Part 13 (2/2)
Miss Vetchling did not share his wish. ”And was the Vacu-Pro everything that it was promised to be?”
”Well,” Arnie said, coming to the edge of the porch and shaking his head, ”there was a problem. I been so busy for the last few months that I haven't had time to pay the electric bill. Kevin said to be sure and call when I get the electricity turned on and he'll come back to show me how those stains are sucked up in a flash. He's also gonna scale some catfish I got in the freezer. Maybe you can come with him and we'll have us a fish fry. You like hush puppies?”
Miss Vetchling thanked him for the invitation and went to her car as briskly as she dared without offending him. With a gay wave, she drove around the corner, then stopped and drew a line through Mr. Riggles's name. After further consideration, she erased his address.
Two names remained. Miss Vetchling decided to go by her apartment and feed p.u.s.s.y Toes, have a cup of soup, and then resume her investigation with replenished zeal.
The driver of the car lurking at the corner was equally zealous.
”No, you stay in the house”' Joyce Lambertino snapped at her little niece Saralee. ”Do you want to get your leg chewed off?”
Saralee didn't bother to answer, that being the stupid kind of question adults asked. Yesterday morning Aunt Joyce had asked if she was the only one in the house who could carry dirty dishes to the kitchen (it sure looked like it), and an hour earlier she'd asked Saralee why she'd smacked her cousin on the head with a flashlight (because the ax was out in the carport).
”It's just a pig,” said Saralee.
Joyce stood on her toes so she could see better out the kitchen window. ”It's that sow of Raz's, that's what it is. Did you see how she attacked poor Poochie?”
Another dumb question, since they'd both been looking out the window. ”I can go out and scare it away.”
”I'm going to call your uncle Larry Joe. That sow's acting mighty strange, don't you think?”
Like either of them were experts in sow behavior. Saralee went off to find the flashlight and her cousin, in that order.
Chapter Sixteen.
I found Hammet sitting on the landing outside my apartment, his investigation unsuccessful and his mood no more jovial than my own. He agreed that drowning his sorrow in Ruby Bee's cream gravy would be acceptable, and we were walking down the road when Les pulled up.
”McBeen wants to talk to you before he leaves,” he said. ”He's waiting at the a.s.sembly Hall. And Sheriff Dorfer said to tell you that we found Pierce Keswick's rental car parked behind the old Esso station.”
I sent Hammet on to the bar and grill, then got in Les's car so he could drive me back to this unantic.i.p.ated a.s.signation with the coroner. ”What'd you find in the car?”
”His airplane ticket was stuck under the visor. He flew into Farberville last night on Northwest, arrived around ten o'clock, and got directions to MagG.o.dy from the girl at the car rental desk. According to her, he was real curt and in a hurry.”
”Anything else in the car?” I asked optimistically.
”A couple of music magazines and a newspaper. No luggage and no indication that he rented a motel room.”
”Was it a round-trip ticket?”
”Yeah, back through Memphis to Nashville first thing this morning. Kinda queer that he wouldn't stick around for the concert, ain't it?”
”Nothing these people do strikes me as queer. If they don't go home, I'll go crazy,” I said as he let me out.
McBeen was sitting in his truck. ”You were going to call me,” he said as I got in the pa.s.senger's side.
”I'm waiting for Santa to bring me a cellular phone. Did you bring me back here to give me yours? If so, I'm going to feel guilty because I didn't get you anything.”
”There'd better be a bottle of brandy on my desk by Christmas Eve. I took a look at the body before I sent it to Little Rock. Couple things might interest you. The cause of death is liable to be a combination of injuries that resulted from a fall. The impact left material embedded in the back of his head and his shoulders. The state lab will give you a detailed list, but I spotted gravel, mud, and a lot of fragments of gla.s.s.” He held up his hand before I could get out a word. ”No, I don't know how far he fell. It doesn't take much, but the material was embedded d.a.m.n deep.”
”A couple of things, you said.”
”The only hemorrhaging came from the head injury, so you don't need to go searching for extensive blood stains. He hit hard and died fast.” McBeen paused for dramatic effect, or, more likely, to allow his dyspepsia to ease. ”But his body remained supine long enough for lividity to develop. You can operate under the a.s.sumption he laid there for a couple of hours, but was moved before rigor became a factor--say, three to four hours. He was in the chair for at least six hours.”
”McBeen, I'll send you a case of brandy,” I said. ”What about the man who was floating in the creek?”
