The Main Corpse

by Diane Mott Davidson

  The memory of that play flickered in my mind Monday morning, when an event came out of left field that shocked me no less than if I’d tried to catch Burks’ throw with my bare hands.

  The phone’s ringing pierced the silence when the clock’s digits glowed exactly 7:30. Apparently, both our electric power and telephone service had been restored. I figured that Tom had reset the clocks before he left. Arch, I was fairly sure, was still asleep. Since I didn’t have any bookings, I thought it must be my mother calling from New Jersey to do a postmortem on the game. She’s a big Mets fan.

  It was not my mother. It was Macguire Perkins. He rasped and wheezed so badly into the receiver that at first I barely recognized his voice.

  “Oh, Goldy, I’m so sorry. I’m in Lutheran Hospital. In Denver. I’ve got such bad news. I really screwed up.”

  I threw off the sheets, shot up in bed, and dragged my mind from baseball to Macguire. Macguire in the hospital? “Macguire, what’s wrong?”

  “I was tailing them. But I lost them. Marla and her boyfriend. Something happened. Somebody … somebody hit me over the head—” he wheezed. “—and I guess I struggled, but then the perp must have hit me again, because I just like, passed out or whatever.”

  “Someone hit you? When? Where? Macguire start over, please. Are you okay?”

  “Out in the woods, near Grizzly Creek. It was at night. And there was that big storm, you know? When I came to, there was a ton of blood coming out of this gross cut on my scalp. I mean, the blood’s all over my shirt, pants, everything. It was nasty.” More wheezing. “I thought I was dying. I figured I’d been hit by a rock, or a rock slide, or jeez, I don’t know, because I can’t remember hearing anything. But sometimes you don’t, you know, remember hearing a rock slide. Your mind blanks it out. At least that’s what this guy at school told me.” His voice shredded into coughing. “Anyway, I tied my shirt around my scalp and tried to drive my car out, but the front tires were flat. I thought, that’s weird, how could they both be flat? And I couldn’t see any big rocks or boulders nearby, so I was like, totally confused. And scared. Even though there was nobody around and all I could hear was the rain.” There was murmuring in the background. “Yeah, okay,” I heard Macguire say. “I’ll be off in a minute.” He sighed, which led to more coughing. “That was the nurse. I had to have six stitches, and the covering of my skull is torn. I didn’t even know the skull had a covering. I mean, you know. Besides skin. And, of course, hair,” he added dutifully.

  “Macguire, I’m so sorry … but why … why did you do this? What were you thinking?”

  He sighed gustily, with the world-weary air of Sam Spade. “I know it’s dumb. But I was up at Albert Lipscomb’s house with you guys, and it was all so weird when he skipped. So I just thought if I followed Tony it would lead to Albert. I mean, eventually. Then I’d be the hero. I should have known better, I know. Don’t tell me, I already feel totally stupid.”

  I was out of bed and pulling on a sweat suit, the phone tucked under my ear. “For heaven’s sake, Macguire, how did you get back to town? Couldn’t Marla and Tony help you? Did you call the police?”

  “I couldn’t find Marla and Tony,” he whined helplessly, and I was painfully reminded of how young he was. “That’s what I called to tell you. After I came to, I went over to where I’d watched them fixing dinner. I had to wait for flashes of lightning to see anything. You wouldn’t believe how dark it was. And it was really raining—Anyway, I called, but they weren’t at the campsite any more. Marla’s car was there, that new Mercedes, all locked up. I don’t know where they went, I swear. But it was real dark, you know. The wind was blowing like crazy, it was raining so hard…. And it was really cold.”

  He hacked again, then spoke to someone, probably the nurse. I prayed that he had some idea of where Tony and Marla were, some idea that they were okay.

  “Did you ever see Marla and Tony? I mean after you were hit?”

  “No, I’m telling you, I couldn’t find them. And I called and called. They must have left on foot, because they only had the one car up there. Goldy, it looked as if a bear or something had gone through their campsite, it was such a frigging—excuse me—mess. I stumbled back until I came to the dirt road, then I walked out to the state highway. A guy in a truck picked me up. He brought me here. And then I guess I like passed out again, or something, because my memory gets kind of blurry. Oh yeah, the guy in the truck said he would call the police. They operated on me, sewing up that cut, yesterday sometime. Gosh, I feel like hell. And the nurse says I have to get off the phone. I’m going to call the school secretary at home, in case my father phones and wonders where I am.”

