The Main Corpse

by Diane Mott Davidson

  The small interior space—about four hundred square feet—was authentically without electricity or telephone. No sign of an intruder was evident. The antique furnishings that came into view were as lovely as I remembered: rocking chairs, a wooden love seat, two small beds, a fireplace that had been put in when the cabin had been reassembled, a spinning wheel, the black cookstove in one corner, an antique corner cupboard in another. There was even a chair that had a bucket underneath—a frontier toilet. But who had broken in? And when?

  “Hold on,” said the general as he scanned the room.

  The glow from the lamp also illuminated the room’s most unusual furnishing: an enormous tiger skin, complete with head. When Maureen Colbert had been a benefactor of the Denver Zoo, she had paid for a tiger to be brought from India. When the large female tiger—named Lady Maureen by the zoo director, to pay homage to Mrs. Colbert—had died some years later, the zoo had sent the animal to the taxidermist, then presented it to Mrs. Colbert. This way, she would forever have a reminder of her gift—albeit on the floor of her restored cabin. I didn’t know what Jake would make of the Lady Maureen rug, and wasn’t eager to find out. The general nodded to me, and I moved toward the tiger skin. When I’d heated up the pork on the cabin cookstove last fall, I’d spent quite a bit of time looking at Lady Maureen. Now something about the dead tiger didn’t look right.

  “Damn, it’s cold,” Bo muttered. “Looks like whoever broke in didn’t leave much of a trace. I don’t suppose the owners keep firewood inside. Or whoever’s been here used it up.”

  “There should be plenty of wood under a plastic cover,” I said quietly, “out by the toolshed.”

  When he reholstered the gun and nipped out the door, I knelt beside the tiger skin. Outside, I could hear Marla and Arch insistently telling Jake to hush up. I turned back and examined the rug from one side, then the other. After a moment, I figured out what looked strange. Someone—perhaps with a sense of humor—had wedged a flesh-colored balloon deep inside the tiger’s mouth. The balloon was packed in so deeply that the plastic was barely visible between the tiger’s teeth. I felt along the sharp incisors and touched the folds of the object. It was thicker than plastic, more like latex. Carefully, I pulled the rubbery thing out.

  It was not a balloon. It looked like a flesh-colored covering of some kind. In the dim light, I could discern drops of dried liquid. I rubbed the pale bumps gently. Makeup came off on my fingers.

  Check the trash, I could hear my mother’s voice saying in my ear, her favorite means of getting to the source of the problem. I scanned the room and made for the stenciled trash can beside the wood stove. At its bottom was a small pile of crumpled sheets. I set the pink rubber thing aside and examined the sheets. They were pristinely dustless; they had not been in this trash can very long.

  Five cellophane wrappers from Oriental noodle packages crinkled in my hands. I put these aside and reached for the rest: crumpled pages of type that appeared to have been photocopied from a book. The first was a sheet of instructions that included a diagram of an ear. Above the diagram in capital letters was the warning: “Be very careful when cutting around ears, that you cut only the cap.” And at the bottom, a new section: “Applying Makeup.”

  I flipped through the pages until I came to one of photographs of men. The heading read: “Woochie Professional Quality Bald Cap.” The introduction to the instructions began: “Woochie premium bald caps can sometimes be reused….”

  I stared at the pink balloon. A bald cap. Who’d put this thing in the tiger’s mouth, and why?

  I stuffed the papers and cap into the trash, replaced the can, and ran outside to check on Arch. My son was driving down on the water pump handle with all his strength. Water was not issuing from the spigot. Jake continued to howl. Marla yelled at the dog to hush as she showed Arch how to prime the pump with a full rain bucket. General Bo stood by the toolshed loading his arms with firewood. I ran over to him.

  “Whoever hit Marla that night has been here,” I told him. “I think. Been and gone, it looks like. The guy … left trash … a disguise that makes you bald.”

  General Bo shook his head. “Hold out your arms.” I did so and he handed me the logs. He was already moving in Arch’s direction. “We shouldn’t have taken the working harness off the dog. He could have told us if what he’s smelling up here is Tony. Maybe that’s why he’s barking so much.”

