John Ball: The Cool Cottontail

Linda Nunn knew every part of the lodge grounds and every foot of its hiking trails; she had lived there since she was ten years old. As soon as she saw her father take off toward the sheltering trees that guarded the big pool, she hurried to her room wondering how any stranger, dead or alive, could have got to the carefully protected recreation area without having been seen from the house. Buried in the entrance driveway, there was a concealed treadle that rang a bell in both the office and the kitchen whenever a car drove in; the warning device had not rung the night before.

Opening her closet door, Linda snatched a dress from a hanger and slipped it over her head. She did not bother with underwear; she was not planning to leave the park grounds and expected soon to be free of clothing again, possibly within the hour. Though her closet and dresser were full of the usual things found in a young lady’s wardrobe, wearing any more than was absolutely necessary at the lodge was pointless. The dress she had chosen was conservatively cut and would do nicely.

She paused for a brief moment at her mirror and gave her hair a pat or two before she hurried out of the room. Her feet in attractive and well-made sandals felt the springiness of thick Bermuda grass as she walked rapidly across the big front lawn, taking the short cut to the members’ entrance. She arrived slightly out of breath, but in time to put up the chain that had been provided against any circumstance which might require that the grounds be temporarily closed. With this done she paused to collect herself and speculate on what would be likely to happen next.

Eight minutes later she heard the distant high whine of a siren. It was not continuous, but sounded only now and then as the approaching vehicle hit curves in the road where a warning was necessary. She had heard that same pattern many times before, even in that quiet rural area. This time, she knew, the emergency equipment was coming to her home and the realization gave her a strange and uncomfortable feeling.

The sound grew louder until she could distinguish that there were two cars, one close behind the other. With a final blast from the sirens the vehicles came into view, a copper-colored patrol car closely followed by a police ambulance with the word “RESCUE” visible on its side. The lead driver, who obviously knew exactly where the lodge driveway was, pulled up and stopped.

When he leaned out to speak, he was crisp but pleasant. “Is there a service road down to your pool?” he asked.

Linda hesitated a moment. “Yes, but we don’t use it very often. It’s pretty rutty.”

“That’s all right. Which way do we go?”

“You have to use the other driveway. Shall I show you?”

“Please.”

Because there were two men in the front seat of the car, Linda opened the rear door and climbed in. Sitting on the edge of the seat, she directed the driver to the other entryway, down past the onetime farmhouse, and onto the dirt road that skirted the edge of the trees. The sheriff’s car bumped heavily over exposed tree roots and soft sandy potholes for a hundred yards and then drew up beside a complicated filter system that serviced a beautifully decked Olympic-size swimming pool.

When Linda reached to open the door, she discovered there were no handles on the inside of the car. The man beside the driver let her out and followed as she led the way up an embankment to the deck level. The smooth surface of the water stole a deep blue from the sky and created a false feeling of calm serenity. Midway up the side of the elaborate concrete decking, George Nunn was lying prone, face to face with the body of a substantially built man, stark nude in the strong light of the sun. George, with his fingers around his lips, was doing his best to force mouth-to-mouth air into the lungs of the inert man. Forrest was kneeling beside his son, watching for any sign of reviving life.

After a quick glance at the scene, the sheriff’s deputy next to Linda reached for her shoulder and turned her away. “You’d better leave us now, Miss,” he advised.

“I’ve seen dead people before,” she answered quickly. “That is, if he’s really dead.” She looked back and saw that two more men were getting out of the ambulance, which had followed them down the road.

The deputy took a firmer tone. “He’s not covered, Miss.”

Linda looked at him. “I’m not a cottontail,” she retorted. “And I might know him. I know everyone who comes here and a good many other members, too.”

While they were talking, a surprisingly young-looking man carrying a doctor’s familiar black kit brushed past and knelt beside the man on the deck. He motioned George away and laid his ear against the man’s chest. A moment later he rolled up an eyelid and then listened carefully with a stethoscope on the side of the chest next to the left arm. He shook his head. Experimentally he flexed the arm itself and then rose to his feet. “He’s gone,” he announced. “Probably several hours ago.”

He looked at George. “You did exactly the right thing in trying to revive him. If you’d been in time, you might have saved him.” He turned. “Get the girl out of here,” he ordered.

“She’s my daughter,” Forrest said mildly. “She’s seen death before.”

The young doctor opened his mouth, remembered where he was, and closed it again. “At least let’s cover him up,” he said finally.

The ambulance driver brought a blanket and laid it over the body.

The senior deputy was an older man; his body was thick around his middle, where much of his weight had settled, making him look shorter than he was. He appeared in his early fifties, but added five years more when he took off his uniform cap to wipe his arm across his forehead. His hair had turned largely white, and over much of the top where his cap had rested it was gone altogether. When he had wiped the perspiration away, he replaced his cap, produced a small notebook, and asked calmly, “What happened?”

George answered. “I came down not much more than half an hour ago to clean the tiling and backwash the filters-we do it every other day. When I came through the trees”-he stopped and pointed-“I saw him floating in the pool. He was back up, with his face in the water. I was surprised because I hadn’t heard any guests come in and early Tuesday morning isn’t a usual time for the pool to be in use. When he didn’t pull his face out of the water after half a minute or so, I knew something was wrong. I ran the rest of the way and dove in. I pulled him out and put him on the deck where he is now. I was pretty sure he was dead-he was cold-then I ran for Dad.”

“If you dove in after him, how come your shorts aren’t wet?” the deputy asked.

“I didn’t have them on at the time.”

“Do you know this man?”

George shook his head. “I don’t and Dad doesn’t. He isn’t a member here, that’s for sure.”

“I don’t think he’s a member anywhere,” Linda contributed unexpectedly. “Maybe a onetime visitor, or an occasional who goes to one of the northern clubs, but no more than that.”

The deputy turned and looked at her. “I’m sure you have a reason for saying that,” he prompted. “Would you mind telling me?”

“He’s a cottontail,” Linda pointed out. “He isn’t tanned at all around the hips, you could see that clearly. He couldn’t be a nudist and have skin that white anywhere.”

The deputy wrote in his notebook, then looked down at the doctor, who had resumed his examination of the body. “What do you think?” he asked.

The doctor got to his feet after replacing the covering. “I don’t think he drowned. Possibly an accident, but more likely he was murdered.”

The senior deputy nodded. “About what I figured. He doesn’t appear to belong here. And if he had come in for a midnight swim without the owner’s consent, he would have some sort of a vehicle. He could have walked in, but if he did, where are his clothes?”