Читать книгу When the Pirate Prays - James B. Johnson - Страница 8

3: MONDAY, 7:30 A.M.

Everybody watched me descend the stairs. I felt like a cockroach on a bald man’s head.

Tapes, of course, was head and shoulders above the crowd. His eyes showed something which translated into a “Be careful” warning.

John Dellum Ionata, the lieutenant governor and soon-to-be head man, fixed me with his grizzled visage and tracked me all the way down. He wore khaki shorts and a khaki safari shirt with shoulder straps.

Near the bottom, I said self-consciously, “Not much up there.” I thought again of Henry Beauchamps Gonzáles, looked at John Dellum Ionata, and kind of liked the late governor’s penchant for three-named people.

Ms. Maple was standing in front of Ionata. “Very suspicious, John. That man is an itinerant, and here for no reason. He won’t give his name.” She was looking accusingly at me.

“There’s an old saying,” I told her, “about the more people I meet, the more I like my dog. And I don’t have a dog.”

She stared a challenge at me.

“He gave his name to me,” said Silas Smith, fingering a pockmark on his neck. “It’s Billy Birthday.”

One of the guys in the camo hunting fatigues snorted loudly and elbowed his buddy. “Get that, Orlo? Billy Birthday.” All three hunters, or whatever they were, laughed.

Nobody else did.

Mary Lynn, the recent divorcee who’d intrigued me last night, watched me with one blue eye and one brown eye, compelling me to wish I could put some fire in those same eyes. I’m a grown man, but I sure dream like a boy. Once last night, I’d got close to her; her auburn hair smelled faintly of gardenias. Besides, I could never resist a pony tail. And, what the hell, Rebecca was in Tallahassee and we’d parted ways. Mary Lynn had stopped hiccupping. She’d also hiccupped last night during her speech, but it was in a corner of the lounge and I couldn’t hear her words.

“Your honor,” said the big one in camo known as Orlo, “them two strangers ain’t from around here. The old lady says they coulda done it.” His voice was low and caused me the proverbial chill. “They was the last one to see him.” Orlo was as large as Trooper and had linebacker eyes.

Why did Orlo want to pin a murder on me and Tapes?

The pregnant woman burped, turned aside, and vomited against a plastic potted fern. Served it right.

Mary Lynn hurried to her side. “This is no place for you. The shock could—”

“The shock did,” said the woman who looked like she was gonna explode from the middle. I guess dead bodies lying around and people conversing over them would make you sick if you were about to have a baby.

John Dellum Ionata took charge. “Mary Lynn, get her to her room and see that she’s comfortable. You help, too, Angie.” He looked at the old lady and she nodded. He was obviously trying to defuse the situation.

The geek was still standing alongside the staircase whimpering.

Ionata fixed Orlo and his two cronies with a command glare. “Everybody is innocent until proven guilty.”

Hell, I could’ve said that.

The three simply watched him, one drooling a bit from the corner of his mouth. I wondered if he wasn’t one of those guys you read about who was a result of his mother and father being brother and sister. But, for once, I kept my mouth shut. We didn’t need any more trouble.

Ionata turned to Trooper. “Sober up. Coffee and a cold shower.”

A great gust of wind shook the whole building and most likely did damage to one or more of the upper stories of the wings. Everybody turned their gaze upward for a moment.

Not me. I watched Mary Lynn leading the pregnant woman off. Mary Lynn had a fascinating walk, too.

Angie Maple was walking hesitantly; probably afraid she’d miss something.

The lieutenant governor ripped his gaze downward. He reminded me a little of Poppa Smurf, what with his gray beard and piercing eyes and all. His voice wasn’t Smurf-like, though, it was pure Florida cracker.

“Silas,” he said, “get a camera and—”

“I don’t have one, sir—”

“I do,” said Ms. Maple and hurried off.

Back then cell phones didn’t have cameras.

“Then,” said Ionata to the Inn’s manager, “go find a doctor or a nurse or a midwife.”

“It’s too dangerous out in the storm,” I said, not caring about Silas Smith, but knowing that to be a fact.

“Are you a weatherman?” asked Ionata softly.

“No, sir, but I was out there a little while ago and it’s gotten worse,” I said, showing a bit of testiness in my voice. Ionata angered me with the weatherman comment.

He continued to stare at me. He was probably thinking I had reason for no one to leave the Inn. “Are you willing to attend to a birth?” His voice was warning me,

“If I have to,” I said, edgy at the prospect.

“You a doctor?” said Ionata.

Orlo snorted and his two fellows followed suit.

I shook my head. “No, sir, but I’ve delivered a baby.”

