John D MacDonald - One More Sunday

by One More Sunday(Lit)

  "What have we got, George?" Coombs asked Ludeker.

  "So far it looks like death by strangulation. Busted crico id

  No other physical indications of strangulation."

  "Manual strangulation?"

  "We talked about that. When the stuff got thrown in the well, the edge of, say, the typewriter case catching her just right. No chance. That would have given us tissue damage

  2Z5

  massive enough so that we could see it. But if somebody wrapped their hands around the throat, we'd probably be unable to see any evidence of that. Our guess, and it's just a guess, is that somebody rested a big beefy forearm across the little lady's throat, probably to shut her up while raping her."

  "Evidence of rape?"

  "Not after three months."

  "Doctors, I want to spare her husband the chore of a physical identification, and the State's Attorney's office says we can do it this way. Mike here was with me when we questioned Owen about distinguishing marks. I've got the list. What did you come up with?"

  "Nearly half the little finger right hand missing. Scar on her left instep looks like she dropped a cleaver on it. Appendix scar."

  "Perfect! Any jewelry he can look at?"

  "Three rings, a necklace and a digital watch. I locked them up in there. They're soaking in alcohol."

  "The watch too?"

  "Yep. Fabric strap. Damned thing was running. Two minutes fast."

  "Not anymore, it isn't," Coombs said.

  "I'll look forward to getting the written report and the pictures. And send the jewelry over in a plastic sack. He can look at it when we run it up there tomorrow."

  "And the body is that of a woman in her early thirties?"

  "That fits closely enough. You won't get the report until Monday late," Ludeker said.

  "I know. Right now it just turned Friday. That's okay. We're going to have to move fast and good on this thing. When she was missing, it wasn't much of a story. But this is going to bring the media into Lakemore like an army. And the cause of death "Is not news until the State's Attorney says it is," Johnson said, smiling.

  "See, Lieutenant? I'm learning." He stopped smiling, shook his head.

  "I don't want to talk about this one anyway. Ever. Once upon a time that was a fine-looking little woman. Bums that get knifed in an alley, I can handle. All the time, working on this one, I keep thinking what a hell of a waste. Hope you guys catch him."

  When the first red edge of the sun rim showed between two gentle hills in the east, Roy Owen and Peggy Moon had turned around and they were heading back toward the motel, walking briskly along the edge of the paved surface. She was glad he had talked so much to her about Lindy and Janie and his relationship to both of them and their relationship to each other.

  It made her feel as if they were moving more irreversibly into a relationship of their own. At times he had stopped, frowning, groping for the right way to say something. All he had wanted from her was the occasional murmur of understanding.

  Finally they were so close to the motel he could look across the fields and see, above the trees that concealed the distant dirt road, the portion of barn roof.

  "I've walked along that road half a dozen times," he said. He stopped, hands on his hips.

  "Right by her. I can see that barn roof from my window. She probably looked out that window and noticed it. Damn him! Whoever it was, damn him to hell.

  Thrown away like trash. Like a run-over animal. Chunked her in there and threw her stuff down. Three summer months down a deep well. Thank God I didn't have to identify her.

  What I told them about her matched up. That's what they came here at two this morning to tell me."

  He started walking again suddenly, and she had to take several running steps to catch up and walk beside him. Though she was a few inches taller than he, it pleased her that in their walks their stride seemed to match perfectly.

  "When are you going to call her mother?"

  "Soon as we get back. I don't want her to hear it on the news.

  And I want her to keep Janie home and keep the news turned off. Then I'll have to call the office. And then find some way to make the arrangements that have to be made. We agreed a couple of years ago that we'd both like to be cremated. So I don't have to wonder about that. I guess the thing to do would be to get it done here, when they release the body, and then take the ashes up there and have a memorial service. There's no point in her mother and Janie coming down here."

  "No point at all."

  "They wanted to know what kind of a purse she carried. I said I didn't have any idea. They couldn't find it."

  "Kind of a white canvas shoulder bag with brown leather trim and a brass latch."

  "I'll tell Lieutenant Coombs. Thanks."

  They know that already. It's in their file. I described all her stuff, back when she had been reported missing."

  They're going to bring me an inventory of everything that was... with her. And her jewelry to identify."

  "She always wore that heavy gold chain every time I saw her."

  "I gave it to her on our fifth anniversary. I was afraid somebody might snatch it off her in New York, but she said it was too big to look real. They're bringing it and her rings and watch to me to identify."

  Today?"

  "Sometime today."

  At that moment they were both startled by a small woman in sweaty brown clothing and a yard bird hat stepping out from behind a highway sign and motioning them to stop.

  "Hey!" he said.

