“Not if the caller said that the Murdochs had some kind of dinner or something they had to attend. And that it’d be safe to meet her there.”
“So the caller gets her in the house, kills her, leaves her in the bomb shelter,” Spellman said, “and Ross Murdoch gets charged with murder.”
“That makes more sense than hauling a body past all those workmen,” Merrick said. “I didn’t like that theory at all. Way too risky. And even if all the other workmen had gone home, there’d be the chance that somebody would see a truck or a car pull in about then. I checked the Murdoch road. A lot of people use it to and from work.”
“So one of the three really has something against Murdoch,” Spellman said.
“Some old grudge, maybe, that we haven’t learned about yet.”
Merrick looked at Spellman. “Sam here knows all the players. I say let’s turn him loose on this.”
“No offense, Sam, but it’s just a theory.”
“Still makes more sense,” Merrick said, “than hauling a body around. You kill her in one place and then wrap her up and stash her in a car trunk and take her someplace else. A lot of things could go wrong. But if you could get her into the empty house, kill her and leave her there—a lot safer than transporting her all over hell.”
“You’ve saved yourself blackmail money,” I said, “and you’ve turned Ross Murdoch into a murderer. How does he explain a body in his bomb shelter?”
“Cliffie comes and arrests you,” Spellman said, “and the entire potential jury pool has already assumed your guilt.”
“Like I say,” Merrick said, “I think Sam here should start working this idea right away. He knows the players and he knows the town. I want to spend the day looking at all the crime scene data that idiot chief-of-police claims to’ve collected. He’s got one guy on his staff who graduated from the academy in Des Moines and knows something about crime scenes. Hopefully, the chief let him handle all the scientific evidence.”
“He probably did,” Spellman laughed. “Cliffie was too busy primping for the cameras and telling everybody how he was going to make life safe again here in Dodge City. How the hell’d this guy ever get his job?”
“It’s a long story,” I said.
Spellman smiled. “I’ll bet it is.”
Scotty McBain sat outside his shack of an office. The day was too sweet with warm autumn to be inside. He sat in his chair and had his feet propped up on an empty wooden Pepsi case stood on its end. He was reading a Fredric Brown paperback, The Screaming Mimi.
“You’ve got good taste in books.”
He looked up and smiled. He’s got a small, terrier-like face with a large mouth and easy grin. “Hey, if it ain’t the perfesser.”
Dad’s friends from the plant started calling me that when I got the undergraduate scholarship to the U of Iowa. I was not only the first kid in my family to go to college, I was the first to go down at the plant. Simple reason. I was born during the war. Their kids were born after. They’d be hitting college in a few years.
Scotty wore a faded khaki shirt and trousers. A uniform, like. He took his feet down from the Pepsi case and stood up, touching his hands to his lower back. “I’m gettin’ old.” Before I could disagree politely, he said, “You can have your pick today.”
He nodded to two stacked rows of aluminum canoes set against the front left wall of his office. Most of them were in good condition. A few yards away, the river ran, smelling faintly of fish. Out on the water a red speedboat moved fast and vivid through the water. The small dock he’d built for himself was a spot for keggers during the summer. The men, mostly veterans who worked with Dad at the plant, would play a softball game (it was jokingly called The Very Slow Pitch League) and then end up drinking beer half the night at Scotty’s dock. Dad used to take me along sometimes when I was ten or so. I loved the war stories. Even then I knew they were exaggerated for effect but I didn’t care. Every once in a while the stories weren’t bravado, though, and one of the guys would choke up and start crying, thinking of some friend dead back there in Europe or the South Pacific, and it was funny because it was the only time I’d ever seen a male person cry when the other male persons around him didn’t get uptight or ashamed. Couple of them would go over to the guy and slide their hand around his shoulder and kinda stay there like that till the guy stopped crying. My cousin was like that when he came back from Korea. Up and down the emotional scale a lot. He finally ended up in the bughouse, though nobody in the family ever brought it up. If somebody asked how Tim was doing, Mom and Dad would just say that he was “away for a while.”
“No canoes today, Scotty. Sorry. I’m working on something and I was hoping maybe you could help me a little bit.”
“Me? Now that’s a new one. Some kind of criminal case, you mean?”
“Uh-huh. I’m told there’s a woman lives up the road in a trailer. Used to be friends with Karen Hastings.”
He frowned. “Ross Murdoch. That boy’s in trouble.” Stuck a Chesterfield between his lips. “Too bad. He was the only one of those rich guys who was decent. He’d come out here once in a while with his daughter when she was high school age. They were both real nice. Just average people, like. Not puttin’ on any airs or anything, not askin’ for any special treatment. They’d always go to that little summer house he kept over there on that hill across the bend down there. You can’t see it from here. But he enjoyed it, I know that much.” He grinned. “Wouldn’t be bad, though, havin’ a girl as good lookin’ as Karen was stashed away somewhere.”
“She come down here a lot?”
“Not a lot but four, five times a summer. Janice Wilson was the one who came down a lot.”
“She the one lives up the road in the trailer?”
“Uh-huh. Little silver Airstream. Just about right for one woman, I guess. She gave me a beer one day after I worked on her car. Sat inside her trailer. She’s got it fixed up pretty good.” A smile. “Just like she’s got herself fixed up pretty good. She just wore a halter and shorts that day. Tell you, I felt like I was eighteen again. Smart gal, too. Lotsa books in her trailer. A little distant, though, that’s the only thing. She’s friendly and all but you never feel she’s opening up at all. You know what I mean?”
“Yeah.”
“S’pose Cliffie’ll be checkin’ her out, too.”
“I suppose.” I stared out at the choppy water. Then back at Scotty. “I hear she’s got a temper.”
He laughed. “Yep. She sure does. Especially with men who put the make on her real obvious-like. She’s strictly look-but-don’t-touch.”
“Ever see her with anybody except the Hastings woman?”
He thought a moment. “Nope. Don’t think so.”
“No other girl friends? No male friends?”
“I’ll give it some thought, Sam. But off the top of my head, I’d say no. Wasn’t like she hung around here or anything.”
I looked up the road. “Well, I’ll see if she’s in. See if she’ll talk to me.”
He gave me a friendly fake-punch on the arm. “Sure wish I was your age again and got to hang around gals like Janice Wilson. Sure wish I was.”
SEVENTEEN
THIRTY MINUTES LATER, I started making my rounds. Janice Wilson hadn’t been in so I decided to get the real scut work over with. I called Mike Hardin in the hospital. He sounded strong and sure on the phone. “The afternoon before Ross found her in the bomb shelter? I’d have to think about it.”
I heard a nurse squeak into the room.
“She doesn’t think I should talk to you, McCain,” he said. “She claims I’m too weak. How do you like that? She’s standing at the end of my bed with her hands on her hips. She’s got very nice hips.” Then: “I just remembered. Hunting. I was hunting. You can check with my secretary, if you’d like.”