The Main Corpse gbcm-6

by Diane Mott Davidson

  The general groaned sympathetically, but glanced at her expectantly, as in, Well? How many times did you stab him?

  Marla’s tone was frosty and deliberate. “I don’t know who hit me, I don’t know why, I don’t know who hit Macguire, I don’t know who put the bloody shirt and knife in my car. I didn’t take Tony’s damn watch, and I certainly don’t know where Tony is.” She glared at us.

  Another uncomfortable silence filled the Jeep. “Jake could f-i-n-d Mr. Royce,” Arch spelled out confidently.

  “Dead or alive,” the general whispered. “So what are we going to do?” Marla asked angrily. “Go back to Goldy’s house and wait for Tony to call?”

  Twenty minutes had elapsed, and Marla’s heartbeat, if not her humor, was in good shape. I took a deep breath. “Okay, look. You were attacked by a bald person. Maybe it was Albert. Maybe it was someone else. Tony’s vanished. I think our only hope is to go back to the campsite. The Furman County Sheriffs Department has access to just one bloodhound these days – “

  “Oh, yeah!” Arch interrupted. “The police in Aurora asked to borrow that dog a couple of weeks ago, and the handler’s been involved down there, so they haven’t been able to work that dog up in the mountains – “

  “Are you kidding?” Marla exclaimed.

  “Look, Marla,” I protested, “it’s our only hope.”

  “What is our only hope?” she squealed. “Going back to that damned campsite? In this weather? To look for what? Besides,” she added sarcastically, “I thought Arch’s dog was retired. Something about how he’d become untrustworthy. Please tell me I’m wrong.”

  Jake, sensing he was being discussed, began to whine. Perhaps the canine was smarter than I was giving him credit for.

  Arch piped up, “Jake just had trouble with three trails last year! It was because the department got a new handler who didn’t know what he was doing. Jake was mistreated and got all nervous. The department thought his smeller was off. But Tom and I know that isn’t true.”

  “I think we should try to track Tony’s movements,” I said. I added mentally, And rely on Jake’s smeller not being off.

  “Mom’s finally beginning to understand what Jake can do,” Arch said with an eagerness that made me uneasy. “See, even with the trail going to the creek, we should be able to locate the body. In the water, I mean. All that stuff in movies about prisoners getting rid of their scent? You know, by wading in a stream or something? That is completely wrong. You leave your scent in the water just as much as you do on the ground. See, bloodhounds can follow the trail along the creek – “

  To my astonishment, Marla burst into tears. “My life is hell,” she wailed.

  “Please stop,” I murmured. “Please don’t, you’ll just – “

  “Who is trying to ruin my life?” she bawled. “What did I do?”

  “Don’t try to talk,” I told her gently. Bo pulled into the far right lane and slowed slightly until we came to a lighted green highway sign.

  “All right, listen to me,” the general began, as he peered through the mist. “Goldy’s plan is good. We go to the site. We track Tony to the last place he was seen. Maybe he was kidnapped. We track him to where a car j picked him up. Or say he was killed, thrown in a ditch. . Ditto. Then whoever did it must be the one who planted the evidence implicating Marla. Arch, you said you and Tom have worked with Jake. You don’t think the dog’s unreliable, do you? We’re all telling the truth here, young man.”

  “Okay, look. Jake had a couple of problems our first time out,” Arch admitted. “He got confused by a pool scent. But he did better after that.”

  “My number-one priority on this trek is to keep everyone safe,” General Bo announced fiercely. “With you first, Arch. I promised your mother. You take care of Jake. I’ll take care of you. Okay?”

  “All right,” Arch replied angrily. “You don’t need to baby me.”

  I said, “We’re just looking for clues that De Groot and Hersey might have missed. And to track Tony’s last movements. Maybe with Marla gone, the sheriffs department will search a little harder for Albert.”

  I looked tentatively at Marla. Her face was set in deep doubt. No point in discussing any more until we got to the site. But to do that the fastest way, we had to go into Aspen Meadow and turn onto the state highway that led to Blue Spruce and the Grizzly Creek campsite.

  We rounded the lake. I held my breath as we began the descent to the light on Aspen Meadow’s Main Street.

