Читать книгу Take a Step to Murder - Day Keene - Страница 7

RENNER FELL on his back on shale, with Tamara partly on top him, his body cushioning her fall but with her bare legs flailing in space. A second fall of rock cascaded down the slope. Renner shielded Tamara’s head and face as best he could, at the same time trying to scramble back to safety and keep both of them from following the car and the truck.

Then Sheriff Prichard was pulling at them, widening their margin of safety. He was breathing so hard it was difficult for him to talk. “God damn,” he panted. “God damn. That was the bravest thing I ever saw.”

Renner didn’t feel brave. He wasn’t proud of himself. He felt sick. All he could see was Angel’s face as the truck had gone over the drop.

He wriggled out from under Tamara and knelt beside her. Her eyes were closed. Her breathing was shallow. She’d either struck her head on something when they’d fallen or fainted. He had no way of telling which.

“How is she?” Prichard asked him.

“I don’t know,” Renner said.

A dozen or more men were scrambling down the slope now. Doctor Flanders hadn’t shown up but Father Sebastian had. The priest came over to where Renner was kneeling.

“How badly is the girl hurt?” the priest asked.

“I don’t know,” Renner said.

Sheriff Prichard got to his feet and called to one of the men still on the cliff to bring some blankets from the police car. When they arrived he spread one on the ground beside the girl. Then, after making certain her back wasn’t broken, he rolled her gently onto the blanket.

Renner continued to examine her. Nothing seemed to be broken. As far as he could tell the blood on her lower body wasn’t hers. It had probably splattered on her when the dead man had gone head first into the windshield.

Renner got to his feet and walked a few feet away and was sick. This was his fault. If he hadn’t been so damned determined to save his court none of it would have happened.

Sheriff Prichard covered the girl on the ground with the other blanket. He seemed to be willing her to hear him. “You’re all right now, Sissy,” he said. He might have been talking to his own ten-year-old daughter. “No one is going to hurt you. You just lie still and don’t worry until the doctor gets here.”

After he’d spread the blanket over the girl, Prichard walked over to the body of the man whom Renner had pulled out of the car. “Anybody recognize him?” he asked.

None of the men on the ledge did.

“The bastard,” Prichard said. “Of course I have no way of proving it and won’t have until the girl recovers consciousness. But the way I see this thing, he probably made a play for her at seventy or eighty miles an hour. And that’s when they went off the road. Judging from the skid marks, he must have been going that fast.”

Kelcey stopped trying to see through the blanket covering Tamara and asked if anyone had found out who she was.

Prichard said she had told Renner her name was Tamara Daranyi. Also that she had missed the local bus in Cove Springs and the dead man had offered her a ride.

Kelcey was definitely interested. “A girl hitchhiker, eh?”

“So it would seem.”

Kelcey rolled the name on his tongue. “Tamara Daranyi. That’s a hell of a name.”

Renner found and lighted a cigarette. “It’s Hungarian.”

Kelcey was slightly superior. “How would you know?”

Renner smoked in silence for a moment. Nothing had changed. He still had his court to think of and Kelcey was asking for it. It would all depend on whether Tamara was hurt and if so how badly. “Well, I’ll tell you, Kelcey,” he said finally. “It’s this way. She told us what we know about her in Hungarian. And it just so happens I understand the language. Probably because, as you reminded me earlier this evening, I’m a god-damn Hunkie celery farmer’s son.”

The ledge was becoming uncomfortably crowded as more and more people picked their way down the slope. Some of them kneeled around Father Sebastian to pray for Angel’s soul. Others came over to gawk at the blanket-covered figure on the ground.

The little brunette in the too-tight blue jeans laid her hand on Renner’s arm and asked earnestly, “Are you all right, Mr. Renner?”

Renner appreciated her concern. “Yeah. Sure. I’m fine.”

Sheriff Prichard had knelt beside the dead man and was going through his pockets. It was a messy job. About the only thing he hadn’t bled on was the contents of his wallet. The sheriff studied the dead man’s driver’s license. “The name John A. Baron mean anything to you, Kurt?”

“Faintly,” Renner said. “But I can’t place it.”

Prichard riffled through the thick sheaf of bills in the wallet. “Whoever he was, he was loaded.”

Two of the paisanos hadn’t stopped to pray. They’d climbed down the face of the cliff, picking toe and hand where they could. Now one of them was shouting.

Sheriff Prichard walked to the face of the drop and looked down. Carlos Aquililla had made it to the bottom and was standing on one of the battered doors of the tow truck. When he saw Prichard was looking the man raised his arms and crossed them in front of his face in a gesture of finality. His voice, whipped by the wind, was thin. “Muerte.”

Prichard took off his hat. “Poor devil.” He returned his hat to his head and turned to face his night deputy who was making his way down the slope. “Where’s Doc Flanders?”

Tom Healy was apologetic. “Stuck with an emergency operation out at the Beeson ranch. But when I talked to him on the phone Doc said if the man and the girl aren’t too badly hurt to be moved it will save a lot of time if you start in toward town with them.”

“The man will keep,” Prichard said, wryly. “And so will Angel Guitierrez. But we can start on in with the girl.”

Renner started to pull back the blanket so he could pick up Tamara and looked at Kelcey and stopped. “You, what’s your name?” he asked the little brunette.

The girl in the too-tight blue Jeans said that her name was Marie.

“Then do me a favor, Marie,” Renner said. “Do what you can for the kid. What with going over the shoulder and me pulling her out of the car, her skirt and sweater got sort of shifted around. And if she should come to it won’t help her any to find a bunch of strange men gawking at her.”

