The Main Corpse

by Diane Mott Davidson

  A half-full cup of coffee and opened container of pills sat on the dressing-table. The bedside lamp was on. I stepped awkwardly toward the bed just as Marla’s snarled mop of hair appeared from under a tousled sheet. I gasped.

  “Marla? What’s going on?”

  An unearthly groan, full of shame and pain, issued from the rumpled bed. Then a batch of soiled towels emerged, then my best friend’s face. I gasped again. One black eye, the other swollen shut. A bruised cheek. A dark, bloody gash down her forehead. She levered herself carefully to a sitting position. She wore a sweatshirt spotted with blood, which she tugged down self-consciously before raising her face to try to look at me.

  “No,” I moaned, dropping to my knees next to her. “Oh God, you need a doctor. What happened—”

  “I wanted to call you, but the damn phone wasn’t working.” Her labored whisper squeezed my heart. “I’m sorry you have to … see me like this. I—”

  I reached a hand out to her poor face but she pulled away. “Marla, please,” I said firmly. “I’m calling your cardiologist. Won’t you tell me what happened? We must call the police.” The words tumbled out. Anger made my ears buzz.

  She groaned. “I was going to call the police in a little bit, anyway, if I couldn’t reach Tony. I don’t know if he got out, too. I don’t think he saw me … I’ve tried to reach him, but he’s not answering his machine. He’ll be so ticked off if we call the cops. More bad publicity for Prospect. Just give it half an hour,” she begged. She stifled a sob and reached for a tissue.

  “Mark, please tell me what happened.”

  “Somebody … I … I … think it might have been Albert….” A sob shuddered through her. I put my hand on her forearm and waited for her to continue. She went on: “Actually, it started Friday night. Tony and I had a terrible fight.”

  “Oh, no.”

  She groaned again, peered uncertainly around the room, then fastened her gaze on the coffee and pills at her bedside. She groped for the brown pill bottle. I leaned close to see what it was. The label read: Royce, Tony. Take one tablet orally every 4 hours as needed for pain. Acetaminophen with codeine.

  “Oh, Marla, don’t take his prescription. What have you got it for, anyway?”

  “He leaves his stuff here all the time. And he gets headaches. Actually, sometimes I think that guy is a headache.”

  “Marla—”

  “Let me take some meds,” she insisted, “and then I’ll tell you what happened.” To my horror, she shook out not one but three pills, popped them into her mouth, then washed them down with cold coffee. She grimaced. Then she groaned and sank back onto the pillow.

  “Wait,” I told her. “Let me get a washcloth for that eye.” When I came back, she had pressed her face into the pillows and refused to look at me. “Marla,” I implored, “don’t talk. You have to let me call Dr. Gordon. He’s going to want to see you right away. This is for your health, Marla. This is for your life.”

  She moaned. Then she reached out and to my relief, took the cold washcloth I offered. When she had eased back upright, I found the bedroom phone, a gilt rotary contraption that was supposed to go with the French Provincial theme. My heart ached for her. She always tried to make everything beautiful. Miraculously, I remembered Dr. Gordon’s number. The phone rang once, twice. It was an emergency, I told the answering service. Did I need an ambulance, the woman wanted to know. In the mountain area, I knew emergency medical services were handled by a private company called Front Range Ambulance. With only two vehicles available, and almost twenty-four hours without phone service in the mountains, ambulance service would be slow, misdirected, or worse, unavailable. I could get Marla to the hospital faster myself. No, I replied to the operator, I needed the doctor to call me. Dr. Gordon was in surgery, and a Dr. Yang would call me back, she informed me calmly. Within two minutes Dr. Yang phoned. I told him a cardiac patient of Dr. Gordon’s had been badly beaten. He said to bring her to Southwest Hospital immediately.

  “You’re going to have to go in,” I told Marla gently. “As soon as we get there, I’ll call Tom to tell him you’re all right and to ask him to put out an APB on Albert Lipscomb. Listen,” I blurted out, “Macguire Perkins followed you because he wants to be a cop….” No matter what Tom said, it still sounded dumb. “Anyway, Macguire’s at Lutheran Hospital. Out at that campsite, somebody hit him, too. You, Macguire, probably Tony, too—all attacked. Marla, we must call the police as soon as we get you some medical attention.”

