Death's Sweet Song

by Clifton Adams

“I know it won't work for long. But maybe it will buy us time, let the trail cool a little. Now get the door open.”

  He did it, and I dumped the dead watchman on the floor. Then the two of us went back to the garage and cleaned the place up. We picked up all the bloodstained rags, the gun, the flashlight. “Now,” I said, “let's go!”

  It was a long, long ride back to the tourist court; I hope I never take another ride as long as that one. Every car I met I expected to be the Sheriffs car. I expected something violent to happen every second, but nothing did. Nothing happened at all. What we were going to do with the dead watchman, I didn't know. I was beyond thinking. It took all my concentration just to keep the car in a straight line.

  Then at last we reached the cabins, and I pulled the Buick behind the station and into the carport next to Number 2. There were no lights in the cabin, but Paula had the door open the minute we pulled off the highway, and she was right there the second we hit the carport.

  She jerked the door open on my side.

  “What took you so long? Did anything go wrong?”

  I could smell the perfume she wore. Or maybe it wasn't perfume, maybe it was just her.

  “Something happened, didn't it?” she said. “Tell me!”

  Sheldon hadn't said a thing. But now he turned toward his wife, and his face looked a hundred years old. “The trouble,” he said, “is back there.”

  Paula opened the back door and made one small sound when she saw the dead man. Then she looked at me.

  “Who did it?”

  “I did.”

  She frowned. “I might have known it couldn't have been Karl.”

  “I guess we need to talk this thing over,” I said, and got out of the car.

  Sheldon sat where he was. “Paula,” he said, “we've got to get out of here. Get your things together right now.”

  “The three of us?” she asked coldly, glancing at the back seat.

  “Oh.” He looked pretty foolish and he knew it, and that did more than anything else to snap him out of it. “Well, maybe Hooper's right, maybe we should talk it over, coolly, calmly.”

  There was a moon out that night. I didn't notice it until I got inside the darkened cabin and saw the whitish moonlight pouring through the open door. “Turn the light on,” Paula said.

  “It will be safer if we don't,” I said.

  “We can't count the money in the dark.”

  First things first. I felt a crazy impulse to laugh. The hell with the dead man outside, we had money to count. She turned the light on.

  It really didn't make much difference. The cabins, as usual, were empty, and I was too tired to care, anyway. I was having trouble keeping my thoughts organized.

  Then I thought: Christ, I've forgotten all about the money! I kicked the door open, went out to the car, and got it. I didn't look behind the front seat; I didn't want to see those pale, wide eyes again. Just don't think about it, I thought. He asked for it, didn't he?

  Paula's eyes were alive with excitement as she dug her hands into the green bills. “Thirty thousand dollars!”

  Sheldon said, “We don't know how much there is. We haven't, counted it.”

  “I can tell! Just by feeling of it!”

  “For God's sake,” I said, “stop playing with the stuff and let's count it!”

  Then Paula turned on me with a tight little smile. “First,” she said, “tell me about the watchman.” The look in her eyes shook me. “Forget it,” I said. All this talk was rubbing right through to my nerves. “The old man shot at me and I had to kill him. That's all there was to it.”

  “I knew it!” She almost sneered, looking now at Sheldon. “I knew it couldn't have been you, Karl!”

  I didn't know what she was talking about, but Sheldon must have. He stood rigid for just a moment, his eyes stormy, and then, without a sound of warning, he back-handed her. The back of his fist slammed into her mouth, knocking her across the room and onto the bed. “Now keep quiet, goddamn you!” he said hoarsely.

  I felt the muscles become tense in my shoulders. Stay out of it, I warned myself. This is between just the two of them. You can't afford to butt in now—not until we make the split, anyway.

