Mother Finds a Body

by Craig Rice

  “You said that once,” Biff replied. “We caught it. Only you don’t know Evangie. A day, eight days, it makes no difference to her when she’s telling a story.”

  The sheriff didn’t take his eyes from Biff. They didn’t even blink.

  “It was bought in a pawnshop,” the sheriff said. “For twelve dollars. It wasn’t bought by Mrs. Lee. It was bought by Gee Gee Graham.”

  Biff’s face fell into the stupidest expression. Maybe mine did, too. Only the sheriff’s words didn’t surprise me particularly. Had I been in Gee Gee’s shoes I would have bought a gun. I wouldn’t have gone around shouting that it was mine, either, not with dead bodies scattered all over Restful Grove.

  “She bought it under the name of Hazel Bronson,” the sheriff said.

  “That’s her real name,” I said. “Gee Gee Graham is a stage name.”

  “I know. I know quite a lot about the lady,” the sheriff said. “I’ve had a complete report on all of you from the Los Angeles police. I know, for instance, that Miss Graham not only knew Gus Grange, but that she had reason to fear for her life at his hands.”

  “You probably won’t believe this,” Biff said, “but we were fixing to tell you all that as soon as we could get in touch with you. Another thing we had to mention was that Evangie thinks she recognized that handkerchief. She thinks it belongs to Corny Cobb. A lot of funny things have been going on lately, and I haven’t been able to piece them together, but Gyp tells me someone was in the trailer. She was taking a nap and she heard someone prowling around. We know for a fact that this isn’t the first time we’ve had company. There was that one time before when some guy slipped a corpse in our bathtub, too. Finding that handkerchief at the grave of the second corpse makes me absolutely certain that someone is trying to frame a member of our company. It’s too coincidental that the handkerchief fell out of Corny’s pocket. I think someone planted it there deliberately.

  “As far as Gee Gee is concerned, you can talk to her yourself. If you think she had anything to do with it after she explains her connection with Gus, well, I’ll put in with you. Mandy Hill is a jerk. I love him like a brother, but I got to admit he’s a jerk. He would no more kill a guy than I would and I don’t approve of murder. Especially when it’s with knives in the back. We get enough of that in show business without bringing it into our private lives.

  “Evangie is a changeable woman, but she’s no murderer. Gyp here can’t cut her own toenails because she’s afraid of scissors. How do you think she’d be with a knife? Dimples, well, one look at her and you got your answer. Take my advice, you look for a guy who’s been doing this sort of thing for a long time and you’ve got your man. This isn’t an amateur’s murder, and you know it. The guy who’s responsible for those two corpses is a guy that’s broken in his act and played it plenty.”

  The sheriff stood up. His expression certainly hadn’t softened.

  “I know you’re all actors,” he said. “If I didn’t, I might pay a little attention to that talk of yours. Now, get this straight. I’m not arresting anybody, not yet anyway. You can’t leave town, so don’t try. I’m coming out to Restful Grove tomorrow and I’m questioning each and every one of you. One more lie, or one more evasion of the truth, and I lock you all up.”

  He opened the door for Biff and me. My legs felt a little weak, but I used them to get out of that office in a hurry. The sheriff closed the door behind us loudly. Biff and I kept walking. We didn’t speak until we were halfway down the block.

  “Of all the hypocrites!” Biff said. “And we thought he was fixed.”

  “Dancing with Mother like that,” I said.

  “Drinking my liquor,” Biff said.

  Then we laughed.

  “He called us actors!” Biff laughed again.

  “Not only that, but he hinted that we might be good actors.”

  Ahead we could see the lights of the saloon district: The Oasis, The Blinking Pup, The Last Hole; finally The Happy Hour. We quickened our pace. The lights ahead seemed to make the street we were on even darker. It was too quiet, too peaceful.

  The doctor’s car was still parked in front of the house. The parking light threw a faintly red beam on the dried grass.

  Suddenly Biff seized my arm.

  “Listen!” he whispered.

