The Corpse Next Door

by John Farris

  “I hope it’s a boy,” I said politely.

  At this, she moved around and lurched to her feet like a colt learning to walk. She had hair only a little darker than orange peel and a sagging chin and pouches under her eyes. She looked about thirty-five.

  “Goddam sonbitch,” she muttered, shivering. “Gon’ sue goddam sonbitch drive so fast.” She slipped and fell against me, legs dragging. “I’m dying.”

  I picked her up and carried her out of the ditch, placing my feet carefully on the slippery bank. I carried her across the road and tucked her away in my Oldsmobile. On the floor of the back seat. I didn’t want my seat covers ruined. She was due to puke her head off.

  It was raining harder as I climbed back down the bank. Fisher was still beside his car. He stood there in the rain with water dripping from his hair, his forehead lined with pain, his teeth chattering. He looked bad.

  He put his hands over his handsome face. “Ah, God,” he wailed. “I’ve got another damned headache.” He took his hands away and turned toward the car and took three steps alongside it, then slipped in the mud. He kneeled beside the back fender and looked at me as if I had interrupted his evening prayer.

  “What are you looking at?” he cried, his eyes squinting and wild. “Like fingers squeezing my head . . . What are you looking at, you dirty son of a bitch?” He got to his feet and floundered around the car and jerked open the front door, half-fell into the front seat, reached out a hand to open the glove compartment. He groped inside. Rain hit against the roof and made a loose wet curtain covering the door space. His feet scrambled a little on the ground. He took out a small bottle, uncapped it, and white pills gleamed in his muddy palm. He swallowed them, put his face against the seat in a vise formed by his arms. He stayed that way for about a minute, then slipped out of the car, turned his head and vomited. It lasted a long time, or maybe it just seemed long, standing in the rain. Finally he crawled away from his regurgitation and lay down in a cradle of wet weeds. I went over to him and took him by the shoulder. His face was composed. The vomiting seemed to have done him some good. One of his eyes, the one I could see, opened a little.

  “Take me home,” he said.

  So I went out of the ditch again. The truckman stood in the road, his flashlight pointed at the blacktop.

  “Wasn’t nobody hurt much, was they?” he said.

  “No,” I said. “I need some help now. I have to haul out a man. I don’t think I can manage by myself.”

  He came with me, walking behind me. “I should have gone down in the ditch, I know it,” he said apologetically. “Everybody’s afraid of something. I guess I’m just most afraid of seein’ hurt people.”

  “You think I’m afraid of something?” I said.

  “Why,” he said surprised, “why, I don’t know.”

  The hell he didn’t. He could smell it on me, like a dog can. But he couldn’t know why, and I didn’t know, myself.

  3

  THE GIRL who looked out at me had straight black hair, cut very short, expressive blue eyes, and a small mouth. Her face was narrower than most, but she was a tall girl and it looked all right. Her breasts rose high and pointed, under some kind of black skintight pullover sweater without sleeves. She was Nathan Fisher’s sister, and she was very beautiful. She frowned slightly at me as if she couldn’t quite remember where she had known me, and wanted to remember.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Sergeant Bill Randall.” I explained myself.

  “Why . . . yes.” She smiled at me, a good sort of mischievous smile as if we were sharing a racy secret. “You were in charge of”—a shadow over the shrewd smiling blue eyes—“Mr. Smithell’s murder.”

  “The investigation. That’s right.”

  The door opened more. Her legs were long and slimly curved, revealed by high-cut white shorts. “Come in, Sergeant. What can I do for you?”

  “Thank you. It’s about your brother.”

  “Nathan?” I noticed the tightening of her long trim fingers around the doorknob, the quick uncertain change of tone in her voice.

  “Yes. He—he was in an accident.” Goddam, Bill, quick before she passes out. “I mean, it was nothing serious. He’s not hurt. He was driving a little fast and hit a soft shoulder. I happened to be around. I brought him home. He’s asleep in my car.”

  She had sagged momentarily against the door. Now she straightened, stood tall in front of me. A smile fluttered. “Oh,” she sighed.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was clumsy about telling you. I always am with these things.”

