Ричард Деминг - Hit and Run

Shrugging, he locked the Dodge and went into his own cabin.

Five minutes later, just as he finished pulling on his pajamas, there was a knock at the door. He put on his robe and opened it to find Helena standing there with her suitcase in her hand.

When he had stared at her expressionless face for nearly a minute, she asked, “Aren’t you going to let me in?”

“Sure,” he said, recovering his wits enough to step aside.

She walked past him, set the suitcase on a chair, opened it, and drew out a nearly transparent nylon nightgown. Then she turned and, holding the nightgown out in front of her, examined it critically.

Her husky but flat voice said, “I’m frightened all alone over there. Am I welcome here?”

He didn’t answer because he was afraid his voice would shake. He merely closed the door, which till now he had been too stupefied to shut, locked it, and unsteadily poured out two substantial shots of bourbon.

The ice in the pitcher had all melted by now, but Calhoun needed his straight anyway.

When he turned around with the two glasses in his hands, Helena was in the process of slowly removing her stockings.

“What did you tell me that act was called?” she said. “A street strip?”

He gave her a dazed nod.

“Who knows but what Lawrence may divorce me someday and I’ll have to earn a living? See how I compare with Ann Devoe.”

Calhoun decided she won the contest hands down.

The next three days were like a honeymoon. They didn’t have a thing to do but wait for the Buick to be repaired, so they simply relaxed and enjoyed themselves. With Helena doing the housework, which consisted only of making the bed, emptying ashtrays, and washing out whisky glasses, they weren’t even disturbed by the proprietor’s wife coming in to clean. They slept till noon, then showered, usually together, had a leisurely lunch, and spent the rest of the day at one of the numerous beaches on Lake Erie.

Evenings they spent dancing and drinking at The White Swan or some similar roadhouse.

That first night Calhoun discovered that Lawrence Powers’ opinion of his wife was vastly wrong. Far from being frigid, she possessed an unexpectedly fiery passion. Calhoun reflected that women were different from men; it took a specific person to arouse a woman, whereas the average man could work up physical passion for nearly any attractive woman.

The idea was a little flattering.

Later, Calhoun could see that Helena’s attraction for him was almost entirely physical. Except for her beauty and her unexpected passion, she wasn’t a very stimulating companion. They had almost no conversation aside from routine discussion of their plans for the day and aside from such physical pleasures as sunbathing, dancing, drinking, and love-making, Helena didn’t have a single interest in life that Calhoun could detect.

Two things puzzled him. One was her disappearance for a short time each morning. He would awaken about eight A.M. to find himself alone, drift back to sleep, and a short time later be awakened again by her climbing back into bed. Her explanation was that she had to have breakfast coffee but didn’t want to disturb him, so she dressed and drove down the road to a diner alone.

The other thing that puzzled him was her ability to get ice from the motel proprietor. Both Wednesday and Thursday noon, as soon as she was dressed, she left the cabin carrying the china water pitcher and returned with it full of cracked ice. But when, on Friday, Calhoun happened to get dressed first and took the pitcher to the office while Helena was still under the shower, the proprietor gave him an irritated look and said that he’d already informed Calhoun once that he didn’t supply ice for guests.

When he returned empty-handed, Helena went off with the pitcher and came back five minutes later with it full. Calhoun came to the conclusion that with so many customers moving in and out, the proprietor must have forgotten that he was the supposed brother of Helena.

Friday afternoon Calhoun had Helena drive him to the Buick repair garage and discovered the convertible was all ready. The bill was three hundred and thirteen dollars.

“I had to put on a new bumper bracket,” the repairman said. “Could have straightened the other, but it would have left it weak. I put the old one in your trunk.”

“How’d you manage that?” Calhoun asked. “The lock was jammed last time I tried it.”

“Ain’t now.” The man demonstrated by inserting the key in the trunk lock and turning it. The lid raised without difficulty. He locked it again and handed Calhoun the keys.

Calhoun tried the trunk key himself, and it worked perfectly.

When he drove out of the service garage, Helena was waiting for him in the Dodge a half block away. He led the way to a quiet sidestreet, where they stopped long enough for Calhoun to switch plates back to the right cars. Then Helena followed in the Buick while he drove the Dodge to the car-rental lot.

He had thirty-four dollars coming back from the hundred he had deposited.

As they drove back toward the tourist court, he said, “We may as well start back tonight. We can have the car back in your garage by tomorrow morning.”

Helena didn’t say anything then. She waited until they were back in Calhoun’s cabin and he had mixed a couple of drinks.

Then she said, “There’s one other little job we have to do before we go back to Buffalo, Barney.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Drink your drink first, then I’ll show you.”

“Show me?” he asked, puzzled. “Why can’t you just tell me?”

“Drink your drink,” she repeated.

She sounded as though she meant he might need it. He looked at her dubiously, then drained his glass.

“All right,” he said. “I drank my drink. Now show me.”

She set down her own drink unfinished, took his hand, and led him to the door. Still holding his hand, she led him to her own cabin door, unlocked it, and drew him inside. Then she released her grip on him and locked the door behind them.

“It’s in the bathroom,” she said.

Now completely puzzled, he followed her. In the bathroom the shower curtains were drawn around the bathtub and a glittering new icepick lay on the edge of the washbowl. Without comment Helena drew the shower curtains wide.

Three damp burlap bags were spread over something bulky in the bathtub.

For a few moments Calhoun simply stared at the bags, the hair at the base of his neck prickling in anticipation of shock. Then he pushed Helena aside and lifted one of the bags.

Underneath, cozily packed in more than a hundred pounds of cracked ice, was the naked body of a man. He lay on his side, his knees drawn up to his chest and his back to Calhoun. The back of his head was oddly flattened and was matted with blood.

Calhoun let the burlap fall back into place, staggered out of the bathroom, and collapsed into a chair in the bedroom. Helena followed as far as the bathroom door, then stood watching him with curiously bright eyes as he stared at her in stupefaction.

Finally he managed to whisper, “Who is it?”

“Lawrence,” she said without emotion. “My husband.”

Calhoun closed his eyes and tried to make some sense out of the nightmarish discovery that Lawrence Powers, who was supposed to be at a bankers’ convention in New York City, was actually lying dead in an improvised icebox not a dozen feet away. Surprisingly, it did make sense. Like the tumblers of a lock falling into place, various oddities in Helena’s behavior that had vaguely puzzled Calhoun ever since they started the trip began to develop meaning.

Opening his eyes, he said in a dazed voice, “He was in the trunk all the way from Buffalo, wasn’t he? That’s why the key wouldn’t work. You substituted some other key so I couldn’t open the trunk, then put the right one back on the ring after you got his body out of the trunk and into your cabin.”