Richard Marsten - Vanishing Ladies

The stop light was red when we got to it. We didn’t stop. I made the right turn, and then pushed down on the accelerator.

‘What happened at the motel?’ I asked.

‘It’s complicated.’

‘We’ve got a half-hour.’

‘All right. You know it’s a brothel?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s a good business. It was good even before Stephanie married Barter. I mean, it was steady. Nothing high-tone, you understand. Then Stephanie imported quality. Quality meant higher prices. A million-dollar business is nothing to laugh at.

‘No, it isn’t.’

‘A business like that needs protection. You know. You’re a cop.’

‘Yes.’

‘We’ve got a State’s Attorney who’s a crusader. If you want to keep something like this away from state law, you make sure the local law is in your pocket. Stephanie made sure of that. I don’t know which of us she reached first. Probably Fred, probably on a small scale. Planett must have been an easy mark, too. Me... I don’t suppose I gave her much trouble, either.’

‘Go on.’

‘You have to understand Stephanie. She’s a strange girl. She wants things. She wants luxury. Prostitution is all she knows, and she’s built it into a tremendous operation. She’d have succeeded in any business, do you know that? Anything she went into. She happened to choose prostitution. Or, actually, from what I gather about her background, it chose her . She needed capital, she got it. She married Barter who’s pretty well-off, owns a good deal of property at the Point. And, of course, he had the business already and she had ideas about what she could do to that business, how she could make it really pay. She succeeded, too. You have to hand it to her.’

‘I want to know what happened on the night of June 3rd,’ I said.

‘I’m getting to that. It doesn’t make sense, unless you know Stephanie. She’s a strange girl, I told you. I’ve never known her not to keep her word, not to stick to a bargain. She married Barter, and she was damn good-looking when she did, you can believe me. Life hadn’t been exactly gentle with her, but a beautiful girl doesn’t take the hard knocks as badly. She was a beauty. Still is, for that matter, but there was this freshness about her then. Mike Barter had got himself a prize. Of course, Stephanie had got what she wanted, too. That was their bargain. No love involved, you understand. But a bargain. Stephanie keeps a bargain. And she expects the other person to keep it too. She was Barter’s wife. She performed the way a wife should. She entertained, she went to bed with him, she was true to him. She was a wife. And maybe that’s love, too, I don’t know. Maybe that’s what love adds up to.’

‘And Barter?’

‘You’ve met him, haven’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘He’s not what I’d call a... watch it, there’s something in the road.’

I swerved the car around a branch that had been knocked loose by the storm. The rain had almost ended. The windshield wipers snicked at scattered drops.

‘He’s not what I’d call a Hollywood-type he-man.’ Handy said. ‘In fact, he’s pretty ugly. Do you agree?’

‘I suppose.’

‘You’d think a man like Barter... with a woman like Stephanie, well, you’d think he’d be pretty happy, wouldn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Last night... something happened.’

‘What?’

‘The girl Lois was in cabin eleven. That’s not too far from the office. Barter went out for a walk. Stephanie was alone up at the office. She was probably playing her records. She’s got a lot of records, likes to play them. I mean, really a lot. I guess she never had a record player when she was a kid, never could afford one. She was probably playing her records when she heard a scream. She called for Barter first, then realized he wasn’t in the office.’

‘What time was this?’

‘About eight or so, I guess. It was just getting dark, from the way I got it. I wasn’t there, you understand. Stephanie told me all this later. On the phone.’

‘Go on.’

‘She keeps a gun, Stephanie. A beautiful woman like her... out at the Point there... she keeps a gun. She’s a beautiful woman, you know.’

‘I know,’ I said. There was something odd in Handy’s voice whenever he spoke of Stephanie.

‘And noble,’ he said, ‘and — despite what you may think — pure. You can’t use a dirty word in her presence. You just can’t. She’s that way.’

‘Go on, Handy.’

‘She took the gun... a .32, I think it is, I’m not sure, and she went outside. There was screaming from cabin eleven. She knew the girl was in there alone. She thought maybe an animal or something had wandered in there, frightening her. She went to the cabin.’ Handy paused, and then he sighed.

‘Yes?’

‘An animal had wandered into the cabin. The animal was Mike Barter.’

‘Oh.’

‘Stephanie threw open the door and found him struggling with the girl. It’s funny with prostitutes, Colby. This wasn’t business with Barter. This was something else, and Lois didn’t want it, and she fought him like a tigress. And Stephanie stood in the doorway with the gun in her hand and then — the way it can happen — without will, without reason, without logic, she was firing. She fired four times.’ Handy sucked in his breath. ‘She killed the girl.’

‘Why?’

Handy nodded. ‘You’d think she’d have killed Barter. He was the one who’d cheated her. But maybe a woman turns instinctively against the other woman, maybe it’s bred into her. And maybe in the heat of emotion you seek the natural enemy, and the natural enemy here was the other woman. And then she saw the girl fall, and all at once everything was drained out of her. She’d killed someone. She dropped the gun, and she would have bolted from the cabin, but Barter stopped her. He picked up the gun and stuck it in his pocket. Then he dragged the girl into the cabin closet. She was bleeding pretty badly, and he had to get her out of the way while he thought of something.’

‘What did he think of?’

‘He got Hezekiah, and together they moved the body into the truck. They covered the girl with a burlap sack, and they drove the truck into the woods. They would have buried her right then and there, I guess, but they didn’t want to bury her anywhere on the property, and they had to figure out just where they could . They went back to the office. They were probably talking it over when you pulled up with your girl.’

‘I see.’

‘Barter never would’ve rented you a cabin, if you hadn’t had the girl with you. He’s a quick thinker. He probably went to look at your girl only because he’s got an eye for the women. But when he saw her, he knew just what he’d do. Lois was a tall brunette. Your girl was about the same height, same general build, pretty. Lois wasn’t too well known in town, just been here a few days, and in the cabin with customers most of the time. He knew sooner or later somebody’d come looking for Lois. Girl can’t just disappear without somebody coming to find out why. He didn’t want snoopers. Snoopers might call in state law. State law would mean the end of the setup.’

‘I can take it from there,’ I said.

‘Can you?’

‘While I was in the shower, he explained the plan to Stephanie and Hez. They grabbed Ann out of the cabin, took the truck out of the woods, and then drove her some place for the night.’

‘Hez’s place,’ Handy said.

‘In the morning, Stephanie put on something that would attract attention. Blanche always attracts attention. The three of them went to town together. Blanche is a known prostitute, Stephanie a known madam. People would automatically assume the brunette was one of the girls. People would assume the brunette was Lois So if anyone asked questions later on, the answer would be that Lois had left town. Hell, everyone saw her go.’