The Drowner

by John D. MacDonald

  “I think I know the next step. If we are guessing right, we should know a lot more than she thinks we know. In police work, that’s always a position of strength. The person you are talking to can’t decide what to admit and what to deny. I think that by talking to her I can get a good idea of how wrong we are. Or how right. Can we catch her before she goes to lunch?”

  “There’s time,” Sam said.

  “Order her to go to lunch with me and order her to cooperate with me. Don’t say what about.”

  They went back and got into the car. Sam Kimber shook his head. “Right now it’s making me feel a little bit sick. But I know that soon as I walk into the office and see her there, I’m going to know we’ve just been talking each other into a mess of foolishment.”

  The hostess led them back to a table for two. Paul, following behind Angie, was aware of the attention she got from the men in the dining room. She was worth looking at, from the lively flex and bounce of the dark gold hair down to the round, even glide of golden legs below the edge of the blue skirt. The skirt swung with her walk and the hips were a swell of tautness under blue fabric, and her wide shoulders in the blue and white striped blouse tapered down across a flatness of back to her strong waist. “Hah you, Angie,” they said. And, “Hi there, Angela honey.” And, “Afternoon, Miss Powell.” She waved and spoke and smiled. They gave him cool speculative glances.

  He held the chair for her and then sat down facing her. Her eyes sparkled as she smiled at him. “Mostly lunch is a quick counter sandwich, Mr. Stanial, so this is a treat.”

  The waitress brought the water and said, “Sure beat us a close one last night, Angie.”

  “You did real good though, Clara. Golly, you sure are a dead-eye on those spares.”

  “If you can’t get strikes, you got to do something. The corn beef is real good today.”

  “Okay for me. Clara, this is Mr. Stanial and he’s a insurance man. Clara Wikely.”

  “How do,” Clara said. “I had the corn beef myself and it sure is good.”

  “Two then,” Paul said. “And coffee.”

  “Milk for me,” Angie said. When the waitress left, she looked across at Stanial with less of a smile, and with a questioning candor in her lavender eyes.

  “Mister Sam was sure mysterious about sending me on off with you, Mr. Stanial.”

  “Make it Paul.”

  “And you call me Angie, huh?”

  “You bowled last night?”

  “Up against Clara’s team in the league last night, and we started bad but we got lucky. What is it you want to talk to me about, Paul?”

  “I’m not really an insurance man, Angie.”

  “No?”

  He leaned toward her. “I’m here to investigate the murder of Lucille Hanson.”

  “The what?” She looked genuinely shocked. “Oh, come now, Paul! If that was a murder, why everybody would be talking about it all day long.”

  “Why couldn’t it be?”

  “Well … I suppose it could be. But there wouldn’t be hardly anything to go on. I mean if it was a murder, there wouldn’t hardly be much sense to it, would there? Are you kidding me or something?”

  “I’m completely and totally serious. And I’d hoped to get some very useful information from Gus Gable. As a matter of fact, I talked to him on the phone last night about it.”

  To his annoyance, the waitress arrived with the lunch at that moment and in the distraction he was unable to tell if he had scored. She took a hungry mouthful and looked at him and said, “Now what would Gus know about anything like that?”

  “Angie, I didn’t bring you to lunch to ask you what you think Gus might have known about the murder of Lucille Hanson.”

  “Gee, it sounds funny to hear you say murder. What do you want to ask me?”

  “What you talked to Gus about last night.”

  If the fork hesitated on its way to the healthy mouth, it was a faltering so minor he was unable to detect it. But she looked considerably less friendly.

  “What gives you the idea I talked to Gus last night?”

  “He said he was going to see you.”

  She did not look alarmed. She looked thoughtful and annoyed. She said, “I sure didn’t see him.”

  “Then why did he say that?”

