She paused outside the hotel door, where the row of cars stood parked.
On the spot where George had locked Hilda for the night, there was a tramp of a travel-stained Essex with Arizona license plates. George, then, had driven to the Kit Carson. She must walk. She set out as fast as Caligula’s short legs would carry him.
Taking Caligula into the Kit Carson with her would probably be resented by the management. She thought to lock him in the Buick, therefore, while she was inside.
She looked along the row of cars. She saw the Beardsleys’ Chrysler and Leeds’s Mercury rubbing elbows as before; and flanking them now on each side five or six other cars, ranging from an Austin to a large and dignified Pierce. One very new Buick sedan, but no last year’s model convertible.
She hurried to the corner.
She explored every nearby street and alley, and the public garage.
No Hilda.
Regardless of the night clerk’s frown at Caligula, Katheren braved the lobby:
“Will you ring Mr. Leeds’s room?”
“He isn’t in, madam,” said the night clerk, primly adjusting his tie.
“Ring anyhow.
“Very well, madam.”
He rang. She could hear the intermittent buzz from the telephone. He hung up and told her:
“Mr. Leeds went out to the movies with some other people, and he hasn’t come back yet. You can believe me.”
If George had gone to the movies without her!
She felt more relieved than alarmed when she ran head-on into Nick Leeds and Ruth in the doorway. Mae and Alden Beardsley trailed after them.
“George? We haven’t seen him all evening.”
“Don’t tell us,” said Mae, “that you lost your bridegroom right in the middle of the honeymoon!”
“That,” said Alden, “is darn near as queer as the picture we saw.”
She evaded Beardsley’s paternal insistence on driving her down to the Harvey House. She walked, and fearfully. If George wasn’t there, she didn’t know what she’d do.
The clerk seemed to be waiting for her, holding the door open for her.
“You haven’t seen my husband, have—”
He was already shaking his head, before she could finish her question. And another man in a brown serge suit was at her elbow, interrupting her. She knew then that the trap had sprung. She could tell by sheer instinct that the Elm Point murder was out.
“Mrs. Brendan?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Elza Whitt. Can I speak to you a minute?”
Elza had a mild, low voice. He had immensely bulky shoulders and shrewd eyes, which made the mild voice seem to mean much more than it said. He wanted to know where her husband was.
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to find out myself. I’m worried about him. I thought you might have-well, it seems you haven’t. Our car’s missing too.”
“Buick convertible, Colorado plates, kind of a funny front on it?”
“Yes. Where?”
A slow smile restricted to the right half of Elza’s mouth warned her. She felt a sickening premonition, an unsteadiness in her knees.
“Well,” she heard him drawl, “I’d of been here a lot earlier, Mrs. Brendan, if I hadn’t of been two miles out on the Raton road seein’ what’s left of that Buick car of yours. She’s run off the road and burned up.”
Katheren suddenly had to sit down. Elza and the clerk perceived, and helped her.
She put her hand on Caligula’s back. That was instinctive, and for no sensible reason. Then she straightened up and lighted a cigarette from the flame of Elza’s immense brass briquet.
“Wasn’t anybody in it, Mrs. Brendan.”
“I suppose you looked—everywhere?”
“That’s right, Mrs. Brendan. We looked.”
“I can’t help thinking—you know...”
“Give you my word, Mrs. Brendan, as far as I know your husband’s all right.”
“Thank you. Do you mind if I sit here a minute?”
“You take your time.”
She finished her cigarette. She conquered her imagination and what it cooked up for her. She made herself remember that George must be alive, and counting on her to keep her wits about her.
So she stood up at last and said to the patient Elza, “You wanted to talk to me. Does that mean I’m under arrest or anything?”
Elza nodded. He took off his broad-brimmed Stetson, which left a permanent crease on his forehead. He crossed his legs and rolled a cigarette.
“I see,” said Katheren. “Why?”
“Woman got herself murdered back in Elm Point, Kansas.”
“You don’t think I’m responsible, do you?”
