Ричард Деминг - The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK®

“What makes you think that?”

“Because they won’t suspect murder. The first thing the police do when a banker disappears is request an audit of bank funds.”

She was right again, I realized. The probability was the first premise the police would work on was that Lawrence Powers had disappeared voluntarily. And by the time a bank audit disclosed he hadn’t absconded with any funds, the trail would be too cold to pick up.

I said, “I still don’t understand how you talked Cushman into sticking his neck out.”

“He’s in love with me,” she said complacently.

I studied her broodingly, not satisfied with the answer. “Look, Helena, if I’m going to help cover up your murders, I want the whole story. Maybe Cushman’s in love with you, but he was in a blue funk over being accessory to mere manslaughter. I don’t think he’d stick his neck out for first degree homicide even for you.”

She shrugged. “Of course Harry doesn’t know Lawrence is dead.” Again I studied her broodingly Finally I asked in an exasperated tone, “What in the devil story did you tell him?”

“You don’t have to shout,” she said. “I told him Lawrence had discovered the damage to the car and guessed what caused it. I said he had threatened to call the police, but I explained to him I’d already hired a private detective to try to arrange a quiet settlement of damages, and I talked him into holding off calling the police at least until he’d discussed it with you. I said Lawrence and I went to see you at your flat, and you and Lawrence had a fight. You knocked him out and tied him up. I told Harry this was the opportunity to accomplish everything we’d planned together. For me to obtain grounds for divorce against Lawrence and marry him.”

“How did that follow?” I asked, fascinated.

“I told Harry you had agreed to hold Lawrence captive until we could get the car fixed. Then, after it was back in the garage, you’d transport Lawrence to New York in a private plane owned by a friend of yours and turn him loose in the city unshaven and in dirty clothes. When Lawrence took his story to the police, they’d think he was crazy. The flight list would show he’d flown to New York as scheduled, and when he walked into a New York police station, he’d look like he’d been on a several-day drunk. When the police came to check my car, they’d find it undamaged. Then I’d announce my husband had been suffering delusions about me for some time, I thought he was insane, and I’d file for a divorce on the ground that he constantly made me suffer indignity.”

I was conscious that my mouth had drooped open as she was speaking. “And Cushman believed that fantastic yarn?” I asked in amazement.

“Why not? He knew I’ve wanted a divorce for some time and would jump at any grounds for one. It was the divorce idea that sold him. He wants me to marry him. I don’t think he’d have agreed to take Lawrence’s place on the plane if I hadn’t included that, because he was scared silly.” She added reflectively. “Then too, Harry isn’t very bright. He’s got so much money, he’s never had to do any thinking.”

He must not be bright, I thought. But it was just as well for our chances that he wasn’t. Having taken that plane to New York under Lawrence Powers’s name, he was an accessory to murder clear up to his neck, because he’d never be able to convince the police he didn’t know Powers was dead at the time. It occurred to me that pointing that fact out to him when we got back to St. Louis ought to silence any urge he might ever develop to tell his story.

Then it also occurred to me that Helena Powers had a remarkable talent for placing her aides in positions where they had to protect her in order to protect themselves. For she had me in the identical position she had Harry Cushman. We all three had to hang together, or hang separately.

Helena broke into my thoughts by inquiring, “How do you plan to get rid of Lawrence?”

Glancing at my watch, I saw it was seven p.m. “I don’t tonight. He’ll keep in his icebox another day. But we’ve got some scouting to do. Better put on a jacket, because it may be chilly along the lake.”

I drove the car on our scouting trip. Our tourist court was not far from Berwyn Summit, and I cut straight east to the University of Chicago. Then I turned south along Lake Michigan until we began to run into beach areas.

At eight-thirty Helena said, “Shouldn’t we be thinking about dinner soon?”

“No,” I said shortly. Ever since I’d lifted that burlap bag I hadn’t been able to think of anything but the iced corpse beneath it, and the thought didn’t induce much appetite.

I drove as slowly as the traffic would let me, checking signs on the left side of the road. Finally, about nine o’clock, I spotted one which looked promising. It was on a wooden arch over an unpaved road and read: “Crcstwood Beach, Private Road.”

We were past it before I spotted it, however. I had to drive on another mile before I could turn around.

Crestwood Beach proved as promising as it had looked. The beach itself was but a narrow strip of sand, and clustered along its edge were some two dozen modest summer cottages. I noted with satisfaction lights showed in not more than a half dozen.

Parking next to one of the dark cottages, I examined it carefully before getting out of the car. Apparently its owner’s summer vacation had not started yet, for the windows were still boarded up. The cottages either side of it, each a good fifty yards away, were dark also.

I climbed out of the car and told Helena to get out also.

Together we walked the scant fifty feet down to the water. As I had hoped, each of the cottages had its own small boat dock. Nothing much, merely a series of planks laid across embedded steel rods, but adequate for an outboard boat.

“Think you can find this same place alone tomorrow night?” I asked Helena.

“If I have to.”

I pointed out over the calm, moonlit water. “I’ll be out there somewhere in an outboard. I won’t be able to tell one beach from another in the dark, so you’re going to have to signal me with the car lights. We’ll set a time for the first signal, and you blink them twice. Just on and off fast, because we don’t want any of the other cottagers out here to come investigating. Then regularly every five minutes blink them again. Got it?”

“Yes.”

We went back to the car and I drove back under the wooden arch to the main road again. A mile and a half northwest of Crcstwood Beach I stopped once more, this time at a sign which read: “Boats for rent.” This sign too was at the entrance to an unpaved road. I followed the road only about fifty yards before coming to the boat livery.

The proprietor was a grizzled old man in his seventies who chewed tobacco. He sat on the screened porch of a small cottage reading a Bible by the light of a Coleman gasoline lantern.

“They’re all taken tonight, mister,” he said as soon as I put my feet on the steps. He shot a stream of tobacco juice at a cuspidor halfway across the porch. “Everybody heard the large-mouths is biting.”

Then he let out a cackle. “Don’t know who starts them rumors. Look at that lake. Calm as glass. They’ll come in with a mess of six-inch perch.” He spat again.

“You booked up for tomorrow night?” I asked through the screen-door.

“Nope.” He got up and opened the door for me.

Walking onto the porch, I said, “Then I’d like to reserve a boat. When’s best to go out?”

“Ain’t much point till it gets dark. If you mean to use live bait, that is. Eight-thirty, nine o’clock.”

I told him I’d be there at nine and paid in advance. The price of a boat and a fifteen-horsepower motor was six dollars, a Coleman lantern fifty cents extra, and I gave him a dollar for a can of night crawlers.