  “That’s all right.” The smile was firm, and for me. “Shall we get Nathan out of your car? It’s not raining so hard now.”

  “I think it’s just about stopped.”

  I stood aside as she walked through the big door. She was slim and tall and I admired the sleek long movements of her legs. Her walk was spoiled somewhat by a limp. But I noticed that her bad ankle had become a lot better since the night of the Smithell murder.

  The light went on when I opened the car door and she leaned inside, her lips parting in a grimace as she saw the cut over Nathan’s eye. She looked over the front seat at the woman sprawled in the back and then again at Nathan almost immediately, her eyes empty. She raised one hand and touched fingers to the dried cut. Her face was gentle. She took him by the shoulder and shook him lightly.

  “Nathan. Nathan!”

  His eyes came open some and he looked at her. His mouth formed a loose smile. “Umm,” he said. “Hi.” He settled a little more in the front seat and closed his eyes again and went back to sleep.

  She looked back at me, helplessly.

  “I’ll carry him,” I said.

  Upstairs I sat Nathan on the edge of his bed and Karis Fisher deftly undressed him. He was half awake, offered no help or resistance. She coaxed him into his pajamas and we put him to bed. Then she took a damp cloth from the adjoining bathroom and sponged his face. She didn’t seem upset by her brother’s condition. I guessed this was not the first time she had seen him that way.

  I looked around his bedroom, noting the single bed. I remembered the heavy square ring that Fisher wore. His wife had given Nathan that ring, the ring he had left in a bathroom of Leland Smithell’s house the night Smithell had been killed, which was why he returned to the Smithell house and discovered the man’s body.

  “What about his wife?” I asked.

  She looked at me, her eyes frightened. “What about—who?”

  “Nathan’s wife. The one who gave him the ring. Are they . . .”

  “Oh,” she said, relieved. “You mean Kelly Anne. I thought you were talking about . . . that thing in the car. That would have been going too far.” She finished adjusting the covers about him, bent and kissed his forehead ligtly. “Even for Nathan.”

  She took the washcloth into the bath, began turning out lights. I waited in the hallway for her as she closed the door carefully.

  “Nathan’s wife died about a year ago,” she said. “Right here in the house, during some silly little party. Kelly Anne had a very bad heart and everybody knew it. She was right in the middle of a drink and she just folded up. Dr. Einhorn was here, too. He’d been treating her. He said she was probably dead before she hit the floor. Too much strain or something. Her heart failed. Nathan was grief-stricken. He loved her very much. I’m afraid he didn’t get much love back. I guess Kelly Anne was all right in her way. A flashy type blonde, stunning figure. She just didn’t care much about anything except Kelly Anne.”

  There was a gleam of dislike in her eye, dislike that apparently hadn’t softened any with the passing of a year.

  “Should she have been drinking if she had a heart condition?”

  “No, but that was Kelly Anne for you. She said a bad heart wasn’t going to make an invalid of her. She carried on as if she had a spare one in her purse. Nathan worried himself sick about her. He gave her a lot of love. I don’t know what she gave him. I guess I couldn’t understand.” At
the top of the stairs she turned to me. “Maybe you think I’m not upset when Nathan’s like that. But I am. Nathan’s really a fine man. He has a promising career ahead. He . . . just gets tired, sometimes.” Her chin trembled a little. “I guess I should be glad it doesn’t happen more often. I wish he would forget her. I wish he would.”

  “Don’t you think he needs a doctor? He complained about a headache.”

  “No. I wouldn’t bother Dr. Einhorn about it. Nathan needs sleep more than anything else. He has those headaches now and then. He works far too hard. He’s running for Works Commissioner in the fall, you know. Sometimes he goes over forty hours without rest. That contributes as much as anything to his . . . lapses. Maybe when the elections are over things will become more normal.”

  “I guess it’s none of my business, but this sort of thing isn’t so good for him politically.”

  Her eyes were troubled. “Do you think that woman—”

  “I doubt if she’s aware of who he is. He’s liable to get hold of a smart one some day, though, who would talk to anybody for the right price. That would be bad.”