  “Christ,” muttered General Farquhar. He pointed and I felt my heart clench. The law, it seemed, had already arrived on my street. Two patrol cars, lights whirling, were double-parked by the turnoff to our home.

  The light at the intersection of Main Street and the highway leading to Blue Spruce and Grizzly Creek changed to red. With no place to turn around and the light against him, General Farquhar rocketed the Jeep through the intersection. He swerved wildly around a Volvo with a Kansas license plate, then barely missed a pickup truck as he plowed down the left lane. I guessed he was trying to find enough room to make a U-turn. He finally careened onto the sidewalk in front of the Aspen Meadow Cafe, plowed down a bush, and gunned the Jeep back up Main Street. Behind us, a siren sounded.

  At the light, an enormous Safeway truck lumbered into the slow, tortuous turn toward the lake. The Jeep tires squealed as General Bo darted wide around the truck. The truck driver, confused by the Jeep’s sudden appearance, braked. All traffic was suddenly blocked as we zipped through the narrow opening made by the truck. Bo veered left, heading west on the highway. Belatedly, the truck driver let loose with his horn. Drivers on three sides joined in the cacophony.

  “What was that about keeping everybody safe?” I yelled. No one listened to me.

  When we had gone less than a hundred yards, General Farquhar gunned the Jeep up the grass-covered hill next to the road. We slammed through a flimsy wire fence and careened across private property. For the next ten minutes, the general took us through two more yards and then across back roads until we came to the acreage of Furman County Open Space property. We met with some strange looks and barking dogs, but no police cars and no angry-tempered Coloradans wielding .357 Magnums. Thank heaven.

  “Do you know where we’re going?” I asked, once we were on a pathway that cut through a county-owned meadow. Bo did not answer. The overgrown, muddy path was sort of an off-road road. The Jeep wove around rocks and smashed back through someone else’s fence before returning to a rural paved road that eventually intersected the highway leading northwest out of town. Maybe he did know where he was going.

  We drove the next forty minutes in near silence. Carl’s Trout Pond, High Country Auto Repair, and Blue Spruce all whizzed past. The road climbed until a sign swathed in tendrils of mist announced we were driving through national forest. At seven-thirty, we would have less than another hour of daylight. It was extremely unlikely that the police would still be at the campsite. When Tom had a team of investigators at the scene of a crime, they rarely stayed past a few hours, long enough to take photographs, make a videotape, and collect evidence.

  At a dirt road where a collection of dilapidated signs stood propped like abandoned rakes, General Farquhar finally slowed. The rusty markers with their skewed arrows named a host of camps, picnic areas, and campsites that included Grizzly Creek. Grunting, Bo negotiated the razorback turn to get onto the dirt road. We jolted over a wooden bridge. Less than a foot below us, muddy, swollen Grizzly Creek teemed and foamed.

  After crossing the creek, we wound swiftly upward through national forest. Occasionally, the fog cleared, revealing vistas of rock-strewn steppes and hillsides dense with evergreens. Stands of lovely white-skinned aspens randomly interrupted the green. We came into a narrow canyon where lodgepole and ponderosa pines stretched up bluffs on either side of the road. There were no cars, bicycles, or hikers. I dreaded the prospect of all the unknown territory out there – even more than I feared arriving at the campsite.

  “You n
eed to show me where you turned off,” General Bo told Marla, and she pointed mutely to a still narrower, unmarked dirt road. We rocked through muddy ditches, turned and once again found ourselves next to Grizzly Creek, this time heading upstream. We paralleled the bloated waterway until it disappeared upward into a ravine. The water crashing over rocks roared so loudly we could hear it inside the car. We pulled up to a rough parking area lined with logs. Marla drew in a ragged breath. Arch leaned forward to peer outside.

  Arch told General Bo to cut the engine immediately. My son said, “Carbon monoxide from the engine exhaust can destroy the scent at the site. All the rain will make Tony’s scent stronger. A person drops individual bacteria and skin cells everywhere he goes,” Arch added. “When there’s little wind, no car exhaust, and a lot of moisture, the trail of a person’s movement can be detected for a long time, even weeks.” Even, as I had just learned, if he’s gone into or through water.