  His knuckles had broken Paula's lower lip and a thin little stream of blood dripped down her chin. She didn't come fighting back, as I had thought she would. She felt of her lip. Then she opened a suitcase, took out some paper tissue, and held it to her mouth. She didn't say a word, but there was plenty in her eyes. Sheldon dumped the money on the table and began counting it out. I helped him. It came to $31,042. We cut it right down the middle without a word: $15,521 each. “Not bad,” Sheldon said. “If we live long enough to spend it!” “Oh, yes,” Sheldon said softly, as though he had been trying to forget it too. “The body.”

  I glanced at Paula and she was still sitting exactly the way she had been for fifteen minutes, there on the edge of the bed, holding the bloody tissue to her mouth. Now she stood up and I could see that all the fight hadn't been knocked out of her.

  “Why did you bring the body with you, anyway?” “Because,” I said, “I went to a good deal of trouble putting the watchman's fingerprints all over the safe before we left the factory.”

  “Oh.” She was getting it now, but I stopped her before she had a chance to carry it too far.

  “Don't get the idea,” I said, “that the Sheriffs going to be fooled. He's not going to think for one damn minute that Otto Finney robbed that factory. Still, the evidence is going to be there and he's going to have to look into it. And if we can get rid of the body, the Sheriff is going to have to look for it, and that's going to take time.”

  “Time for us to get far away from Oklahoma,” Sheldon said softly. “Well, the rest is up to you, Hooper. What do we do with the body?”

  That question had been drumming at me ever since I pulled the trigger. So far, I had been pretty successful in keeping it impersonal. I tried to think of it as a problem to be solved, and nothing else. “The lake,” I said. “It's the only thing I can think of. Drop the body in the lake.”

  Sheldon frowned. “Tell me about this lake.”

  “Creston's water supply, a man-made affair about four miles out of town. There's a deep hole at the north end that would give them plenty of trouble if they tried to drag. Anyway, there are a lot of garfish in that water, and I doubt if a body would be recognized after a day or two, even if they got it up.”

  Keep it impersonal, I reminded myself. But the thought of those scavenger fish wasn't pleasant.

  Sheldon turned it over in his mind. “All right, that's the way it will have to be. We haven't got time to think of something better.”

  I shook my head. “There's something else about this lake that you'd better know about. It's kind of like a local lovers' lane. When couples don't have anywhere else to go, they head for the lake.”

  “At this time of night?”

  “At any time of night. That's what I'm trying to tell you. There's just a chance we might be seen.”

  “Then the lake's out,” Sheldon said shortly.

  “The lake's all we have,” I reminded him. “Paula could go with me; the two of us could handle it. If we happen to be seen, nobody's likely to give it a second thought.” Time was running out and I had to talk to Paula. This was the only way I could think of doing it.

  Sheldon didn't like it, but this was no time to smooth out the rough places. What Paula thought about it she didn't say. The three of us stood there, looking at each other, and then I said, “I'll be back in a minute.” I gathered up my half of the money and went out.

  I put the money under the mattress in my cabin, and then I went to the station and rummaged around in the darkness until I found what I wanted—a cast-off flywheel and a set of rusty mud chains. I was working smoothly now.

  Just keep cool, I thought, and everything is going to work out all right. Then I went back to the Buick to put the wheel and chains in the back seat.

  About a minute later
Sheldon came out. “What's the matter?”

  “Nothing. We've got to move the body to my car, though. I can't afford to be seen in this Buick.”

  “Hooper, are you sure this lake business is all right?”

  “Can you think of anything better?”

  He wasn't worried about the lake, he was worried about Paula. But he merely shrugged. Between the two of us we got the old watchman's body into the back seat of my Chevy and covered it with a piece of canvas from the station. Then we loaded the flywheel and chains and everything was set—as set as it would ever be. I looked at my watch and it was almost three o'clock.

  The thing went like clockwork. There was just enough moon to make driving without lights possible on that twisting lake road. The place was deserted, not a car, not a soul anywhere, and the lake itself was motionless. Not a ripple was on the water. When I reached the spot I was looking for, I drove on for maybe a mile to make sure that the way was completely clear, and then I turned around and came back.

