The Richard Deming Mystery Megapack

by Richard Deming

  It was about forty feet to the guard rail. The car picked up speed nicely and crashed through the wooden barrier as though it were cardboard. The sound of vegetation being torn out by the roots ended in a tremendous crash from below.

  We raced back to the jalopy, Ambrose backed and turned, and we headed back the way we had come.

  “Maybe we should have kept going the other way,” he said worriedly as we reached the next turn. “We have to drive right past where it landed, and maybe it’s blocked the road.”

  “It probably just bounced and kept going,” I said. “There’s another small drop on the other side.”

  We rounded another curve, and now were right below the hairpin turn. A fender, a wheel and a lot of broken glass littered the road. Presumably the rest of the car had continued on across the road, over the next bank and down into the underbrush below us. We couldn’t see down there because it was too dark.

  Ambrose slowed to five miles an hour in order to edge past the debris. A tall figure slid on the seat of his pants from the undergrowth sloping upward to our right. Ambrose braked to a dead halt.

  The man picked himself up, brushed off his pants and staggered over to the window on my side of the car. His clothing was pretty well torn up, but otherwise he seemed unharmed.

  Leaning his head into the car, he said, “I say, gentlemen, I seem to have had a bit of an accident. Must have gone to sleep.”

  He was looking straight at me with no sign of recognition. Apparently he was one of those drunks who blank out, because he obviously had no recollection of our previous encounter.

  “I’m not exactly sure where I am,” he said in a tone of apology. “Do you happen to know?”

  “Glen Ridge,” I said.

  “Oh, yes.” He glanced around vaguely. “I recognize it now. I say, do you suppose that’s part of my car?” He was looking at the smashed green fender.

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “No point in looking for the rest. I doubt that it will run.” I got out of the car. “Get in.”

  “Why that’s very nice of you gentlemen,” he said, climbing into the middle. “May I buy you gentlemen a drink?”

  “We have one,” I said, handing him the bourbon bottle.

  He took a grateful swig as Ambrose started the car. When he handed the bottle back, I took a swig, too. Ambrose lifted his Scotch bottle from the floor and had a drink.

  “What now?” I asked Ambrose.

  “I’m thinking,” he said.

  “I think I must have been heading for the country club,” Dobbs said, “but I can’t go in these clothes. Would you gentlemen mind dropping me at my boat?”

  “What boat?” Ambrose asked.

  “I keep it at the Lakeshore Yacht Club.” Suddenly his face brightened with inspiration. “Do you gentlemen enjoy night fishing?”

  Even as dark as it was I could see the interest in Ambrose’s face. “What kind of boat do you have?”

  “Just a small one. A twenty-five-footer.”

  Ambrose and I exchanged glances, both thinking the same thing.

  “You mean you’d like to go fishing tonight?” Ambrose asked.

  “If you gentlemen have the time to be my guests.”

  “We’ll take the time,” Ambrose said.

  The pier of the Lakeshore Yacht Club was well lighted, and we could see about fifty boats, ranging from skills with outboard motors to cabin cruisers, docked in individual slips. None of the other owners seemed to share Dobbs’ enthusiasm for night fishing, because there wasn’t a single car in the parking area facing the pier.

  Our host directed us to park in front of slip number twelve. The boat was a graceful little cabin cruiser with an enclosed bridge. A registration number and the name Bountiful was painted on the bow.

  Ambrose carried the Scotch bottle as we clambered aboard. Dobbs and I had finished the bourbon en route. By now he was so snockered, we had to help him aboard.

  Dobbs showed us below by opening the hatch and falling down the ladder. I was the next down, but I held onto an iron handrail and made it erect. I lit my lighter, spotted a wall switch and flicked on an overhead light. By the time Ambrose had joined us, I had helped Dobbs to his feet.

  “Thanks, old man,” he said. “I’ll have to get those steps fixed.”

  There were four bunks and a couple of cupboards in the cabin. Dobbs opened one of the cupboards and took out a couple of fishing rods. “Bait’s topside,” he said, dropping the rods and staggering to hands and knees.

