The Drowner

by John D. MacDonald

  Long before he had become involved with Lucille, he had, in awe and out of curiosity, and perhaps like the climbers of mountains—because she was there—made a first and last valiant attempt to seduce her, making a reasonable excuse to get her into the adjoining quarters after overtime work. When he put his arms around her, she seemed to huddle and dwindle. And she began to shiver. He kissed her and it was like kissing a scared child. She looked at him, tears hanging on the lashes of the huge lavender eyes and said, “I can’t smack you.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know what to do. When boys try anything, I smack them a good one. Please let go, Mr. Sam.”

  He let go of her. “You always smack them?”

  “I promised God and my mother I’d never do anything dirty in my whole life.”

  “Dirty!”

  “I respectfully tender my resignation, Mr. Sam.”

  “What if we forget this happened and it never happens again?”

  She thought it over. “Then I wouldn’t want to resign, I guess.”

  Since that unwieldy episode he had learned, through observation and the most subtle of questions from time to time, that this big glowing girl had apparently never felt the slightest tremor of desire or curiosity in her life, and probably never would. She was the most implausible neuter in central Florida.

  She came to the final note for his attention. “Gus Gable has been trying and trying to get hold of you, Mr. Sam.”

  “Tell him to come on over.”

  “From Jacksonville?”

  “Oh, I didn’t know he’d gone up there again. Get him on the phone if you can.”

  “First thing. He left three numbers to try the last time he called.” She started to turn to leave and then said, “Mr. Sam?”

  “Yes, Angie.”

  “I … I’m sorry about your friend.”

  “Thanks, Angie.”

  After she went out he wished, with a bitter amusement, he had given the blue bag to Angie. She would have hidden it, never opened it, never mentioned it. But, he wondered, why should I begin thinking of Lucille as less trustworthy? The choice was between the two of them, and Lucille was the brighter one, less likely to be tricked or trapped.

  The phone rang and Gus was on the line. As usual he was so guarded as to be almost incomprehensible. “Sam, I got a call from one of our friends and it looked just good enough to make it worth while running up here, and I’ve had a pretty interesting day. I think I can safely say it’s going to go our way, and the figure they’re trying to clear right now is just ten thousand over my compromise guess. The field men are making a strong presentation, yes I can safely say a strong presentation to come up with that one as a final, and it goes across the right desk tomorrow, so I think I should be here in a position to give them a yes on that basis. It should be the first order of business, and all set by ten a.m.”

  “Nice going, Gus.”

  “But the flaw in the ointment could be the ninety days. It could get slashed down to sixty, which might make a squeeze.”

  “Accept sixty if that’s the way they have to have it.”

  “That’s the only weak part of the presentation the way I see it, and some new friends here agree with me. There’s no hope of getting off a perpetual audit basis, and frankly I’d like to have it that way so we know where we stand from year to year, with every year filed away and closed so to speak.”

  “Suits me fine, boy.”

  “Say, a hell of a thing about Lucille. A hell of a thing and I felt actually and truly heartsick when I heard about it. A lovely little lady and a lot of laughs, and I extend my sympathy all the way down the line, Sam.”

  “Thanks, Gus.”

  “One of those things, I guess. One of the lumps in the road of life. We get this problem up here settled, and then you can go maybe on a cruise, get a change of scene and a new outlook.”

  “We’ll see. You phone me tomorrow when you have the final word.”

  “I look on the black side of things, the blackest side you might say, but tomorrow I think I will give you good news, Sam. Goodby.”

  Three

  In May the heat begins its five-month invasion of the flatlands and lake country of central Florida. There are breezes on the coasts, and summer tourists and packed beaches, but deep inland the country is emptied of all those who do not have to be there, and the survivors fortify themselves behind the busy rustle and clatter and cold clinical breath of the air-conditioning machines. It is a thick, wet, merciless, dispiriting heat, and those who endure it are like those who stay behind to guard a fortress, congratulating each other on their stamina, their sense of duty, and sneering at the ones who have fled. The high thunderstorms roll across the land, and after a brief illusion of coolness, everything settles back into the steamy silence. The insects and toads are in constant shrill chorus, and the birds make small random sounds. Tan fades because the direct sunlight is too much torment, and flesh is mottled with rash. People wrap a hand in a handkerchief before touching the door handle of a car. There is a stir of life in the early morning, and a mild resurgence after the sun goes down, but through the long days the streets of the small towns are a baking emptiness, the infrequent pedestrian moving slowly, his shoulders hunched against the weight of the sun, his eyes slitted against the unending glare. The owners of backyard swimming pools bring home cakes of ice to cool the pools to the point where it is possible to take an evening swim. Children are cross and often sick. Old friendships end abruptly.

  But in May it is just beginning again, and all the other years are forgotten and there is a certain pleasure in the heat.

  The funeral establishment of Crocker and Gain was rigorously air-conditioned to an impressive, sepulchral chill. But the vaulted downtown church was hot. The darkness of the interior gave no impression of coolness. It had been, Harv Walmo thought as he walked back to his office, like a badly lighted Turkish bath. Attending the church service had been an unnecessary gesture, he decided. Enough of the Hanson crowd around to make a good showing. And on top of that all the people who worked in one way or another for Sam Kimber. And then the ones who’d come out of curiosity. It would be a pretty sizeable stream of cars going out to the cemetery. If he hadn’t attended, he would never have been missed. But then again, Sam might have noticed. And Sam was getting awfully edgy these days.