  There was the sound of a car starting up, the whir of a powerful motor. We stopped walking and listened closely. From one of the houses there was the click of a door lock falling in place. The beam of the headlights lit up and a low, cream-colored roadster sped down the driveway and into the street. It was headed toward the saloon district. It had left the doctor’s driveway.

  The strip of light that had been shining from under the doctor’s window disappeared as Biff and I stared at the house.

  “Did you get a look at the guy who was driving the car?” Biff asked.

  It was Francisco Cullucio.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The sheriff was at the trailer camp before we had finished our morning coffee. He had two men with him, the same men who had been with the doctor the day we dug up the body. They were in their shirt sleeves. The heat was oppressive, and their shirts were wet with sweat.

  Instead of stopping at our trailer, they went directly to the one next door. Little Johnny’s father opened the door, and the three men stepped inside.

  Mother put her head closer to the saucer with the Life Everlasting burning in it. The heat had brought on a severe asthma attack, and Mother had been inhaling the sticky-smelling smoke all morning.

  Biff and I drank our coffee silently. Gee Gee poured herself a second cup and pulled her chair closer to ours.

  “Why doesn’t he ask us what he’s going to ask us and get it to hell over with?” she said irritably. “This damn suspense is driving me nuts.”

  She spilled her coffee as she lifted the cup to her lips. It spattered on the table, and Biff helped her wipe it up.

  “If you hadn’t lied in the first place …” He started to say more, but Gee Gee interrupted him.

  “I didn’t lie,” she screamed. Her cup went crashing to the ground. The hot coffee splashed her bare legs and her kimono. She didn’t seem to notice it. “How did I know Evangie was going to say it was her gun? Why should I go around talking about a gun, anyway? That’d be bright dialogue, admitting I had a gun when there’s a guy in our bathtub that’s been shot with one.”

  She began wiping her leg with a paper napkin. She picked up the dusty cup and slammed it on the table.

  “Seems there’s a hell of a lot more lying being done around here than I’m guilty of. What the hell for? If nobody knows who the corpse is or who killed him, why do they lie? I seem to be the only one who had a reason for lying. Evangie says she didn’t want Gyp’s name to get in the newspapers. Well, I think that’s a helluvan excuse for setting fire to the woods and burying a body. Then she says she thought it was Gyp’s gun. Well, you can believe her if you want to. She’s your mother, not mine. I’ll be a son of a bitch if it sounds kosher to me.”

  She jumped up and ran into the trailer.

  Mother hadn’t moved during the tirade. When the door slammed she lifted her head.

  “That’s gratitude for you,” she said. “After all we’ve done for that girl.”

  Mamie poured more powder on the burning mound. She picked up Gee Gee’s cup and dropped it into the dishpan. Mandy grabbed the dish towel and dried the cups and saucers as Mamie washed them. The uncomfortable silence was shattered by Dimples’ voice.

  “Will somebody fix me a bromo?” she yelled from the trailer. “So help me, I think they tried to poison me last night.”

  Mamie filled a glass with water, picked up another clean one, and went into the trailer. It was going to take more than one Bromo Seltzer to cure Dimples, I thought. She had made enough the night before at a nickel a drink to retire with a hot-dog stand. If she had been trying to win the crown from Joyce, it looked as if she had it in the bag.

  Her voice rose petul
antly from the trailer.

  “Dammit all, you don’t have to look at me like that. So I got a hang-over, so what? Just because you got a hollow leg is no sign I have.”

  I wondered if she meant Gee Gee or Mamie. Thinking about what she had said the night before, I settled for Mamie.

  “I’ll go dig up Corny,” Biff said. He went to the bedroom door and knocked briskly. “Hey, wake up, funny boy, our company’s here.”

  “Beat it,” Corny said. “Tell ’em I’m sick. Tell ’em I’m dead.”

  Biff opened the door and went into the bedroom. In a few moments he had Corny up and out. It was the sheriff’s fault that Corny was still sponging on us. The comic wore Biff’s bathrobe. Mandy’s slippers were on his feet. He sank into a chair and sulked.

