The Kissed Corpse

by Brett Halliday

  A few steps closer I stopped again, staring down unbelievingly at the corpse of Leslie Young.

  He was the one man in the world I hadn’t expected to see lying there.

  He was peacefully slumped as if in restful relaxation. Crusted blood stained the short hair above his right ear … and there was the brighter stain of crimson on his lips.

  I took one more step which brought me directly over the body. Shaken and unnerved by the unexpectedness of it, I stooped closer to his face. The crimson of his lips was ludicrous. His mouth was naturally thin and tightly drawn in death, but the perfect imprint of a woman’s full lips made it into a cupid’s bow.

  Stranger than this, however, and far more awesome, was a two-barred cross of crimson on his right cheek. A long vertical mark crossed by shorter lines … wide marks, such as might have been made with a child’s crayon, or with a woman’s carmine lipstick.

  The symbol of the double cross, was my dazed thought as I stood up and rushed to the highway, thinking only of getting word to Jerry Burke.

  3

  I heard the motor of a speeding car as I stood there, and I hurried out to the highway to flag down a couple of city-bound youths in a light coupe.

  “It’s murder,” I told them. “Stop at the first telephone and call the police. Get Jerry Burke if possible. Tell him it’s Asa Baker and I’ll stay with the body until he comes.”

  They drove away reluctantly, craning their necks in morbid curiosity, trying to see the body.

  I walked back into the grove with my eyes wide open this time. There were fresh automobile tracks, showing where a car had recently turned off and parked, backed around and gone back toward El Paso.

  The saddled horse was the same one Leslie Young had ridden to see me earlier. He was standing patiently, as though he didn’t realize his rider would never mount him again.

  I circled back around the body carefully, staying far enough away so as not to mess up any footprints, trying mentally to recreate the murder.

  It had happened while I was gone for my walk up the canyon, of course. I looked at my watch and saw it was nearly four o’clock. I’d been gone over three hours.

  Young had ridden here from his cottage after I left, met someone in a car, perhaps; been killed while he sat quietly beneath the tree. Death had come unexpectedly—instantaneously, I guessed, noting the peaceful look on his face and the relaxed posture of his body.

  Had he arranged to meet Raymond Dwight here? Or, had he called Dwight and threatened him—come here to meet someone else and been killed by Dwight lurking in ambush?

  And, what about Rufus Hardiman? He had been plainly distraught and in a hurry—coming from this direction. I tried to recall exactly what Young had said about Hardiman in my cabin. No actual threat, but he had made it evident that he was deeply moved and angered by the assumption that Dwight was working on a scheme with the diplomat for the return of his expropriated oil property.

  And all the time, my thoughts were edging away from the crimson stain on Leslie Young’s lips, the curious symbol marked in red on his cheek.

  It grew chillier in the lonesome glade, and the shadows deepened. Nip and Tuck were circumspectly back on the edge of the grove and I was damnably alone with the dead man.

  A kiss from rouged lips! A woman’s hand fumbling in her handbag for lipstick, bending down to trace the mark of the double cross in vivid carmine on the cold cheek of a dead man!

  It was ghastly. I paced back and forth, looking anxiously down the winding highway, trying not to wonder what part I had played in the scheme of murder that day, and was at last rewarded by hearing the wail of a rapidly approaching police siren.

  I stepped out into the highway and waved frantically as Jerry Burke’s official car roared into view, and he brought it to a screeching stop beside me.

  Chief of Detectives Jelcoe was in the front seat with Burke. He peered at me irritably with twitching eyelids; grunted an accusing, “Humph,” as though my presence at the scene of murder satisfied a long-standing suspicion.

  I looked past Jelcoe at Burke’s solidly square face. “It’s Leslie Young, Jerry. He’s … lying back here.”

  A radio patrol car and an ambulance were pulling up behind Burke’s roadster. Jelcoe’s long legs stepped out past me in the direction I indicated, and I waited for Burke to come around the car.

  “Young, eh?” There was a tired, hurt look on Burke’s face which I didn’t understand at the moment. “You had gotten in touch with him?”

