Читать книгу Polly Deacon Mysteries 4-Book Bundle - H. Mel Malton - Страница 15

Old man singing songs to a hairless child

lullabies in his eyes

and he wonders was he ever that damn small?

—Shepherd’s Pie

I pretended I didn't hear that cry. I suspected that Francy was up there with Beth. In fact I was surprised that I hadn’t figured it out right away, but I had promised the cops that I would tell them if I found out where she was. I wouldn’t know for sure unless I asked, and I wasn’t planning to ask.

I didn’t promise the cops I would report all my suspicions. I could suspect that Francy was there without actually knowing it for a fact. That little detail would keep me from blushing like a tea rose the next time I saw Becker or Morrison. The most important thing was for me to find out who killed John Travers, before the cops got to Francy.

Aunt Susan heard the little Beth-cry as well and gave me a sharp look, one eyebrow raised. Her eyebrows are bushy and black and it’s quite the effect. She taught me how to do it when I was twelve, both of us practising together in front of the mirror. I still can’t do it as well as she does, although my eyebrows are pretty severe, too.

I started whistling, picked her hat up off the floor, dusted it off and handed it to her with a smile. She handed the clipboard back to the feed guy, and we headed back out to the front of the store.

The woman and the kids were still trying on boots in the aisle and one child seemed to have its foot stuck. The dog food buyer at the counter was gone, replaced by Otis Dermott, one of the Cedar Falls holy rollers. I’d seen him handing out tracts outside Rico Amato’s antique store. Theresa, Susan’s help, beckoned us over.

“Afternoon, Susan,” Otis said, touching his hat. He’s bald as a baby and wears the hat all the time, probably even in the bath.

Susan gave him a curt nod.

“Donna-Lou’s been thinking to install some more waterers in the chicken house,” Otis said. His wife had a successful egg-business in Cedar Falls. She started out with a couple of laying hens for bingo money and found a big local market.

Otis still kept pigs the way he always had, but it was “Donna-Lou’s Dozens” that kept the farm afloat. You could get them in Cedar Falls and a couple of places in Laingford, and people kept telling her to expand. Guess she was doing it, finally.

Otis saying something like that to Aunt Susan was like saying “Donna-Lou’s been thinking to give you a couple of hundred dollars.” She just had to pay attention.

“How many?” she said.

“Thirty,” Otis said.

“Business must be picking up,” Susan said.

Otis just grinned. “What have you got in stock?” he said.

Susan gestured with her head for him to follow her into the aisle where the water stuff was. I like agri-plumbing—it’s unpretentious physics at its best, so I tagged along. We squeezed past the rubber-boot family and a mountain of small boots. They were having some disagreement about which colour to buy.

“We’ve got a couple of raccoons hiding out in the barn,” I said, generally.

“That’s awkward,” Aunt Susan said.

“Real varmints,” Otis said.

“The Boss-man is trying to trap them,” I said.

“Of course. They’re wily, though,” Susan said. “Especially if it’s a mother with her young.”

“I haven’t seen them, but I know they’re there.” I said.

“What kind of trap’s he set?” Otis said. “If it was me, I’d just shoot ’em.”

“Raccoons are survivors,” Susan said. “They can elude a man with a gun, no problem.”

“I hope so,” I said. “You heard Dweezil died?”

“Who’s Dweezil?” Otis said.

“Poor old Dweezil,” Susan said. “Randy bugger though, wasn’t he?”

I lost the subtle thread for a moment. “Randy? Susan, the poor thing had asthma. You know that. It wasn’t his fault.” Up went the eyebrow. Oh. Duh.

“Well, he did mess around,” I said. “Probably got what was coming to him,” I said. “Old goat.”

“Who’s Dweezil?” Otis said.

“At least we know what killed him,” Susan said. “Now Otis, we have a full set of Grunbaum waterers and all the hookups in stock—look at this.” She pulled a bunch of plumbing off a rack and started to talk business. I crept away, having got what I wanted.

As I passed the rubber-boot family, I leaned down to the smaller of the two children, who was crying.

“Excuse me, sir,” I said. “Is there a problem here?” He was about three and looked up at me with some surprise.

“He wants the same kind as his brother, but they don’t make them that small. They only have these,” the woman said, holding up a very small pair of black wellies. The older child was looking smug and holding a pair of camouflage green rubber boots to his chest.

“Hey,” I said to the small kid, “see these?” I was wearing my barn boots, size eight versions of the tiny ones in the woman’s hand. The kid looked. Then he nodded.

“These,” I said, “are the very coolest boots in the world. If Michael Jordan was a farmer, he’d wear these boots.”

By the time I got to the counter, the older child was frantically searching for black wellies. I only hoped Susan had them in his size.

I bought and paid for a couple of bags of Shure-Gain and Theresa helped me carry them out to the truck.

