Mother Finds a Body

by Craig Rice

  The sheriff smiled at the doctor.

  “Well, let’s get him out of here and let’s get these people together again. I left Evangie—your mother—at the trailer. The two gals were locked in separate rooms there, like they were afraid of each other. You must have all had quite a time of it. That Dimples one was having hysterics. The Gee Gee Graham girl had to almost break down the door to get at her. Did someone tell ’em about this, or did they just get an idea that something was wrong?”

  The sheriff spoke casually but he kept his eyes on my face.

  “Dimples was afraid that something had happened to Mother,” I said. “She’d been gone so long, and then we realized how long Corny had been gone and she …”

  “She thought your mother might have killed him …”

  “Oh, no,” I said quickly. “It was the other way around. She thought maybe Corny had—that’s why I telephoned the doctor.”

  As we walked toward the trailer Biff told the sheriff about the four thousand dollars. The men had put the body in the back of the car and had driven away with it. The sheriff was alone with us. He took the money from Biff and put it into his pocket. Then he took out his gun and kept it in his hand until we were in the trailer.

  Mother was the only one who was composed. She sat on the day bed, sipping a hot toddy. “All this excitement,” she said. “Just because I was away for a few hours.”

  I knew she was pleased, but Dimples lifted her swollen face as Mother spoke. She shoved a strand of hair from her bloodshot eyes and stared at the sheriff.

  “Something’s happened,” she said. Her voice sounded as though there might be a cord around her neck choking her. Her hands gripped the arms of the chair as she leaned forward. “What is it?” Dimples asked. “What’s happened?”

  Gee Gee pushed her gently back into the chair.

  “Biff said he was going to call the sheriff,” Gee Gee said. “Nothing else is going to happen, is it, Sheriff?”

  The sheriff shook his head slowly.

  “No, I don’t think anything more could happen,” he said. He watched Gee Gee massage Dimples’ head for a moment. Then he looked at the bottle of rye on the stove.

  “I brought it to them,” Mother said. “When I stopped in to get the dogs’ dinner. I don’t approve of so much drinking but I felt an asthma attack coming on and a hot toddy sometimes helps me.” She smiled over her glass at the sheriff.

  “Why did you lock yourself in the bedroom?” the sheriff asked suddenly. He watched Dimples as he spoke, watched her tremble and watched her hands go white from gripping the arms of the chair.

  “I—was afraid,” she said chokingly.

  “How long were you in there?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I just want to get out of here.”

  Dimples jumped to her feet and ran toward the door before the sheriff could grab her. He seized her shoulders and shook her.

  “Look here now,” he said roughly. “Cliff Corney Cobb was found stabbed in the back a few feet from here. Are you sure you didn’t pretend to have hysterics so you could sneak out the back door and kill him?”

  Dimples stared at the sheriff while he was talking. Her mouth fell open. Then suddenly a crafty smile made the sides of her mouth curl.

  “I’m sure I didn’t leave the trailer,” she said slowly. Her narrowed eyes turned to Gee Gee. “But I can’t swear that she didn’t.”

  In a split second Gee Gee would have hit Dimples. Biff moved too quickly for her, though. He held her tightly while she let her arms flay about.

  “Why don’t you stop?” Biff said softly. “Can’t you see they want you to do just what you’re doing? As long as we stick together, they can’t do a damn thing to us. We fall out and …”

  “I can’t help it,” Gee Gee said. “She knows damn well I kept pounding on that door every minute she was in there. What in hell would I kill Corny for, anyway?”

  Biff released his hold on Gee Gee. He led her slowly but surely to the bedroom. As they passed the stove, Biff picked up the bottle.

  Gee Gee relaxed. “It’s O.K. now,” she said. “I was just sore for a minute.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” Dimples said. She relieved Biff of the bottle and poured out two drinks, one for Gee Gee.

  Biff stood in the bedroom doorway and spoke softly to Hank. “I don’t know much about corpses, but I got an idea Corn’s been dead for a couple hours, anyway. In fact, I got an idea he was killed while we were all together in the office.”

