Bring Back Her Body (9 page)

“Maybe I have insomnia,” she said, looking squarely at him.

“Damn it …”

“For that matter, what were you doing over there without a boat?”

“I went by car,” Cain said. “Someone stole my car. Therefore, I had no car.”

“There are taxis on Kitsap and Toby has a phone, I’m sure.”

Lisa laughed. “You can’t win, Cain. Why should she answer you if you don’t answer her.”

Cain said, “Let’s go back inside.” He saw that Honor was nervous now, unable to stand still, shuffling her feet, moving a few steps one way and then back. She was frightened, too.

“Who would want to blow you to hell?”

“I don’t know.” She looked miserable. “I want to go home. I’m sleepy.”

Cain and Lisa watched her turn and walk off a few steps and then begin a trot and finally break into a run that carried her swiftly to her boat and away. As if, Cain thought, she were afraid they would stop her. When she had disappeared around the headland, he went to his garage for some tools. The bomb was on his mind. He hated to think of it there on his land, evil, waiting to burst and destroy. He opened the shed door and stopped.

His car was there, its dusty rear end facing him complacently. He walked around it slowly, studying it. But everything appeared normal. The keys were in the ignition and he pocketed them. He turned on the shed light and opened the hood and looked down. He took a flashlight and made a careful survey. There was no sign of anything extra attached to the motor. Satisfied, he gathered his tools and returned to the beach.

Lisa was still there. He said, “My car is back.”

“That was considerate.” She watched him work. He made her stand far back but she kept edging closer, peering. “Cain, how would anyone get a bomb like that?”

“Munger could. He had some, I know.”

“Then so could Toby.”

“If Munger wished it, yes.”

“Of course,” she said quickly. “But Toby is dead, Cain. He couldn’t have put it on her boat.”

“No,” Cain said. “Not unless he did it before he was killed. I don’t see how …”

“Who killed Toby, Cain?”

He didn’t answer. He was pulling the fangs on the bomb. Trickles of sweat coursed down from his temples along his bony cheeks and dripped from his chin. Once he stopped and took a deep breath until his hand ceased shaking. He was glad the Navy had taught him something during the war besides how to kill.

He stood up and looked at the detonating assembly, turned and threw it as far as he could into the water. Then he took the bomb and tools to the garage. Lisa walked by his side.

He said, “I don’t know who killed him, Lisa. But I’ll be the chief suspect.”

“Why you?” She sounded very sleepy. Cain was bone tired, abysmally weary. He stumbled a little as he climbed on deck.

“Because,” he said, making out the bunk, “I worked him over twice in one night.”

“I think I’ll be suspected first,” she said. “He evicted me.”

“Hardly a murder motive.”

He had the bunk out now and he started to strip back the blankets to get at the top mattress. Lisa put a hand out, stopping him. “Don’t be silly, Cain. It’s too light to sleep outside.”

“No,” Cain said stubbornly. He reached again but she hipped him aside and climbed into the bed.

Lisa yawned. “Pull those curtains, Cain.”

He did so and when he turned, she had her back to him. He undressed, glowering at her. Sleeping on the deck was going to be hard. He reached for some extra blankets. Lisa said sleepily, “They’ll suspect one or the other of us, Cain. It won’t make much difference.”

“It seems to me it makes a lot of difference,” he said.

“We’re linked together now, Cain. Irrevocably.”

Cain said, startled, “We are?”

“In the eyes of the public, the newspapers. It will come out that you put me up here. Anyone can see this has only one bed. The papers will imply things whether they are true or not.”

Cain stood with his armload of blankets and looked at the back of her head. He shrugged, “Well, in that case …” He put the blankets back and crawled in beside her. Lisa turned, putting her head on his shoulder. He could feel the strong line of her leg and thigh against him through her pajamas. Reaching out, he found her hand and held it.

“I sure got you into something,” Cain said. They were both asleep before she could point out the fallacy of the statement.

CAIN
could feel someone’s hair tickling his ear. He opened his eyes halfway, lazily, sleepily. It wasn’t hair after all. It was a pair of warm, full lips. He could feel them when the voice said very softly:

“I’ve always wanted to lie in bed and have my breakfast cooked by a personal maid.”

“That’s not me,” Cain said. He shut his eyes again.

“Sniff!”

It took him a moment to understand. Then he sniffed obediently. He smelled coffee and something that seemed to resemble bacon. “How’d you do that?” he asked suspiciously.

“I’ve got long arms,” she said. “They reach all the way to the galley.” She stopped and it was her turn to be suspicious. “Say, who do you think’s in here with you?”