“Where?” demanded Angie Maple returning with a 35mm camera, flash and all.

“In Colorado, if you must know. An emergency situation like this. In the bed of a pickup under a tarp. This’ll be a snap.” I snapped my fingers. It wasn’t any of their business, but I’d let the them-against-us crowd get to me.

Ionata addressed everybody, several of whom were now sitting in overstuffed chairs and whom I hadn’t had a chance to catalog yet. “If anyone here knows anything about childbirth, or knows anyone else here at the Gaspar Inn who does, please come forward.”

I didn’t like the immediate silence that followed. I wouldn’t of said anything had I not been challenged and probably subliminally or subconsciously or whatever the hell that word is, needed to stake out a position of importance and input into the situation. That is, I should have kept my big mouth shut. Not to mention wanting to impress Mary Lynn who had stopped to watch the byplay. At that moment thunder crashed and she turned and continued on with the pregnant woman. The probability of spending time with Mary Lynn at the expense of assisting in a birth was worth the effort.

Ionata spoke again. “Please, ladies and gentlemen, nobody leave the hotel?” He looked straight at me.

“It occurs to me,” I said softly, “that as lieutenant governor, you’ve got the most to gain from Henry B.’s death.”

The entire place fell silent except for a couple of deep intakes of breath.

Ionata surpised me. After giving me a scathing look, he nodded. “That’s one way to look at it.”

Ms. Maple began flashing pictures from every conceivable angle. Henry B. would be immortalized on film in a rictus of death. When she was finished, she climbed the stairs slowly and flashed pictures up there.

After she completed her task, Ionata wrapped the tennis racquet murder weapon in a plastic garbage bag. Blood stained the clear plastic immediately. I’d guessed that whoever did it would probably have had the foresight to wipe it clean of prints before dropping it over the railing, but you never know. Then I noticed the handle had a cloth sleeve. So much for prints.

A real pencil-necked geek I’d seen but didn’t know escorted the whimpering fellow away down the corridor. Somebody whispered that the two were the governor’s aides. “Late governor,” somebody else pointed out.

Ionata addressed me and Silas Smith because we were the closest to him. “What do you do with a body? We can’t just leave him here.”

“I don’t know, Judge.”

“Put it on ice,” I said, eying Henry B. who was getting stiffer by the minute. Ordinarily, a recent corpse will allow fluids, solids, or gases to escape through various channels, so to speak. But Henry B. was countering the norm.

“Stands to reason,” said Ionata, rubbing his gray beard. He looked at me through wire-rimmed glasses, showing suspicion. “Is this more of your expertise? You’ve both medical and funeral experience?”

I know I looked guilty. I glanced at Tapes for help, but he was characteristically silent. I’d gotten myself into this and, since it wasn’t physically dangerous now, he’d let me get myself out of it.

“The woman I assisted in giving birth?” I said. “Her husband was there and he was a mortician. I learned some things.”

“Sure he was,” said Ionata. “But what Mr. Birthday says is not contra-indicated.”

“I smell a bureaucrat,” I said.

Ionata stepped to Orlo and friends. “Would you help carry him?”

“Where, your honor?” Orlo asked uneasily and looked at the body.

“To the freezer at the back of the kitchen,” said Ionata.

“Urp,” said Silas Smith and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bouncing like a ping pong ball going down a windy mail chute.

“Our freezer?” he asked timidly.

“Well, then,” Ionata said slowly, “let us just chuck him out on the front lawn.” He paused a moment. “Maybe we should just leave him here and wait for the sheriff’s department in a couple of days.”

“I can make room in the freezer,” said Silas Smith quickly.

Orlo looked at the body. “I ain’t touchin’ no dead body. How ’bout thee, Axe?” he said to the one drooling from the corner of his mouth. At the time, I thought Orlo’s reluctance was natural.

Axe shook his head widely but said nothing.

Tapes had disappeared but reappeared down the hall carrying a blanket. The rest of the world talks, but Tapes acts.

He laid the blanket out beside the late governor and stood at the corpse’s head waiting.

Gritting my teeth, I strode over and grasped Henry B.’s ankles above the Nikes. Tapes took his shoulders and we scooted him onto the blanket. Each of us grabbed two corners of the blanket and straightened.

“Lead the way, Silas,” I said.

We went down the corridor of the north wing, past the elevator and public rest rooms, past the first kitchen doors, to the rear kitchen doors. Inside were several walk-in coolers and freezers. We headed for the closest one, Gonzáles not getting any lighter.

Silas Smith hurried in front of us. “No, no, not that one.” He pulled open the door of the center cooler and indicated a place atop some crates.

I shivered.

We covered the ex-governor with another blanket.