  “Oh, Tony, Tony.” Marla groaned his name as she inched her way out of bed. Her legs were so bruised and badly cut that I bit back a cry of dismay. Without further protest, she let me help her into a large navy blue dress that buttoned up the front. I found her a pair of red sandals. She put them on, then slumped back on the bed, exhausted by the effort of dressing.

  “Do you suppose Tony’s at home, but not answering?” she asked. “What should we do, Goldy? I don’t know if he’d like my pressing the panic button before we can at least connect—”

  “Do you think you could tell me what happened?”

  She sighed. But the painkiller must have been taking effect, because she began to talk, very softly. “It was too cold Friday night to camp, and I told Tony I couldn’t sleep outside. I begged for us to drive up the next day. He got mad and we argued. But we came back here, cooked some of that soup you gave us, and then argued more about going up to the campsite that night. We went to bed—Tony in the guest room, mind you. But then he came in and woke me up, said he thought he heard an intruder. You know I sleep like a rock, I didn’t hear a thing. But he was in a terrible state. He insisted on tiptoeing around the house, looking for some nonexistent burglar. Finally he calmed down. When I woke up the next morning, I lay here thinking, we’re going out to share a tent in the wild, and he can’t even get through one night without being a mass of nerves?” She managed a rusty laugh.

  “But, why did you go out there at all? On Saturday, I mean? There was that terrible storm….”

  She sighed, touched one of the bruises on her cheek, then winced. “I didn’t want to go, but he insisted. The weather was a little warmer, and the fog had cleared, it was just windy. By the time we got the car loaded up, though, rain threatened again. Tony was in a rotten mood. I was ready to tell him to go by himself. Except that we were going in my car, that Miata of his can’t always do the rough-road stuff. I should have told him to rent a Range Rover. I should have told him a lot of things.” She frowned. “Think it’s too soon for me to have another pain pill?”

  “Absolutely too soon. Wait and see what Yang says. At the campsite, did you see Macguire or his Subaru?”

  Even shaking her head seemed to cause her pain. “No. We got up there to the site by Grizzly Creek, and Tony started acting jumpy as a rabid squirrel. He kept talking about Albert, saying this was their favorite fishing spot. We pitched the tent and of course it started to pour. We used Sterno and heated up some more of your soup. He kept saying, ‘Did you hear something? Think somebody’s out here with us?’ I said no fifty times, and then told him his paranoia was making me nuts and I was going to sleep. I was so tired I could have slept through a hurricane. Or so I thought until somebody grabbed me and pulled me out of the tent.”

  “What? Who?”

  “I don’t know. Somebody just started hitting me. I screamed and called for Tony. I tried to get my footing but it was muddy, dark, thunder blasting overhead, rain coming down like crazy…. It was like a nightmare. And it all happened so fast. I’d been in a deep sleep and then all of a sudden I was screaming my lungs out. But whoever was hitting me didn’t care. I finally managed to get out of the damn sleeping bag. I tried to hit back, grabbing at anything to use as a weapon. But this guy was strong. I thought it was a bear at first, but he grunted like a human. And what bear uses a piece of firewood to hit you? He hit me and hit me and hit me. Just as I was going down there was a flash of lightning, and I saw the guy moving away from me, and … he had no hair. It a
ll went so fast. I thought. Where am I, where am I going, what am I supposed to do? I was sure I was going to die.” Tears formed in her bruise-circled eyes.

  “You fainted?”

  “I was … I was … there was sand in my mouth and in my hair. The noise from the water was incredible … I finally figured I was on that sandy shoreline of the creek. With the rain coming down hard, and warm blood oozing over my face, I thought, Finally, finally, I get to rest. I was sure I was dead, or close to it. Later, in the night, I came to and the storm had become even more fierce, thunder, lightning, rain. I thought I heard someone calling me. ‘Marla! Are you here? Marla!’”

