Body For Sale

by Deming, Richard

  One of the reasons I had been afraid to see Esther evenings was that I had been expecting a phone call from Helen since Monday. I knew that Esther would take it for granted that we would wind up at my apartment if I took her out for an evening, and I had no desire to have her present when Helen phoned. It hardly seemed likely that she would phone today, though, because she would be too surrounded by relatives and friends even after the funeral.

  We spent the rest of the afternoon at my apartment. After a week and a half of celibacy, Esther was in rare form. She hardly let me come up for air until after six P.M.

  I didn’t want to risk keeping her there later than that, for I was afraid Helen might finally take it into her head to phone. Esther was reluctant to leave, but I made her dress and took her out to dinner.

  After dinner, when I was helping her into the car, she suggested returning to the apartment for another session.

  “I’m whipped,” I said. “And I have a lot of work facing me tomorrow. We’ll pick up where we left off next time.”

  She waited until I had rounded the car and was behind the wheel before asking, “When will that be?”

  I started the engine and drove away from the restaurant.

  “When I call you.”

  “This weekend, maybe?”

  “If I don’t go fishing again,” I said a little shortly. “Don’t push me.”

  Apparently the afternoon had put her in an agreeable mood, for she didn’t even pout. “All right, Tom,” she said cheerfully. “I’ll wait for your call. I’ve decided it was just imagination that you were avoiding me.”

  “Oh? What convinced you?”

  She snuggled up against my shoulder. “I didn’t seem exactly to repel you this afternoon. You acted almost as eager as I did.”

  “That should reassure you,” I said dryly. “It’s almost impossible to act as eager as you do.”

  She turned her head to make a face at me. “You can’t insult me this evening. I feel too good. I’ll sleep tonight.”

  I drove her back to the plant parking lot to get her car. She gave me a lingering good-night kiss before slipping from my car and climbing into her own.

  I waited for her to drive out of the lot ahead of me. As she reached the gate I belatedly remembered something and honked my horn to halt her. But she took it only as a honk of good-night, tooted back and drove on.

  The reason I had wanted to stop her was that I had again forgotten to get back my kitchen-door key.

  21

  THURSDAY THE PLANT WAS OPERATING JUST AS THOUGH George Mathews had never existed. And Gertie Drake still hadn’t showed up for work.

  When Helen hadn’t phoned me by seven thirty that evening either, I took the chance of phoning her.

  “Alone?” I asked cautiously when her voice answered.

  “Yes.” It was only one word, but it seemed to lack the enthusiasm a lover could reasonably expect after a separation of several days. It sounded cool and distant.

  I said, “I thought you were going to phone me.”

  “So soon?” she asked. “You said when things quieted down.”

  “Did anything go wrong?” I inquired. “Were you asked any unpleasant questions?”

  “No. There didn’t seem to be any suspicion.”

  “Nobody suggested an autopsy, did they? Or even an inquest.”

  “No. The coroner just signed a certificate of accidental death.”

  “Then things have quieted down. Why don’t you drop over?”

  “Tonight?”

  “Of course, tonight.”

  She was some time answering me, and the delay may have made me imagine reluctance in her voice when possibly it was only caution. “You think it’s wise to begin seeing each other so soon?”

  “We’re not going to begin seeing each other yet. Not regularly. But we have to get together at least once about our future plans. Besides, I want to check over what you told the authorities to make sure we didn’t leave any loose ends.”

  Again I imagined a strange reluctance in her voice. But her words were agreeable enough. “All right,” she said. “Eight thirty?”

  “Yeah. I’ll leave the back door unlocked.”

  For the first time she failed to be prompt, arriving ten minutes late. When I heard the back door open downstairs I walked to the kitchen door. Tonight she wore the same blue suit that she had at the funeral. With no makeup except for a dash of lipstick, her face looked pale and there was a pinched look about her eyes. When I kissed her hello, her response was about as torrid as a bronze statue’s.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Have I begun to pall on you already?”

