by Jerry eBooks
SOUTH END PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION
Frost Patrol Service
The door opened and Mr. Silas Hocking came out. Mr. Hocking smiled at Bill, encouragingly, and walked away. Bill walked into the office.
There were two rooms, the door between them open. In the first room was a switchboard, some files and a few chairs. In the room beyond were the manager’s desk and a small PBX.
Two girls were at the switchboard now. One of them was Osa. She didn’t look at him.
It was just midnight by the ancient oblong clock on the far wall.
Bill pushed into the next room. Paul Horton, the manager, looked up sharply. Horton’s nose twitched, as if he could smell Bill, and didn’t like the odor. Horton was a tall man, wiry, and his eyes were small, greenish, suspicious. Something the matter with Horton, Bill thought; the whites of his eyes were mottled and his skin blotchy.
“I take Three Hundred tonight, as usual?” Bill said.
Horton sniffed doubtfully. “Yes. Start at twelve-thirty.”
He made a note on a card and turned back to his desk.
Bill went back to the other room and sat down. He could watch Osa from this chair. He couldn’t help watching her. He couldn’t help admiring the whiteness of her brow, the rich fullness of her lips, the clean wave of her dark brown hair.
And he couldn’t help the dreary sinking of his heart.
Other frost patrol riders came in, drifted about. Bill paid no attention to them.
He had been in Moravia nine months now. He hadn’t intended to stay, having just emerged from an army uniform. He had been intent on returning back east, to Duluth, his hometown, there to enter employment as a skilled mechanic.
But the brief casual visit to Moravia had lost its brevity. He had met Osa! He just couldn’t leave!
He had wanted to make money—lots of money, right away—so that he would never have to leave Osa. And he had used up all his capital to open a retail business; automobile accessories and such like.
It hadn’t worked out. He wasn’t fitted for it. And anyhow a couple of other fellows had tried the same idea. The town couldn’t support three such stores, and the housing shortage had made impossible the increase in population which might have made things right.
In six months Bill was through, and since then he hadn’t done much. There wasn’t much for him to do in Moravia—but he couldn’t bring himself to leave.
And then, unaccountably, in the last week or two Osa had grown strangely distant, had avoided him. He couldn’t understand it.
Work such as he was doing tonight, the Frost Patrol, was just temporary. It brought in a few bucks but Bill knew that the real reason he did it was so that he could see Osa. And he had to see her, even when seeing her hurt like fury.
Abruptly, Paul Horton came in from the other room. He stared at Bill, doubtfully.
“It’ll be time in five minutes, Bill,” he said.
“Okay.”
Horton turned to Osa. “I’ll be back in about twenty minutes. Feel bad. Got to go home for some medicine. My wife’s away, and I’ll have to get it myself.”
Bill frowningly watched Horton go out. Horton must feel pretty bad, otherwise he’d never leave the office on a night like this.
In five minutes Bill got up to go. He took a report card from the rack. Osa didn’t look at him. The other girl, Shirley Blane, a pretty round-faced blond, turned her head and smiled at him. But not Osa.
CHAPTER II
Body in the Kitchen
It was getting colder, Bill thought. Not much under freezing temperature, but cold for California orange country. Bill drove like mad, as usual. He knew his territory, could cover it in forty minutes. He stopped first at the Williams grove. He got out of the car, pushed through three outer rows of orange trees and turned on his flash.
The big thermometer fastened against a board under a tree said that it was 28.
Bill made a note of it on his card, hurried back to the car and drove on.
It was cold work but just routine. Easy. He had nineteen thermometers to read. Then he would be back at the office. After that, depending on the temperature trend, he might be sent out to make the rounds again. And perhaps a third time.
He had covered most of his route when he came to a thermometer which read 26. Up until now they had been either 28 or 29. This was 26. Bill muttered. He muttered louder when he recalled whose grove it was.
He remembered instructions: when you hit one that says 27 or lower, phone from the nearest point.
Well, the nearest point of call was the Central Packinghouse, about a quarter of a mile further on. Bill drove there fast, got out and pushed in. Not much light in the packinghouse. The office was over in a corner of the building. Bill shoved through the office door. It was light and warm in here, a gas heater going.
Sitting at a desk, checking papers, was the packinghouse manager, Silas Hocking.
Hocking glanced up and nodded at Bill, absently, then went on with his papers. Bill picked up the phone and called the Frost Patrol office. He hoped he would hear Osa’s voice. He didn’t. It was Shirley Blane.
Bill said: “Number Seventeen on Three Hundred is down to twenty-six.”
“Okay, Bill.”
Shirley cut the connection quickly. That was the way they did things. No waste time. There was too much involved. Right away the girls would get busy on the phone, calling No. 17 first, and then all the other growers in that section.
And the growers would tumble out and start firing, get their smudge pots going.
As Bill hung up, Hocking said in an interested voice: “Number Seventeen? That’s Hank Smalley’s place, isn’t it?”
“Sure.”
Bill mumbled it. The devil with Smalley. For all he cared, Smalley’s valencia crop could turn into balls of ice.
