And kill once more (5 page)

The stock of literature ran mostly to men's mags with a liberal sprinkling of physical-culture stuff. I thumbed around a while, then started an article on muscle tone but when I came to the continued part it said turn to page ninety-six. There wasn't one. It was the last sheet, next to the cover, and someone had torn it out. Very vexing. Out of idle curiosity, I pulled the issue before mine and the three that followed it. All of them had a page ninety-six and every one of those pages had the same advertisement on the back side. I grinned then,

because the page that had been carefully cut out was one of those "do-you-long-for-your-youthful-vigor" booby traps that advise you to waste no time in sending the enclosed coupon along with four dollars. Dr. Holcum's pills, according to the ad, would indeed put you back in the saddle again. It looked like one or another of Engle's previous guests was in the market for hormone shots.

I downed the rest of my coffee, glanced at the wall clock, then decided that George had had more than a half hour to work on his dives and maybe I ought to drop by and see if he was doing all right. A light wind had started to blow down from the hill. I went across the terrace separating the pool from the rambling, U-shaped house. Engle wasn't in sight. He didn't bob up while I watched and I guessed he'd called it a night so I turned toward the walk leading to my own room, then stopped and whirled around like you do when your mind has just caught up with something your eyes have seen.

A towel and a robe draped across the back of a lawn chair near the diving board. I broke into a jog. When I neared the pool the black tile numbers caught my eye— a one and a five standing motionless against their background of blue. Then I saw something else. The still form of George Engle rested on the bottom under fifteen feet of water.

I gave a king-sized yell and plunged in.

Five

He lay face down, his gray hair straggling away in all directions from the top of his head, and there wouldn't be that problem of a struggling victim. A practiced routine. Straight to the bottom, slip an arm across one

shoulder and under the arm on the other side, the quick hard push against the tile under foot, and a few strong strokes to the top. I tugged Engle to a ladder, shifted his body, and carried him up the steps and over to the grass. Putting him face down again, I lifted his middle a couple of times, then jammed his hands under his cheek, knelt and leaned forward to press on his back and ribs. Behind me I heard the pad of running feet and shouts and questions filled the night. I went to work in the steady rhythmic pace. Both hands against his ribs as I came forward to press against his lungs, then slip the hands off and out to his bent elbows to pull up and towards me in an effort to start his breathing.

Kate arrived first, but in just a few seconds we had a full house. Sandy Engle on her knees beside George, her hand stroking his wet hair. Flopping robes and pa jama-clad legs all around, and someone asked where Dr. Cronk was. He stepped out from behind the Pilchers and bent over our host.

"Hell, he's a doctor," Pilcher said significantly. "Let him handle it, Bowman."

I glanced at Sandy Engle. She looked at Cronk and he looked at me. I stood up. "He's yours, doc," I said.

But I couldn't stay out of it. Not for long, because if George Engle wasn't already dead he would be soon. Cronk slid a hand under Engle's face and held it there while he looked thoughtful. "No pulse," he said.

"Look, doc, he was in the pool. On the bottom. I don't know how long but that's where I found him, so let's give him some artificial respiration. Time's wasting."

"It won't help, Bowman." Dr. Cronk shook his head slowly. "Heart. Bad case, really. George has been lucky to stay with us this long."

"This you can tell from feeling a pulse that isn't there?"

"I'm familiar with his case, Bowman."

I looked at Kate beside me, then back to Cronk still

squatting by Engle. "Don't you give some kind of a shot for heart attack?" I asked.

"Fact is, I'm up here on sort of a vacation. Don't even have a bag in the car, I'm afraid. Not that it would do any good. You see—"

"I see a man who might live with a little help," I cut in, dropping down again. "You tend to his heart, doc, and I'll work on his respiration, huh? And someone get a blanket."

I went back to work, matching the cycle of artificial respiration to the speed of my own breathing. Sandy was still beside George, her long black hair falling almost to his back as she bent over him and as I worked I glanced around at the slippered feet and paired pajama legs that ringed us in. Kate just behind me, and the Pilchers. Dr. Cronk had stood up again and a bit farther back I saw the shoes and pants legs of the Philippino gardener and man of all work. Beside him was his wife, a silent woman whose age would have been hard to guess. On the other side and apart from the others was the redhead who'd arrived in the evening.