  "Carrie. Meet Peggy Moon. She and her brother own the motel."

  "I know. Fred told me this might be a good place to catch you. Peggy, I'm Carolyn Pennymark. I worked at the same magazine as Lindy. Look, I have to make this fast, guys. There is really a mob scene right back there at the motel. Two television trucks, wire service people, syndication people."

  "What the hell do they want?" Roy asked.

  "What they... we... always want. News is the process of making not very much out of practically nothing. How does it feel to find out they found your wife's body at the bottom of a well ? Why did you stay down here ? Did you have some kind of a hunch?"

  Peggy said fiercely, That's the last thing he needs right now!"

  "I know that, sugar. Why do you think I'm here? There's not much time. Look, what I do mostly in life, I make deals. Okay.

  Give me the exclusive rights, and I'll keep those clowns off you.

  I can't offer money because that would be in terrible taste. But we can put a thousand-dollar bond in your kid's education fund."

  That's tacky!" Peggy said loudly.

  "Hush, dear. Life is tacky. Okay? I'll get you through the picket line, Roy. We had a nice talk. I think we understand each other. Don't get downwind of me. I have been on a dead zz8 run for quite a while, and I smell like a horse barn. Okay?

  Peggy, sweetie, the best place would be whatever you've got behind that office of yours. Less ground to cover. Okay?"

  "It's where we live, my brother and I. There's a kitchen and then' "I've got Fred all set to lock it after we come galloping through. Peggy, have you got a typewriter I can use?"

  "A Corona as old as the hills."

  "Good. I learned on one of those. Okay, you guys. What we do, we walk absolutely straight and steady. No glances to left or right. Ignore the mikes they'll stick in your face. Walk right through them. They'll pull them back. Ignore bad language and, Roy, you ignore any rotten thing they'll say about you or Lindy to get you going. Just pretend it's all in a language you can't understand. They'll have some choice things to call me too. Okay, troops? Off we go. Blind and deaf and steadfast."

  Once they were in the office and Fred had slammed the door and bolted it, Roy knew that without her coaching it wouldn't have worked. He would have felt compelled to turn to them and tell them what he thought of their sick questions. Which, of course, was what they wanted. They circled the office and rapped on the windows, banged on the door. Peggy pulled the
draperies and they turned on the lights. Fred was delighted by the whole thing. He had told their three customers that they wouldn't be answering the switchboard, and so when it shrilled at them, Peggy ignored it. In about fifteen minutes they heard car doors chunking and the engines starting up and the cars leaving, squealing their tires when they turned angrily onto the state road.

  Carolyn looked at Peggy.

  "Didn't I hear you say something when we pushed our way through out there?"

  Peggy shrugged and twisted from side to side.

  "Just two words. That's all. I figured they couldn't use words like that on the air."

  "Have you ever thought of trying my line of work?"

  Peggy smiled sweetly at her.

  "Not seriously."

  Carolyn turned to Roy.

  "Okay. Here's our interview." She handed him the sheet she had typed.

  "But we didn't do the interview yet!"

  This is what I would have asked and this is what I think you would have answered. If you don't like any part of it, make your mark and we'll go over it."

  He sat and read it, with Peggy leaning over to read it with him, standing beside the chair, her hand on his shoulder.

  "I think it's pretty good," he said.

  "No changes."

  "It even sounds like him," Peggy said.

  "Sweetie, I am a pro. And thank you. Now initial on the bottom there indicating your approval, Roy. Thanks. Peggy, can you put me through to New York? Here's my phone card."

  A few minutes later they heard her say, "Marty? Marty, love? Is it really you? In spite of the way you tried to delay me and frustrate me, I have an exclusive with the bereaved spouse.

  Of course it's approved and signed. Put this onto the machinery and I'll dictate. And when you vend it to our sister daily, I want my piece of the action. Oh, and you approve a thousand dollar bond for the little girl who lost her mother. Okay?

  Okay. Am I on? Right. At the sound of the beep, I shall proceed."

  As Carolyn began dictating, Peggy took Roy's arm and led him back into a small room with a big television set and piles of books and magazines.

  "What I wanted to say, Roy. When she's through and you can get on the phone, don't try to tell Janie."

  He stared at her.

  "She has to know, doesn't she?"

  "Of course she has to know. But do it the best way for her.

  Tell her grandma how to do it. Let her grandma hold her on her lap and hug her and tell her, okay?"

  "Yes. That's better. You're right. I couldn't have done it."

  "You could have done it," Peggy said.

  "You could have done it as well as anybody could. Over the phone. But holding is better. Arms around you are better. And I'm kind of an expert."

  And a little later, after Carrie Pennymark had left, he heard the phone ringing, up in Hartford.