  “We could try him with the harness,” I said as I hustled along behind him.

  “No. It’s too dark to get any tracking done. The dog needs to eat and rest. Start the fire. I’ll get Arch, Marla, the dog, and the supplies inside.” He pulled out the Glock. Suddenly Jake howled more fiercely than ever. The general called impatiently, “Come on, everybody inside! Carry as much as you can.”

  I stumbled with the wood to the cabin door. Jake yelped. If a person or persons was indeed nearby, they could be in no doubt of our presence now. Arch grabbed the bucket and Jake’s leash. Marla limped toward us. I couldn’t believe she was carrying a bag from the Jeep trunk. When the two of them were safely through the door, I brought it almost closed. A moment later, the general backed into the cabin, his non-gun-holding hand grasping a last bag of supplies. He bolted the door.

  While I stuffed wood into the stove, my mind raced. Not believing he or she would be followed, this criminal had left evidence gleefully. Catch me if you can. But where was he going? Did he have Tony with him? And most important, would we sort out what had happened before the Furman County Sheriff’s Department caught up with us?

  Food, I told myself. We’ll eat first and worry later. By the time Arch had poured Jake a bowl of water and Marla had dished out some kibble, I had the beginning of a fire going in the stove. Arch assured us that Jake would let us know if there was anyone in the vicinity of the cabin. I knew that to be true, as Jake had certainly alerted us to every rustle of movement on our street. We all agreed to relax. If possible, Marla said with a sigh.

  The general built a fire in the main fireplace, and soon the cabin was lit with a cozy glow. I poked through the cabinets lining the cabin walls. The corner cupboard yielded an array of crockery and pewterware that looked authentically nineteenth-century. I thought with a pang that Tom, with his great love of antiques, would have admired the tankards and chargers. The Hardcastles had stocked two sets of plates: a collection of plain ironstone, and a lovely set of spatterware with a rose in the center of each plate. This, too, Tom had taught me the name for—Adam’s Rose. Soon, I thought with a pang, he would return to an empty house, see my note, and wonder if we were still alive. Perhaps he was already home. As the rain beat down on the roof I was thankful, finally, for one thing. At least we weren’t outside.

  While Marla and Arch tried to figure how the four of us would make do with two small beds. Bo unpacked the bags of food. A large bundle of fresh asparagus lay next to a package of chicken breasts, a bag of rice, and several small jars of condiments. He had brought half a dozen eggs. Five of them were now broken.

  “Thought you’d like to do a stirfry,” he announced solemnly. “Since I didn’t know what our cooking situation would be.”

  Marla burst out laughing. Arch gave me a shy, oh-well sort of smile. I asked Bo to set us up on the small table while I hunted for, and found, a heavy cast-iron skillet that would do for a wok. In another pot, I started water for the rice and then turned my attention to the chicken. Anything to get away from thinking about the unknown lurking in the mist. And speaking of the unknown, why shouldn’t I call Tom? That would at least put my mind at rest, if not his.

  “Did you bring the cellular phone in from the car?” I asked General Bo.

  He shook his head grimly. “No, and I don’t want anyone going out until morning. Too risky.”

  Oh, great. I assessed the Oriental-style ingredients. I started the rice and sliced the chicken breasts. While the chicken marinated in egg white, sherry, soy sauce, and cornstarch—a tenderizing trick I’d learned from a television food
show—I pressed a pungent garlic clove and sliced a pile of bright green asparagus and fragrant white onion. Soon the chicken, garlic, and onion were sizzling in the pan and a mouth-watering scent filled the cabin. I steamed the sliced asparagus and stirred in dark, tangy black bean sauce. At least I was making something for Marla that was lowfat, I thought grimly.

  “Marla, I need to talk to you about something,” I said when we dug into the heaps of steaming Chinese food. “I’d like you to take a good look at that map. You know the partners and the investors better than any of us. There could be a bank, an airstrip, somebody these guys know in a nearby town … anything that looks reasonable as a possibility of where one or both of them could have gone. We could skip going back to where we were tracking Tony, and try to assess his direction, pick up a fresher scent.”