Forward, pressure on the ribs, slide the hands off and pull George's elbows back on the return—and hope it would pay off. No telling how long he'd been in the water. Anything up to half an hour. But it could be a lot less and as long as there was a spark of hope I intended to keep trying. And thinking.

Glancing up now and then I tried to read something into the faces around me. Anxiety? Yes, a measure of that. And a certain amount of fear—you always see that near an accident of any kind. People seem to be mentally placing themselves in the victim's shoes and it isn't a pleasant feeling. But in a family group you'll find some semblance of sadness or pity or sorrow when disaster strikes and we were notably short on that at the moment. To me George Engle was strictly a man I'd pulled out of

the water. I've never lost one at a pool because there you can keep track and get 'em before they've been under more than a few seconds but at the beach it's different. Some you bring around and some you have to send away to the coroner and it can't be helped, but you can feel sorry for another human who's had tough luck and that's how I've always felt. Yet looking around me I couldn't help thinking that there wasn't a person here as concerned as I was about the life of George Engle.

Pilcher had admonished me to turn things over to Dr. Cronk. And Cronk was willing to write G.E. off as beyond hope. Sandy Engle. No tears, but sometimes that's the bitterest kind of grief. I couldn't be sure. Kate? She was behind me—I would have had to stop work to see her face. Mrs. Pilcher. Heavy and a little dull around the eyes. I had the feeling that if someone passed sandwiches she'd take one and munch absently as she waited to hear that it was all over and why don't we get some sleep.

And on the other side—silk pajamas red enough to delight the heart of a true party member, white bedroom slippers that could quite well have been used in a film at one time or another, and a wrap-around robe which had a carelessness about its style that only a lot of time and money can create.

And a body not yet breathing by itself.

By the time I'd worked ten minutes on Engle I was beginning to get the idea. I looked up and Kate's eyes met mine.

"You'd best take Sandy inside," I suggested quietly.

Kate nodded and put an arm around Sandy Engle. I waited until they were halfway to the house, then turned to Cronk.

"Call the sheriff's office. We aren't going to be lucky this time, I guess."

Cronk looked at Pilcher, then back to me. "That won't

be necessary, Bowman. I'm a member of the medical profession and I'll sign the death certificate."

I worked along a few more seconds. "Look, doc, you're a little confused. This is an accidental death, not a natural one. It has to be reported, remember? So let's someone get to a phone. The operator will connect you to the nearest sub-station. I'll work a while longer but we'd better let the law in on this as quickly as possible." Once again we put it to a vote as Cronk looked toward Pilcher. Then the three of them, Pilcher, his wife, and the doc went toward the house. Elsa Doyle stayed. We had Engle under the blanket and I kept up the continuous effort to start his breathing again.

"He's dead. I mean he hasn't any real chance at all, has he, Mr. Bowman?"

"Very little." I said it slowly and then looked up to see how she was taking it. We had it now. Everything— tears, the handkerchief pressed tightly to her cheeks, a half-silent tremble—straight from the death scene of a heavy melodrama film. Good—but a little late. It made me sore.

"Run up to the house and see if you can help Kate take care of Sandy," I said sharply. When she was gone I settled into the routine and let my mind dig around the edges for a while. Mrs. Pilcher must have decided to stay indoors but before long Pilcher and Doc Cronk returned to keep me company while we waited for the sheriff. It was a full half hour more before we heard the siren winding up toward the Engle estate, and when we did Cronk and Pilcher hurried toward the entrance to form a reception committee of two.

I watched them stride across the lawn from the house, two tall men, one a bit more husky than the other, and flanked by Pilcher and the doc. They, too, had a routine. The heavier of the two bent toward Engle's face, held

a light, and rolled the eyelid back. He watched for several seconds, then shook his head.

"Fair enough," I said, getting to my feet. "It never hurts to try."

"Mr. Toland," Cronk said quickly. "He's deputy sheriff from Newhall station. And Mr. Widdle. Mr. Bowman."