Hocking, his bald head gleaming, bent over his desk again. Bill hurried out. He had only two more thermometers to read before returning to the office. The distance was short from here, and he was back in the office in ten minutes.
Shirley looked up at him and smiled. Osa was much too busy to look at him. Bill went on into Horton’s office and laid his card on the desk.
“You’ll have to go back out to Hank Smalley’s place,” Horton said sourly. “The girls put in a call for him but couldn’t raise him. You’ll have to go tell him.”
It was on the point of Bill’s tongue to say to blazes with Smalley. But he didn’t. After all, this was routine. If a grower was called on the phone and didn’t answer, it was the rider’s job to get him out, in person.
“Okay.”
Within eight minutes Bill was driving into Smalley’s private road, anxious to get it over. The house, a small one, was a couple of hundred yards in from the county road. The front of the house was dark, but there was a light at the back, in the kitchen.
Bill knew the house, had been in it several times.
He knocked on the back door. There was no response. He shouted. Silence greeted him. He pushed the door open, walked through an enclosed porch and into the kitchen. Hank Smalley was on the kitchen floor.
Smalley was dead.
Just standing there, looking down at him, Bill knew that Smalley was dead. But in a moment he got down on one knee and made sure.
Smalley’s head had been caved in. The thing that had done it was lying on the floor, a sturdy iron crowbar—a rusty one that looked as if it had been lying out of sight for a long time. It would be hard to check up on it, Bill reflected.
Plenty of blood in Smalley’s thick dusty brown hair, not much on the floor.
Bill stood straight again. The kitchen was cold, no fire going. Bill was hot, feverish, and his hands were damp with moisture. He shuddered a little.
He’d have to phone. The instrument was back in the living room. He wandered back that way, thinking hard. The thing he thought about most was that silly fight he had had with Hank Smalley, only an hour or so before.
At the telephone, he hesitated. He
hoped, this time, that Osa wouldn’t answer the call. Osa, he thought, hadn’t loved her step-father, but she had been loyal to him. When her mother had died, a year before, she had taken a place in town, not wanting to live in the house with Smalley, but at times she would run out to the house and put things in order for him.
Yes, he hoped Osa wouldn’t answer.
But she did. “Osa—uh—better let me talk to Horton,” Bill said.
She was silent a moment. Then she said: “There’s something wrong with Father.” She always called Smalley “Father.” She added sharply: “What is it?”
Bill chewed on his lip. Well, she was asking for it, and anyhow she’d have to be told. “Smalley’s dead.”
She gasped. “Oh. What was it? A heart attack?”
“No. Someone killed him.” It sounded brutal, coming out like that, but Bill couldn’t think of any soft words. He said: “You’d better tell Horton. And put in a call for the sheriff’s sub-station. I’ll wait here.”
He drifted back to the kitchen. Smalley must have been on the point of leaving the house, Bill thought. He had on a heavy mackinaw, and his hat lay on the floor nearby. Frowning, Bill got down on his knees again. Smalley was lying on his face, almost. The pockets of his mackinaw were in plain sight. Bill felt them. Not much in them.
There was something wrong with the picture.
And Smalley’s left hand was doubled up, not quite beneath him. Gently, Bill tugged the hand free. There was a watch on the wrist. It was broken, and it had stopped.
The big hand was bent a little, but it was fairly easy to read. It said almost exactly one o’clock.
One o’clock? Bill thought back. That was just about the time Bill himself had read Smalley’s thermometer, out in the grove. Just about one o’clock. Within a minute or two.
Slowly, Bill got to his feet. He was sober enough now. Cold sober. There was still sweat on his brow but the blood in his veins seemed icy.
Someone had arranged this!
It seemed absurd, but there it was. Someone with a very foxy brain had fixed this to point the finger of suspicion at him, Bill Treat!
It seemed to Bill that he should be getting out of there—getting away from something that threatened to manacle him, to destroy him. He had said he would stay until the sheriff’s men got there, but—
A car was stopping outside the back door. So Bill waited. The door opened. It was Osa Dunne. She stood in the doorway, the blackness of the night beyond crowding behind her. The dull light in her eyes told Bill nothing.
Then she trod into the room, taking short and very firm little steps. “It’s just the way I found him,” Bill said awkwardly.
Her voice, small but very clear. “Who do you think did this?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” Bill smiled grimly. “But I think I’m elected!”
Her eyes found his face then. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that someone worked this thing to make it look like I did it,” Bill said savagely.
Osa swayed forward a little. Bill met her and held her arms. He did it to support her, to absorb the shock, but suddenly he found himself talking about something else.
“What’s the matter between you and me?” he said urgently. “We used to be—well, close. I even thought we’d be married soon. Then something happened. What was it?”
She looked away from him and said wearily: “That has nothing to do with—this.”
She inclined her head toward the body. Bill frowned. Instinctively, he, too, looked down. And something riveted his attention; something about Smalley’s right hand. He hadn’t noticed that hand before, yet it was in plain sight.
He kneeled, quickly. There seemed to be faint streaks of blood on the ball of the thumb and on the side of the forefinger. The light was poor, and Bill said: “Where did he keep his flashlight?”