  “Oh, Macguire, you poor—”

  “Don’t worry, I’m supposed to get out of here tomorrow. That’s a good thing, because they’ve got me rooming with this guy who snores, and it’s so loud he sounds like someone trying to start an airplane in a cave. I swear, I gotta get back home so I can sleep.”

  “I’ll check with the police and call you later. I promise.” I hung up and fumbled with my shoelaces. My fingers were like ice. A bear or something. What did I know about grizzlies in our area? Supposedly they didn’t come this far south. But there had been reports of mountain lions in Idaho Springs, and there was no telling how the recent weird weather had affected migration and feeding patterns of Rocky Mountain wildlife. Oh, Marla, where are you?

  I turned back to the phone. Call Tom immediately, a voice in my head commanded. But despite what I’d told Macguire, I was afraid to contact my husband. And I knew it was because, deep in my heart, I was certain he’d have bad news for me. As I debated, the phone rang again.

  “Goldilocks’ Catering, Where … everything …”

  A young female voice hesitantly inquired, “Er, is this Goldy, the caterer?”

  “It is.” I ran my fingers through my hair. “I can’t talk business, unfortunately, because I’m kind of tied up at the moment.”

  “This is Kiki Belknap, calling from Prospect Financial? I’m Tony Royce’s secretary? Is he there? Because—”

  “Of course he’s not here, it’s not even eight o’clock in the morning! Why on earth would Tony be here?”

  “I’m sorry, because his calendar says so? I just don’t know, are you like, meeting with him, or just talking to him on the phone? It says here, Goldy, ask about menus for August reception, eight A.M., with your phone number—”

  “Look, please let me call you back, Kiki, I have to check on my friend. Marla Korman—you know her, don’t you? She was supposed to be with him—”

  “But you see, our office has just had a call from the police—”

  “What did they say?” I interrupted sharply.

  “They wanted to know where Tony was! And I’m like, I mean, after last week with Mr. Lipscomb, I’m like, what are you talking about, asking where Mr. Royce is—”

  “I have to go,” I said brusquely. “Tony’s not here.”

  I tapped the button impatiently to get a dial tone, then punched in Marla’s number. Her machine picked up; I slammed the phone down.

  I tiptoed quickly to Arch’s room. His bed was empty. Wherever he’d gone, he’d taken Jake. I rushed down to the kitchen. Where was Arch? There was a note crookedly taped onto the table:

  Mom, I’m taking Jake for a walk around the lake. Don’t worry, I’m wearing my rain jacket, just in case. I’ll go out the back way. Love, Arch.

  I was so upset I forgot Tom’s number and had to look up the sheriff’s department’s main number in the phone book. The operator put me through to Tom’s extension, where I again encountered a machine. I urged Tom to call me ASAP. I turned on the water without fitting grounds into the espresso machine. To make matters worse, when hot water spewed all over the counter, I picked up a dry sponge and managed to slosh the scalding liquid onto my hands and the floor. “Start over,” I mumbled. I dropped a paper towel onto the steaming counter and fumbled for the coffee beans.

  I sighed and looked ou
t the window at fog so thick I couldn’t even see my neighbor’s house. Would this wretched weather never end? I ground a cupful of coffee beans, scrupulously remeasured the water, and then pressed the button for espresso. While the dark strands of liquid began to spurt out, I again punched the numbers for Marla’s house. This time I got a busy signal. My heart leapt: I tried again and once more got a busy. The next time I punched in her number, I encountered her machine. I waited this time and said, “It’s me, pick up! It’s Goldy! If you’re there, damn it, pick up!”

  No response. Perhaps someone else had been calling the machine just at the moment I’d dialed and received the busy signals. I shook my head, then tried Tom again.

  He answered on the first ring. “Schulz.” His voice was guarded, as if someone were right there looking over his shoulder.

  “Can you talk?”

  “One sec.” He put me on hold, then came back. “Go ahead.”