  When we finished, Bo and Arch washed the dishes in water they’d brought in from the pump and heated on the cookstove. Marla and I spread out the map on Lady Maureen’s striped back. We studied it and tried to peer into the mind of Albert Lipscomb. Or were we trying to psych out Tony Royce? Or both? Or someone else?

  The campsite was a stopping point amid a network of trails that ran through the Arapahoe National Forest. The trail we’d been on with Jake was clearly marked. It followed Grizzly Creek and then crossed it, then came down to a four-wheel-drive road that led to Interstate 70 and Georgetown to the west, Idaho Springs to the east.

  I pointed to the map. “Whoever we’re tracking, whoever has Tony, has a two-day lead on us. So where would one or both of the Prospect partners, or one of their clients, be going?”

  Marla nestled her large body into the tiger skin and stared down at the map. A scarlet-painted nail pointed. “If one of the clients is behind all this, then I have no idea. They could be at Denver International Airport, they could be in the Nevada desert.” She paused. “But if it’s Tony and/or Albert, we could look in one of two places, I’d say. The two of them shared a house, sort of a mountain hideaway, in Estes Park. What’s that, seventy miles from here? But you’d have to go east and then north from here. That’s not the way Jake was leading us.”

  “Seventy miles,” I repeated. I was suddenly so tired. My wet hair had dried, finally, but my muscles ached from the strain of the day. “What’s your second idea?”

  Marla said, “If Albert has three and a half million in cash from the Prospect account, he wouldn’t want to carry it in this weather across a mountainous forest trail to find his partner, for whatever reason. So he’d have to stash it someplace.” She tapped the map. “This is the direction we were heading. Northwest. Straight in the direction of the Eurydice Gold Mine.” She looked at me. “Someone could have stashed the cash in one of those buildings by the mine. There’s nobody up there, since they haven’t hired a team to start exploration work. Plus, there’s that safe deep in the Eurydice Mine, about a half-mile in. You know, that’s where they keep those gold bars and samples.”

  I said, “And guess what I’d be willing to bet? They weren’t samples from the Eurydice. But why wouldn’t somebody, Captain Shockley especially, have gone inside the mine in the last week to check whether the samples were still there? I know he went up there when Albert was first missing, but the place was all locked up.”

  Marla shrugged. “Well, Albert knows the place well. I mean, he’s the owner, but they didn’t have him around to sign a consent-to-search. And what are the cops going to do, get a warrant to traipse through a mine? That string of lights doesn’t go back very far. I can’t believe someone from law enforcement would go deep into the Eurydice Mine just to look around.” She paused. “On the other hand, Albert certainly wouldn’t make a getaway without all that gold. It’s worth a couple hundred thousand at least.”

  Stir-Fry Chicken with Asparagus

  4 chicken breast halves (approximately 1½ pounds), cut into ½-inch-thick, bite-size pieces

  1 egg white

  1 tablespoon cornstarch

  1 tablespoon dry sherry

  1 tablespoon soy sauce

  1 small (6-ounce) onion, halved and thinly sliced

  1 garlic clove, pressed

  2 tablespoons canola oil

  ½ cup water

  1 pound fresh asparagus, trimmed of woody stems and cut diagonally into 2-inch slices

  ½ cup canned water chestnuts, drained and sliced

  ½ cup black bean sauce (available in the Oriental food section of the grocery store)

  Freshly ground black pepper

  Approximately 4 cups of cooked, hot medium-grain rice

  In a glass pie pan, thoroughly mix; the egg white, cornstarch, sherry, soy sauce, onion, and garlic. Marinate the chicken pieces in this mixture for 30 minutes to no more than an hour.

  In a large frying pan or wok, heat the oil over moderately high heat. Stir-fry the marinated chicken for several minutes, until it is just done. Do not overcook the chicken. Remove from the pan and set aside.

  Reheat the pan over high heat; and add the water. Quickly stir up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan, then add the asparagus, water chestnuts, and black bean sauce. Cover the pan and cook over medium heat for 2 to 5 minutes, until the asparagus is bright green but still crunchy. Add the chicken. Stir over medium-high heat until the mixture is heated through. Season to taste with pepper. Serve immediately over hot rice.

  Serves 4.