  It was just as I had remembered it, shelves of brownish rock jutting out of a red clay bank, and below it the lake. I knew how deep it was there, for as a kid I had seen the bulldozers gouging it out. There was no need of a boat, no need of taking the body out to the middle of the lake before dumping it. Just drop it over that shelf of rock and let the lake settle over it and keep it forever and ever, amen. He was an old man, I thought. He wouldn't have lived much longer anyway. “Is this the place?” Paula said. “Yes.”

  I got out of the car and lugged the chains and flywheel over to the edge of the rock. Then I went back to the car and carried the body—the amazingly light, frail old body —over to the rock and put it down. I then slipped the chains through the flywheel and fastened the other end of chain to the body with several pieces of strong wire.

  “Can I help?” Paula said.

  “No.” I eased the dead watchman over the ledge, then gave the flywheel a shove, and there was a silvery splash as the body and weight plunged down and down, and I stood there watching as they sank out of sight.

  “Good!” Paula said huskily. She looked as soft and pale as the moonlight. I knew we should get away from there as fast as possible, but there were still some things to get settled. I wasn't fool enough to think the killing hadn't changed things. I couldn't possibly just pack up and leave with Paula; that would look too fishy now, right after the robbery. But she was in my blood and something had to be worked out.

  I walked over to her and she stood there looking at me with that tight little smile at the corners of her swollen mouth. Then she reached out and touched my shoulder, and she said, “You've got guts, Joe Hooper.”

  Staying there was idiocy, but I couldn't seem to move.

  “I like a man with guts,” she said huskily. “I like a man to be strong.”

  “What about your husband?”

  She made a small sound. “Karl spent a long stretch in Leavenworth, and—do you know why? Because he was afraid to pull the trigger. He let the cops take him because he was afraid to shoot.”

  “That isn't what I meant. What do we do now, you and me?”

  Like a lusty young animal, she wrapped those white arms around me. She was fire in my arms. The taste of blood was in my mouth when I kissed her.

  “What do you want to do, Joe? About us.”

  “I want to hold you just like this and never let you go. But that's impossible now. Within a few hours cops are going to be swarming all over this part of the country, and they're going to be asking a hell of a lot of questions.”

  “Then you want me to go tonight with Karl?”

  “It looks like the only thing for the present. How can I get in touch with you as soon as things cool off here?”

  She thought for a moment. “I have a sister in Missouri. Mrs. Stella Bundy, Box Three-forty, Route Three, St. John, Missouri. She'll know how to find me. Can you remember the address?”

  Chapter Eight

  It was almost five o'clock when we got back to the cabins and Sheldon was fit to be tied. He grabbed his wife and jerked her out of the car as though she were a bag of groceries. “Goddamn you!” he snarled. “Where have you been?”

  He looked as though he were going to tear her head off and she just smiled. “Don't get excited, Karl. You know where we've been.”

  He knew where she had been, all right. Or he was guessing pretty close to it. A family ruckus was the last thing in the world I wanted right now, and I didn't like the ugliness in his voice. I stepped out of the car and said, “Did you ever try to get rid of a body, Sheldon? You don't just dump it in a gully. You have to do it exactly right or it's too damn bad. I didn't know it was going to take this long, but it did, and there's nothing we can do about it.”

  Glaring at me, he took one deep breath, then he flung his wife against the side of the car and went into the cabin. “Well!” Paula said softly. “You'd almost think he was a man, wouldn't you, when he's mad?”

  I said nothing. The sky along the eastern edge of the prairie was beginning to pale, and I could feel all the strength going out of me. I felt a hundred years old. I didn't let myself think about the things that would start happening within the next few hours. That robbery was going to turn Creston upside down and shake it, and I just hoped that I would be able to ride it out.

  Then Sheldon came out with the luggage. He threw it into the car without a word and Paula glanced at me and shrugged. “Maybe we'll meet again, Mr. Hooper,” she said dryly.

  She smiled again and slipped onto the front seat beside her husband. Karl Sheldon looked at me once. He didn't say a word, he just sat there and looked at me with all the hate that was in him. Then, with one savage movement, he jammed the Buick into gear and they were on their way.