  “Macguire just called. He’s in the hospital. Tom, have you heard of any accidents? Has something happened to Marla?”

  “Wait, wait.” He lowered his voice. “How do you get from Macguire Perkins in the hospital to something happening to Marla?”

  “Let me back up,” I blubbered. “I should have told you that Macguire had started to fancy himself an investigator. He’s decided to become a cop instead of going to college. I didn’t tell you because I was afraid you would think it was dumb. Anyway, I saw him Friday outside the soup restaurant, and I guess he was tailing them—Marla and Tony. I never thought that he’d follow them on their fishing trip this weekend.” I gave him the substance of my conversation with Macguire in the hospital. He listened patiently, without interrupting once.

  “First of all, Miss G., I don’t think anybody’s aspirations are dumb, okay? Marla is his friend. He was worried about her. Now, where’s Headmaster Perkins? Has somebody let him know his son’s in the hospital?”

  “I don’t know where Perkins is. Vermont, I think. For a month-long educational conference? I’m not sure. Macguire’s calling the school secretary, and he’s due to get out of the hospital tomorrow. But, Tom, where could Marla be? I mean, if Macguire was following them, and he got hurt, and then he couldn’t find Marla and Tony in the storm … where are they? Have you heard anything about people hurt up at Grizzly Creek? Tony Royce’s office just called—”

  “Hold on a sec.” He put me in telecommunications limbo for what seemed like an age. When he came back his voice was grim. “Okay, they got a call late yesterday morning, a trucker said he picked up a hitchhiker who claimed a bear had torn up a campsite where Tony Royce and Marla Korman were camping. We haven’t heard from Marla or Tony, but you know the phones in Aspen Meadow were down most of yesterday.”

  “The hitchhiker was Macguire.”

  “A team’s already gone up to Grizzly Creek. Because it was Tony and Marla, Captain Shockley’s put himself personally in charge.” His tone very clearly said. And you know what that means. “Goldy, you’re going to have to let me get back to you.”

  “Are there any …” I couldn’t say the rest.

  “No reports of death, no bodies floating in the creek or washed up on the shore,” he said curtly, and hung up.

  I grabbed my mug of coffee and my keys and ran out the back door.

  Once I was in the van, however, I sat, bewildered. What was I doing, exactly? I took a slug of espresso and thought, What’s a logical explanation for this? Okay, Tony and Marla were miserable out there camping in that awful storm. There was some kind of problem with Marla’s Mercedes, so they got a ride out. Macguire said they only had the one car, and he didn’t see them leave. Then some animal got into their campsite while Macguire was asleep in his car. After that, a rock hit Macguire…. No.

  I inhaled more caffeine and struggled to kick-start my brain. Okay. Say they came back early, for whatever reason—they could be at Tony’s place right now, or Marla’s, sleeping in, having fun, being naughty and missing Monday morning appointments. Maybe Marla’s answering machine was on but the volume was off—she rigged her phone that way all the time. She could have called somebody this morning when I got the busy signal, but not heard me begging for her to pick up later. So … was I going to go hauling over to Marla’s house, if that’s where they were, and barge in?

  Was I up to making a fool of myself? Well, it wouldn’t be the first time. And anyway, what if Marla and Tony weren’t even there, what if they were at a hotel somewhere? I turned the ignition on, then off.

  What about Macguire? What was the worst-case scenario? I wondered about Albert Lipscomb. If what Eileen Tobey had said was true, then the Eurydice Mine venture was Tony’s project as much as it was Albert’s. If it was a bust. Prospect might not recover. Maybe, I wondered wildly, maybe Albert hadn’t left town at all. Tony had told everyone he and Marla were going fishing at Grizzly Creek this weekend. Albert could easily have come back for revenge on his partner, after Marla had found problems in the assay reports. Revenge for what? For not analyzing the mine properly? For risking the assets of the entire firm? Huge maybe questions. Then, after doing something to Tony and Marla, Albert had whacked Macguire for good measure, and slashed his tires, so that he could make his getaway with all that money before anyone got back to Aspen Meadow….

  But then where were Marla and Tony? With Albert Lipscomb? Dead in the rain near Grizzly Creek? I suddenly knew what I had to do.

