The Main Corpse gbcm-6

by Diane Mott Davidson

  General Bo swiftly digested all this. “My dear,” he said promptly, “what can we possibly do?”

  “My idea is illegal,” I said bluntly. “But I’m going to need you, a four-wheel-drive vehicle, camping equipment, and food for” – I counted mentally – “five people for two or three days, I think. And, uh, a good map of the back roads and the trails along Grizzly Creek.”

  “Can do,” Bo Farquhar said.

  I looked at my watch: eleven o’clock. “Can you be at my house with all that by five tonight?”

  “You know,” he observed wistfully, “I’ve always wanted to help my sister-in-law. I’m very fond of Marla.”

  “So you’re willing to help?”

  “We’ve just finished our equipment trials here. My ankle’s healed up. I’ll be at your house at seventeen hundred hours,” he said crisply. His voice bristled with the authority that had become familiar when I was working for him. “I’ll bring the supplies.”

  I hung up. My stomach growled fiercely. The mundane – in this case, no food all day – invariably intrudes when you least want to take care of it. I’d call Arch and then get over to the hospital. A place that made marvelous spring rolls was on the way. I’d take some to Macguire, too. Every time I’d been in the hospital, I’d spent a lot of time fantasizing about food.

  I plunked in another coin to call home and heard Jake howling even before Arch could say, “Goldilocks’ Catering… Jake! Be quiet! Where everything – “

  “It’s me. Listen, hon, there’s something I need you to do.”

  “Jake, hush! Where are you, Mom?”

  “Oh, honey, it’s a long story, but Marla’s having some problems.” A mild understatement.

  “She’s not back in the hospital?”

  “No.” I took a deep breath. “She’s in jail.”

  “In jail? For what?”

  “She’s charged with a murder she didn’t do. But listen, I have to go over to Wheat Ridge to visit Macguire – “

  “I like Macguire! May I visit him, too? What’s he doing in Wheat Ridge?”

  “Honey, he’s in the hospital. He … got beaten up by the same person who got Marla into trouble.”

  “Can’t I come with you? What’s going on?”

  “I promise I’ll tell you when I get home, if you’ll just do this one favor for me. Please call the main number for the sheriffs department and get connected with the women’s side of the jail. Ask that Marla call you at home as soon as possible.”

  “Call the jail? Get Marla to call me from jail? What am I going to talk to her about? I’m going to feel really dumb.”

  “You just have to tell her one thing. It’s very important, Arch. Tell her the message is from me, and that she has to eat as much Jell-O as possible at dinner tonight. Have you got that?”

  He paused. “That is the stupidest message I ever heard. Besides, if you haven’t checked – “

  “Jell-O, Arch,” I interrupted him, “you got it?”

  His voice was resigned. “Oh-kay! Whatever! Can I be in on this, what you’re planning?”

  “Arch!” Then I relented. “Please just call the jail.”

  I hung up to Jake’s melancholy howl.

  I zipped the van down Interstate 70 to Saigon Carry-Out, ordered a batch of spring rolls, then crossed to Thirty-eighth Avenue and headed for Lutheran Hospital. Help me, Goldy, help me! That had been the pained cry from the best friend I’d ever had, as she was led away by two storm troopers. I tried not to think about her, tried not to imagine each situation she was going through down at the jail. Still, worries wormed into my mind. Oh, Marla, what are they saying I to you? Are they dressing your bruises and cuts? Are you taking your medications? Do you believe I’m trying to help you?

  Once I was on the right floor of the hospital, it didn’t take long to find Macguire. A television advertisement for chain saws seemed to be emanating from a room with its door half open. But it was not the TV; Macguire’s roommate was snoring. When I tiptoed into the room, Macguire raised his head from the pillow and squinted at me. His face lit up with such delight that I refused to gasp at the thick bandage around his head and the gash running across one of his acne-scarred cheeks.

  I whispered, “Oh, Macguire! Look at you!” I glanced at his dozing roommate. “How can you sleep with that racket?”