  “I know, I know,” she said miserably. “I can’t predict what Nathan will do next. I try to look after him, make him take time out for golf, or just loafing. He doesn’t really care about drinking. He just . . . has to. It must be lonely for him, despite his public life. We live here alone, since mother died about a year and a half ago. But Nathan and I were raised in this house and I hate to give it up.”

  We stood less than a foot apart, sharing a comfortable feeling of intimacy undisturbed by an awareness of being strangers.

  “It must be lonely for you, too.”

  She sat on the top step, patted the carpet beside her. I sat down, too.

  “No, not really. There’s always something to do in Cheyney or up at State. Parties and weddings. I guess I have the usual number of boy friends.”

  “But no one in particular?”

  She gave me a curious glance. “No. There never has been. Later, maybe. Right now there’s Nathan to think about.”

  “You’re not still in college?”

  “No. I graduated two years ago. I went to Smith my first year—” She smiled. “Mother insisted. Both she and grandmother graduated from Smith. But I was homesick and I got tired of all those Ivy League types. I finished up at State.” The sadness seemed to have left her. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “No, thanks, Miss Fisher, I . . .”

  She tugged at my hand. “Come on,” she said urgently. “And don’t call me Miss Fisher. My name’s Karis. It’s sort of silly, but that’s what mother wanted.”

  “I like it,” I said, smiling a little. “Just one cup, and I’ll go.”

  I followed her down the stairs. She walked carefully, favoring her injured ankle, supporting herself with one hand on the banister. Near the bottom of the stairs I put my hands around her waist and lifted her the rest of the way down.

  “Ah,” she said, “muscles.”

  “Yeah. That ankle still pretty bad?” I asked, embarrassed a little.

  “It’s coming along. What a whack I gave it!”

  “How did it happen?”

  “Right after Nathan discovered Mr. Smithell was dead he came running back here. He yelled up to me from the front hallway. I thought the house was on fire, or something, so I threw on a robe and came running. My legs got all tangled up somehow and I hit my ankle against the banister post at the top of the stairs. I thought I’d die. That was a bad night for me. Seeing Mr. Smithell dead like that after we had just left him. It makes me feel morbid thinking about it. And that boy. I heard he hanged himself.”

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head dolefully. “I heard it on the radio. The whole news broadcast was depressing. This is just one of those gloomy nights. I’m glad you happened along, Bill. Kitchen’s this way.”

  She took me by the hand and smiled at me. I was glad I had happened along, too.

  But why all the confiding in me? Why so friendly? I’m not that pretty.

  “Maybe I ought to skip the coffee. That woman in the car is pretty sick,” I said.

  Karis dropped my hand.

  ACCORDING TO AN ID CARD IN HER WALLET, WHICH SHE WORE attached to the belt of her slacks, the woman lived in an apartment on Foster Street, one block from the Katy yards. I took her there and shook her awake and guided her out of my car and up two flights of stairs, supporting her when she got the staggers. She chirped and cooed and giggled and moaned all the way.

  When I got her inside her door she sat down on the floor with her feet sticking out in the hall and I couldn’t talk her into getting up. I should have left her like that. Instead I picked her up and carried her into the bedroom.

  I sat her on the bed and she got up immediately and went for the bathroom like somebody had pulled the cork. I noticed that there were signs of a man living with her.

  When she came back she was wearing only the soggy sweater. She collapsed on the bed and got comfortable.

  “I’m all weak,” she said. “All weak. Undress me.”

  I took hold of the sweater with some reluctance and pulled and wrenched and tugged and it came off. I hung it over the back of a chair.

  “You’re nice to me,” she said. “He wasn’t nice. He prop-as-uh-properishuned me.”

  “A sweet kid like you,” I said. “Imagine.”

  I put her head on the pillow and pulled a sheet over her. She opened her eyes and giggled, wrapped her arms around my neck.

  “Hee, hee, hee,” she said. “He’s not nice, like you. Get in with me?”

  “Some other time,” I said.