  I helped him to his feet again as Ambrose collected the rods. Ambrose carried them tops while I assisted Dobbs up the ladder. Dobbs collapsed in a canvas chair on the stern deck and immediately went to sleep.

  “You know how to run this thing?” Ambrose asked.

  “I’ve handled boats,” I said. “Not on fresh water, but it shouldn’t be any different than salt water. I’ll take a look.”

  I climbed up to the wheelhouse and, with the aid of my lighter, found the control-panel lights. It took my eyes a time to focus, but eventually I figured out the purpose of the various controls. I started the engine, let it idle and switched on the running lights.

  Ambrose climbed up into the wheelhouse. “You familiar with the harbor?” he asked.

  “I told you I’d never been out on the lake before.”

  “No, you didn’t. You just said you’d never handled a boat on fresh water.”

  “All right,” I said. “No, I’m not familiar with the harbor, but the channel will be marked with buoys.”

  Ambrose peered aft. “That looks like a seawall out there. Don’t run into it.”

  I looked that way and dimly saw a long concrete breakwater across the mouth of the harbor. A pair of blinking red lights about fifty feet apart bobbed in the water at the near end of it.

  “I know how to navigate,” I growled. “Go cast off.” He started down the ladder frontward, then changed his mind and backed down, holding onto the iron handrail with his free hand.

  After some fumbling with the line he finally cast off. A moment later I backed from the slip, swung the boat around and headed at low speed for the lighted buoys marking the harbor entrance.

  “Go out a couple of miles,” Ambrose said.

  My navigation must have been a little rusty, because I scraped one of the lighted buoys as we went by. I missed the other by a good fifty feet, however.

  Then we were beyond the seawall, in open water. There was only a slight roll, but it brought a groan from Ambrose. I opened the throttle and headed straight out from shore.

  Ambrose had said to go out a couple of miles, but I couldn’t seem to focus my eyes on the compass, and I was afraid if I got too far out to see the harbor lights, I might get turned around. About a half mile out I shifted into neutral, let the boat drift and went down on deck. I figured nobody as drunk as Dobbs would be able to swim a half mile.

  Dobbs was still asleep. Ambrose was hanging onto the stern rail and breathing deeply. His face was pale.

  “Feel better?” I asked.

  “I’m all right. How far out are we?”

  “Far enough,” I said, and lifted Dobbs from his chair. He nestled his head against my shoulder like a baby.

  I heaved him over the stern. There was a splash, a sound of floundering, then a sputtering noise.

  “Man overboard!” came a strangled shout from the darkness.

  The shout came from several yards away, because the boat was drifting rapidly. I went tops, engaged the clutch and swung back toward the harbor. Ambrose came up to stand beside me.

  As we neared the blinking red lights of the buoys, I thought of something. I said, “Aren’t the cops going to wonder how Dobbs got so far out if we leave his boat docked?”

  Ambrose patted my shoulder. “Luckily you have a manager to do your thinking for you, my sinewed but brainless friend
. After we land, we’ll aim the boat back out to open water. Eventually it’ll run out of gas and be found drifting. When Dobbs’ body is washed up and the autopsy shows he was full of alcohol, it’ll be obvious he fell overboard in a drunken stupor.”

  I wasn’t so brainless that I couldn’t see a big hole in this plan. We were almost to the marked channel now. I cut the throttle way down, swung in a circle and began to back toward the end of the seawall.

  “What are you doing?” Ambrose asked.

  “You can’t aim a pilotless boat like you do a gun,” I said. “There isn’t a chance in a thousand I could hit the channel if I started it out from shore. It’d crash right into the inner side of the seawall and give the cops something to wonder about. So we’ll land on the seawall, aim it outward from here, then walk along the wall to shore.”

  I was making sternway at too sharp an angle. I shifted to ahead, pulled forward several yards and tried again. I had to maneuver several times before I got it just right, but I finally managed to slide the boat gently against the end of the cement wall with its bow pointed outward.