  “What makes you think that?” the sheriff asked.

  “Because of the five bucks, for one thing. Dimples had just given it to him to buy a bottle. Seems to me he’da put it in his pocket if he’d had time. He wouldn’t have loitered either, not with a fiver for a bottle in his hands. He never spent much time thinking that over. When he had the dough and the thirst he moved fast. Then I caught the look the doc here gave you when he was examining the body. He was telling you rigor mortis had set in, wasn’t he?”

  “The blood was fresh,” I said.

  “I got that figured out, too,” Biff said with a careless wave of his arm. “I think you dislodged the knife when you tripped over the body. I took me a good look at the wound. There was congealed blood around it. That’s one reason I didn’t ask you right away if you’d killed him.”

  “Me?” I shrieked.

  “Let’s not go through all that again,” Biff said impatiently. “Somebody killed him. It could have been you just as easy as anybody else.”

  The sheriff pulled out a chair and sank into it heavily.

  “You’re saving me a lot of breath,” he said to Biff, “but if you don’t mind, I’ll do the questioning.”

  He turned to mother and spoke more kindly. “What were you doing before you came to my office this afternoon?”

  Mother looked down into her empty glass for a moment before answering.

  “Well,” she said slowly, “I’d had an asthma attack. After it cleared up we started out to visit a few people. We got as far as Mr. Hopkins’ trailer, that’s little Johnny’s father, and then the car drove up and we got in and drove to town. That’s all.”

  “We?” the sheriff asked.

  “Mrs. Smith and me, of course. She had been helping me with my asthma attack.”

  “And the car? Who drove that?”

  “Oh, the car.” Mother seemed surprised that the sheriff didn’t know about that. “It belonged to the insurance people, Mamie’s insurance people. She had to go into town to sign some papers, and I went along for the ride. I don’t trust those insurance people. I know all about them and I wanted to be there to see that Mamie got what was coming to her. You might say I went along for mercenary reasons.”

  “Did you go with her to the insurance man’s office?” the sheriff asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Mother said. “But everything seemed to be all right. There were so many questions, though, and so many things to sign and everything. It was stuffy in the office, too, so I just thought I’d take a little walk. The office was quite close to yours, so I just dropped in to say hello.”

  The sheriff smiled. “I’m mighty glad you did,” he said. “Then for all but the time you were in town Mamie Smith was with you, eh?”

  Mother nodded yes.

  Biff was busy heating water for another hot toddy. He took the potholder from the hook behind the stove and wrapped it around the handle of the pan. He placed a spoon in the glass with the liquor and sugar and added the water. Then he handed it to Mother.

  “You say you were all together?” the sheriff said later to Biff. “When was that?”

  “It was when Evangie was having her attack. We left for the office to have a drink and talk a little without her hear—without disturbing her.”

  “That was when Cliff Cobb left for the liquor, eh?”

  No one answered him.

  “Well, that sort of changes the complexion of things then,” he said. “I’m not sure when he was sta
bbed, but I know it wasn’t recently. Within the last hour or so, that is. If you people can all vouch for each other it sort of lets you out.”

  His hands began unwrapping the money. He counted carefully. Then he placed it on the stove top and looked more closely at the Racing Form. It had been torn in half, but the date line was still attached. I had noticed it before. Now I saw that Hank was interested in it.

  “September fifth,” he said. “That’s only two days ago. You say it was in the closet, eh?”

  Biff walked over and opened the closet door. He moved the clothes aside and showed the sheriff the empty knot-hole.

  “It was rolled up in that hole,” he said.

  “Any idea who it belongs to?” the sheriff asked.

  “Idea? Sure,” Biff replied, “but I’m not going to tell you my ideas. Go get some of your own.” He laughed a little self-consciously. Then he became serious.

  “Wait a minute, Hank,” he said. “I might as well tell you what I think. You can use it or toss it. We were looking for something, understand? The thing you asked us not to mention in front of Evangie. Well, first we looked through the pantry. Remember when Gyp said she thought there was somebody in the trailer while she was sleeping? I told you the pantry door was open, didn’t I? Well, I got to thinking. What if she interrupted someone when she woke up? Someone who was hiding something in the pantry? So I took a good look. I dumped out all the groceries and even pulled the innards out of a loaf of bread. I didn’t find a thing. If someone had been hiding something, it’s a cinch they didn’t hide it in the pantry.