  “Of course not,” she said quickly, moving into my arms and giving me a more enthusiastic kiss.

  But it took effort on her part.

  Leading her into the front room, I mixed a pair of drinks, making hers a double. She sat on the sofa and I stood before it, watching her take her first taste. She barely sipped at the highball before setting it down on the cocktail table and leaving it there.

  On her first couple of visits she had gulped down drinks as fast as I made them. But on those occasions she had arrived with her nerves screaming. Tonight she exhibited no tension at all. She gave the impression of being emotionally drained.

  “What happened after I swam away?” I asked.

  “A man came out in a boat,” she said dully. “He met me about fifty yards from shore and pulled me aboard. When I told him George was still in the water, he started circling around. Then the other boats got there and started circling. He took me to his cottage, gave me some brandy and his wife loaned me some clothes. After a while I started to cry. It wasn’t an act. I couldn’t help it.”

  “How soon did they recover the body? The paper gave the impression that it wasn’t very long.”

  “About midnight, I think. The volunteer firemen from Dune Point brought along some drag irons. There’s a stretch of sand bottom there where there aren’t any weeds, so they hooked on almost at once. A couple of sheriff’s deputies showed up, but they didn’t ask me much of anything except my name and George’s name and how the boat happened to tip. I said he was trying to change seats and lost his balance. There wasn’t any suspicion. Everybody was sympathetic.”

  “I guess most of our precautions were unnecessary,” I said. “Using lake water instead of tap water to drown him, for instance. But it’s best to play safe. Did you take that thirty-two and the weights and cord out of George’s car?”

  She shook her head. “I never even thought of them. One of the sheriff’s deputies drove the Lincoln back to town for me. It’s in the garage at home. Should I take the things out and dispose of them?”

  I shrugged. “They don’t point to anything. It wouldn’t matter if they were discovered.” I looked at her nearly untouched drink. “Why don’t you drink your drink?”

  Lifting her glass, she took another sip. Then she set it down again. Setting mine next to it, I sat on the sofa and put my arm around her. Stiffly she allowed her head to be drawn onto my shoulder.

  “It seems like a long time since we’ve been together,” I whispered into her hair.

  She didn’t say anything.

  Cupping her chin, I turned up her face and kissed her. It was like kissing a sack of wet feathers.

  I let my hands make some minor explorations. She endured them without protest, but it wasn’t doing anything to her. After a few moments I straightened up, lifted her glass from the cocktail table and placed it in her hand.

  “Drink it,” I said. “All of it.”

  She looked at me. “Why?”

  “Because you’re as cold as a corpse. I want you to warm up a little.”

  “Do we have to tonight?” she asked. “I’m not much in the mood.”

  “I am,” I informed her. “Drink your drink.”

  After examining my face, she seemed to decide I was going to insist. Her expression suggested that she didn’t intend to make an issue of it, but it woul
d be something of an ordeal for her. Obediently she drained her glass.

  Immediately I mixed her another. She forced that down, then a third. It was a little silly. I was trying to get her drunk because in the past alcohol had seemed to have an aphrodisiac effect on her. She was trying to get drunk, partly to please me, I think, and partly because if it was inevitable that we were going to make love, she hoped it would have the effect on her I expected, so that at least she might get some enjoyment.

  It didn’t work. Three doubles made her a little glassy eyed, but there was no emotional response. All the alcohol did was anesthetize her enough so that she was able to endure my advances without stiffening up. After a time I led her into the bedroom and she undressed in a lackadaisical manner.

  There was no response, no fire in her. It was as though now that the element of revenge on her husband was gone, sex had lost all meaning for her. She was simply compliant, enduring me and patiently waiting for my own fire to burn out.

  Afterward, I switched on the bed lamp, propped myself on an elbow and gazed down at her moodily. She lay unmoving, looking relieved that it was over instead of sleepily content.