  About a dozen seagulls roosting on the wall flapped away when the hull scraped the cement.

  Ambrose jumped onto the wall and held the boat there by the rail. I could hear the cement grinding a little paint off, but it wasn’t doing any serious damage.

  I set the rudder so the boat would go straight out from shore, spiked the wheel, engaged the clutch, and gave it just enough gas for headway. Then I scrambled down the ladder. Ambrose had been unable to hold the boat against the thrust of the propeller, and there was already a three-foot gap of water between me and the wall when I mounted the rail.

  I made a mighty leap, landed on the wall and crashed into Ambrose, knocked him down. Another flock of seagulls a little farther on flapped into the air.

  Ambrose climbed to his feet, examined his hands, then tried to peer around at the seat of his pants. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his hands.

  “This wall’s just been painted,” he said.

  “That’s not paint,” I told him. “It’s seagull manure.”

  A revolted expression formed on his face. He wiped at the seat of his pants with the handkerchief, then tossed it into the water. I led the way along the seawall to where the harbor shore curved around to meet its far end. Roosting seagulls rose at our approach and settled again on other parts of the wall. As we neared the wall’s end, I spotted a pair of blinking red lights and came to an abrupt halt.

  “What’s the matter?” Ambrose asked.

  “I hope not what I think. We’ll know in a minute.”

  We went on and discovered that what I had hoped against was true. The blinking red lights I had seen were on buoys marking another channel. There was seventy-five feet of water between us and shore.

  Ambrose said bitterly, “I should never let you think.”

  “So we’ll get wet. We’ll just have to swim for it.”

  “I can’t swim,” Ambrose announced.

  After some unfriendly discussion, we finally solved that problem. Ambrose held onto my belt while I breast-stroked across the seventy-five-foot channel. We climbed out on what seemed to be the public dock. A few fishing tugs were tied up to it, but nobody was around.

  “At least I got my pants clean,” Ambrose said, craning around in an attempt to see his seat.

  It was about three-quarters of a mile along the curving shore back to where our jalopy was parked. We sloshed along without conversation. Although it was a fairly warm night, we were chilly in our wet clothes. Occasionally I could hear Ambrose’s teeth chattering.

  As we reached the Yacht Club pier, I spotted the running lights of a boat just entering the harbor by means of the channel we had used. The lights moved in our direction.

  We both halted in front of slip twelve and watched the Bountiful slide smoothly into its slot. The running lights went out and a tall, lean figure descended to the deck and tied up. Then he saw us standing there.

  “Hello, fellows,” Dobbs said cordially, examining our wet clothes with interest. “You get a ducking too?”

  “Uh-huh,” Ambrose said morosely.

  “Lose your boat?”

  He had blanked out again. He didn’t even remember us.

  I said, “Yeah.”

  “Too bad,” Dobbs said with sympathy. “I was luckier.” He indicated his own sopping clothing. “I’m not sure just what happened, because I was drinking a little. First I knew, I was in the water and separated from the boat. You can bet that sobered me up. I swam around for a devil of a long time before it swung back right by me at a speed slow enough for me to climb aboard.”

  “You’re a lucky guy,” Ambrose said sourly, his mouth drooping.

  In an apologetic tone Dobbs said, “I’d offer you a change of clothes, but I only have one on board. You live far from here?”

  “Clear downtown,” Ambrose said.

  “Well, if you wait until I change, I have a place near here where you can dry out. It’s not my home, but it has a dryer in it, and something to drink.”

  We decided to wait.

  Dobbs disappeared below. Ten minutes later he reappeared wearing sneakers, white ducks and a turtle-neck sweater. When he stepped onto the pier he staggered slightly, but instantly righted himself. I realized that while his cold bath had sobered him considerably, he was still about half-stoned.

  He glanced around the parking area and looked puzzled when he saw no car but ours.

  “How the devil did I get here?” he asked. “I just remembered my car’s in the repair shop.”