Cain turned his head, grinning lazily. The lips were just under his nose now. Lisa’s eyes were dreamily half open. Since her lips were so convenient, Cain kissed them. Half asleep, he enjoyed the sensation. He kept on enjoying it until he felt an arm reach up and grasp his head and draw his face down hard.

After a moment he sat up with a yelp. He was wide awake. “Stop that. I was just saying good morning, damn it.”

“You’re so utterly moral, Cain,” she said. She sounded as if she were wallowing in luxury. “I wonder who’s making those good smells for us.”

“The cops, probably. They want us to be strong when they give us the works.” Cain lay down again. It was a chilly day, overcast, and the blankets felt good. He snuggled under the covers, enjoying the warmth of Lisa. He wasn’t awake after all or he wouldn’t have just lain there calmly. But after last night, there was no point in running.

Lisa said, “I suppose you’d better marry me now that we’re so thoroughly compromised.”

“Coffee and bacon,” she said sniffing again.

“You’re already married,” he said. Only his forehead was out of the covers.

“We can go to Idaho. What’s a little bigamy in Idaho?”

“There aren’t any laws in Idaho,” Cain admitted. His voice was muffled by the blankets. “But that’s no reason to go there and get married.”

“Married people don’t have to testify against each other.”

“Uhm,” Cain said. “It’s a thought.”

“Do you want to marry me, Cain?”

“No,” Cain said.

“Do you want to eat breakfast?”

Cain’s head came out like a gopher out of a hole, the last question having been asked by a different voice. He twisted around and saw the bright, wide-awake features of Honor Ryerson peering down from above.

“It’s ready, cap’n. And it’s past noon, so get up and eat.”

Cain looked again at Honor and then felt the comfortable warm lump of Lisa at his side. He said, “Er …” He took a deep breath. “On deck?”

“Not in bed,” she said flatly. “And the sun is trying to come out.” The doors closed, plunging them into semi-darkness.

Cain said, “Two tickets to Idaho coming up. Turn around,” and bounced out and grabbed his clothes and wriggled into them. Then he did a broad jump over the bunk, landed in front of the head and popped in. When he came out Lisa was dressed and the bunk was folded back. She took her toothbrush and disappeared. Cain stripped quickly, put on swimming trunks, grabbed a towel, and went on deck. The sun was indeed coming out, burning away the clouds and lying warm and pleasant over the faintly ruffled surface of the water.

He dived over the railing, splitting the water cleanly, took a few underwater strokes, surfaced, blew, and stroked back to the boat. He climbed on board, towelled himself, and grinned at the bright day. Honor was busily and silently setting breakfast on the portable deck table.

“Swim always sets me up for breakfast,” he ventured.

“Other things too, no doubt,” she said icily.

“Now, look …”

“I know,” she said. “There’s only one bed and you both were tired and you slept.”

“That’s the truth.”

She turned and an impish grin was on her features. “Knowing you, Cain, I couldn’t doubt it. Besides, it’s not my business.”

Lisa came on deck and Cain went down to dress. He hurried, not knowing quite how Lisa and Honor were going to react on one another after this. Lisa was regally sipping orange juice when he arrived and Honor came up and slammed a plate of toast on the table and sat down.

The breakfast was superb. Cain commented on the bacon, the eggs, the coffee, until Lisa urgently thrust a piece of toast whole into his mouth. Then she wiped up her plate, lit a cigarette, and leaned back. “What a way to live,” she said.

“Wouldn’t you like it?” Honor asked sweetly.

Lisa cocked an eye at her. “Don’t try to teach grandma to suck eggs, honey. I’d love it. All this sunshine and air and …”

“It rains here sometimes,” Honor answered.

“Then it’s so nice and cosy inside, under the covers, snuggled down.”

“Not inside, below decks,” Honor corrected sweetly.

Cain glared at them both. “Shut up!” he roared. He glared from Honor’s overly sweet smile to Lisa’s cow-like contentment. “Leave me alone, the both of you.”

Then he saw the utterly inexplicable take place: the enmity between the two women dissolved; they smiled understandingly at one another, and joined forces. Cain finally had to take his coffee and go forward where he sat and mumbled to himself.

Honor raised her voice deliberately. “He is awfully bony, though.”

“All knobs,” Lisa agreed. “And he snorts in his sleep.”

“He scratches himself, too,” Honor said. “I’ve watched him nap.”

Cain went back for more coffee. “Have your fun,” he said. “But it just occurred to me that I might be eating breakfast with a murderess.”

Lisa’s cup clattered to the table. “That wasn’t fair, Cain.”

“It wasn’t meant to be,” he said. His eyes moved from one to the other. “Things like bombs wired to motors and knives in people don’t appeal to me, not when I’m this close to them.”