  Sheriff Walmo walked with a slow dignity, his dark coat over his arm, his gray straw ranch hat set squarely on his large head.

  When he arrived at his office, the man was waiting for him. Walmo had him wait another ten minutes and then had him sent in. He was a young man, tall, lithe, so heavy through the shoulders and neck as to give the impression of being or having been an athlete. He had such an olive tan and hair so black, Walmo wondered if he was Cuban. But under the dense black brows, the deep-set eyes were a clear, bright, inquisitive blue. He wore a light cord suit, a pale blue shirt, a dark blue bow tie. His manner and expression were guarded, but confident. And he waited to be asked to sit down.

  “A courtesy call, Sheriff,” he said. “My name is Paul Stanial. I’ll be working in your area, with your permission. Here are my credentials.”

  Walmo looked at the cards. They showed that one Paul Stanial was licensed as a private investigator in the State of Florida and in Dade County, that he was employed by a Miami firm of a name familiar to Sheriff Walmo, that he had pistol permit number so and so.

  “Well now,” Harv Walmo said. “Well now, I guess this looks in order, and if’n it’s some sort of civil action you’re working on, you can tell me what it is and go on ahead about your business and I appreciate your stopping in. But if it’s some kind of criminal matter, our policy is work with you so there’s no confusion going on.”

  “I’ve been employed to conduct a quiet investigation to determine if any criminal action has taken place,” Stanial said carefully. “If at any time during my investigation I turn up anything which would indicate such a criminal action has taken place, I shall tu
rn that information over to you. I intend to check in with the city police department also, of course.”

  “Now we maybe aren’t perfect around here, Mr. Stanial, but it would surprise me if we missed out on anything going on that’s big enough to warrant sending a man up here from Miami. This here is a mighty clean county. So what criminal act is supposed to took place?”

  “The client wishes to be assured that the death of Mrs. Kelsey Hanson was not murder.”

  Walmo’s thick jaw sagged. “Murder! By God that poor girl drowned!”

  Stanial smiled briefly. “Without help. That’s the point, I guess.”

  “Now you can’t come in here and get people all stirred up over …”

  “Sheriff, I don’t want publicity any more than you do. This will be a quiet investigation. It was an accidental death, apparently. I have a cover story I don’t believe anyone will question.” He handed a letter and a calling card to the Sheriff. The card identified Stanial as a claims adjustor for a New England life insurance company, and the letter was a form request for an investigation and report on the death of Lucille Larrimore Hanson in connection with policy number so and so dated so and so in the amount of $25,000—said form letter having been apparently sent from the home office to the Miami field office.

  “I … guess that’ll work all right,” Walmo said hesitantly. “I plan to tell the people I talk to that it has a double indemnity provision which is voided by suicide. That gives me a chance to ask more personal questions.”

  “It wasn’t murder and it wasn’t suicide.”

  “Perhaps that’s what we’ll tell the client after the investigation is complete. But we’ve been hired to do it.”

  “Somebody is throwing their money down a hole. Who?”

  Stanial bit his lip for a moment. “The courts have upheld my right not to disclose that information, Sheriff, but I usually play it by ear. In this case I see no harm in telling you. We’ve been employed by the dead woman’s sister—a Miss Barbara Larrimore.”

  “The sister? The one come down for the funeral?”

  “Yes. I haven’t seen her yet, though.”

  “Now what would put such a crazy idea into her head and make her waste her money like this?”

  “I have no idea,” Stanial said.

  Walmo stared skeptically at the younger man for a few moments. “You said something about turning any evidence over if you find any, which you won’t. You able to recognize legal evidence if you happen to trip over it?”

  Stanial looked at Walmo so bleakly that Walmo hastily revised Stanial’s estimated age, adding four or five years. “I had graduate training, CIC work, and six years as a professional officer of the law, Sheriff.”

  “Why’d you quit?”

  “Is it important?”

  “Just a friendly question.”

  “It was a big northern city, Sheriff, with a force rated tops by the FBI. So the voters changed the city charter, and then the politicians cleaned out the top ranks of professional cops, filled the jobs with courthouse slobs, and the whole structure collapsed in less than a year. I’ve been in this work two years. I was transferred to Miami four months ago. I’d rather be wearing a badge, but I can assure you that I know the rules of evidence and I know proper police procedure, and I know from reading the newspaper accounts that you can’t prove beyond doubt that woman was alone when she drowned.”

  “It was just a friendly question,” Walmo said.

  Stanial smiled, and it seemed to Walmo an exceptionally warm and likeable smile for a man who had looked so icy a moment before. “If it’s just hysteria, I’ll try to wrap it up fast enough to keep the fee down. To start me off, Sheriff, who were the three people closest to Mrs. Hanson?”

  “The three? Her husband. And she worked for Doc Nile. And there’s Sam Kimber … a good friend.”