“Mrs. Brendan, I ain’t paid to think about you. I got a wire to hold you and your husband.”
“Then it’s really my husband you want, and not me?”
“No. Both of you, so you might as well sit down comfortable and wait.”
“Wait for my husband to come back, you mean?” He nodded.
Katheren instantly turned her back on him and hurried Caligula across the lobby. Elza Whitt, for all his bulk, moved quickly. He placed a large, heavy hand under her arm and held her.
“You can’t go out, Mrs. Brendan. You might as well just sit down and wait.”
“My dear Mr. Whitt—but after all!”
She gave him an arch, whimsical glance, meant to be as disarming as possible. She turned the glance towards a door bearing an enameled sign, Ladies.
Elza withdrew his hand and scratched his head with it. He looked at the hotel clerk, who was grinning to himself.
“Sure. All right. I guess you can go ahead.”
“I shan’t be very long,” said Katheren, and went ahead.
Elza leaned against one of the pillars near by, where he could watch the door.
Sixteen
AFTER the usual good nights in an upstairs corridor of the Kit Carson, Alden Beardsley went yawning into his own room and shut the door. Mae said, “I’ll check up in case anybody’s hiding under the bed,” and went into the room she was sharing with Ruth. She also shut the door. This was tact.
Nick put his arms tenderly about Ruth as soon as they were alone and said, “Ruth honey, there’s nothing to be scared about. You get yourself some sleep, and then it’ll be tomorrow, and that’s the big day for us. See?”
She hid her face against his shoulder. She held him tightly, almost frantically.
“There’s nothing to be scared about,” he repeated. “Can’t we wait, Nick?”
“Not if you really love me, honey.”
“I just don’t think it’s right.”
“You let me do the thinking,” said Nick, and kissed her.
From the doorway, Mae’s voice called, “That’s enough now, children. Ruth, you come to bed.”
Nick released her and watched her into her room. He heard the door close and the bolt slide in the lock.
He threw open the door of his own room then, and saw the comfortably supine figure of Hazlitt G. B. Woar stretched out on his bed, smoking a pipe and looking up with polite interest from the open pages of a Bible.
“Come in,” said Woar softly, “and shut the door.”
“What’s the idea, Brendan?”
Nick seemed not to know whether to be amused or resentful, and his visitor refused to decide the question for him. He said, “Your telephone rang once. I’m afraid I used up all your matches. If there’s room at the foot of the bed, sit down. Or get undressed if you prefer. I shan’t stay long.”
Nick took off his coat and growled, “What do you want? It’s late.”
“As late for me as for you. I want to know whether or not Ruth signed that insurance waiver.”
“What brought this up?”
“Did she?”
Nick began stripping himself, flinging his clothes disgustedly towards a chair. He said, “No, she didn’t.”
“And the claim?”
“She didn’t sign that either, as
far as I know.”
“Good.”
“What’s good about it?”
“Ask her. Ask her why she’s afraid to claim her husband’s insurance, or to give up her claim. She might tell you.”
Woar had an unbroken view of Nick’s back. He was shrugging into his pajama jacket. He paused, his bare shoulder muscles hardened in the lamplight, but he said nothing. Perhaps he had asked already—and not been told.
“There’s much to be said for long engagements,” Woar mused.
“Listen, George—I know what it’s all about. I don’t need advice.”
“Oh. Cicely counted on meeting you in St. Louis, and you stood her up. Do you know what that was all about?”
“No.”
“Not interested in Cicely?”
“That bum?”
“Seductive, nevertheless.”
“She put on the big act for me, I wasn’t having any and I told her so. Get off the bed, will you? I’m tired.” The springs groaned under Nick’s weight as he thrust his legs under the covers. He closed his eyes. He abandoned Woar, or seemed to.
By the time Woar had fished matches out of Nick’s coat pocket and lighted his pipe, though, Nick’s eyes had opened again and his forehead wrinkled in a deep frown:
“I don’t know what it’s all about, George, and that’s the trouble. I’m just kidding myself when I say I do. Tell me something, will you?”