  “That was probably Macguire.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “I gasped, ‘Here! Here!’ But no one could have heard me over the creek and the storm. Besides, I thought I was hallucinating. My mind was so … mushy. Silly, even. My brain was laughing hysterically, saying, Nobody’s calling you, dummy, it’s Rochester wanting Jane Eyre! So there I was on the creek bank, every part of my body aching, wondering who would scream for me when I was about to kick the bucket. I knew I was dead.”

  “Oh, Marla, I’m so sorry—”

  She held up a hand to stop me. “When I woke up it was just past dawn. I think. Anyway, our campsite was a mess. I limped to my car, but it was locked. I must have lost the keys when the guy—Albert—attacked me. I finally hobbled out to the main road. A family going to church brought me home. I tried to call Tony but my line was dead.” The tears brimmed over. The painkillers were slurring her speech. “I was dying to call you … or come over … if we just had a taxi service in this hopeless town …”

  “Don’t,” I said firmly. “Everything will be fine now. I’m here with you.” I supported her as she stood shakily and walked, haltingly and with evident pain. toward the staircase. “My van’s parked out front. Do you want me to bring it around back, or can you make it down the steps?”

  “Let me try to walk to your car. It’ll be good for me, I’m so cramped up.”

  We inched down the steps across the runner, then to the front door. I told Marla to hold on to a side table. I opened the door, and we both gasped.

  Standing on the flagstone entry were two investigators dressed in plain clothes: Hersey and De Groot.

  “Well!” said De Groot. He regarded the two of us with theatrical astonishment, his thick black eyebrows pulled upward. “Going someplace, ladies?”

  Chapter 12

  “What is it, what are you doing here?” I asked. It felt like such a stupid question. Nevertheless, these guys had already proven they could make me feel idiotic. The pair eyed us with an undisguised mixture of hostility and suspicion that made me squirm.

  “Aren’t you going to ask us about Schulz?” De Groot wanted to know. Before I could frame a response, he held up his hand and smirked. “He’s fine. At least the last time we saw him he was.” He quirked his eyebrows as if he were going to say more, but then seemed to think better of it. Blandly, he appraised Marla’s battered face. “Ms. Korman?”

  With an uncharacteristic lack of resolve that made me want to put my arms around her, Marla replied, “Yes? What is it?”

  “Can we come in?”

  I stepped between the cops and Marla. “No, I’m sorry, you can’t,” I replied curtly before she had a chance to respond. “As you can see, my friend’s in pain. Her doctor wants me to bring her in right away. We’ll talk to you later.”

  Hersey ignored me. He stepped to one side and addressed Marla. “Got into another fight, did we, Ms. Korman?”

  Marla said tonelessly, “It’s a long story.”

  I felt her embarrassment acutely. No woman likes to be seen covered with bruises and cuts: I knew that all too well from my personal experience with the Jerk. My tone to the two investigators was icy. “Would you please leave? We’re under doctor’s orders, on our way to the hospital. My friend is hurt.”

  “I’m sorry,” said De Groot. But he wasn’t. Cold, moist air billowed into the foyer. De Groot ran his fingers through his slick black hair. “We’re under time pressure, I’m afraid, Mrs. Schulz. If you take Ms. Korman here to the doctor, we’ll just have to follow you down and talk to her there.”

  “You’re joking,” I said. Again, he wasn’t.

  “It won’t take long,” said Hersey.

  “Oh, let them in,” said Marla dejectedly. “Let’s get this over with, then I’ll go see the doctor.” She turned away from the door and started to limp toward the kitchen. Over her shoulder, she said, “I don’t mind if you talk to me, as long as Goldy can stay with me.” Her gait was pained and self-conscious, and I loathed Hersey and De Groot for their insensitive intrusion even as I jerked the front door open so they could enter.

  They didn’t remove their dripping raincoats, and I decided this must be some kind of psychological ploy: We don’t want to be unprotected in this house. I didn’t care. I just wanted them to ask their questions and leave. Hersey craned his thick neck upward to scrutinize the lushly carpeted staircase. Was he looking for someone? Hard to tell. De Groot peered at a framed painting. Executed in bold strokes, it showed a woman holding a cup of coffee.