  “This noon.” I went by Jerry Burke’s side toward Jelcoe, who was standing over the corpse with an air of proprietorship. “I was coming back from a long walk up the canyon when Nip and Tuck scented the body and led me to it,” I went on hastily.

  Burke nodded, moving with a surprisingly light stride for so heavy a man. He’s a surprising fellow in a lot of ways, even to me, and I’ve known him off and on since he was foreman on my dad’s cattle ranch on the Pecos River and I was just a kid.

  He’s covered a long and adventurous trail since I first knew him, ranging from a hitch in the U. S. Intelligence Service during the war; through a period with the Texas Rangers; gun-running in Latin America and the Orient; successfully heading his own detective agency in New York—and finally being called back to El Paso to mop up the crime-ridden Border city.

  I suppose all of that has contributed to make Jerry Burke the man he is today, but it has seemingly had an inverse effect.

  Outwardly, he appears the least adventurous and imaginative of men. The inward spark that has driven him to do the things that other men wishfully dream of doing doesn’t show in his face, speech, or actions. In appearance, he looks like a moderately successful broker or merchant. His stubby hair is turning gray, and his body gets a little bulkier each year.

  But I followed him around on the MUM case,* and I saw that glint in his eyes while we sat in the Juarez cafe waiting for the killers to show themselves at the end of a heartbreaking manhunt, so I know what’s inside of him that makes him tick.

  Knowing him as I do, I shouldn’t have hung back and watched his face as he stepped forward by Chief Jelcoe’s side and looked down at the body. Perhaps I shouldn’t have wondered what his reaction would be to the red lips and queer symbol.

  I might as well have saved myself the trouble. If Jerry Burke ever allowed himself to have a reaction he wouldn’t let it show outwardly. His heavy face was as impassive as though he had just shoved out a stack of blues on a busted straight.

  Jelcoe’s long nose was quivering but he didn’t say anything. In Burke’s presence he had a way of respectfully effacing himself that was just the opposite of respectful. He’s the only man I ever met who could sneer with becoming modesty.

  Uniformed men and the police surgeon were approaching. Burke stepped back to my side to make room, saying pleasantly to Jelcoe:

  “Better start your blood-hounds circling while it’s still light.”

  While Jelcoe issued crisp orders to his detectives, the police surgeon bent briskly over Young. He was a stout little man who whistled cheerfully as he went methodically about his task.

  I couldn’t stand Burke’s silence as we stood there. “What do you make of it?” I burst out. “What do those marks on his cheek mean?”

  Burke shook his head with maddening deliberation. The taciturnity of his cowpunching days still clings to him. “Guesses are for fools. But …” He paused, a puzzled look on his face, “I’ve seen such a two-barred cross somewhere.”

  “Does Young’s wife use lots of lipstick?” I broke in impatiently.

  “Damned if I know,” Jerry murmured. “We’ll ask her presently.”

  Jelcoe had his men circling around looking for footprints or other tangible clues. He came sidling back to stand beside us as the surgeon straightened up and spoke.

  “A small-calibre bullet into the brain from some distance. .22 or .25, I imagine. Bullet’s lodged inside.” He stepped away, closing his medical case.

  “H
ow long …?” Jelcoe began eagerly, but the surgeon stopped him with a plump palm held up.

  “I know. The one all-important question which no doctor can answer. I can narrow it down to comparatively brief limits this time. Death was instantaneous … not less than half an hour and not more than two hours ago. I may be able to do better after I get him in where I can go over him.”

  “When did you find him, Asa?” Burke asked me.

  Jelcoe’s eyelids twitched while I looked at my watch. “Exactly thirty minutes ago. I looked at my watch.”

  Burke was satisfied but Chief Jelcoe wasn’t. From the beginning he hadn’t taken kindly to the action of the City Fathers in bringing Jerry Burke to El Paso and installing him as the supreme authority over the police department; and the ridiculous showing he made in his mishandling of other cases on which I had trailed Burke around hadn’t helped our friendly relations to any extent.