”Why did I think you'd be so overwhelmed with grat.i.tude that you wouldn't start pestering me about that one? Discoloration and a lump on his head, but more than likely the cause of death will turn out to be water in the lungs with some hypothermia thrown in. The water's so d.a.m.n cold it's hard to say when. Could be as much as twenty-four hours.” He gestured impatiently for me to get out of his truck. ”No more corpses today, okay?”
”I hope not,” I said, sighing.
Les had driven off, so I walked down the road toward Ruby Bee's. The tourists had thinned out considerably since the discovery of the body. When news of the second one spread, the merchants and ticket scalpers would find out how much of a damper death could put on their profits.
Unless Pierce Keswick had fallen out of a tree, he'd gone out of a second- or third-story window or off a roof and had landed on a surface less accommodating than a shrub. No one had implied he'd been inordinately clumsy or deeply depressed and suicidal, but defenestration is a risky way to murder someone, messy and very unreliable. If he'd been pushed, why had he been left there for so long, then taken to the souvenir shoppe?
He could have arrived in town as early as ten-thirty. If he'd gone to the bus to talk to Lillian or Matt, they'd lied about it. It didn't didn't seem likely that he'd stopped by The Mayor's Mansion for a cup of tea. He certainly hadn't come to my apartment and politely asked if he could fling himself out the living room window.
There was one place in town that met two criteria: it had a third floor and it was uninhabited after dark. It was also the birthplace and boyhood home of one Matt Montana (in theory, anyway). Ripley Keswick had gone to his attic to dress himself in tea gowns. Jim Bob had gone to his attic to find a notebook filled with lyrics. An unknown person had gone to the attic of the Wockermann house and dropped a handkerchief. Now it seemed possible that Pierce Keswick had gone there, too.
I'd been there a couple of weeks ago, and Les and I had opened the wardrobes and trunks, pulled back the flaps of boxes of dusty books and hymnals, made sure the hatboxes held hats and the rafters nothing more portentous than cobwebs and bat guano. Billy d.i.c.k had found the door unlocked when he arrived less than twelve hours ago.
Earlier in the afternoon it hadn't occurred to me that the house was the scene of a crime, so I had simply walked and a.s.sumed Ruby Bee and Estelle would lock up when they left. I needed a key. Luckily, I knew where to find one.
Hammet was perched on a stool, regaling Ruby Bee with the details of his search for the missing mannequin. From what I could overhear, he'd grilled Bernie Allen with such dedication that he'd been obliged to flee from the wrath of the suspect's parents. ”But if that f.u.c.ker ain't guilty,” he concluded, ”then bears don't s.h.i.+t in the woods.”
”He's finished with his supper,” Ruby Bee said to me. ”Feel free to take him out of here as soon as possible. He's already run off half a dozen customers.”
I sat next to Hammet. ”Did you know Ruby Bee is at least partially responsible for you being here? She's on the committee that had to find someone to go up on the stage with Matt Montana during the concert. You ought to thank her, Hammet.”
”You ain't funny,” Ruby Bee said as she s.n.a.t.c.hed up the empty plate from in front of Hammet and started for the kitchen. ”I told you that was Brother Verber's idea.”
Hammet frowned thoughtfully. ”Maybe he ain't such an ol' fart after all.”
When Ruby Bee returned, I asked her for her key to the Wockermann house. She wanted to know why, of course, and so did Hammet and most of the customers at that end of the bar. Estelle came out of the rest room in time to throw in her two cents. The detective in the movie Hammet and I had seen the previous evening did not have to present his proposal and get a show of hands before he continued his investigation. He simply drove up and down steep city streets at a hundred miles an hour, splattered crates of produce, averted collisions with buses, and ultimately watched his pursuers drive through a barrier and sail into the bay. He had it easy. After all this, she admitted that they kept a key on the ledge above the front door.
”What's in the attic?” demanded Hammet once we were outside and I'd quit grumbling. ”Ghosts? Skeletons?”
”I'm not sure,” I said, ”but at least two people have been up there looking for something. I wonder if maybe we ought to get the owner's permission before we go there.”
”How we gonna do that?”
I told him.
After a detour by the PD to make a call, we drove into Farberville and parked in front of the lobby of the motel where Patty May Partridge had vanished. This time I told Hammet he might as well come along, since I was going to disrupt the ambiance in any case and he might as well have the opportunity to observe a professional in action.
The manager was as peevish as McBeen. ”We're even busier tonight,” she said. ”There are four private parties, including the county bar a.s.sociation in the Razorback Room, and the club is always packed on Sat.u.r.day nights. If you'll excuse me, Chief Hanks, I must attend to business.”
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