  “You know, I don’t know as it’s any of your business. Let me think a minute.” She ate steadily and efficiently. She cleaned her plate and pushed it an inch or so away and put her elbows on the table and looked at him. “I had planned on telling this to Mister Sam sooner or later, so I might as well tell you now, seeing as how you could be getting the wrong idea. You’re an investigator and I suppose you can check it all out. Last night while I was bowling a call came for me and I couldn’t take it then, and I wasn’t in any hurry to call back. It was from Gus and I recognized his office number. I had a pretty good idea why he was calling. Well, after bowling I went to Ernie’s with some of the girls on the team and had something to eat, and when they left, I went to the phone there and called Gus. He was awful upset. Losing Sam’s account meant a lot to him, and like I thought, he had the idea I could help him get it back. He wanted to see me. He had some ideas he wanted to talk over with me. I told him I didn’t want to be seen anywhere with somebody Mister Sam threw out. He was almost in tears. He hinted he’d make it worth my while. He begged and pleaded, but honest, I just didn’t want to see him. So he said he’d drive over at midnight and park near that burned furniture place, handy to my house where nobody could see us, and we’d talk it over and I’d never be sorry. I still said no. Now I don’t know whether he went there or not, and I don’t know as I care much. But seeing he had his attack right there on Tyler, maybe he did, hoping I’d change my mind. And if he said he was going to see me, he was just wishing out loud. I went right home from Ernie’s and I talked to my mother for a little while and then we went to bed and I didn’t go out. You can ask my folks. The siren woke me up as I was going to sleep, but I didn’t have any way of knowing it was on account of Gus dying right near my house.”

  There she was, looking at him with the right amount of indignation and righteousness on her big bland All-American girl face, with the little smile lines bracketing the muscular curvature of her lips, with two tiny chickenpox craters on the bland expanse of brow, and a little sun-white fuzz on her upper lip, with some whitened squint-lines at the outside corners of her eyes, a crumb of roll-crust on her solid chin. He could see past the wiry roots of her hair to the white meat of her scalp. Her sleeveless blouse exposed the smooth and rounded slabs of muscle that slid under the useful hide as she moved her arms. Earnest in the irises of lavender were the little black orifices of pupil, oiled with health, letting his own image through to the invisible rods and cones. She was a wide-screen projection of a girl, and he felt an abrupt shift of awareness in his mind, and he wondered what the hell he was doing here and what he was talking about. Here, as Sam Kimber understood, was the acme of plausibility. The money would turn up. Lucille had hid it a little too well after Gus made her nervous. Lucille had cramped and gasped and lost her composure and drowned. And Gus had looked like a heart case. Here was glowing plausibility, and also a sadness—the same kind of regretful sadness as when you see any superb mechanism used for a lesser purpose than its designer intended. This was a big, remarkable, almost terrifying engine of a girl, with enough warmth and energy to spawn and raise a dozen kids, and enough left over to keep a durable husband faithful. But some little sprocket had been bent, and the chain had slipped, and the machine was useful as a secretary or a bowling partner or an opponent in a foot race. Here, he suspected, the unwanted juices would dry early, and in another fifteen years she would be a leathery parody of woman. But now she reminded him of a bowl of artificial fruit.

  But he had to continue the cop reflex, and take the test the rest of the way, though his heart was not in it.

  “Angie, I guess you’ve explained almost everything.”

  “I’m not explaining
anything. I’m just telling you.”

  “Then if you’re just telling me, then tell me what you were doing walking through that school yard last night after midnight.”

  She shook her head almost sadly. “I swear, Paul, you must be trying some kind of silly trick, and I don’t know what you’re trying to get at. If anybody says they saw me, they’re out of their mind. Or lying.”

  He sighed. “Okay, Angie. No more questions.”

  “It’s a crazy thing anyhow, thinking Miz Hanson was murdered. I suppose you think Gus was murdered too?” She looked startled and then her eyes narrowed. “If you do think he was murdered too, then you must be thinking I did it.”

  “It crossed my mind.”