  Macguire wrinkled his nose. “I’m used to it now. Afraid I won’t be able to sleep once I get back to Elk Park, it’ll be so quiet. Listen, did you find Marla? How’s she doing? How about Tony?” He sniffed. “Is that food? I’m starved. It feels as if all I eat here is oatmeal. Even if it’s beef stew, it tastes like oatmeal.”

  I wheeled his bed tray over and opened up the bags of spring rolls. My appetite had mysteriously left me, but Macguire’s was certainly healthy. When I scraped a metal chair over to his bedside, the snorer rumbled, stirred, and flopped over. “Things are pretty bad,” I began, as Macguire dug into his second roll. I told him what had happened to Marla.

  “Murder? Are you kidding?” Macguire exclaimed when I’d finished. He fell back on his pillow, then screeched, “Ouch!” He gaped at the ceiling. “That is just too far out. But Marla was beaten up? So … you think the same person hit me? But the cops think it was Marla? Marla wouldn’t hurt me, I mean, she likes me! Man, I guess I’m lucky to be alive.”

  “Maybe so. Please, Macguire, you’re going to have to try to remember if you saw anything else that night. Marla needs you.”

  Macguire pushed the food away and looked at the window, where fog nuzzled the glass like gray fur. His face crinkled in thought. “Okay,” he said, “there are a few things I’ve been thinking about, stuff I didn’t have time to tell you over the phone. It’s all kind of disconnected, but maybe you or Tom can make some sense out of it. Could you hand me my backpack, from that closet?”

  I hauled out the ragged maroon knapsack while he reached for a pad of paper on his nightstand. Then I glanced at my watch: just past noon. Time was going by too quickly. I wondered if Marla had reached her lawyer yet.

  “Do you remember Albert Lipscomb from the party?” I asked Macguire. “Is there any way you could have seen him at the campsite?”

  “Yeah, I remember him from the party. Bald guy,” Macguire replied as he leafed through his wallet. “Naw, I didn’t see him. All I saw were Marla and Royce. But I did take pictures before it got dark up there. I probably shouldn’t have, it was sort of invading Marla’s privacy, I guess. I mean, nobody’s actually hired me to do surveillance. But I thought it would be such a great idea – “

  “You took pictures?” I said sharply. “Where’s the camera? Where’s the film?”

  “Well, you’re not going to believe this.” He hoisted himself back up and gingerly touched his swollen cheek. “But I’d taken pictures of Elk Park graduation on the first part of one roll. So I took a bunch of pictures to finish that roll. When I reloaded the camera I put the first roll in my backpack and locked it in my trunk. When I got hit, I lost the stupid camera! Anyway, I stumbled out onto the road with my backpack, and I was all hurt and bloody and everything, and that guy in the truck picked me up and drove me down here – “

  I remembered De Groot’s rapid-fire questions of Marla on this point. I demanded, “What guy? Do you remember his name? What kind of truck was he driving.”

  Macguire furrowed the small part of his brow that was visible beneath the bandage. “Jeez, Goldy, chill! He told me his name was Wilbur Webster. Wilbur drove a red Toyota pickup. I told him I had to leave my film at the drop box down on Thirty-second and Youngfield. I even wrote Rush on the envelope. Wilbur thought I was some kind of nut. He asked if I was a spy.” Macguire gave me a self-satisfied, goofy smile. “I said, ‘Yeah, man, I gotta have pictures of this high school graduation wicked bad.’ And Wilbur said, ‘Well, you better try not to get too much blood on the envelope, or the photo people will call the cops.’ ” Macguire dug into his pack and handed me a wrinkled yellow chit. “Here’s the receipt. The pictures might be rea
dy by now. You can check that first roll out real closely, and see if, like, anyone else was at the campsite. Maybe I’m not such a bad investigator. Maybe Tom will want to hire me after all.”

  I took the receipt and carefully slipped it into my pocket. It was worth picking up the film, although I doubted there would be something on those photos. “But… you didn’t see anybody else. Just Tony and Marla. And they weren’t fighting.”