Sheriff Pritchard set the example by turning his back. “Kurt’s right. Let’s give the girl a break. How would you feel if she was your kid sister.”

When Marie had finished making Tamara as decent as she could, Kurt carried her up the slope to the police car. Her eyes were still closed. Her breathing was still shallow. He wished he knew if she was really unconscious or faking. Either way he would have to play it by ear until he could talk to her alone.

The early morning wind was cool. Prichard drove with the front windows rolled down. Renner should have been cold. He wasn’t. His face felt flushed and hot as he rode holding Tamara in his arms in the back seat of the police car. When she did recover consciousness, if she did, he still had to tell her what she was supposed to do, what she was to allow and incite Kelcey to do to her.

It wasn’t a pleasing prospect. As far as he knew, up to now he’d been the only man in Tamara’s life.

They reached the court without passing Doctor Flanders car. Manners had turned out the big neon sign and the floodlights but the lounge and the station were still lighted.

“There’s Flanders now,” Prichard said.

He swung the police car up on the apron and braked it to a stop beside a red Buick being gassed.

A big, blunt, bull of a man in his middle fifties, addicted to good whisky and expensive Havana cigars, Flanders was known locally as a ladies’ man. Renner could never decide if he liked him or not. He was willing to bet that if all of the sweet young things, married and single, who had taken off their clothes in Flanders’ examination room and then emerged from the office with a contented smile on their faces and their ten dollar bills still clutched in their hot little hands were to hold a convention, the local Odd Fellows hall wouldn’t hold them. Still, he was a good doctor.

Flanders came over to the police car trailing a plume of fragrant smoke from his inevitable cigar. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “It took me longer at the Beeson ranch than. I figured it would.”

Renner got out of the police car and stood holding Tamara.

“How badly is she hurt?” Flanders asked.

“There’s nothing broken, we think,” Prichard said. “We think it’s mainly shock. But if it hadn’t been for Kurt she wouldn’t be here. He pulled her from the car just as it went over the cliff.”

“And the man she was with?”

“He’s dead. And so is Angel Guitierrez.”

Flanders felt the pulse in Tamara’s throat with the back of his fingers. Then, throwing his cigar away, he used a pencil flashlight to peer into the eye he pried open.

“She’s a pretty little thing,” he said finally. “Has she been unconscious all the time?”

“No,” Prichard said. “She’s come to twice. Once in the wrecked car while Kurt was trying to lift her. She told him, in Hungarian, that her name was Tamara Daranyi and that the driver of the car, the man who was killed, had picked her up at the Greyhound bus stop in Cove Springs.”

“And her other lapse into consciousness?”

“Right after Kurt pulled her from the car. She came to pretty bare in the wrong spots and instinctively tried to cover herself with her hands. She didn’t say anything but from the way she acted I figured the last thing in her conscious mind was the dead man making a play for her.”

Flanders glanced at Renner. “That right?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Renner said. “I was being sick at the time. And when I came back Bill had covered her with a blanket.”

Flanders thought a moment. “You say she tried to cover herself. Did she succeed?”

“As far as possible.”

“Did she seem to have any difficulty in co-ordinating the movements of her hands and arms?”

“No. I’d say not,” Prichard said. “Why?”

Flanders bit the end from a fresh cigar. “Just ruling out a few things.” He glanced at Renner. “Well, don’t just stand there. Take her into one of your units so I can examine her.”

Renner told Manners to get him the key to Unit Two. Then when the old man had brought the key and unlocked the door he carried Tamara inside and laid her small body gently on one of the thirty dollar fawn-colored spreads mono-grammed with famous Western ranch brands that he had bought to attract the luxury tourist trade that was still nine months distant.

Sprawled on the big double bed she looked pathetically tiny and young, more like a child than a woman. Her face was smudged with oil and grease and blood. Bits of leaves and twigs and powdered rock were embedded in her hair. If she’d had a coat, she’d lost it. There were runs in both of her stockings. One of her shoes was still in the car that had gone over the cliff. There was a hole in the sole of the other.

Doctor Flanders sat on the bed beside her and took her pulse and listened to her heart. Seemingly satisfied with what he found, he turned her head this way then that on the pillow and examined her cranial structure with deft fingers.

Flanders shrugged. “So far so good. I imagine it’s mostly shock. But you never can tell about these things.”

Sheriff Prichard said dryly, “Speaking of these things, the dead man’s zipper was open. So while you are at it, as Medical Examiner for the county, you’d better make it a thorough examination. If the dead guy raped her she has a good suit against his estate.”

Flanders was short with him. “I know my business.”

He pulled up Tamara’s sweater to examine her upper body then turned his head quickly and as he did a flake of hot ash dropped from his freshly lighted cigar and fell on the deep purple aureole of one of the girl’s exposed breasts.

Tamara winced but her eyes remained closed.

You damn butcher, Renner thought, then turned his head to see what Flanders was looking at. They weren’t alone in the unit. Kelcey Anders and four curious paisanos and Marie and her escort had made almost as good time getting back to the court and were jostling for vantage points in the doorway.

Flanders brushed the flake of ash from where it had fallen, then took his cigar from his mouth. “You know,” he said dryly, “there are times when the entire human race disgusts me. And this is one of the times. If you men don’t know what the unclothed female body looks like by now, you haven’t been trying. Now get out of here, all of you.” He singled out Marie. “With the exception of Sheriff Prichard and that girl.” He pointed with the wet end of his cigar. “And that includes you, Renner.”

“Whatever you say,” Renner said. It was no hardship on him. He knew what Tamara looked like. He added for her benefit, so she wouldn’t be too frightened, “I’ll be right outside if you need me.”