  Now, he openly sneered: “Any witnesses around when you supposedly discovered the body?”

  “A couple of Scotties,” I told him as calmly as I could. “And … I met a man just up the canyon as I was returning from a long walk. He might be able to verify the time.”

  I purposely saved the identity of the man to tell Burke later, and Jelcoe pounced on my somewhat halting explanation with a gleeful sniff.

  “A stranger, I suppose? One who will conveniently vanish in thin air if you attempt to prove an alibi by him.”

  “What do I need an alibi for? Am I a suspect?”

  “You were here. You reported finding the body.” Jelcoe’s voice sounded as though that clinched it.

  I nodded disgustedly. “And I kissed him on the lips and marked his face up with lipstick after bopping him.”

  Chief Jelcoe shrugged thin shoulders, the expression on his face indicating that he wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn I had done just that.

  Jerry Burke put an end to the by-play by saying brusquely: “I’ll answer for Baker for the time being.” Two men were bringing up a stretcher, and Burke stepped in front of them.

  He said: “I’ll go through his pockets before you take him away,” and leaned down to do that.

  He brought out a little pile of keys, cash, and trifles, and laid them on the grass while Jelcoe stood by, rocking back on his heels and watching suspiciously.

  Burke had an envelope in his hand when he straightened up, and he took a folded sheet of paper out while a photographer took several shots of the body.

  Burke’s body stiffened as he stared at the sheet of paper. Jelcoe and I stepped close on each side of him and peered at it.

  It was heavy orange notepaper, giving off a faint perfume, and the message was written in black ink in a flowing feminine hand. But what I saw first, and what brought a gasp from my lips, was the inked symbol in the bottom left-hand corner. A cross with two bars!

  Drawn free-hand with firm vertical and horizontal strokes of the pen; like this:

  Identical with the crimson marks on Leslie Young’s cheek!

  The paper became a blur in front of my eyes, and I could have sworn it shook in the grip of Jerry Burke’s fingers. But his voice was steady enough as he read:

  April 13th. 1939.

  Dear Mr. Leslie Young:

  You are not acquainted with the writer of this note but I know much about Leslie Young. If you are interested in matters that used to interest you come to Hacienda del Torro tomorrow night at eight. You will not be known by any who are present, and there will be no danger.

  Cross the Rio Grande at Zaragoza, turn left on the first road beyond Waterfill Gardens, drive ten miles to stone gateposts on the right with a bull on the archway.

  Michaela O’Toole

  Burke was silent for a moment as he refolded the notepaper and frowned at the envelope. “It was mailed in El Paso yesterday afternoon.” He replaced the letter carefully in its envelope and put it in his pocket.

  “D-didn’t you see those marks on the bottom?” Jelcoe sputtered.

  Burke nodded. “The same symbol that’s on Young’s cheek … which gives us plenty to think about.” He turned to me, dismissing the chief of detectives.

  “I’d better go up and break the news to Mrs. Young. Want to go along, Asa?”

  I did. Very much. Walking toward Burke’s car with him, I said:

  “While you’re getting turned around I’ll walk down the road and send the pups up to wait by my car. I’m all packed and ready to leave.”

  I whistled to Nip and Tuck and went on while he got in and started his motor. At the foot of the road leading up to the Martin cabin I stopped and told the pups to go up and wait. Burke came along as they trotted up the slope submissively.

  Getting in beside him, I asked: “Do you know Mrs. Young?”

  “Not very well. I’ve met her a time or two.” As he let out the clutch and we rolled ahead, he added heavily:

  “Young has been doing some undercover work for me recently. Dangerous stuff, investigating Border activities. I don’t know …”

  His voice trailed off and he turned sharply to the left, climbing up steep ruts to a cottage of weathered logs standing in a clump of straggly oaks and jackpine.

  A black Chevrolet sedan was parked in front of a low rock wall surrounding a cactus garden. Burke pulled up beside it and we got out.