  “Yeah. No fighting. And they weren’t doing anything weird.” He blushed. “I mean, not that I would have watched, but I did hear a couple of things from Bitsy, including some kinky things about Tony Royce.”

  “Macguire, hush!” I hissed. Then: “What are you talking about? Did you hear about the Las Vegas stripper?”

  He readjusted himself in bed to get comfortable. “I’ll get to that part. You told me to ask Bitsy if there was anything else. Bitsy had lunch with Victoria Lear’s secretary, and they talked some more about the Eurydice IPO. The secretary said Victoria was a real go-getter, highly organized, had a tickler file and all that. According to the secretary, somebody got on Victoria’s case for jumping the gun on the initial public offering of stock for the Eurydice Gold Mine.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well. You know how Prospect made a lot of money on the Medigen IPO? Victoria explained to her secretary that Prospect claimed in the private placement prospectus for the Eurydice that they were going to take the mining venture public eventually. The implication was that that was how they would make their clients scads of money. So Victoria had just started on the paperwork, and then Victoria and some man had this real big fight. The two of them were yelling. Victoria Lear stormed out of her office, told her secretary she was going to tool around off-road so she could unwind. The secretary got a call to the front desk and didn’t see the guy who left Lear’s office. That was the last time anyone saw Victoria Lear alive.”

  “Oh, Macguire, did the secretary say what it was they argued about? Had Victoria discovered something? Was it anything to do with assay reports?”

  Macguire shook his head. “All the secretary remembers is that she heard Victoria yell something about World War Two.”

  “Great.” I listened to the roommate’s violent snores, theft sighed. “You said there was something else?”

  Macguire blushed. “This part is more like rumor. Hearsay. I mean, it’s pretty disgusting.”

  “I think I can handle it.”

  Macguire’s cheeks reddened. “Well, one day around Easter Mr. Royce asked Bitsy out for coffee, but Bitsy’s really into health food, so they went to get some tea at Alfalfa’s – ” He took one look at my impatient face and plunged on: “Anyway. Bitsy said Royce was kind of hitting on her, and she said it was a rush since he was like, the firm partner and all that. She was thinking maybe he’d give her a raise if they had sex. I mean, she wanted sexual harassment, if it would work for her. Do you believe that, in this day and age?”

  “Macguire, in this day and age, I think I’d believe anything.”

  “So before long they got to talking about whether it was lonely at the top. Pretty soon he was taking her out for herb tea just about every other day. Bitsy kept thinking they were, like, two steps from the sack. But then Royce confessed that he was looking for a certain kind of girl. The kind of girl he was looking for, well, he wanted to go out with a nurse, and did Bitsy have any friends who were in nursing school?”

  “And did she?” Macguire eased himself up in the bedcovers. “Better than that, Bitsy found him a med student. A woman named Elissa who’d gone to Elk Park Prep and then C.U. It was Elissa’s first year at C.U. Med School. Bitsy said that Elissa and Royce started to have this very kinky relationship.”

  “Bitsy told you all this?”

  “Yeah. You know why she told me? Because she was so pissed that Tony never gave her anything, like a finder’s fee, or something. I mean, she fixed them up in the first place, is the way she saw it.”

  I didn’t ask Macguire why Bitsy didn’t quit Prospect and just become a pimp, but I didn’t want to distract him from his story again. “So Tony was two-timing Marla and going out with this med student. Marla knew he had other girlfriends.” Did Eileen Tobey know? I wondered.

  Macguire heaved out an exasperated sigh. “Well, if I knew about this, and I was his girlfriend, I’d have shoved him into that creek.”

  “Marla knew he was dating around for a while, Macguire. This is old news. I just don’t understand why he wanted a nurse or med student.”

  He took a sip of water. “That’s the weird part. She would do medical procedures on him before they… you know, did it.”

  I closed my eyes, then opened them. “What kind of medical procedures?” I asked, keeping my voice even.