  It wasn’t going to work, I thought a little sickly. There had never been real passion in her. Not for me, anyway. She had only been glorying in the revenge she was getting on Mathews by submitting to another man. It could have been any man, because all the time her thoughts were on her husband.

  I said quietly, “You don’t want to carry out your part of the bargain now that I’ve done my part, do you?”

  She glanced up at me. “Why do you say that?”

  “Isn’t it true?”

  “Of course not,” she said defensively. “I’m sorry I couldn’t respond tonight. But I’ve been under a strain. I’ll snap out of it eventually.”

  “I hope so,” I said sourly. “How soon do you think it would be safe for us to get married?”

  She answered so quickly, I knew she had given the matter some thought and had her answer all prepared. “A year is conventional, isn’t it?”

  I grinned a little sardonically. “I was figuring on about three months. A year of widow’s weeds went out with Queen Victoria.”

  “Do we have to discuss it tonight?”

  “We have to discuss it sometime. I’d like to get plans definitely settled.”

  “We’d have to wait at least three months anyway,” she said reasonably. “You just said so. Why not discuss it at the end of that time?”

  I didn’t say anything for a time. Finally I asked, “How long do you think we should wait before it would be proper to be seen together publicly?”

  “At least a couple of months, I should imagine.”

  “Uh-huh. And how long before we should risk getting together secretly with some regularity?”

  She said, “I don’t think I should come here anymore for a while. For a few weeks anyway.”

  She had no intention of keeping her half of the bargain, I saw. I had helped murder a man for nothing. Wearily I climbed off the bed and started to dress.

  After a moment she got up and quietly began to dress also.

  At the back door she slid her arms about my neck and made an obvious effort to put some enthusiasm into her good-night kiss. But we both knew it was a sham. We both knew it was over, but we pretended nothing had changed. I think her conscience made her want to put off the break until she could figure out some way to let me down gently. And I didn’t want to hasten things because of the forlorn hope that by some miracle things still might work out.

  It was indicative of the shape of things to come, though, that neither of us mentioned when we might see each other again.

  Later that night, well after midnight, she phoned and got me out of bed.

  In a worried voice she said, “Sorry if I got you up, Tom. But I checked the Lincoln after I got home. There isn’t any gun or weights or cord in it. What could have happened to them?”

  “He must have had them in the car when he arrived at the cottage,” I said. “Could that deputy who drove the car back to town have taken them out for some reason?”

  “I don’t see how. He followed me into town, with a sheriff’s car trailing him to take him back. He wasn’t out of sight in my rear-view mirror all the way. He might have taken the gun from the glove compartment without my seeing him, but the weights and cord were in the trunk when I saw them before. He would have had to stop and open the trunk lid.”

  “Hmm,” I said. “Well, it isn’t anything to worry about. The stuff only points to George’s unfulfilled intentions, not to us.”

  “I suppose,” she said dubiously. “But it’s certainly mysterious.”

  After she hung up, I was unable to get back to sleep for a long time because I kept brooding over the mystery. Despite telling Helen it was nothing to worry about, it worried me considerably.

  I wasn’t worried that the gun, sash weights and cord Mathews had purchased could in any way point to us as murderers, even if they were now in the hands of the police. But I didn’t think they were in the hands of the police.

  In the back of my mind I began to form an uneasy suspicion about just where the missing items were.

  22

  WHEN GERTIE DRAKE DIDN’T APPEAR FOR WORK ON FRIDAY either, my uneasy suspicion became almost a certainty. I used my lunch hour to drive over to Gertie’s rooming house.

  The stout, middle-aged landlady didn’t remember me at first because it had been some months since I had called there. But when I said, “How are you, Mrs. Swartz? Is Gertie home?” a light of recognition dawned in her eyes.

  “You’re the salesman fellow who works the same place she does, ain’t you?” she said. “Tom something-or-other.”

  “Cavanaugh,” I provided.