Honor said, “I heard it on the radio. They found Toby last night. That’s why you were running, wasn’t it?”

“Where were you going?” he countered.

“Just riding. I — couldn’t sleep.”

Cain blew up. When he finally quieted down, he said, “This is no time to play cat and mouse. In Toby’s house — before we found the body — I tangled with a woman who was trying to get away. It could have been Paula. It could have been you.” He stopped. “What color is your underwear?”

Honor lifted her t-shirt. She wore a pale green brassiere, very filmy. “What size is it, Honor?”

“Thirty-four.”

Cain said, “You don’t sound very curious at curious questions.”

“I thought I was just supposed to answer, not ask.”

Cain knew that she was still playing with him. Angrily he got up and stalked into the cabin and brought the lavender underwear. He tossed it to her. “Yours?”

She held them up. “If they were mine, Cain, how would you get them ripped that way?”

“I tore them off someone in the dark.”

“You know you wouldn’t have to tear my underwear off, Cain.” She sounded very serious.

Cain blew up again. Then he sat on the railing, his head in his hands. Finally he looked up. “Honor, that is your underwear. I’ll bet on it. I can take it to a lab and have it tested. No matter how much it’s been washed there’ll be traces of your bath powder and things. Then I’ll have to turn my findings over to the police. This is murder now; it’s no joke any longer.”

He didn’t know whether or not he was telling the truth about the laboratory test but she appeared to believe it. She said, “It’s mine, Cain.”

Lisa got up abruptly. “I’m going to walk off some of my breakfast.”

When she had gone, Cain said, “You’ll have to tell me some time.”

“I know it.” She reached for a cigarette. “I’ve made a mess of things, I guess, Cain. But I was only trying to help.”

“What were you doing charging around Toby’s in your — those things?”

“I wasn’t. I didn’t. It was Paula.”

“What was she doing there? How did she get there?”

“I took her,” Honor said. “She called me up early in the evening and asked me. I have a private phone. She said there was something at Toby’s she just had to have. I went and got her and took her there and about a hundred yards out the motor began to sputter and then stopped. Paula seemed in an awful hurry and when I couldn’t fix it right away she said she’d swim for it. She did, telling me to go up one dock beyond Toby’s. It’s abandoned. The motor fixed itself and I went there and waited. There’s an old road there and pretty soon she came in your car. Because she didn’t have any clothes on, she took the boat — she hates running one — and I took the car. I drove it home and got her some clothes and brought them here. She was waiting and then I took her back to her place. That’s all.”

“That doesn’t explain your being out by Toby’s after midnight.”

“Paula told me she had to run for it and left two suitcases in the basement. She was awfully upset at having left them. She kept saying, ‘I’ve got to get them. I’ve got to!’ and she looked sort of sick. I know now: she found Toby’s body and it scared her. Anyway, after I took her back, I waited until I thought you’d had time to get away and then I decided to be real smart and get them for her. The motor conked out for good and you rescued me.”

“I think the cases are safe enough,” Cain said. “But I don’t see what damned good they are.” He got out his pipe and sucked on it. “While you were waiting, how long was the launch left untended?”

“About an hour.”

“Did Paula know you were going after her stuff?”

“No. I thought I’d surprise her.”

“Did the motor limp between the first time it quit and the last?”

“Badly,” Honor said. “About half the time. Then it would clear up and be fine.”

“You can thank the balky motor you’re here,” Cain said. “I haven’t checked the relays for time but apparently every miss gave you that much longer to live. And it was wired poorly, too. Poor wiring could have caused part of the missing — shorting out some of the plugs.”

“But who could …”

“I don’t know,” Cain admitted. He filled his pipe and lighted it. “But I still don’t know how Paula got into your underwear nor why it was wet nor why she stopped to take a bath.”

“It’s very simple,” Honor said. “When she had to swim for it, she took off her clothes and made a bundle of her slacks to keep them dry. But Paula hates being nude in front of anyone — when she’s sober. So she borrowed my underwear because I didn’t really need it. When she got almost to shore, she caught a cramp in one leg and had to use both her hands and her clothes were caught in a wave and went out to sea, I guess. So there she was in my underwear, all wet. She thought she’d get clothes at the house and she bathed to get the salt water off only you came and interrupted her and she tried to shove the cases down the chute, get them into the old cellar and out that old door. Only she didn’t make it.”

“Is she afraid of me?” Cain demanded. “She couldn’t help seeing who it was when I drove up.”

“She is.”

“Why?”

“She thinks you’ll make her come back. And she doesn’t dare yet.”

“Why not?”

Honor said with intense seriousness, “Because she’s afraid she’ll be murdered.”