“Polly,” she said, “can you do me a favour?”

“Sure,” I said. “What?” I didn’t know her very well, but any friend of Susan’s, etcetera.

“Well, my uncle’s in the hospital, eh?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Not serious, I hope.”

“No. Just a head injury, they said. He’s conscious, but I ain’t been able to go see him yet and the hospital switchboard keeps saying he’s asleep whenever I call.”

“You want me to drop in on him for you, to make sure he’s okay?” I said.

“Would you? He knows you, so it wouldn’t be that weird.”

He knew me? Did I know him? I barely knew Theresa, who lived in Laingford and came from, according to Susan, a huge family. I didn’t even know her last name. Luckily, she was wearing her store name-tag. I let my eyes flicker over it. Theresa Morton. Morton. Oh.

“Spit’s your uncle?” I said without thinking.

Theresa frowned. “I heard some people call him that,” she said. “He’s Uncle Gerald to me. He says nice things about you.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s not very polite, I know. But he likes it. The nickname, I mean.”

“Not from me I bet he wouldn’t,” Theresa said. “So you’ll go see him?”

“Sure. Is he allowed to have visitors?”

“Only family members, but I’ll fix it. Just say I said hi, okay? Let me know how he is. Him and my Dad, they don’t speak, eh?”

“Your Dad would be Hunter Morton, the funeral director?”

“Yup. He hasn’t said a word to Uncle Gerald since they had that big fight about the hearse. So, like, he’d kill me if he knew I’d went there.”

“I’ll find out, Theresa,” I said. “I’ll call you.” I got in the truck and headed for Laingford Memorial.

I am not, like some folks, squeamish about hospitals. When I was in to get my tonsils out, the nurses were great and I developed a hopeless crush on my doctor and wanted to stay for ever. Aunt Susan says I screamed and cried when it was time to be discharged, although I don’t remember that part. Probably the best thing about being in hospital was that there were no chores to do and nobody was throwing sacks of grain at me.

I hadn’t set foot in Laingford Memorial since George had been there for a cataract operation three years before. Someone, in the interim, had taken away the scruffy old lobby. In its place was a vast atrium with gleaming marble tiles and swish modern sofas upholstered in mushroom polyweave. The reception area was now protected by what looked like bullet-proof glass, and there was Muzak.

I went up to the bullet-proof glass and spoke through a little speaker-thing to a woman wearing a crushed-raspberry-coloured uniform. Why is it that medical personnel don’t wear white any more? Has it gone out of fashion, or did someone make it illegal?

“Hi, I’m looking for a patient, Sp—Gerald Morton,” I said.

The woman nodded and tickered away at her computer keyboard, stared at the screen for a moment and then looked up, checking me out. I was dressed in farm gear—overalls and my very cool, Michael Jordan rubber boots—not perhaps the most appropriate hospital visiting attire.

“You’ll be a relative,” the woman said. Would I? Okay. I guess I was.

“We’re cousins,” I lied, blushing.

“Right,” the raspberry receptionist said, squinting at the screen. “Polly Deacon?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“Good,” the woman said, satisfied that she had pegged me as one of the Morton clan. Theresa must have “fixed it”, as promised.

“You can go up in a few minutes, Polly. Take a seat. I’ll call you.”

I sat down in the polyweave loveseat next to the reception desk and picked up a Cosmopolitan. The cover-girl was partially clad in a scrap of gold vinyl, her breasts rising out of the garment like warm bread-dough.

“DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO KEEP HIM HOT?” the cover shouted.

Probably not, I thought, looking glumly at my black rubber boots. Magazines like that depress me. Not because I waste my time trying to make myself look like an anorexic whore, but because there are advertising executives out there who think that I might want to.

I tossed the Cosmo back and picked up a National Geographic instead, entertaining myself with pictures of decimated tropical rainforests and endangered species.

A voice came over the loudspeaker above the sofa: “Ms. Deacon to reception.” I looked up and saw the receptionist beckoning to me. She was within spitting distance and could have just rapped on the glass and I would have heard her, but I guess it was a new policy to go with the new intercom system.

I went over and peered through at her. “You can go up now,” she said. “Your cousin’s in room 402. The elevator’s on the right, there.” I could see where the elevator was. The sign was about ten feet high. I suppose they have to say that, but it struck me as awfully silly. I thanked her and walked to it, ten steps or so, straight ahead.

Spit was out of intensive care and in a semi-private room. He was hooked up to an IV drip, and his head was bandaged. Someone had given him a shave, and he looked pale and vulnerable lying there. The curtains were drawn around his room-mate’s bed, but his were open. When he saw me he smiled broadly in recognition.

