Charles Williams - Girl Out Back

It was Grady Collins, the deputy who was stationed here in Wardlow. He was a stocky and pleasant-faced younger type of about twenty-five, a Marine Corps veteran of the Korean war.

He pushed the white hat back on his head and grinned. “Hi, Barney. I was just headed for your place.”

“What’s on your mind, Grady?” I asked. Why didn’t some lab come up with a liquid cop-repellant you could rub on yourself?

“You don’t know a guy named Nunn, do you? George Nunn?”

What now? “Well, I’ve seen him once or twice. Why?”

Before he could answer, I heard somebody running across the gravel behind me, and looked back. It was Otis.

“Long distance call for you,” he said. “From Felton.”

As far as I knew, I didn’t know anybody in Felton. Nor want to.

“Tell the operator to transfer it home,” I said. “In five minutes or so. Thanks, Otis.” He turned and went back.

“What about this Nunn?” I asked Collins. If I ever got out of this place maybe I ought to take a vacation.

“I don’t know. He sounds Asiatic. Called up a little while ago with some goofy line of crap his wife’s with you and he wants her picked up so he can talk to her. Get her to come back.”

What was his angle in that? Oh. Trying to delay us until he could get hold of another gun and start looking for us.

“With me?” I said. “Where’d he call from? Some opium den?”

Collins grinned and shook his head. “You got me, pal. From that camp of his, I guess. Anyway, you haven’t seen her, have you?”

“No,” I said.

“Well, that’s what I told the meat-head. Also that I couldn’t pick her up, anyway, unless he came in and swore out a complaint. If he calls back, I”ll tell him to go sleep it off. Brother, this job.”

“Well, I’ll see you,” I said.

He lifted a hand and grinned. “See you, Barney.”

I hit the light green crossing Main and was home in two minutes or less. I put the car in the garage, pulled down the overhead door, and started in the front of the house. Just as I was going up the steps I remembered I hadn’t called the express company. Well, I’d do that now. God, would I ever get away from here? And what was I going to pack that money in? It had to be something waterproof. And I’d have to come up with something to tell her, some new errand.

I stepped into the living-room, and looked around in surprise. She wasn’t there. “Jewel,” I called.

There was no answer. Maybe she’d gone upstairs to the bathroom. I called again, a little louder, and received only silence in reply. There were four cigarettes, smeared with lipstick, in the ash-tray she had been using. I turned toward the dining-room. There was her overnight bag, lying on its side under the edge of the table. I stepped quickly over and looked in.

She wasn’t there, but two of the chain were overturned. And near them lay one of her shoes.

I began to run then. I took the stairs three at a time and made the turn into the bedroom so fast I almost lost my balance and crashed into the wall. She was on the bed, lying face up with most of her clothes torn off and the cord of my electric razor around her throat. I took one look at her and headed for the bathroom. I fell to my knees in front of the John and tried not to be sick.

The telephone began ringing downstairs. It went on and on.

My arms shook as if with a bad chill as I braced myself against the wall. I had to get out of there, to some place where I could think. Away from her. I kept seeing her, even behind me and with my eyes closed.

The police, I thought. I had to call the police so they could catch the unspeakable son of a bitch and hang him before he could get out of the country. The phone went on ringing. Well, maybe it would stop some day. I got up unsteadily, went through the bedroom without looking at her, and started down the stairs.

It struck me then. Wasn’t I overdoing the righteous indignation just a little, and being a trifle dramatic? It hadn’t been three hours since I’d been trying to think of some way. . . . I closed my eyes and shuddered. Good God, no. Not like that. Nor any way. I hadn’t, had I?

Hang him? Him? I stopped dead.

They’d hang me. She was strangled in my bedroom with the cord of my electric razor while my wife was away. That torn clothing— And I had just five minutes ago told the police I hadn’t seen her. Right after drawing fifteen hundred dollars from the bank so I could skip the country. Oh, they’d hang Nunn, all right. I’d be lucky if they didn’t hand him a gun and tell him to shoot me.

I was at the foot of the stairs. The telephone went on ringing. Maybe if I answered it, it would stop, but I wasn’t sure. I picked it up.

“Mr. Godwin?” a bright female voice asked. “We have a long-distance call from Felton.”

“I don’t know anybody in Fel . . .”

“Barney, darling!” It was Jessica. “Oh, it’s good to hear your voice again.

I leaned against the wall. “Where . . .?” I began, and then stopped as it occurred to me in a great burst of deductive reasoning that if she were calling from Felton that must be where she was.

“How are you?” I asked stupidly.

“Just fine, dear. And dying to see you. I’m on my way home now, and I’ll be there in about two hours. I stopped here for a cup of coffee, and I just thought I’d call and let you know.”

“You’ll be here in about two hours?” I could absorb practically anything if it were repeated two or three times. “Good. That’s fine.”

“You lamb. You great, big, beautiful, woolly lamb you. I’ll run now, honey, and be on my way. See you soon.”

“Good-bye,” I said.

I hung up. A very white gesture, I thought. After two years of accusing me of chasing everything in this end of the State that didn’t shave twice a day, she wanted to give me enough advance notice to clear the place of women if I had any here, so there wouldn’t be a fight when she got home. That was really decent. Well, for once she was right. There was one here.

Sixteen

It was all piling up too fast for me. I stood still for a minute with my face in my hands and tried to think. Did I have any chance at all of convincing them? I didn’t have a scratch on me. But, then, neither would Nunn. He’d hit her first and knocked her out, down here in the dining-room, and then after he’d strangled her he faked the assault. It would just be my word against his. I could show them the guns in the lake, and that lump on his head. But what would that really prove? Nothing, except that we’d had a fight. It wouldn’t count for much against the fact he had called the police and tried to get them to pick her up so he could talk to her and try to get her to come home. And that I had told the police, after she was already dead in my bedroom, that I hadn’t seen her.

I considered that. It was neat, when you thought of it. I’d under-estimated him all along, dismissing him as a muscle-brained tough boy, and he’d got me. He knew I’d deny knowing where she was, so I could hang myself. He’d probably called them from right here.

Well, he hadn’t quite got me yet. I could get her out of here; it could be done but it wasn’t going to be easy, not being able to wait until dark. I had less than two hours. I snapped out of it and ran toward the stairs. It took an effort to go back in that room. The nausea was working on me again, but I had to get the razor cord off her throat. It had been wrapped around twice and then tied in back. I had to look at her face once. Well, she was unconscious, I thought. Maybe that helped; I didn’t know.

I worked the cord free and put it back in the bathroom. Going out in the hall, I took a blanket from the linen closet. I spread it on the floor beside the bed and lifted her down on to it. There was no rigidity at all yet, and she was hard to handle. I pulled the torn dress down to cover her with the little dignity there was left to her, and cast about for her underclothes. She still had on the bra, and I found the panties shoved into the rumpled folds of the bedspread. I remembered she hadn’t worn stockings, so there would be no suspender belt. There should be one shoe up here, however. I found it under the bed.