  My eyes skimmed the abandoned campsite. Because we had climbed from the main road, what had been a lowlying gray cloud just above us was now a mist drifting between the pines. A picnic table had been upended, either by campers or by the investigators. Bits of tissue, crusts of food, and torn paper plates spotted the mud. It looked as if the trash can had been emptied. My guess was that this had been done in search of evidence.

  “Okay, I’m going to get out first,” General Bo announced. He emerged stealthily from the Jeep and checked every corner of the campsite. His movements were hawklike, aggressive.

  General Bo signaled to us to come. Jake began to snort excitedly. When Marla opened her door, I nodded to Arch, who hopped out with Jake in tow. I glanced at the cellular phone on the floor of the front seat. Call Tom now or later? I was going to call him, I was determined. I jumped out of the Jeep. Later.

  Arch crouched next to Jake and murmured. Marla limped over to the creek and stood next to the raging water with her arms hugging her body. Arch reached into his backpack and pulled out his dog-handling gloves, then the working harness, which he snapped into place around Jake’s powerful torso. My son’s face was serious. I suspected he was beginning to understand the possible consequences of what we had done – or what we might find.

  The general strode back to the Jeep and pulled out a large backpack on a frame. He hooked his arms through the metal support and fixed the straps around his waist. I took a deep breath of the cold, moist air and tried to think. Arch had told me that the record for a bloodhound tracking was one hundred forty miles in a day. Before darkness obliterated this fog, I doubted we’d go

  more than a tiny fraction of that distance.

  At Arch’s request, General Bo hauled out the bulging plastic bag that held Tony Royce’s pants. Bo signaled to me to come, then handed Arch the bag and reached into his pocket for a tightly folded laminated map. In the gathering gloom we squinted at the map: Ragged red lines marked Grizzly Creek, Bride’s Creek, Clear Creek; blue lines indicated the back roads; a double yellow line showed Interstate 70. To the west lay Idaho Springs; to the east, Aspen Meadow. Bo looked up and scowled.

  “You ready?” I asked him. He nodded. In one fluid motion, Arch expertly opened the bag and clutched it from the bottom so that the open end was near Jake’s nose. Don’t ever overwhelm a bloodhound with scent, he’d told me. You just give him a whiff; and that’s enough. Arch held up the bag and leaned toward his dog. Then I was startled to hear my son’s mature command cut through the fog.

  “Find!”

  And off Jake went, glossy nose to the ground, long ears brushing the mud, long brown legs swaying from side to side. The hound cast around for a moment, then, tail curled up, ambled purposefully up the path away from the creek. Sensing that something was finally happening, Marla pulled away from her somber contemplation of the creek’s edge. Thirty feet beyond, Jake made his way with determination up the hill. The dog tugged so hard on the leash that Arch’s arms were straight and taut. Maybe I should have called Tom. But what would I have said to him? Arch and I are trying to pick up on the trail of a guy who might be dead. With us are a) my friend who’s been accused of murdering the maybe-dead guy, b) her brother-in-law who was so crazy the Pentagon dumped him and you sent him to prison, and c) a bloodhound the police retired for being unreliable. Wish you were here! I sighed deeply and trotted toward the path. Marla called that she would follow at a slower pace.

  Within moments the campsite was gone from view. I tried to recall the most Arch had tracked with Tom and Jake in a day. Two miles? Five miles? Far above the fog, the sun was beginning its decline to the west, and soon the light we did have would drain away. I wished I’d checked our exact location on the map.

  My feet slipped on the dense, slick carpet of pine needles, and I stopped to wait for Marla. By the time she caught up with me, the mist was thickening to a light rain. Our scraggly company halted when Jake snuffled in an erratic circle. I hustled up in Arch’s direction, then walked beside him as Jake scrambled over a cluster of rocks. Abruptly, the dog stopped by a pile of granite outcroppings.

  “Pool scent,” Arch muttered under his breath. “Maybe he or they sat down here.”

  Increasingly excited, Jake continued to wheel in a tight circle. I looked up into the pines. Every now and then the object of a search would climb a tree, as Arch’s friend Todd had done on a trail only last week. The last thing I needed was to stare down the barrel of a gun aimed at me by Albert Lipscomb. But the lodgepoles and ponderosas were empty. The trees stood with perfect, eerie stillness in the swirling mist.