  The front door opened as we went up the path together. Myra Young stood full in the doorway watching our approach with dark sultry eyes. She was wearing a house dress of gay printed cotton material, and didn’t show up to such advantage as when she was sunbathing. Her hair was still tousled, and her mouth looked sullen without any rouge on it.

  Burke took off his hat and stopped in front of her. “Mrs. Young, I’m terribly sorry to bring you this news, but Leslie has … had a bad accident.”

  Sharp teeth came down over her full lower lip, leaving it indented. That was the only visible sign of emotion on her face. “Thrown?” she questioned throatily. “I told him that horse was mean.”

  Burke shook his head. “Shot. I’m afraid it’s murder, Mrs. Young.”

  A wild glint showed in her sultry eyes before she lowered her thick black lashes. “Murder?” Her fingers laced together in a quick spasm and her knuckles were as white as naked tendons. “I’m … not surprised,” she said.

  I felt like a fool standing there waiting for her to go to pieces. Jerry, though, took it in his stride. “What makes you say that?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. She cleared her throat, but her voice was still husky when she answered: “Plenty of reasons. That work he was doing for you. That crazy letter he got this morning, and the telephoned warning. And … playing around … the way he did.” Her body was shaking but she stood there obstinately gripping the door frame with both hands.

  “Do you mean the letter from Mexico?”

  “Of course. From that O’Toole woman. I knew something was going to happen when he insisted on going after being warned to stay away.”

  “Tell me about the warning.” Burke’s voice was gentle, as though he realized how close she was to hysteria and wanted to keep her talking.

  “It came … over the telephone this noon. Leslie was visiting some pal of yours at that cabin across the canyon. A woman called … she wouldn’t give her name, but she said Les would die if he insisted on going over to Mexico tonight.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I told her I knew Leslie too well to hope he’d be scared off by any such warning. Then she … hung up.”

  “You should have temporized,” Burke told her. “There wasn’t any use forcing the issue. Your husband might be alive now if you’d used your head.”

  I was amazed at Jerry’s tone. All at once it had become hard and relentless. Here was a woman freshly widowed.…

  But she came back at him without turning a hair. “Why should I protect him? He hasn’t paid any attention to me for months. Do you think I care what happened to him? I’m glad he got it! Do you hear! I’m glad!” She swayed as if a
gale had suddenly struck her.

  Burke made a quick step to catch her, but she pushed him off with clawed fingers, her face working convulsively.

  “It’s … it’s all right.” Her voice had gone lifeless. She looked levelly at Burke with eyes that smouldered. “I guess maybe I do care. I tried not to. I tried to hate him.…”

  Burke had backed a step away from her. “You’d better not stay here alone,” he urged. “Let me take you down to a hotel. Or I’ll send a woman up.”

  She shook her head. “I’m used to being alone.” Supporting herself with both arms outspread, hands pressed against each side of the door, she seemed a disembodied figure in the illusive half-shadows of the canyon, sagging forward, tortured eyes staring, as though she were the victim of physical as well as mental crucifixion.

  While the toneless finality of her words, “I’m used to being alone,” still hung in the silence, Myra Young spoke again:

  “Have you arrested Laura Yates?”

  If Burke felt any surprise he didn’t show it. He said, gently, “Not yet.”

  “Leslie went to meet her this afternoon.” The widow’s voice was a sullen drone like the distant roar of angry waters surging destructively and relentlessly onward. “She’s responsible for everything. She made Leslie promise to go tonight.”

  “Do you know where we could find Laura Yates?”

  “No. I don’t know where she lives.”

  She slammed the door in our faces and we stood there looking at each other in the twilight. Then Burke said:

  “I guess that’s that,” and led the way back to his car.

  I followed, doing a lot of thinking. How did it all tie up with Dwight and his telescope … the sunbathing?

  “Suppose you run me over to the Martin cabin,” I suggested. “My things are all packed and I’m ready to leave. I’ll trail you into town to my place.”

  He gave me a sidelong glance. “I won’t have much time for idle chatter this evening. I’ll be busy on this thing.”

  “That,” I told him, “is why I want you to stop by my place. I know some things you need to know.”