“Well, if it ain’t the goat-girl,” he said, wheezing. “C'mon in. Have a drink.” He gestured to a pitcher of water next to his bed and winked. I had shared a slug or two with him one rainy Friday when I was feeling devilish. Spit drinks Rico Amato’s homemade rotgut, so it was a bonding ritual only.

He got a kick out of calling me “goat-girl”, and, seeing as I called him “Spit”, it seemed like a fair exchange.

“How are you feeling, Spit?” I said, pulling up a chair.

“Big headache, girl. Big headache. But I’m alive, which is good. Gotta get out of here, though.”

“How come?”

“Too many ghosts. Guy over there just died, eh? Heart case. He was talking to me plain as anything last night and when I wake up this morning, ain’t no beep coming from behind his curtain.”

“There’s a body in there?” One dead body a week was about all I could take. Spit started laughing, then stopped with an inward gasp of pain and put his hand to his head.

“No, no. They took him away. But his ghost is flipping around the room like a trout, and I can’t get any sleep.”

“You see ghosts, do you?”

Spit’s eyes narrowed and he studied me carefully to see if I was kidding him. I wasn’t.

“Yup,” he said. “Sometimes. Cops probably won’t believe me either, when I tell them.”

“Tell them what?”

“About Sunday night. They’re on their way over here. To interview me, doctor says.”

“The cops haven’t talked to you yet?”

“Nope. Ain’t talked to nobody but my roomie. And he’s dead.”

“When did you regain consciousness, Spit?”

“Last night, I guess. And they took away my damned tobacco.”

I reached into my pocket, where I’d slipped the tin of Red Man I’d picked up on the way over. There was an honourable tradition to be upheld: Always bring tobacco when you visit an elder.

His eyes brightened.

“You’re a good girl,” he said, prising the lid off and stuffing some under his lip. “Now I got a use for that bedpan they keep shoving at me.”

“So what about Sunday night?” I said.

“How’d you get in here, anyway? You a deputy cop or something?”

I grinned. “I’m your second cousin, twice removed. Theresa sent me to make sure you were okay.”

He grinned back, his face distended by the wad of tobacco. “Little Terry,” he said. “She’s a good girl, too. Tell her I’m fine.”

“Do you remember what happened Sunday night?”

“Sure do. But I’m not sure I should tell you before I tell the cops.”

“I won’t blab, I promise. It’s important.”

“Why? You and Freddy planning to get married or something?”

“What? Freddy?”

“I’m charging him with assault, eh? You shouldn’t be pairing up with him, girl. He’s not your type.”

“Freddy was the one who hit you on the head?”

“Well, it wasn’t the tooth fairy.”

“But why? When?”

“We got into an argument about the dresser I gave to Amato last week. Freddy wanted to sell it for cash, eh? Like always.”

“When? When did he hit you?”

“Why is that so important? What counts is that he did it.” I realized that Spit probably didn’t know about John Travers’s body, or if he did, he was playing innocent.

“So why are the cops coming to interview you?” I said.

“Don’t be foolish, girl. You know as well as I do that Travers’s dead body was in the wood hole. That’s why you’re asking me all these questions.”

“Yeah, Spit. I know because I found him. But how do you know? You were out cold, and you said you only came to last night.”

Spit spat. The glob hit the bedpan, four feet away and made a satisfying little “ping” when it landed.

“Small town hospital,” Spit said. “Everybody knows. Got it from Pat, the nurse, who got it from Mack, the ambulance attendant.”

“Oh. So you think Freddy did it? Killed John Travers?”

“Don’t know about that. I was drinking with him in his hut from seven until nigh on midnight—the quart I got from Amato for the dresser. Freddy’s usually a good drinking buddy, but Sunday night he was acting funny, and the wine made him crazy.”

“So he hit you? Were you fighting, like, duking it out?”

“Nope. I turned my back on him after he called me a sneaking weasel and next thing I know, I’m here.”

“But you were found in your hearse, Spit.”

“I know that,” he said. “He must have dragged me there after he done it.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Probably thought he’d killed me. Put me there so he wouldn’t be blamed, then took off. But after I tell the cops, he’ll be blamed, all right.”

“You said something about ghosts, Spit. On Sunday night. Before Freddy hit you?”

“That’s the part the cops won’t believe. They’ll say it was DTs, like they always do.”

“What part won’t they believe?”

A flicker of fear passed across Spit’s face, and he shut his eyes for a moment. “Could have been DTs, I guess,” he said. “Could have been a dream. But I know a ghost when I see one.”

“Where? When?”

“Sometime, girl. Somewhere. I was in that other place you go when you’ve been hit on the head after a jar of Amato’s Triple X. One second I’m floating there with my head in a leghold trap and the next second I’m awake in my car and Travers is sitting next to me, real as you are.”

“Alive?”