  “Then I thought maybe they had been taking something out of the pantry. In the meantime we started searching the trailer. We tore the place apart. We didn’t find what we were looking for, but we did find that wad of money. Naturally, I decided that whoever had the stuff had sold it. They were afraid to flash the roll, so they hid it. That’s my idea. I got another, but for the time being I’m keeping it to myself.”

  Hank didn’t have a chance to coax Biff for the other idea. Mother had suddenly decided to ask what it was that was being kept a secret from her. She asked rather loudly, too, and very firmly.

  “It’s all over now, so why let yourself get upset?” the sheriff asked.

  Mother wanted to be the judge as to what was upsetting. That was obvious, so the sheriff told her the truth.

  “It was hashish, I think, a form of dope,” he said wearily. “But you didn’t get enough to make …”

  Mother thought over the word hashish. I could see her mouth form the pronunciation. Her hands began to tremble and her face turned white, a chalk white.

  “You mean I’m a cocoon sniffer?” she asked.

  Gee Gee laughed. She shouldn’t have, because Mother really played the scene well. She was deserving of more than laughter, and I told Gee Gee so.

  “That’s all right, Louise,” Mother said, pulling herself up from the chair. “I would expect something like that from anyone as inconsiderate as Gee Gee.” Mother went to the door and opened it. “If you’ll fix my bed, Biff, I’ll retire.”

  Mother let her eyes stray around the room. She was unsmiling. No one was going to laugh on her exit line, and Mother knew it.

  “You can stay, Louise, if you wish, but I find the company very uncongenial.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Biff looked at his watch. It was two-thirty. I could hear the even breathing of sleeping people coming from the trailer. Mandy was in the bedroom. Mother was in the car, and the two girls were in the living room. They had been asleep for hours, it seemed. Really, it was less than that.

  “Do you think something could have happened to Mamie?” I whispered to Biff.

  He shrugged his shoulders. Then he lifted the glass to his lips and drank. We were on our second bottle of Old Granddad, but I couldn’t even get a glow. It might have been the humidity that kept me from feeling gay. Maybe it was a case of nerves.

  “She might have eloped with the insurance man,” Biff said seriously. “Or maybe she’s filling in at the saloon for Dimples.”

  I was certain that the rye wasn’t wasted on Biff, anyway. But he didn’t look drunk. Every now and then he would sit forward in the camp chair as though he heard something. He had turned down the gaslight and we were sitting in the shadow under the lean-to. Mosquitoes and gnats swarmed around the lamp. The odor of rye and citronella filled the air.

  “I think we’ll be able to get away from here tomorrow,” Biff said suddenly.

  “Sure, honey.”

  “I mean it,” Biff said. “The hitch should be finished by now. I think it’s been fixed since yesterday. Hank just wanted to make sure we’d hang around.”

  “And now it’s fixed we just jump in the car and drive away, huh? Just leave the bodies in the morgue, don’t bother waiting for the inquest forget all about a trial and everything.”

  “The inquest is at nine in the morning. By two we ought to be loaded and on our way.” Biff leaned back in his chair and braced his feet on the rickety table. “You see, I’m going to give the sheriff his murderer. I thought I’d wait and spring it during the inquest. That gives me a little time to get some facts together.”

  Now, I would never have married Biff if I hadn’t had a feeling of affection for him. I had known him for years and we always had fun together. I laughed at most of his jokes because they amused me. I liked the way his eyes twinkled when he looked at me. Being married to him gave me a sense of security I had never known before. I usually respected his judgment, but at that moment I wondered if any of those things really mattered.

  “Look, funny man,” I said. “I want you to know that from this minute on the honeymoon is over. You are going on the wagon. You aren’t even going to get a chance to feel the outside of a beer bottle. What drinking there is to be done in our little family will be handled very nicely by me.”