  I stood there for maybe five minutes. I watched as the Buick slammed violently onto the highway, spewing gravel and dust into the still morning air, and I listened with relief as the car dropped behind a small rise and the roar became a drone, and the drone became a hum, and the hum became nothing. Silence.

  Strangely, I felt nothing. I stood there and the pale sky became suddenly bloody as the violent sun lifted into a widening sky. Finally I turned and walked to my own cabin.

  There was no use going to sleep. I had to open the station within an hour, because I always opened the station at six-thirty in the morning, and this morning had to be exactly like all the others. I made a pot of coffee, black as evil, strong as temptation, and I sat at the tiny kitchen table and watched that savage sun begin its violent work. Even my bones ached with weariness. I looked at my watch and it was nearly six, so I turned on the light and went to the bathroom to shave.

  My face looked back at me from the bathroom mirror, and nothing could have shocked me more. It seemed incredible that I could have survived such a night without changing, but there was no change at all. The face was mine. The eyes seemed faintly tired, but no more so than they often did in the morning. I don't know just what I expected to see in that mirror, but the sight of my own unchanged face almost made me sick.

  This is fine! I thought bitterly as I lathered to shave. Just a little more of this and you're cooked, Hooper. Get a hold on yourself, and you'd better be damn sure you keep it.

  I felt a little better after the shave. Then I stripped and showered and got into my work clothes—and only then did I remember the money. I grabbed the mattress and threw it to the floor.

  The money was still there. I took it in my hands. The bills were crisp to my touch. The smell of ink and silk-fibered paper was like the smell of roast beef to a starving man.

  For a while I had trouble thinking of a place to put the money. The woman who cleaned the cabins might run across it if I left it here, so I took it to the station with me when I opened up. The first thing I did was wrap the money in clean waste; then I moved several cases of oil and loosened a plank in the flooring. That's where the money went, under the floor, and the cases of oil went back on top of it. That would have to do until I thought of someth
ing better.

  I felt all right now. It was almost seven o'clock by the time I'd finished unlocking the gas pumps and connected the hose for water and air. The tourists were already beginning to hit the highway, getting an early start on the heat. I went back into the station and turned on the radio.

  “... between midnight and four in the morning, according to the authorities,” the announcer was saying. “No details are available as yet, but it is believed that the entire Provo Box Company payroll was taken in the robbery. Otis Miller, Creston County sheriff, has issued no statement concerning the disappearance of Otto Finney, the factory's watchman. The robbery was discovered less than an hour ago, when Paul Killman, shop foreman, delivered a company truck to the garage....”

  They knew nothing. They weren't even sure how much money had been taken.

  By noon they knew a little more, but not much. “It is not known whether more than one person took part in the robbery, but it has been determined that entry to the company's office was made possible by use of a key —probably the key that Watchman Otto Finney kept on his person. Also, it was learned that the factory's burglar-alarm system was rendered ineffectual by a circuit break at the master switch box in the garage. This has led to speculation that the burglar or burglars must have been familiar with the factory layout, and it has been suggested, off the record, that an employee of the Provo Box Company may soon be named as a suspect. However, Sheriff Otis Miller claims he suspects no one at the present time, although the watchman was still missing as we went on the air. Ray King, Miller's deputy, said this morning that several fingerprints were found on and near the blown safe and that these will be checked....” I could smile. The Sheriff knew as well as I did that Otto Finney had nothing to do with the robbery, but pressure for investigation was being brought down on him and he would have to look into it. While the real trail grew colder, And colder. By the time they permitted Otis to stop chasing his tail, there would be no trail at all.

  It was exactly the way I had figured it. But there was small satisfaction in it for me. I was too sick with fatigue to feel satisfaction or anything else. All I wanted right now was for Ike Abrams to relieve me and give me a chance to get some sleep. And that was the day Ike had to be late. It was almost one o'clock when that Ford of his rattled off the highway.