  “So the long arm of the law wants our little party together, eh?” he said sarcastically. “Well, he’s got us. So what’s he going to do for an encore?”

  I poured him a cup of coffee and pushed the can of milk and the sugar bowl toward him.

  “I’m sure I can’t tell you that,” I said pleasantly. “I know what he’s doing for an opening, though.”

  Corny looked up from his cup of steaming coffee. I had tried to put a note of mystery in my voice. It must have been a good performance. He knew I had something on my mind, and I let him wonder for a second. I poured a cup of coffee for Biff and one for myself. I took my time adding the sugar and milk.

  “I think he’s going to ask you how your handkerchief happened to be buried with the body,” I said.

  “My what!” Corny jumped to his feet. “Where is he?” he screamed. “I gotta talk to him. I gotta tell him I don’t know anything about it. Somebody’s trying to frame me, that’s what it is. Somebody’s trying to pin this thing on me.”

  “You’ll get your chance to talk to him,” Biff said. “I wouldn’t lean too heavy on that framing gag, though. I tried to give it to him last night, and he won’t sit still. All of a sudden he don’t like actors.”

  Corny sank back into his chair. He reached for the coffee cup. Then he pushed it away.

  “Gimme a drink, will ya?” he asked.

  If he had asked me I would have refused him. Biff is a softie, though. He got out the bottle and poured a double hooker in a water glass. Corny downed it in one gulp. Biff poured him another.

  A voice from behind made me jump. It was one of the sheriff’s men.

  “The sheriff wants to talk to Miss Graham,” he said. “In the office.” He tossed a thumb toward the small building near the shower house. It was the same building from which I had telephoned the doctor.

  “She’s inside,” I said. “I’ll get her.”

  Gee Gee sat on the foot of the day bed. She had been crying. When I spoke to her I saw how bloodshot her eyes were.

  “They want to talk to you first,” I said. The desperation in her quick glance toward the door made me soften my voice. “Just tell them the truth, honey. Do you want a nip first?”

  She shook her head. Without speaking she left the trailer. From the window I saw her leave with the man. They walked toward the office.

  Dimples pulled herself from the bed. She reached for the leftovers of the Bromo Seltzer and drained the glass.

  “Of all the times for me to have a head,” she said. “I hope to Gawd they don’t expect me to make sense when they start askin’ me questions. Hell’s bells, I don’t know a thing about it. Never even knew there was a body until I heard Corny and your mother talking about it.”

  She hadn’t washed off her body paint and in the morning light it looked pale green. Where she had perspired under her arms and between her full breasts the paint had rubbed off and her pink flesh showed through. She still wore her stage face make-up. The lip rouge had run down the corners of her mouth and her eye shadow was streaked across her forehead.

  I handed her the can of cleansing cream and a box of Kleenex.

  “They might ask for you next,” I said. “If they ever see you looking like this they’ll probably throw you in the clink on general principles.”

  She rubbed the cream on her face listlessly.

  “What kind of questions do they ask?” she said a moment later.

  “I dunno,” I said. I was thinking about Gee Gee. I wondered if she would tell them about Mother thinking the gun was mine. I hoped not. It sounded flimsy. Even if it were true, it didn’t sound right. Why would Mother try to conceal the gun because it had belonged to me? Unless she thought it was the murder weapon. But then, I reasoned, she would have to think I was the murderer.

  “Will they ask me, ‘Where were you on the night of—’ Say, when was he killed?” Dimples turned her greasy face toward me. She sat up straight and pulled herself up in the corner of the bed, her back leaning against the wall.

  “I oughta know a few things about this,” she said. “I’ll look like a dope saying, ‘I dunno, I dunno’ all the time.”

  “I’m afraid we’ll all look like dopes,” I replied. “You know as much right now as I do. There was a corpse in our bathtub. Period.”

  Dimples was silent for a few minutes. I walked over and looked out the window. The door to the office was closed.

  “They’re talking an awfully long time,” I said.

  “It just don’t make sense,” Dimples exclaimed suddenly. “Who in hell would put a dead body in our trailer? Of all the good places to hide it, they pick on a bathtub. Any damned fool would know we’d find it sometime.”