  “You got a sick mind, Mister Stanial. I swear. I should be mad at you, but it makes me want to laugh somehow. Golly! Wondering if I killed both of them. Honest, I just don’t have that much free time. And I live by the commandments, Paul. Thou shalt not kill. Does anybody else have such a crazy idea. Hey, did it cross Mister Sam’s mind too?”

  “He tried to believe it might be possible, but he just couldn’t.”

  “It’s that he knows me better than that. No harm done, I guess. It’s all just … sort of silly.”

  She seemed so absolutely normal he felt an idle urge to make her disclose that other part of herself, that sing-song glaze of the practicing fanatic. “Sam will be himself again as soon as he ties up with another woman,” he said casually. “You think so much of him, maybe you ought to give him his comfort closer to home. You’re a big healthy girl and there’s no boyfriend to object, is there?”

  It interested him to watch her face change. The mouth narrowed and the firm cheeks seemed to flatten, and he could see the whites of her eyes all around the iris. “I would crawl through fiery coals for Mister Sam. But I’d not add more damage to his immortal soul by offering my flesh to him in sin. And I don’t like this kind of dirty talk.”

  “Do you really think Sam’s relationship with Lucille Hanson damaged either of them?”

  “Her more than him, if there was anything left to be damaged. She was a lustful whore that enticed him, and the fires of hell were waiting to consume her evil body and she’ll roast down there for eternity.”

  “Oh come now, Angie! Isn’t that just fright talking? Who scared you so badly? Your mother? How do you expect to lead a normal life.”

  “I wasn’t put here to lead a normal life.”

  He was suddenly alert. “What were you put here for?”

  “To … to be an example.”

  “Well, the example isn’t changing the ways of the world much.”

  “This is the time of sin. God has turned His back.”

  “On you too?”

  “There’s some gifted to see His face.”

  “That makes you a very special person, doesn’t it?”

  She blushed and looked down. “Taking pride in it would be a sin.”

  “Does He tell you what to do?”

  The blush faded and she sat very still for too long a time. She raised her lids and looked across the table at him. “Maybe one day He will speak to me. I pray for that day.”

  “Didn’t God make man and woman with some functional idea in mind?”

  She looked at him with what he thought was a strange intensity. “Do you think you could change the way I feel about the sins of the flesh?”

  “Let’s say I think your attitude leaves something to be desired, Angie.”

  “And you’d like to be the one to help me? And maybe take me back to Miami with you? Have you seduced other virgins with your sweet talk and your blue eyes, Mister Stanial?”

  “Now wait a minute.”

  “You didn’t care about their immortal souls. You said your sly little love words, and then you desecrated them, and God will not forgive you. You’re black with sin, Mister Stanial.”

  “Actually I think I’m quite a decent guy.”

  She seemed to give a little shake, a little flexure of muscles, and changed back into the person she was before. “I think you’re nice enough, Paul, honest. It’s just that when two people don’t think the same way, I guess they shouldn’t talk about religion.” She smiled appealingly. “I’m not going to change you and you’re not going to change me. But just please don’t ever talk dirty in front of me like you did. It makes me feel crawly.”

  “Okay, Angie.”

  “Where’d Clara get to? I got to be getting back.”

  As she turned to look for the waitress, the light caught the underside of her right forearm, and he saw the pattern of small puckered white scars.

  “What happened to your arm?”

  She turned back. “What?”

  He reached and took her wrist and turned her arm. “These marks?”

  Her hand was yanked away with shocking force, and he felt his face go blank with astonishment as he looked into the third face of Angie Powell, saw the lips lifted up and back from the strong white teeth, the eyes bright slits, heavy cords stretching the smooth skin of her throat.

  “Don’t ever touch me,” she whispered, and he sensed it took her a special effort to form each word, as though it was a language she did not speak well.

  And then he saw her walking away quite briskly between the tables, silhouetted against the bright front windows of the restaurant.

  He phoned Sam from the restaurant phone before paying his check.

  “Well?” Sam said.

  “After the first fifteen minutes, I was on your side. Now I don’t know.”

  “And what the hell does that mean?”