  I shoved the cork in the Granddad bottle and put it on the ground next to my chair.

  “I suppose you think I don’t know who the murderer is?” Biff said. “Well, at that rate, my pretty, unsullied bride, you have a bit of a surprise coming to you. Want to play a game, a game of guess who?”

  “No.”

  “All right then,” Biff said. “Now, this is how we play it. You ask me twenty questions and I answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to ’em. Like for instance I was thinking about Joe Doaks. You ask me, ‘Is he living?’ and I say, ‘Yes.’ Then you ask, ‘Is he from one of the five leading countries?’ I say, ‘Yes’ again. That goes on until you use up your twenty questions. If you don’t guess him you lose. If you lose, you go on the wagon, and what drinking there is to be done in our little family will be handled very nicely by me.”

  “I’m going to bed,” I said, rising to my feet with great dignity. Then I remembered I had no bed to go to. So I sat down again.

  “Is it a man?” I asked.

  “Yep,” Biff said, grinning at me.

  “Is he from one of the five leading countries?”

  “Yep.”

  “Living?”

  “Yep.”

  “Please answer ‘yes’ or ‘no,’” I said frigidly. “That yep business makes you sound like an acrobat getting ready to leap.”

  Biff’s grin stretched into a broad smile. “Look, Punkin,” he said. “I’ll give you a hint. One of the answers is a saloonkeeper with ideas that he oughta carve a niche for himself in show business.”

  Biff leaned back in the chair and made a tent with his hands. He was quite pleased with himself.

  “That’s all, brother,” I said. “If you’re going to get up on a stand tomorrow morning and say that Cullucio murdered all three of those guys, you are going to attend the inquest without me. I won’t sit around while you make a damn fool of yourself. How, for instance, are you going to explain how he murdered the guy in San Diego?”

  “Who said anything about murder?” Biff said. It was obvious that I had insulted him by even suggesting such a thing. Not only insulted him, but hurt his fe
elings, too. “We were just playing an innocent little game,” he said. “Right away you have to talk about murders. Ghoulish, I’d say if anybody asked me.”

  “Nobody asked you, so why don’t …”

  Biff had turned off the lamp. With a quick motion he jumped to his feet. I heard the chair as it was turned over. Then I felt his hands on my shoulders.

  “Duck!” he whispered hoarsely.

  I fell to my knees and Biff rolled me under the trailer. My head hit the steps with a thud, but Biff kept pushing me until I could feel the wheels pressing against my arm. Then he was beside me, breathing heavily.

  “Look, Joe,” I said, “if you want a drink, ask for it. You don’t have to go through all this for…”

  He put his hand against my mouth. At least I thought he meant my mouth. In the darkness it was closer to my ear, but I suddenly got the hint that he wasn’t clowning.

  Then I heard the footsteps. Someone was tiptoeing through the grass. They were walking toward our trailer. Biff fumbled for something in his pocket. I felt the chill steel of a gun. I heard the dull click of the safety catch being released. Biff’s hand, holding the gun, trembled.

  I heard someone whisper his name. “Biff?”

  It was a woman’s voice.

  Biff let his breath out in a deep sigh of relief. “O.K.,” he said quietly.

  He rolled out from under the trailer, leaving me there alone. He moved toward the table and scratched a match. Then he lit the lamp. I saw the silver dancing shoes with the run-down heels first. They were dusty, the bare legs above them were scratched and bleeding.

  “Thank Gawd you’re here,” the female voice mumbled. The feet moved over to the chair, and I heard the canvas creak as the weight of a body stretched it. Biff’s hand reached for the bottle near the chair, but not quickly enough.

  Bottle and all I rolled out from under the trailer. Before I got to my feet I greeted my friend Joyce Janice.

  “It’s so nice of you to drop in on us,” I said. “Biff and I were thinking of fixing up a little guest room under the trailer. It’s so cozy down there.”

  Biff didn’t seem to think that was funny. He snatched the bottle from my hand and pulled out the cork. Then he handed it to Joyce and watched her while she gulped it down.