  He must have a vague recollection of the accident, I thought. Neither of us told him his car wasn’t in a garage, but was spread over a considerable area at Glen Ridge.

  “Must have taken a taxi,” he decided. He thrust out his hand to me. “My name’s Dobbs.”

  “Willard,” I said.

  When he offered his hand to Ambrose, Ambrose said, “Jones.”

  “Delighted,” Dobbs said. “How’d you lose your boat?”

  “Capsized,” Ambrose said briefly. “It was only a skiff and we were inside the seawall.”

  We let Dobbs sit in the back of the jalopy so that we wouldn’t get him wet. He directed Ambrose to drive three blocks south to Main Street, then two blocks west.

  “Pull in that driveway,” he said, pointing.

  The entrance to the drive was between stone pillars. On one of the pillars was a sign: Dobbs Funeral Home.

  Dobbs had Ambrose park by a side entrance and we all got out.

  As our host fiddled with a key, I whispered to Ambrose, “I thought this guy was in real estate.”

  “Retired,” Ambrose whispered back. “Guess he’s gone into another business.”

  Dobbs got the door open and led us into a small foyer. An open door off the left side revealed a business office. Dobbs opened a door to the right, flicked on a light switch and led us down a flight of stairs to the basement.

  We passed through a room full of empty caskets into another room where there was a sink, a couple of metal tables on wheels and a counter along one wall containing implements of various kinds. I guessed this was the embalming room.

  From a cupboard Dobbs took two folded white cloths which looked like small sheets, except that the material was heavier. He handed one to me and one to Ambrose.

  “Sorry I haven’t robes to loan you while your clothing dries,” he said, “but you can wrap yourselves in these.”

  We emptied our pockets on one of the embalming tables, stripped off our clothes and wrapped the sheet-like cloths around us like togas. Dobbs carried our clothing, including our shoes, into what seemed to be a service hall off the embalming room. A moment later we heard a laundry dryer start to rotate.

  When Dobbs came back, Ambrose asked, “What are these things we’re wearing?”r />
  “Shrouds,” Dobbs said.

  I didn’t exactly shudder, but I hoped he had set the dryer on high.

  Dobbs went over to a cabinet, took out three water glasses and a bottle of Scotch. I noted that there were several other bottles in the cabinet. He set the glasses on one of the embalming tables, poured a stiff jolt into each glass and held onto the bottle.

  “Let’s go in here where it’s more comfortable,” he said, and led us into a comfortable little den. Dobbs set the bottle on a desk and took an easy chair, Ambrose took another and I sat on the sofa.

  “Cheers,” Dobbs said, raising his glass.

  We raised ours in salute. Dobbs tossed off his whole drink. Ambrose and I each took only about half of ours.

  It went that way for the next half-hour. For every ounce of Scotch Ambrose and I drank, Dobbs put away two. At the end of the half-hour the bottle was empty. Dobbs tried to get out of his chair and found that he couldn’t.

  “I say, old man,” he said to Ambrose, “would you mind getting us a fresh bottle?”

  The swim had considerably sobered me, but I was beginning to feel a little fuzzy again. Ambrose seemed perfectly sober, though, when he rose, clutched his toga around him and went into the embalming room. I noticed he carried the empty Scotch bottle with him.

  “How long does that dryer take?” I asked Dobbs.

  “Dryer?”

  “You put our clothes in the dryer, remember?” I said. “How long does it take?”

  “Oh, your clothes. Yes, of course. They’re out in the dryer, old man.”

  “How long does it take?” I asked patiently.

  “The dryer? About forty-five minutes. Wasn’t there another gentleman with us a moment ago?”

  “He went after more Scotch,” I informed him.

  “He did? That was unnecessary. There’s plenty in the embalming room.” He attempted to focus his eyes on a wristwatch, gave up and asked, “What time is it, old friend?”

  My watch said eleven-thirty, which surprised me. Then I realized it was stopped. It wasn’t waterproof.