  Bruce's mother woke him early on Friday morning and told him she had something to show him in the kitchen. He followed her out. Baron lay on the cool tiles in front of the kitchen sink. When Bruce spoke his name and knelt beside him, the dog lifted his head and yawned, tongue lolling, then lowered his head and closed his eyes and his tail thumped a couple of times against the floor. He was very thin and filthy, his red hair matted with burrs and twigs.

  "I saw a dog pack trotting by," she said, 'and one of them looked something like Baron, so I opened the door and called him, and he peeled off and came trotting in. He's been out with the boys, Brucie. He's a rascal."

  He stood up and turned towards her, smiling, and then the tears came. He stood in the circle of her arms and cried like a little kid. It made him ashamed to be so weak, to cry like that, sobbing and snuffling. She held him and stroked the back of his head. He tried to make himself stop. He could hear his father in the bathroom. He didn't want his father to hear him crying.

  When he had walked away from the well where they had looked down and seen the dead face of the woman, in that moment he had given up any last hope of ever finding Baron alive anywhere in the world. And now, here he was. Bruce wondered if maybe he was crying because he could never again miss the dog so badly, no matter what happened. Some connection he could not understand had been severed.

  At breakfast in the smaller dining room on the ground floor of the Manse, John Tinker Meadows listened to Finn Efflander and Jenny Albritton and Mary Margaret and finally said, "Why are we required to make some kind of jackass statement about this? Is there some rule that says we have to? When they investigated the disappearance, we stated officially that we knew nothing about the damned woman. And we still know nothing about her. When she was here, she stayed a long way from the Center, and she died a long way from the Center.

  We've extended every courtesy to that pair the magazine sent down here. We didn't have to do that. I sometimes think we're too sensitive about the media and what they might say or write."

  "I think we should say something," Mary Margaret said.

  "Even if to say we're sorry this happened to any woman in this county whether we know her or not. We extend our sympathy to her loved ones and her co-workers, and so on and so on."

  "Maybe," Finn said, 'we could work in a little comment on how the permissive filth in our society inflames rapists and murderers."

  John Tinker sighed and said, "All right, then. I'm outnumbered and outvoted. Finn, get Spencer McKay to work something up. Tell him to keep it short. Jenny, you bird-dog it, and get it to me ten minutes before they tape it."

  "Where would you like them to do it?" Jenny asked.

  "Any suggestions?"

  "Well... I think if you were sitting behind the desk in your father's old office..."

  "Agreed. Tell them I will give the statement and then take a few questions. Will it be network?"

  "There'll be the area affiliates of CBS and ABC and I think maybe somebody from CNN, but they have no idea whether anything they do will be picked up."

  "It probably will be," Finn said bleakly.

  "Anything that could possibly bring any kind of discredit on the Church gets a big play."

  "How can we be discredited?" Mary Margaret asked.

  "For what?"

  Finn shrugged and looked at Jenny Albritton. She moistened her lips and said, "The brutalized body of Linda Rooney has been found in the bottom of a dry well on an abandoned farm nine miles from the Tabernacle of the Eternal Church of the Believer. Police are investigating what connection there might be between the murder and the fact that Ms Rooney was conducting an undercover investigation of the Meadows family and the Eternal Church of the Believer."

  John Tinker looked startled. He whistled softly and then said, "Okay, I was definitely wrong. We have to make a statement and it better be a strong statement. Tell McKay to underline how open we are with all members of the media.

  Thank you, Jenny. We sometimes forget how vulnerable we are."

  "And we better pray that no one at the Center was involved in this in any way," Mary Margaret said.

  "If they can make it sound so terrible when we never knew anything about her, think of how they could make it sound if one of our employees like one of the maintenance men did it to her."

  John Tinker finished his coffee and the informal meeting adjourned. Mary Margaret left with him, and stopped him in the lounge area, saying, "I have to talk to you about Poppa."

  "What now?"

  "Willa Minter says that if she has to handle him alone, she's going to quit."

  "What happened?"

  "Apparently what happened, he was in the tub and she told him he'd been there long enough. She was almost hysterical, so I'm not certain how accurate this is. She took hold of his arm to try to get him to his feet and help him out of the tub. He reached up and grabbed her by the back of the neck and pulled her off balance and plunged her head under the water and apparently grabbed her around the neck with his legs, like a scissors hold, I think they call it, and held her there with her head underwater. She was terribly frightened and
she wrenched herself free. She was on the floor beside the tub, coughing up water, when he got out of the tub and stepped over her and went into the bedroom and put on his terry robe."

  "Dear Lord God," he said wearily.

  "Don't blaspheme."

  "You should have recognized that as a prayer, sis."

  "There's more."

  "Spare me."