  “Maybe they wanted us to find it,” I said. I spoke without thinking.

  The office door had opened, and Gee Gee had walked out into the sunlight. She stood on the top step with her hands in her kimono sleeves. She looked around as though she couldn’t decide which direction to take. Suddenly, with long strides, she began walking toward our trailer.

  “Wanted us to find it?” Dimples said stupidly. “I don’t get that, either. Wanted us to …”

  “They probably just wanted to get rid of the body,” I said. “They maybe thought we were traveling on, like we were, and that it was a good chance to put a lot of distance between them and their damn corpse. Instead of the murderer leaving town, he just sent the body out of town.”

  “I’ll tell ’em when he comes in,” Dimples said ironically. “I still don’t get it. It’s screwy. A guy kills a guy. He looks around for a place to dump the body. He sees us living in a trailer, minding our own business, and he says, “That’s for me.’ He dumps the body in our bathtub and calls it a day. Why, all we gotta do is think back a little and think of who could dump a corpse in our trailer. When were we out of it long enough? Who had a key to unlock the door? Who’d be around a trailer camp in the first place? It’s too easy.”

  “Too easy,” I said slowly. “Well, let’s start from A. We’re in and out of the trailer all the time. How could we figure out which time the murderer decided to drop his load of sunshine? B is easier. We only leave the trailer for hours at a time. We only leave it alone until four, five in the morning when we go nipping. He’d only have hours to do it. C stands for cinch. What key for what lock? We haven’t locked the trailer since we lost the keys in Los Angeles. As for asking who could dump the body in the tub, anyone in any town we’ve stopped in could have done it.”

  Dimples threw her legs over the side of the bed. She groped around on the floor for her pink mules. When she found them she pushed them on her feet with an indifferent movement. Then she threw her robe over her shoulders and picked up a Turkish towel.

  “I’m gonna take a shower,” she said. “You make my head ache with your alphabets. The way I feel now, I’ll settle for Corny being the murderer. All I want is to get the damned thing cleared up. Who did it or why they did it is none of my business, and when the sheriff asks me where I was on the night of so-and-so, I’ll tell him to go fuddle his duddle.”

  As she left the trailer, Mamie came in. She turned down the bedcovers and began tidying up the room. She was unconcerned, as though a corpse in the bathtub went with th
e plumbing fixtures. She put the cleansing cream and the Kleenex back in the drawer and dusted off the furniture carefully. She hung up the clothes that Dimples had left strewn about.

  “I don’t know how your poor mother can stand all this,” she said as she rolled up a pair of nylons. “All the drinking and swearing and excitement. No wonder she has asthma.”

  “Well, thing aren’t always as upset as this,” I said. “Sometimes we go for a whole week without finding one single corpse.”

  I might just as well have been talking to myself. Mamie was not interested in what we found in our bathtub. She was house cleaning, and that was all that mattered to her at the moment. Before she actually swept me out, I left.

  Corny was leaving with the sheriff’s man. They were halfway to the office, and I could still hear Corny’s voice. It was shrill and piercing.

  “It couldn’t have been my handkerchief,” he said almost hysterically.

  Gee Gee and Mandy had started a pinochle game. She was dealing the cards as though nothing had happened. An empty whisky glass was at her elbow.

  “How did it go?” I asked.

  She put down the deck of cards and picked up her hand. Before she answered me she sorted her cards.

  “Nothing to it,” she said casually.

  A nine of hearts was face up on the table. Mandy showed a nine from his hand and wrote down ten points under his name on the score card. He played a jack of clubs. Gee Gee took his trick with a king. She had no meld.

  I suddenly dreaded more than ever my meeting with the sheriff. When Gee Gee plays a king on the first trick without a meld in her hand she isn’t as composed as she is pretending to be. Gee Gee usually plays a good game of pinochle.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It was almost two hours before the sheriff sent for me. Two hours of watching one after the other walk across the field to the office; two hours of waiting for the door to open and watching one more of our troupe walk slowly back to the trailer.