  “You won’t know this one,” I said defiantly. “It’s by a woman, a Colorado artist whom Marla is patronizing.”

  De Groot said, “Yeah. I see she has plenty of money to pay people to do what she wants. Painting pictures. Driving her to the hospital. Sticking with her while she’s questioned.”

  “You’d better cool it,” I said.

  De Groot looked down at the cherry buffet under the painting, which held a large Steuben vase filled with dried sweetheart roses. I was about to follow Marla when Hersey crooked a meaty finger in my direction.

  “We know she wants you with her. But when we’re talking to her?” His voice brimmed with menace. “If you say anything—you blink, you wink, you clear your throat—you’re going outside. Understand?”

  “Why are you here?” I shot back. “Does Captain Shockley know you’re conducting this kind of interrogation, when a woman should be in the hospital?”

  He grinned. “Shockley sent us.”

  “I insist you wait to question her until I call Tom.”

  Hersey scowled. “You want to talk to somebody? Go home and call Shockley. He’s real interested in your friend Marla Korman.”

  Without a word I stalked into the kitchen. De Groot and Hersey sauntered in after me.

  Evidently, De Groot had appointed himself in charge of this interrogation. And from the way the two policemen were acting—notebooks out, eyes noting each detail of the room, interrogation was precisely what they had in mind. I just hoped codeine-tranquilized Marla recognized the threat this posed.

  De Groot smiled humorlessly at her. “We’re here to ask you about Tony Royce.”

  Marla sank into one of the chairs and regarded De Groot dolefully. “Is he all right?” she asked sadly. “Did you find him?”

  “No, not exactly. When was the last time you saw him?”

  Marla shook her head and looked away. Tears of embarrassment again welled in her eyes. “It would have been … Saturday night.”

  “And where was that?”

  To my horror, Marla began to sob. She stumbled across the room to the cabinet where the paper towel rack was mounted. Balancing herself against the counter, she ripped a towel off and dabbed her bruised eyes. Just don’t throw the towel into the trash with all the bloody ones, I implored her silently. She didn’t.

  Staring out at the swirling fog, she struggled to compose herself. Finally she murmured, “We were … up at a camping site. By Grizzly Creek.”

  De Groot asked, “And what were the circumstances of this last time you saw him?”

  “There was a fight. Somebody dragged me out of our tent and beat me up. I think it was Albert Lipscomb.”

  “So there was a fight?” De Groot repeated, with a glance at his partner, who gave a barely perceptible nod. “Okay, then, Ms. Korman, I need to tell you that you have the right
to remain silent.” Goose bumps raced up my arms. “Also,” De Groot went on in a friendly voice, as if he were reciting a recipe, “that anything you say can and will be held against you. You have the right to an attorney and to have that attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.”

  “I can afford an attorney—” Marla spat. “What the hell do I need—”

  “Hey!” I hollered. “Hey! Don’t say another word, Marla! What’s going on here? What’s she a suspect for? Are you arresting her? You just stop right there. I’m calling my husband.”

  Hersey stabbed his finger at me. “What did I say to you? Now you just shut up, or you can drive your little caterer’s van right back to your kitchen, you got that? Tom Schulz is not involved in this case.”

  I turned to Marla. “Don’t talk. Let’s just go to the doctor.”

  “She’s not going to any doctor,” Hersey interjected ominously. “She can either stay here and answer our questions or she can come down to the department and answer our questions.”

  “Excuse me!” Marla yelled. Her bloodshot eyes were wild. “I have nothing to hide! I didn’t do anything except defend myself against an attacker! Why aren’t you out looking for him?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to ask you about, if Mrs. Schulz here will be quiet,” De Groot said gently.

  Marla squeezed her eyes shut. Why had the cops Mirandized her without an arrest? If she was a suspect, her state of mind wasn’t helping to clear her. Unfortunately, the codeine was kicking in big-time. I cursed myself for letting her take three pills. Finally she said, “Okay, look. I’ll answer your questions, and then I’m going to the doctor, you got that? Now exactly what do you want to know? I’m trying to tell you what happened. I was attacked. One minute I was in my sleeping bag, the next, somebody was whaling away at me.”