  Fog pressed against my windshield as the van inched toward Main Street. Cottony mist wove through street-side aspen branches. The van crunched over rutted gravel left in the destructive wake of the heavy rain. Once again, I had to slow behind a line of traffic. Ten car-lengths ahead, a road crew with two bulldozers scooped up the remains of a rock slide. I drank the last of the tepid espresso and tapped the steering wheel in frustration. I didn’t want to think about rock slides.

  Where was Marla?

  Twenty minutes later I pulled up in front of her house. A large pine branch, blown down in the storm, lay like a gnarled black bone in her groomed flower bed. The driveway was empty, the draperies pulled. There was no sign of movement on her street. I hopped up the stone steps. If Tony was here, I was going to recommend she break up with him. Immediately. Being involved with investment advisers, shady or otherwise, was getting to be burdensome on my cardiac health.

  The doorbell dingdonged inside the silent house. I stared at my blurred reflection in the brass nameplate inscribed Chez Marla and waited. I rang again.

  Decision time. She’d had a heart attack last summer. I’d gotten two busy signals and then nothing this morning. What if she was inside, and couldn’t call out. because she was having another heart attack? What if she needed me to do CPR? That’s my mom, I could hear Arch’s mocking voice. Always imagining the worst, and making you pay for her imagination.

  Lucky for me, Marla frequently locked herself out of her own home. I hurried to the lock box under the utility gauges where I knew she kept at least two spare keys, I wrenched the box open, grabbed the one spare that was there, and sprinted back around to the front of the house.

  The cold key bit into my palm as I once again pressed the doorbell and listened to it bong through the interior space. The key slipped from my hand and clanged onto the flagstone entryway. I picked it up and gently fit it into the lock. Unlike me, Marla had no sophisticated security system to protect against the Jerk or anyone else. She always claimed she had her ferocious personality to keep enemies at bay. The latch clicked, the knob turned, and I pushed the door open.

  Stepping inside, I tried to prepare myself for the worst. If only I knew what the worst was, I reflected grimly. It was strangely heartening to sense a trace of Marla’s perfume in the air. In fact, the air in the house, surprisingly, was not three-day-old stale. I moved cautiously along the light blue Kirman runner into the front hall and sniffed again. Marla’s scent seemed to become stronger. So did the aroma of coffee.

  Coffee? What the hell have I done? I wondered. She’s here with Tony
and just not answering the phone. I’ve crashed in on a romantic interlude. She’ll never speak to me again, after this.

  “Marla?” I ventured. “Hey, guys! Where are you? It’s Goldy. I’m here making a fool of myself because somebody said a bear got into your campground! Are you here?”

  I fully expected to hear Marla’s familiar voice trill a sarcastic remark. Or perhaps her impish face and wild hair would appear and teasingly demand an explanation for my panicked behavior. Instead, I heard a tiny sound. Something hissed down the hall. I walked quickly toward it. Oddly, the kitchen floor was gritty with dried mud. The red light of the coffee machine blinked mockingly. Bubbles in the decanter bubbled and spat, producing both the scent and the sound I’d heard. I pulled the cord out of the wall and looked disconsolately around the room.

  I suddenly remembered something my mother used to do when she came home, and my brother and I looked guilty, and things in the kitchen didn’t look quite right. She would make a beeline for the trash bin. Whatever mischief we had made, whatever forbidden pizza or ice cream we had snitched, she figured, the telltale detritus was bound to be in the trash. I wrenched open the white cabinet and peered into the plastic garbage bag. It was filled with crumpled paper towels. I pulled one out. The towel was covered with dried blood.

  “Marla!” I shouted. I threw down the towel and pawed through the trash. There was no meat tray or packaging to explain the bloodstained towels. I slammed out of the kitchen and ran up the back stairs, down the hall, and into her bedroom.

  It was a disaster site. Clothes strewn on the beige carpeting. Towels draped over upholstered chairs. On her bed, the flowered bedcovers formed a mountainous tumble.

  “Marla—” I croaked, fully expecting a corpse under the sheets.

  The covers moved. If there were two people under there, I would never live down the mortification. That is, if Marla didn’t murder me for being such a paranoid idiot. But it would serve them right for not answering the doorbell or my calls.