  But she found the strength to pull my head down and she kissed me on the nose, her mouth closing over the tip of it.

  Hearing a noise, I removed the arms and straightened up. I turned toward the doorway. A man was standing there. A large man wearing denims, a khaki shirt. Hair puffed out at the throatline. His thick forearms were covered with it.

  “He took my pants off me, Harry,” the dame said, to get us off to a lively start. Hee, hee, hee.

  “Who are you?” he said mildly.

  “Detective Sergeant Bill Randall,” I said, grinning foolishly. “The little lady was in an auto accident. I brought her home.”

  He looked from me to her. She had turned over on her stomach and seemed to be asleep.

  “Well, I guess I’ll be going.” I walked toward the door. He stepped aside without looking at me. “That’s quite a girl,” I said, just to be saying something.

  “You ought to be married to her,” he said quietly, without turning his head.

  “Hee, hee, hee,” the redhead giggled, the sound of it muffled because her face was in the pillow.

  I MADE IT MY BUSINESS TO CALL ON NATHAN FISHER THE next morning. He had a couple of small rooms in the Times Publishing Company building above the pressroom. I went through an outer door with a long ugly crack in the glass like a sudden pain and found myself looking at a young man with waved blond hair and pale blue eyes who sat behind a secretary’s desk in one corner of the room.

  He had a flat briefcase in his lap and a .38 caliber revolver in a holster under one arm. I couldn’t see the gun but I knew the man and knew he always carried it.

  His name was Walsh and he looked after Dan Campion, who had been governor of the state a number of years ago, then a senator in Washington. Campion was after another term as governor, which was probably the reason for his visit to Nathan, who was in line for nomination as State Works Commissioner on the Campion ticket.

  Walsh nodded my way. “Randall.”

  “Hello, Walsh. How long has that been going on?”

  He looked toward the door of Nathan’s office. Campion’s pale silhouette moved over the glass as he walked restlessly around inside.

  “All morning.” A twist of his arm gave him the time, and he frowned slightly. “They’re about due to break it up. Dan’s got a lunch date over in Wescott in forty-five minutes.” He l
ooked at me amiably through the smoke from a cigarette. “You come to see Dan’s boy?”

  I nodded. The voices of the two men inside were audible but muffled. “Strategy meeting?” I said.

  “Big rally up in Kell County, the twenty-third. Dan’s charting the plays.”

  “How does Nathan stack up in this state?” I said.

  Walsh shrugged. “I don’t need to tell you about politics, do I? Nathan works hard, he has that certain flair that makes votes stick to him. He’s sincere, but he doesn’t let that get in the way of ambition. The only drawback is, he’s young. Mr. East and Mr. West like their boys more mature and not so gung ho. But Campion’s softening them up. If he brings those two around, Nathan’s got it knocked. He’ll be right next door to the big office before you know it. He’ll learn a lot from Dan up there. I’d say things look good for him, if he doesn’t pull a fruitcake somewhere.”

  “Yeah,” I said. Walsh was watching me with his customary eager-beagle look, his face still and alert, as if he was waiting for me to say something more. The door from Nathan’s office opened suddenly, diverting Walsh’s attention. He swung out of his chair easily.

  Nathan and Dan Campion came out. They both nodded, but Nathan seemed too absorbed in something Campion was saying to pay much attention to me. After the ex-governor and Walsh had left, Nathan stared at me a moment, then said, “Come on inside, Randall.”

  I went. Nathan’s office was furnished simply, with a second-hand desk that needed varnish, a few chairs and a large filing cabinet. There was a framed picture of his sister on the desk.

  Nathan offered me a cigarette, took one for himself. I looked him over critically. His face was carefully shaved, but his eyes were watery and tired.

  “How’re you feeling?” I said.

  He snorted and managed a smile, blinked at smoke that hovered near his eyes. “Like my joints are eggshell. Big rag rug in my mouth.” He drew on the cigarette, looked at it with distaste and flipped it into an empty wastebasket.

  “We hauled your car out of the ditch,” I said. “Minor damage. You can claim it in the garage back of the jail. Cost you five dollars for towing.”