  “If you haven’t got time right now I can come back, Sheriff. But I would like to hear a little about those three people.”

  Walmo leaned back. “I’ve got the time, son. All the time we need.”

  Barbara Larrimore was glad to get back to the Orangeland Motel after the final part of funeral protocol, that brief graveside ceremony. The church service had begun at two and she was back at the motel by three thirty. She hastened out of her dark, damp, heavy clothing, aimed the air-conditioner vents toward the bed, took off every stitch and stretched out gratefully.

  She hoped she had not offended the Yateses, Jason and Bonny. But they had been so very insistent that she should leave the motel and come out to their lakeside home. They said she could have the whole guest wing to herself. And Kelsey Hanson seemed to think it a good idea too. “I’ll help you pack, dear, and Jase can check you out,” the blonde woman said. Finally she had to be almost rude before they gave up and went away and left her there alone.

  She remembered Lucille’s savage comments about Kelsey’s group of friends in one of the letters she wrote after she and Kelsey had separated. “They are very pretty people, and so terribly cordial and generous and open and well-mannered. They smother you with warm welcomes, and they all seem to look at you, man and woman, with the same fond wish to like you and be liked. They have a good deal of money and what I suppose you would call on the surface the gracious life. The men do a little, not very much, just enough so they appear to have offices to go to, or things to manage. They have a lot of little inside jokes and sayings, and they all tell hilarious anecdotes and tell them very well. And as you are beginning to think these are the world’s finest, they begin to change. Or maybe you begin to notice things. I don’t know. Underneath their pretty faces is a total and vulgar preoccupation with who got how drunk and when and where, and who screwed whom. Maybe it’s just boredom using up trivial people, but I found them wicked. And Kelsey is one of them, to the core. Is wicked too ancient and biblical a word, Barb? I am not a prude. Maybe a certain amount of dignity is my problem. I have a careful desire to be able to remember what I said and to whom, and who did what to me. There are nice people here, as there are everywhere, and probably there are little groups like this in Hartford and Plattsburg. But this is Kelsey’s way of life, not mine, and our separation is mostly due, I guess, to his unspoken attitude that, in time, I could get used to it. Now, just a few weeks away from it all, it has become unreal somehow.”

  It was a splendid word, Barbara thought. Unreal. Unreal not to see or hear any slightest reference to the fact Lucille and Kelsey had been living apart for almost a year. They all acted as though Lucille had died of an accident while on a short trip, a reluctant separation from her loving young husband. And it would have been unthinkable to suggest she not be buried in the Hanson plot. She was still married to a Hanson. And Kelsey’s grief was unmistakably genuine. He was like a man stunned. He looked as if his head had been boiled over a slow fire. His movements were uncertain. He was, undeniably, a man bereft.

  An additional unreality was the absence of blood relatives. She was used to great throngs of relatives at funerals. But, according to the lengthy and rather stilted radio message of sympathy from the elder Hansons, their ship was five days out of Bombay when they received the message. Kelsey was an only child. There were cousins in California, and that was all. And too far for the Larrimores to come, she thought.

  With comfort and coolness came the energy to make the necessary phone call. It went through immediately and her Aunt Jen answered.

  “How was the service, dear?”

  “Is Mother asleep?”

  A frail familiar voice came on the line. “I heard it ring, dear, and I thought it might be you so I’m on the bedroom phone.”

  “How are you feeling, Mom?”

  “Pretty well, I guess. Considering. How was the service?”

  “Really beautiful. A big church and lots of flowers, and it was really packed.”

  “Lucille was always a very popular girl,” Aunt Jen said.

  “How did my poor darling look?” Mrs. Larrimore asked. “Did you get a chance to see her?”


  “This morning, right after I got in, Mom. She looked very peaceful.”

  “Those people always put too much make-up on.”

  “They didn’t do that to Lu, really.”

  “Is it a pretty cemetery, dear?”

  “It’s in sort of rolling country and very well kept. The Hanson plot is right near a great big live oak tree, with Spanish moss.”

  She heard heartbreak sounds, and Aunt Jen said, “You hold on just a minute, Barbie.” In a few minutes Aunt Jen came back and said, “I made her hang up. She’s really pretty weak today, and she’s had about all she can take. She’ll want to know about who was there, and how many cars and what kind of flowers and what kind of a casket and all that, and what poor Lu was buried in, and what happens to her things and so on, but I don’t want to take time on that now because I want to get back to her. So put it all in a letter and get it in the mail tonight, dear. And then you hurry on back home.”

  “Aunt Jen, I might have to stay a few days.”

  “Why, child?”

  “There’s some sort of legal things.”

  “But can’t you tell some local lawyer to handle those things?”

  “I have to know what they are before I can tell him how to handle them, don’t I?”

  “Shouldn’t things like that be up to your mother and me?”

  “Aunt Jen, I’m not a child and I’m not an idiot. I’m twenty-five years old and I think you can credit me with some sense of responsibility.”

  “You sound like a snip.”

  “I might have to stay a few days. I will let you know, and I will come home as soon as I can. And … none of this is easy.”

  “I know, child. I didn’t mean to be grouchy.”