“Umhhh. If possible.”
“Why was Rex Shanley bumped off?”
“Not who bumped him off,” George remarked, “but why.”
“I don’t care who did it, but I’d like to know why. I’d like to know what it means to Ruth. It won’t make any difference with me, you understand—I’d just like to know.”
Woar said, “I’d like to tell you. I can’t. The best I can offer is a classic crime pattern or two—well, three, in fact. They’re all I have left at the moment.”
Nick eyes remained open, and Woar continued: “First, there’s the murder of the man who knows too much. ‘A’ is aware of some dangerous or discreditable secret in the life of a prominent personage, ‘B.’ ‘A’ threatens to blab about ‘B’ and ‘B’ to stop his tongue kills ‘A.’ Care for that one?”
“You mean Smalnick killed Shanley?”
“I don’t mean anything.”
“He’s prominent, Smalnick is. The rest of us aren’t.”
“Try the second then, the old insurance fraud. ‘A’ takes out a policy on the life of ‘B,’ kills ‘B’ and reaps the reward as beneficiary. Is that better?”
“Ruth didn’t take out the insurance on her husband and she didn’t kill him.”
“Proof?”
“I don’t need any, George. I know.”
“Well, here’s the third and last possibility. ‘A’ in this case is a man, usually a young one, and ‘B’ an attractive or wealthy woman married to the outworn, unlovable blighter, ‘C.’ ‘C’ stands in the way of the marriage of ‘A’ and ‘B.’ ‘A’ or ‘A’ and ‘B’ in cahoots murder the old duffer ‘C’ to get him out of the way.”
“I’m the guy you mean by ‘A’?”
“Who else?”
“You’re crazy. You and your crime patterns!”
“I take it you prefer the first. You think Smalnick murdered Rex Shanley, murdered Cicely, and would like very much to murder Ruth, in case she knows his secret too.”
“Don’t you?”
Woar smiled wryly. “Milton Smalnick isn’t as prominent as you’d think.”
“Then it’s got to be one of the other two? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“Since you’re the man who’s going to marry Mrs. Shanley tomorrow, you have closer access to the truth than I have. You’ll have to make up your mind, Nick. I’m sorry I can’t—”
He interrupted himself. He heard a very faint, very cautious tapping on the door. He unlocked it, opened it a narrow crack and peered into the corridor.
His wife stood outside. She carried Caligula in her arms. She had a smudge on her forehead and the bridge of her nose. She beckoned.
“Katheren!”
“I hate to bother you, George,,, she whispered, “but I think we’re leaving.”
He turned to Nick, who had pulled himself up from the bed and stood over his heaped clothes, rummaging for a cigarette.
“Sorry I can’t help you with your problem,” said Woar, “but we seem to be leaving. You might as well go to bed and sleep on it.”
Nick’s handsome face looked outraged.
“Sleep? How the hell do you expect me to sleep?”
2
Katheren showed her husband the way down the back stairs and out by the service door. She let him read the telegram from Kansas en route.
“You’re right,” he told her. “It’s our old friend who sugars the gasoline. Did you bring Hilda?”
“Hilda was stolen, wrecked and burned up. Your old friend ran out of sugar, it seems.”
“My old friend? The devil means business, doesn’t he? He lets Kansas know where we are, then destroys our usual means of escape. She was a nice car, wasn’t she? Wipe the dirt from your nose.”
Then she told him how she crawled through the window screen to get out of the ladies’ room; a very small window, very dirty and very high, the worst kind to haul Caligula through, not to speak of herself and her stockings.
“Elza’s probably found out long ago. I hunted everywhere for you before I went back to Nick’s room again. We can’t go back to the station, we can’t go to the hotel, and we can’t wander around the streets. Elza must have all the police in town out looking for us by now.”
George held his wife in the shadow of the doorway while solitary footsteps marched past along the pavement. Not one of Elza Whitt’s tribe, but a man wearing overalls and swinging an empty dinner pail. He went on.
