He had a lot of waiting around to do, and so he came up to London. I was there working, and we got together. You know how those things go. Before he left, he bought me this ring. I just never had the courage to give it back.”

  I didn’t have the feeling Reese was eager to get inside a church. I said, “Just give it to him.”

  She laughed at my tone and rubbed her cheek against my shoulder. “Don’t sound so jealous. If you’re going to be that way, maybe I should get heated about what went on in the bedroom between you and Ilona.”

  I said, “As long as you’re wearing that ring, what happened in the bedroom is none of your business.”

  “Oh,” she murmured. She took off the ring and tossed it into a big vase by the window. “There.” She smiled up at me. “Was it fun, wrestling with Ilona?”

  “For a while,” I admitted.

  Jodi touched my swollen hand. “She plays hard.” She put her finger to my lip. “She kisses hard too.”

  I said, “She knows jujitsu.”

  “If you’re thinking of Mike Fenney,” she said, “remember that I threw Emily.”

  I said, “Sure, and I’ll bet you can wrestle good.”

  She said softly, “Let’s find out, shall we?”

  XIII

  JODI DIDN’T SEEM TO KNOW the first thing about wrestling. Once she did manage to wriggle free, but that was only to get up and turn off the light.

  When the church clock across the canal tolled three, Jodi said in a small, faraway voice, “What are we going to do about your clothes?”

  I looked across her smooth, sleek body and said, “So who needs clothes?”

  She laughed. “You have work to do come daylight, remember, darling?”

  It wasn’t what I wanted to think about at that moment.

  • • •

  Jodi lifted her head from my shoulder and rubbed sleep from her eyes. Thin streaks of light were playing on the smooth waters of the canal. It was lovely, as water at dawn always is.

  “Three bedrooms in the house and we sleep here,” she said.

  I still had Reese Fuller on my mind. I said, “Which one does Reese use?”

  She got up and reached for a robe. “You must be hungry to be nasty so early in the morning,” she said. “And he uses the downstairs bedroom for a dressing room when he comes to swim.”

  She padded off. I got up and went into the spare bedroom. In the bath I found a shaving kit. I used it. When I got back to the living room, Jodi had breakfast ready. And she was right; I was hungry.

  It was a fine meal with lots of coffee. If I hadn’t been so anxious to take a solid crack at Reese Fuller, I would have stretched that breakfast out until evening. Reluctantly I pried myself away from the table.

  Jodi didn’t need to be told what was on my mind. She said, “What do we do now, Peter?”

  “I go get some clothes,” I said, emphasing the “I.”

  “You still don’t trust me, do you?”

  I didn’t say anything. She waited a moment and then said it for me. “You know Arne really better than I do. I’ve been away so much these past years. Do you really think he could be mixed up in murder?”

  I couldn’t say no. Because Arne had started life out on the wrong side of the law, progressing from fish pirate to rum runner to—finally—respectable businessman. He had been legitimate since prohibition ended, but he had that rough background. And he was a lot of man, all of it self-sufficient. He had fought his way to the top and he believed in the law of the jungle.

  I said, “There is one thing about Arne. Whatever he does, he does it in the open. He doesn’t sneak around in the dark.”

  “I keep reminding myself of that,” she said.

  I said, “But people get old. There are things Arne wouldn’t do that he might close his eyes to someone else doing.”

  “Yes,” Jodi said, “if it threatened the good name of his business, he might condone a lot of things.”

  She didn’t have to say more. I knew how proud Arne was of his boat company and everything it stood for. As I understood her, she had just gently besmirched Reese Fuller’s name. There was no other way to interpret her remarks.

  I changed the subject for the moment. I wanted action now, not speculation. I called my apartment house and told the manager to let Jodi into the apartment. Then I sent her off to get dressed so she could go round me up some clothing. I told her to be careful and take the manager in with her. I hadn’t forgotten that Ilona had lifted my keys.

  When Jodi was gone, I started exploring her house. I had nothing definite in mind; I was just snooping. But knowing someone’s house is, in a sense, knowing them. And despite the past night, I didn’t really know Jodi; and I wanted to know her badly.

  The house was two stories, the second containing two bedrooms and a studio-office. One bedroom was obviously Jodi’s; the other had as obviously been fitted out for big Arne. It even had a king-sized bed. But somehow I couldn’t see him living here. I couldn’t see him living with Jodi, not when I remembered the way he had acted toward her on the boat.

  I wandered into the studio. And here I pulled up short. I was looking at one of the most god-awful messes I’d ever seen. Canvases were strewn heiter skelter. Two half finished oils leaned drunkenly on easels. Tubes of paint had been squeezed, their contents dribbled out on newspapers scattered about.

  Out of the chaos, the two half finished paintings focused themselves. They were both seascapes, obviously done in the islands. But I wasn’t so much interested in the subjects as I was in the color photographs tacked to a corner of each. They were big prints, and one had been made from the slide I had found in Fenney’s pocket.

  I hadn’t told Maslin everything about that picture. I had told him it showed Ilona on the beach, but I hadn’t mentioned that it also showed Arne holding out a picnic basket to her and grinning like a fool.

  The other picture was of Ilona by herself. She was standing on Boundary Rock, peering northward.

  Behind-me, Jodi said, “Good God in heaven!”

  I turned. She stood in the doorway. Her expression of bewilderment and shock changed to one of black Scandinavian anger. She began to swear in Norski. Like her
father, she had a pungent turn of phrase.

  “Look what they’ve done!”

  I said, ‘When did this happen, for heaven’s sake?”

  Jodi shook her head. “I haven’t been up here for a week. I’ve been on Corning Island.” Her eye caught the photograph. “Where did those come from?”

  I said, “I hoped you’d be able to tell me.”

  “I never saw them before. I …” She had gone closer and now her voice trailed off. She had seen the picture of Arne and Ilona together.

  She turned and started out of the room. I went after her. I caught her in the hall and took her shoulders and made her look at me.

  I said, “Maybe you’d better tell me what you know, Jodi. That picture of Arne and Ilona was made from the slide I found in Mike Fenney’s pocket.”

  Jodi’s face was a mask of misery. She looked down at her feet, like a small child caught breaking a rule. “If I don’t say anything, you won’t let me help you any more, will you, Peter?”

  When she used that little girl voice, she had me backed against the wall. But this time I fought my way clear. I said, “I don’t see how I can, do you?”

  She said, “All right. I was on Boundary Island when Ilona was there. I was on the peak making some sketches and a boat came into the bay. Ilona and Arne were in it.”

  “When was this?”

  “About two weeks ago.”

  I said, “How did they act? I mean, did they seem friendly or were they suspicious of one another or just what?”

  There was bitterness in her voice. “They were laughing. They sat on the beach and had a picnic.”

  I thought of the photo of Arne holding the picnic basket out to Ilona. “Then that photograph could have been made that day?”

  “Not by me,” she said in a positive voice.

  I believed her. If she had taken the pictures, she wouldn’t have been foolish to leave them about for me or anyone else to see.

  I said, “Did anything else happen, or did they just eat and go?”

  “Just before they left,” Jodi said slowly, as if recalling the scene, “Ilona walked out to Boundary Rock and looked seaward. Then she pointed as if pantomiming something for Arne. Then she seemed to find something in the rocks, and when she returned to Arne she acted excited. Whatever she found, she gave to him. Then they left.”