  “Yeah. Tom Cavanaugh. You ain’t been around for a while.”

  “No,” I admitted.

  “So many young fellows have been here after her at one time or another, it’s hard to keep them straight.”

  “I suppose,” I said. “She’s a pretty popular girl.”

  “Except lately, of course, since she’s settled down to going with just this one fellow. Guess she plans to marry him.”

  “Who’s that?” I asked politely.

  She gave me a speculative look. “I don’t rightly know if Miss Drake would want me telling her business.”

  “I was only making conversation,” I said with a smile. “I don’t really care who he is. I’m here on office business. Gertie hasn’t been to work all week and we thought she might be ill.”

  “Didn’t she phone the office?” the woman asked in surprise.

  “Phone about what?”

  “Why, she drove off with her new young man last Friday night. George Mathers. Maybe you know him.”

  George Mathers, I thought. Mathews certainly hadn’t used much imagination in picking a pseudonym.

  I shook my head. “Sorry.”

  “Anyway, he phoned me Saturday morning to say he’d driven her down to her folks and she’d decided to stay a couple of weeks. He called so I wouldn’t worry about her not showing up. She’d told me she’d only be gone over the weekend, you see.”

  “Uh-huh. Where do her folks live?”

  She gave me another speculative look.

  “I have to get in touch with her,” I said patiently. “She’s one of our file clerks, you know. An important document has been misplaced, and we think she may know where it was filed. A pending business deal hinges on our getting in touch with her at once.”

  “Oh,” Mrs. Swartz said, impressed. “Coral Grove’s her home. Four twenty-three Coral Drive. If you want to phone long distance, the phone would be under her father’s name. Henry Drake.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “It was nice to see you again, Mrs. Swartz.”

  “Same to you Mr.—ah—” She let it die. She had forgotten my last name again.

  That afternoon I broke away from the office ten minutes early instead of ten minutes late for a change. As I started
to pass Esther’s desk on my way to the elevator, she looked up in surprise.

  “No overtime tonight?” she inquired.

  I paused for a minute. “I’m still working,” I said. “I have to meet one of my salesmen in Coral Grove to iron out a problem.”

  “Oh,” she said in a disappointed voice. “You won’t be back this evening then?”

  “Hardly. It’s a hundred and fifty miles to Coral Grove. I’ll probably put up overnight.”

  “You’ll be back tomorrow, though?” she asked wistfully.

  “If I don’t get all hung up. I’ll phone you.”

  “Tomorrow is kind of special, Tom.”

  I hiked my eyebrows. “Not your birthday?”

  “No, not special like that. It’s just that Mother is going up to Morganville again. Aunt Grace had another attack of bursitis.” She flushed. “She won’t be back until Sunday evening.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, I’ll call you as soon as I get back Saturday. Want me to phone even if it’s late?”

  “Please do,” she said. “It would be a shame to waste the opportunity.”

  By taking the express highway, I made it to Coral Grove by seven thirty p.m. I had missed lunch because of my visit to Gertie Drake’s rooming house, and now I suddenly felt famished. I stopped at a restaurant for dinner before looking for 423 Coral Drive.

  I finally reached the Drake home about eight thirty P.M. It was a moderate-sized one-story cottage near the edge of town on the village’s main street. It was painted white with green shutters, and a white picket fence enclosed a tiny front yard full of flowers. A thin, arthritic-looking man in his late sixties was seated in a porch swing smoking a pipe.

  “Evening, young fellow,” he said courteously.

  “Hi,” I said. “You Henry Drake?”

  “That’s right, young man. But if you’re a salesman, you’ve got the wrong house. We live on social security, and there’s nothing left over for luxuries.”

  “I’m a salesman,” I said with a smile. “But not house-to-house. I sell tools to manufacturers. I work for the same company your daughter does, and she once told me to drop in and see you if I ever happened to be in Coral Grove. I’m Tom Cavanaugh.”