  If you cannot find black bean sauce in the Oriental section of your local grocery store, the grocery manager should be able to order it for you. The brand I use is Ka-Me. I ceased being frustrated by its frequent unavailability at my local store once I started ordering it by the case. Order forms are usually available at the customer service desk; the order generally takes about two weeks to a month to fill. Ordering by the case usually means you will receive a substantial discount.

  I said, “But still … if Albert’s—or the disguised bald person’s—point was to steal Prospect’s assets, why wouldn’t he or she have gone into the mine to get the gold samples sometime in the last week?” Wait a minute. I remembered back to the party, when Albert and Tony had both entered the mine to get the samples. Why wouldn’t just one of them have gone, with a wheelbarrow? Why would they both go? “What do you know about the mine safe?” I quickly asked Marla. “How hard is it to get into?”

  “Oh my gosh,” Marla said suddenly. “Oh, Lord. This isn’t generally known. I’ll bet even Captain Shockley doesn’t know. Opening that safe is like using nukes on a sub.”

  “Wow,” Arch interrupted. “You mean when you have two guys with encoded messages? Then each guy uses his key to activate the weapons? It’s so cool. You can’t do it alone. That’s to keep some crazy guy from like, blowing up the world.”

  I gave Marla a hard look.

  She said, “It takes Albert and Tony both to open the mine safe.”

  Chapter 19

  General Bo rubbed his hand over his mowed scalp. “So,” he observed, “if our villain is after money—and so far he’s proven that he is, if he’s the same guy who hit the bank—then he’s got to drag his partner up to that mine to get the gold out. Framing Marla was a brilliant way to get the authorities off his track, so he could have time to cash in and then get out.”

  “But why ruin the company?” I asked. “And why wait a week to do all this? There has to be some other explanation. Maybe this evidence points to some other person. Some other motivation.”

  Marla and I hashed it through. Eileen Tobey would know about theatrical disguises, the proximity of the cabin, the existence of the gold bars. Plus, she hated Tony and loved money. The clients closest to Tony and Albert were the Trotfields and the Hardcastles. They stood to lose a lot of money if the mine investment was a scam. Sam Perdue desperately needed capital for his soup restaurant chain. Victoria Lear, one of the primary rebuffers-of-Sam, had learned the lie of L-208. Had anyone else? Who besides Marla and the two partners knew of the two-lock safe deep inside the Eurydice? Maybe Tony had another girlfriend. Maybe Albert had told someone
else, like the police captain in charge of security.

  “Go to sleep,” Bo chided after we’d spent a fruitless hour trying to figure out who knew what and when they knew it.

  Marla and I lay down on the cold, musty-smelling beds. Arch and Jake claimed the back of Lady Maureen. The general extinguished the kerosene lamps, and stretched out on the floor. The fire’s embers glowed, crackled, and waned, from time to time shooting up a flare of flame. I tried to sleep. Exhausted as I was, slumber eluded me. After a while I crept over to one of the windows and tried to send thoughts to Tom: We’re all right. We’ll be home soon.

  Eleven o’clock. My son’s measured breathing, a sound I would recognize even if he were thirty feet away, filled the darkened cabin. Midnight: The rain ceased, and Marla was snoring. By two, I thought I was the only one awake, although the general’s breathing was as hushed and catlike as his movements. Out the window, the clouds had thinned to fast-moving wisps. When the moon emerged from behind a skein of haze, I glanced in the direction of the creek, half expecting to see the ghost of that tragic, long-buried bride. But there was only fog, wafting through the trees. Tom, I thought, how are you? But I heard no answer and saw nothing. The only spirit I felt was my own, and it was full of pain.

  I must have fallen asleep. I was startled awake with my forehead pressed against the frigid windowpane. I tensed and brought my head up abruptly. What was that sound? It was nearby: a door creaking open. Narrowing my eyes, I could make out Arch and General Bo Farquhar moving through pewter-colored predawn light. My son gripped the leash of a panting, nervous Jake. For a fleeting moment, I thought I must be trapped in a lost episode from Little House on the Prairie. Where was Michael Landon and his ever-hopeful little family? And why was I staring at the large head of a dead tiger?