  “It means a psychotic doesn’t play the game according to the rules. She’s on her way back now. What are those scars on her arm?”

  “Those little white marks? Like a lot of vaccinations. I don’t know. I asked her once, and she got sort of upset so I didn’t push it.”

  “I don’t know why she’s so sensitive about them. Sam, even if she checks out clean, that girl needs help.”

  “Doc Nile told me that once, too. But what the hell am I supposed to do? She does her work. She gets along with everybody. She’s just now coming in.”

  “Sam, how does she …”

  “Hold it a minute.”

  After two minutes Sam came back on the line. In a low voice he said, “Cheery as a clam. Said she had a nice lunch. Said it came as a shock to her about you and me having to find out who she’d killed lately. It’s a joke to her, Paul. Now, dammit, get her off your mind and find out who really did kill my girl.”

  Ernie said, “Sure, I remember Angie making a call. After she walked out with the other gals, she come back in and made a call and she was in the booth there quite a spell. Then we talked some and she took off.… You’re quite welcome, mister. No trouble at all. Only what’s it about?”

  The stooped, lethargic, hollow-eyed man at Happy Lanes said, “Call for Angie? Not over this phone, not last night, mister. Nobody gets back of this here counter but me, and nobody touches this phone, so come the end of the month I don’t get any long-distance bills I don’t remember. It could have come on the pay phone over in the restaurant part, but if a person was calling here, it would come on this phone just about always because it’s the one in the book.”

  The front hall of the little gray house smelled musty, and Angle’s monstrous mother had a voice like a prolonged screech. She loomed like an enraged hippo in the shadowy sultry air. “She was home some after eleven and she didn’t go out again, and I demand to know what kind of questions you think you’re asking and what right you got asking them. I raised me a decent clean girl and we got no secrets between us, and the last thing in the world she’d be doing would be sneaking out. Oh, I know all about the other young girls in this town, how they go scampering off in the brush every chance they get, rolling onto their backs for anything wears pants, but my Angela ain’t one of them.”

  “This is just a routine insurance investigation.”

  “I bet it is. I just bet it is. Routine, hah?
Making yourself a chance to bring Angie in on something she’s got nothing to do with so you can come snuffling around after her. You just might as well give up, mister, because you nor nobody else is going to get anyplace with my Angie. I taught her early and I taught her good. No man alive is going to lay his stinking hands on her sweet body. Men got just that one thing on their mind, day and night, and the good Lord knows there’s enough sluts in this town you can find to pleasure you just by snapping your fingers, so you don’t have to come around here.”

  “I’m afraid you have the wrong idea, Mrs. Powell.”

  She tilted ponderously toward him, a sneer imbedded in the pouches of fat. “You know something, young man? I have wrong ideas all the time. I walk out into the world and I look on every side, and my mind reels with the number of wrong ideas I have.” She pointed a finger like a small uncooked pork sausage at the center of his face. “And every single one of them turns out to be right. So you get on out of my house.”

  After he had stepped out, he turned back and spoke to the shadowy vastness through the screen. “By the way, how did she get those scars on her arm?”

  “Mortifying the flesh, mister. Mortifying the flesh to drive out the devil, which is something you wouldn’t understand.”

  It took Doctor Rufus Nile ten minutes each for the last three patients, while Stanial waited. Nile had a yen for some cold beer, so he locked the office and they drove to a dark, cool, pleasant, downtown tavern where they carried the large steins of dark draught beer back to a paneled booth with a scarred, scrubbed table-top.

  “When a man doesn’t take the first opening he gets, it means he has a small speech planned,” Nile said. He thrust his chin toward Paul and boggled his eyes. “Hah?”

  “A careful statement, because it might be tied in with professional ethics. In my investigation of whether or not it was an accidental drowning or suicide, I seem to have opened up another possibility, Doctor. And it could involve somebody you seem to have had a professional opinion about. So I’ll be blunt about it. Do you think Angie Powell is capable of murder?”