“Follow me,” George whispered, “at a distance of about a hundred yards. I’ll lead the way. If I’m stopped by anybody with a badge, run like a rabbit for the best lawyer you can find.”
“But our luggage is—”
“Damn the luggage, my dear. We’re lucky to have our skins.”
He led her deviously through dark and empty streets. At a distance of a hundred yards, he said. She had to run every little way to keep from losing him entirely, and Caligula puffed like a grampus.
La Junta was ransacked for them that night. Their only contact with the search, however, was the time a police car cruised slowly through a neglected road—they had reached the sparsely settled suburbs—and flashed a spotlight about. Woar threw himself flat beside a hedge. Katheren dove into a bed of moribund tomato plants and hugged Caligula in her arms, while the spot played straight in her blinded eyes and her heart fluttered wildly.
But she wasn’t seen. The car cruised on.
At last, when her feet were sore and time and distance past reckoning, she saw the slender figure of her husband stop in the glare of an isolated all-night service station.
He beckoned with a movement of his head.
If he was tired, he never showed it. But a look of concern crossed his face as she stumbled into the light. He sat her on a bench by the gasoline pumps, a bench evidently intended for the horse-shoe-pitching gentry of the neighborhood. Fortunately, nobody was pitching horse-shoes at that time of night.
“Poor girl,” he reproved himself, “you look dragged through a knot-hole. I am a beast!”
“Aren’t you, though,” she said, and automatically made repairs to her face. “Where are we now?”
He drew Gouchard’s Guide out of his pocket, folded it back to a map of Colorado and New Mexico.
“About here,” and his finger pointed to a place on a red line some two miles out of the red star marked La Junta. “We’re going to try our luck hitch-hiking. Timpas, Delhi, Wormington, Tyrone and Trinidad. From Trinidad, we go through Raton Pass, branch off on Eighty-Five to Las Vegas and so to Santa Fe—”
“Wait a minute, George. Up here, Route Fift
y. Why not go that way? See, there’s Pueblo, Grand Junction and so on to Salt Lake City, Utah. Everybody thinks we’re going to Santa Fe, so why not fool them and go to Salt Lake? We might be able to get there without being pinched, don’t you think?”
“But, Katheren!”
“But what?”
Their eyes met over the map.
He smiled a conciliating smile, and asked her as if she were a child, “You don’t want to miss the wedding, do you?”
“I particularly insist on missing the wedding.”
“And let poor Hilda go unavenged? I was attached to that car. I loved her like a close friend. So did you, I thought. Shes been run off the road and set afire, which isn’t nice, is it?”
“You want to catch whoever did it, and I don’t want to see the wretch again. We’ve had enough trouble to satisfy me for the rest of my life, George.”
He let the conciliating smile fade away. He tightened his lips, nibbled on his mustache and acquired that oddly taut, resilient look she well knew—as if, she once had informed him, he stretched himself like a rubber band.
No doubt at all, he was close to the quarry now, near the end of the run. If he saw only that aspect, she saw only the other—his quarry turning on him and destroying him with the same ruthless hand that had destroyed their peace, their honeymoon and their Buick.
She said:
“I’m tired, George. I’m cross. I’m not fit to argue with you. I won’t go to Santa Fe with you under any circumstances, and that’s final.”
“I see.”
“We’re going to Salt Lake City. I say we. I should say, “I’m going to Salt Lake City.’”
“I can’t leave you on the Colorado prairie in the middle of the night, Katheren.”
“Very well, then come along with me. Find us a lift.”
“If I must.”
“Not to Santa Fe?”
“Right. Not to Santa Fe.”
The service station was one of those typical oases of the Southwest—a shack with a bar and a kitchen where truck-drivers stopped for coffee and fuel, and others stopped for juke-box music and conversation to lighten the monotony of long night vigils at the wheel.
Three cars—a battered, empty truck, a cheap sedan and a dusty station-wagon full of surveying paraphernalia—stood parked in the range of light. Music and voices came from inside the shack.
If A Body Page 18