  “Wait!” came General Farquhar’s brusque command. He was peering at the ground. “Arch, pull Jake up.” Arch obliged. “There’s something here,” the general insisted.

  I walked carefully over the sodden ground to where Bo and Marla stood by the granite outcroppings. “Marla,” I said as I stared at the ground, “would you reach into the pack and bring out the plastic bags?” Bo dropped down on his knees to make the backpack accessible, and Marla awkwardly unzipped the pack and dug around until she found the cardboard box of Ziplocs, which she handed to me. I impatiently opened the box, carefully removed one bag, and unfolded it over my hand. Then I reached down and snatched the object from the ground, folding the bag up and over, the way I had seen Tom do.

  Jake started off again. General Bo stood quite still and looked at the plastic bag in my hand. Then he snared me in the spell of his eyes. In the fading light, I carefully maneuvered my hand around the article I’d picked up.

  Marla stared at the bag in disbelief. I couldn’t compute what was there. Any graduate of Med Wives 101 knows that, my inner voice reprimanded. What I held in my outstretched hand was a Vacutainer tube, the kind used in blood tests. The nurse sticks you with the hypodermic needle, draws out your blood, and it goes into a sterilized plastic tube. If you’re in for a complete physical, first she fills one tube, then another. The tubes are labeled and capped: one to have your hemoglobin checked, another your thyroid, and so on.

  But this was one plastic Vacutainer tube only, and it was broken. The shards were covered with dried blood.

  17

  Marla spoke first. “So what does all this mean?” she demanded impatiently. “Is that Tony’s blood? Albert’s? Or somebody else’s?”

  “Here’s my best guess,” I said. “This tube?” I pointed. “This is where the blood came from that ended up spilled all over the shirt in your trunk.”

  “But whose blood is it?” she repeated impatiently. Before any of us could answer, however, Jake darted off: away from the granite outcropping, up the hillside path. Tugged along by his dog, Arch yelled for us to follow. General Bo gave one quick shake of his head, leapt to his feet, and jogged up the path in pursuit. I held Marla’s arm as the two of us struggled to follow.

  The rain thickened to icy drops. Thunder rumbled overhead. The shaggy pine needles overhanging the path trembled as the chill rain pelted downward. I pulled up my jacket collar and looked anxiously up the trail for Arch.

  “Safety ale
rt,” Bo called down to Marla and me. “We shouldn’t be out in a forest, at this altitude, in a lightning storm.” We mumbled assent, and Bo called for Arch to pull Jake up. Then Bo loudly summoned us to a retreat action. “Back to the Jeep, everybody! Time to get dry and look at the map!”

  I made a U-turn on the path. No matter what you were doing, it seemed, the general wanted to be in charge. The rain leaked down my collar. My skin was chilling as fast as the thin membrane of ice that forms on Aspen Meadow Lake each November. Thunder boomed again, much closer this time.

  I hustled up to Arch, who was unfastening the leash from Jake’s working harness. Talking quietly to his dog, Arch then removed the harness itself. This was Jake’s signal that the day’s tracking was over. I held the working harness while Arch clipped on Jake’s regular collar.

  “You’re done, boy, good boy,” Arch murmured. “Dinner soon. I hope.”

  As we ran back toward the car, Jake’s whines at being pulled off the trail almost rivaled the boom of the creek. Did I really want to find Tony? Yes, I said to myself as I gritted my teeth. I did. Dead or alive. I needed to know the truth.

  “Lord,” said Marla when we were all packed back into the car. “I’m an icicle in an orange prison suit.”

  I pointed to the storage area behind the back seat. “I brought a bag from your house. Extra sweaters, dry clothes.” She mumbled a thanks but only hugged herself for warmth.

  After snapping on both the overhead and dashboard lights, the general wiped the laminated map and offered it to me. He asked gruffly, “So what’s the next part of the plan, Goldy? Now that both rain and night are falling?”

  I tried to sound confident as I took the map. “Just give me a minute.” On the seat between Arch and me, Jake shook himself and nudged closer.

  Marla was immediately dubious. “What are we doing, a scavenger hunt? Or is this an off-road trip? How long do you think it’s going to take the sheriffs department to swoop down on us?”