“Always in that drawer,” Osa said, indicating a drawer in the kitchen cabinet.
Bill strode to the cabinet. He had noticed that Smalley didn’t have the flashlight on him. It wasn’t in his mackinaw pockets. He yanked open the drawer. There were a number of small articles, but no flashlight.
There was, however, a reading glass. Bill took it, squatted by the body again. He held the glass against Smalley’s right hand.
The glass magnified well.
Bill could see a number of tiny glittering points of light on both the thumb and forefinger; imbedded in them.
Osa said curiously: “You’ve found something?”
“Maybe,” said Bill. “I don’t know.”
He didn’t really know. But he got an idea out of it. He listened intently. He could hear another car. The car was stopping outside, noisily. A moment later the door opened. Two large men came in.
Bill knew them, had seen them around. The bigger man was Captain Flint Ward, in charge of the sheriff’s sub-station.
The other one, younger, not so tall but boulder-like in his solidity, was Dennison, Ward’s side-kick.
Captain Ward’s long-nosed scowling face looked freshly shaved. His uniform was neatly pressed. He had very likely been snatched away from a bridge party, Bill thought.
Ward peered at Osa, grunted at Bill, and then silently studied the corpse. Just going. through an act, Bill suspected.
Ward would have to wait for the technical men from the main office before he’d really know anything, but he’d put on a show in the meantime.
One thing, though, was sure: Ward would hang on to Bill Treat. That way, if it turned out there was a case against Bill, Ward could claim credit for nabbing him.
Ward was taking a look at the iron crowbar. “Looks like it’s been lying around outside for months. Could belong to anybody. Could’ve been used by anybody.”
“Sure,” said Bill. “Anybody.”
Ward peered at him. “I understand you found Smalley.”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Stick around. Don’t leave the place.”
Bill flushed angrily. He managed to keep his mouth shut. Rather stealthily, he surveyed the kitchen. Then he backed into a far corner. Not much light here. He sat on a high kitchen stool. Behind him, and a little to one side, was a door that led out to a side porch. The door was largely concealed by a tall china closet. Bill hoped Ward couldn’t see it.
Ward was being very polite to Osa. “Your step-father, wasn’t he?”
“Yes,” Osa said through tight lips. “Know anything about this?”
“I’m afraid not. I was working in town, in the Frost Patrol office. The first I knew of it was when Bill—Mr. Treat—phoned in.”
Ward said abruptly: “Any idea who did this?”
“Oh, no. No!”
Ward stared at her skeptically. Then he nodded at Bill and said: “Treat there was on the frost patrol?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have records at the office showing the time the patrol riders were out?”
“Oh, yes.”
“And you could tell, in the office, just about where each rider was on his route at a particular time?”
“Within a few minutes, yes.”
Ward looked pleased. “Treat was riding this district?”
“Yes. This is District Three Hundred. He—” she stopped quickly. “But you can ask Mr. Treat himself.”
Ward grinned. “Sure. But I like to hear you tell it. Now, what time—”
“I—I wish you’d excuse me,” cut in Osa. “I don’t feel well. I’d like to lie down.”
Ward’s face darkened in a scowl. Then the scowl faded and he said politely: “Why, sure.” He turned to the other officer. “Dennison, take this lady into the living room.”
“Sure.”
Dennison took Osa’s arm very willingly and walked her back through the kitchen. Osa looked at Bill briefly, but he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Bill sucked in his breath. This might work out all right. Dennison was vanishing into the next room, and Ward was kneeling beside the body, his back to Bill.
Noiselessly,
Bill slipped off the stool and moved back. He was beyond the china closet. His hand was on the door knob. He turned it slowly, cautiously. He had the door open.
He slipped out, and gently closed the door.
CHAPTER III
Footprints In The Grove
They’d find out he was gone any minute, of course. He was out in the rear yard. He couldn’t take his car, they’d certainly hear it, and follow fast, but he sped to the car and fumbled in the side pockets. He found his own flashlight and a small automatic.
Halfway down the private road, he swung into Smalley’s orange grove. There is no better place than an orange grove for concealment. No lights. Even the feeble light from the skies could not penetrate the overhead foliage. Orange trees are leafy all year round. They bear fruit, too. Even now, in freezing weather, there was ripe fruit on the trees.
Some of the fruit, at least, would be ruined before the night was over. Bill thought about that, worriedly. Off in the distance he could see small darting flames from the smudge pots in other groves, and smell the choking smoke.
He kept on, feeling his way through interminable rows of trees. The cultivated soil crunched underfoot. The soil was hardened by the frost, but not much.
He came then to a spot not far from the large thermometer he had read at one o’clock. This was guesswork, mostly, but he had to have a starting point and this seemed most likely.
The thermometer, as in all the groves, was located close to the county road, just two or three rows in. This was to save the time of the frost patrol riders.
Bill could hear a car traveling fast through the night. Nothing else. He stood against a tree and his eyes searched the blackness about him. He saw nothing.
He was about to snap on his flashlight when something, a slight passing movement in the trees, or a faint sound nearby, he couldn’t tell which, held him motionless. He felt the hair crawling on the back of his head. A sudden chill shot through him.