I shook hands with Toland and Widdle. Toland was the husky one, late forties, maybe, and you wouldn't want to spit in his eye just for kicks. He had that rugged look that goes with a leathery hide and broad frame. Slow and easy. He looked you over with a cool eye that was appraising and yet not offensive, somehow. You got the feeling that he could probably work all day and still roll out at three ayem for a tramp through the hills in search of deer. The outdoors man. His assistant was younger and probably more eager, but he hid it well. He gave me a smile with his handshake, then glanced apologetically toward the blanket and grew serious again. You could call them a pair of honest Westerners, I guess.

"We'll have to get the details straight," Toland said smoothly. "The time and things like that. The coroner will be along later and we'd best not move Mr. Engle again." Toland bent to pull the blanket a little farther up and covered the face, then nodded toward the deck chairs. We sat down.

"Take a few minutes to collect yourselves," he advised us, "while I look this pool over. Never been on the grounds myself, but I've seen her from the hill above. Several times." He went toward the shallow end, then around on the narrow ribbon of cement bordering the eucalyptus. At the diving board he stopped to look for a while, then came over and sat down on a patio type chaise lounge. He found a pencil and a small notebook and spread it out on the low coffee table.

"Routine, gentlemen, but required by law. Now as Dr. Cronk says, these heart cases sometimes have an attack while swimming. If no one's around, it's unfortunate, but that's the way things are. A man can't live under glass all his life, can he now?"

Pilcher allowed that the sheriff was right.

"Who saw him last?"

There was a silence. I broke it with, "Unless someone was here when he went under and stayed there, how would you know if you were the last to see George alive?"

"Okay," Toland said good-naturedly. "Who saw Mr. Engle in the last hour before he was found? And who found him, by the way?"

"I win both times," I said. Then I told them about George practicing his dives and how I left him and went for a sandwich. That brought it up to where the others came in.

"Uh-huh. And Dr. Cronk states that the deceased had a bad heart, and that it was the cause of death. Engle being found on the bottom of a pool, though, we'd best consider drowning as a possibility. I don't know. Maybe when the coroner gets a look—"

"Frank!"

Toland snapped his head around and we all looked toward the blanket over George Engle. Widdle knelt by the body, the corner of the blanket folded back. "Better have a look, Frank." he said, and then as some of us got up to tag along Widdle added: "Alone."

Frank Toland stopped and motioned us back. "Wait there for me." Then he went over to his assistant. The pair of them bent over Engle for several minutes and when they put the blanket back Toland's look had changed considerably.

"Quite a pool," he said tightly, seating himself again. "In fact this whole layout is pretty fancy. Engle had a great deal of money, I'd guess."

No one said a word. It was obvious that Toland no longer intended to indulge that buddy-buddy attitude toward us.

"Yeah, you can see it on all sides. Money. So much of it that Engle came to love the feel of the stuff, I guess."

"I don't quite follow you, Sheriff," Cronk said. He found a wrinkled handkerchief, slipped off his glasses, and began to polish them. Watching closely, I caught a hint of anxiety in his eyes.

Toland drummed heavy fingers on the metal coffee table. He looked first at me, then toward Cronk and Pilcher. Getting up, Toland went to Engle's robe and towel draped over the deck chair and made a careful search of both pockets. When he came back to us he shook his head.

"The more I see of this the less I like it," he said firmly. "Bob, you stay here with Engle until the coroner comes. The rest of us will go up to the house and sweat it out. I want to make a phone call or two, then maybe have a word with each of you. And Mrs. Engle."

He turned toward the house and we followed along in silence. Engle's combination houseboy and gardener had built a fire and shortly he came in with a setup for coffee all around. Toland sent for the women, then trailed down the hall after the Philippine

He was gone quite a while. Pilcher and Cronk appropriated the leather sofa near the fireplace and when Pilcher's wife came in she joined them. They held a low-voiced huddle. Elsa Doyle swept in like a movie queen going on set and I guessed that she'd spent the last half hour running a comb through the twenty-dollar henna job she was sporting, and maybe seeing that the seams of the stockings she'd managed to slip on were straight. She found a chair near mine and offered smokes. I took one. When Kate came in I made a place for her on the other side.