Spit shuddered. “Nope. He was covered in blood, his chest wide open like a butchered pig.” I fought down nausea as the image of Travers’s fly-covered body—the thing I had seen yesterday—came swimming back to me.

“But he was talking to me, see?” Spit said. “He was saying ’baby, baby, baby’ over and over, looking straight at me. Then I blacked out again.”

The hairs on my arms stood straight up on end.

“Geez, Spit. That’s awful.”

“You’re telling me.”

“You think the ghost was trying to tell you something?”

“Maybe. Don’t know what, though. Could have been the words to a rock-and-roll song. Ghosts don’t always talk sense.”

“You’re the expert.”

“Wish I wasn’t. Anyway, the cops won’t take any notice of an old drunk like me. I may not even bother telling them. But I am gonna charge Freddy. Maybe the District will give me his weekend shift while he’s in jail, eh?”

“Maybe. So he just whacked you over the head, then panicked and left, you figure?”

“I figure. Bastard.”

“And he whacked you sometime after midnight.”

“That’s right.”

I had to find out when John was shot, that was for certain. If he was killed after midnight, that made Freddy a prime suspect. I would have to talk to Freddy, too.

Just then, the door to Spit’s room opened and Becker and Morrison walked in. They were not overjoyed to see me.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Becker said, striding towards me.

“There’s no need to say that every time we meet, Detective,” I said. “I’m visiting a sick friend. What does it look like?”

“It looks like interfering in police business,” Becker said.

Morrison moved in, too. “I thought I told you not to get involved,” the big cop said.

“I’m not…” I began, but Becker had grabbed my upper arm and was ushering me out of the room. When we got into the hallway, I shook him off.

“There’s no need for that, Detective,” I said. “I’ll come quietly.”

Now, I will admit this to you in private. When Becker took my arm, all sorts of lewd fantasy thoughts flashed across my mental movie screen. These thoughts had to do with handcuffs, uniforms and mildly kinky role-playing games. I don’t know where they came from and I was so shocked by my unconscious mind that I lost control for a second. When I said “I’ll come quietly,” I immediately recognized the double-entendre, and the Aunt Susan eyebrow came up, I swear, of its own accord.

That would have been okay, I could have handled that and talked myself through it later over a joint at the cabin. The problem was that Becker’s eyebrow went up as well, and a tiny, red-hot jolt passed between us that was pure, unadulterated sex. If I had been a Victorian maiden, I would have swooned.

“Quietly? I doubt it,” Becker said. Lord help us. “What were you talking to Morton about?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“It’s all of my business. Look, I know you want to clear your friend, who, incidentally, we have not been able to track down yet, but we will. I know you have an interest in this case, but you’re getting in the way.”

“How so?”

He sighed. “You know damn well. Interrogating witnesses before we get a chance to see them. You did it with Francy Travers, now with Morton. It’s got to stop. For one thing, it’s dangerous. Someone has been killed, unless you’ve forgotten, and if you happen to figure this mess out before we do, you could end up in the dump yourself. You ever think of that?”

“Which would leave you with another juicy murder to solve. Give you a chance to get promoted,” I said.

“That isn’t even slightly funny. You’re playing in a game you don’t know anything about, Polly. I don’t want to find you dead somewhere. I really don’t.”

“Me neither.”

“Well then, stop this. It’s making life difficult for me, and you’re putting yourself in danger, butting in.”

“If I don’t butt in, Mark, I’m afraid a mistake will be made, that’s all.”

“We’re professionals. You’re not.”

“Yeah, and as a citizen, I should have faith in the justice system, right?”

“Right.”

“What about Guy Paul Morin? Steven Truscott? Donald Marshall?”

“Those were…”

“Isolated cases? I don’t think so. Listen. It’s not that I don’t have faith in you, but I know what kind of pressure you guys are under when somebody’s been killed. I just want to make sure that Francy has the best chance, okay?”

“If Francy Travers didn’t kill her husband, we’ll find that out and find the person who did,” he said, smiling with an assurance I just could not accept.

“I’m not so sure,” I said.

Becker’s smile vanished. His eyes (green with little gold flecks in them) got darker.

“Thanks. Thanks a lot,” he said. “I’m glad you have so much confidence in me and in the system. You’d better just hope, in that case, that you never find yourself in court. You might, you know.”

“That sounds like another threat, Becker,” I said. “I just love your tactics. No wonder you guys get the wrong man so often. I can just see people falling over themselves in their eagerness to give you information.” I backed away from him and poked my head around the door of room 402.

“See you later, Spit,” I said. “I’m going to go save a dog, then talk to my fiancé. Mind you aim for the bedpan.” With that I headed off down the hall, pausing for a moment to glare at Becker. He was white-faced, and I figured that he’d never want to speak to me again. A pity, really, but then he was a cop.