  “According to Elissa, Tony wanted his blood pressure taken, and his pulse, and his temperature – you know, vital signs. Then she would listen to his chest, test his reflexes – “

  “Macguire, please. That’s disgusting.”

  He touched his bandage. “They got together every Wednesday. Royce would have a room in his house all prepared. I mean, examination table, stethoscope, latex gloves, cotton balls, alcohol, sterile needles, blood pressure cuff, test tubes, thermometers, on and on. Bitsy was really disgusted when Elissa told her all this. Bitsy said she would have pretended to be a nurse for him, except he wanted the genuine article.”

  “So he had a medical fetish.”

  “The last thing the med student did before they had sex was to take his temperature. Tony wanted to know if he was really hot.”

  “Macguire, enough.”

  “I told you it was kinky.”

  “I’ll try to follow up on the IPO stuff, anyway.”

  We were both aware that a change had come over the room. It was like a siren stopping beside the car behind you. First the siren squeals in your ears, then you get used to it, then you wonder what happened to it. With one movement, Macguire and I turned our heads toward the roommate’s bed.

  A gray-haired man leaned up on one blue-pajamaed elbow in the bed. His eyes were wide and his mouth gaped. Perspiration beaded his forehead.

  “Are you okay?” I asked anxiously.

  He rasped, “Did she take his temperature orally or anally?”

  Ten minutes later I had said good-bye to Macguire and was heading toward a hospital pay phone. I had less than five hours before the general was due at the house. Less than five hours to figure out what was going on, less than five hours before I went outside the law and tried to help Marla. I would need as much information as possible before that time came. I sat down in one of the lobby phone booths and tried to think.

  Except for the goat scheme a couple of years ago, everything at Prospect Financial had been going well. Going well, that is, until the firm decided to put money into the Eurydice. And why had the firm decided to put three and a half mil into a mine that had been closed for decades? Because Albert had inherited both the place and the fervent belief that it was chock-a-block with gold ore. His enthusiasm had been empirically borne out by the geology and assay reports that he and Tony had commissioned. It hadn’t been difficult to be both promoter and investment company. With Medigen, Prospect Financial Partners had already proven they had the Midas touch, and thirty-five clients had been more than eager to put up a hundred thousand each to make another killing.

  But then Chief Investment Officer Victoria Lear had died suddenly while working on the Eurydice IPO. Marla had found a discrepancy in the assays. Albert had disappeared with the investors’ money. Now Tony, too, was missing under suspicious circumstances. And Marla was being made the scapegoat.

  Begin at the beginning, I thought. A month ago, Victoria Lear had been working on an initial public offering of stock for the mine venture. I punched the buttons for the Bank of Aspen Meadow and asked to speak with Eileen Tobey on a matter of great fiscal urgency.

  “It’s your caterer,” I said breathlessly, when Eileen finally came on the line. “Just have a quick question, but i
t’s really, really important. What do you know about initial public offerings? What do you have to do to make one happen?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Goldy, I’m busy!” Eileen snapped. Then her voice changed. “Look, I’ve got an important meeting in five minutes. But… I heard a nasty rumor about our mutual friend, Marla Korman.”

  “Really.” My heart hardened; bad news sure traveled fast in the high country. No matter how busy you were, apparently, meetings couldn’t proceed until people were up on their gossip.

  Eileen’s voice was like syrup. “I’ll tell you what you want to know if you’ll tell me it’s true she knifed Tony Royce.”

  “It’s not true,” I said emphatically. “But she is in jail. Now listen,” I plunged on before she could ask any more questions, “I don’t want to keep you, Eileen. If I were a venture capital firm, and I’d done a private placement and raised a bunch of money to reopen a mine, what would I have to do to take the venture public?”

  “Hmm. I don’t suppose this has to do with a certain venture capital firm we all know and love?”

  “Just tell me what I’d need for an IPO. Please,” I added.

  She took a deep breath and assumed an authoritative tone. “Very simply, the firm would hand the whole thing over to an investment banker, who would, among other things, hire an independent auditor to check all the facts presented in the prospectus.”