Charles Williams - Go Home, Stranger

It shot into view around a wall of trees a hundred yards away, a two-seated runabout planing swiftly down the channel. Off the camp the man at the wheel swung hard over and came skidding in toward the landing, giving it full astern at the last moment. The boat settled as if pushed down in the water and eased up alongside the float. Reckless, Reno thought, but he can handle a boat. The man reached out a hand and steadied it while a girl stepped nimbly out, holding what looked like an old brief case under her arm.

She turned, laughed, and said, “Thank you.”

The man in the cockpit raised his white cap in a mock-courtly gesture that revealed flaming red hair, and pushed at the float with his hand. There was a deep-throated growl of power as the boat slid away from the landing and vanished around the turn in the channel. The whole thing hadn’t taken more than a minute.

Reno stood beside the car watching the girl come up from the landing. She was a little over average height wearing white slacks and a short-sleeved blouse, her short jet-black hair wind-blown from the ride. As she came nearer he observed that her eyes were dark brown, heavily lashed, and that the face was beautifully tanned.

Memory stirred. There was no doubt of it. Her chin, though quite stubborn and firm, was undeniably dimpled. This was the girl Vickie had described.

“Hello,” he said, as casually as he could.

The girl met his inspection coolly, nodded a “Good afternoon,” which was neither friendly nor unfriendly, and went on past. She turned into the third cabin up the row.

He had turned and started toward her cabin, but before he had taken a step he checked himself. Suppose it wasn’t really the same girl? Or suppose she was, but denied it? He’d have tipped his hand before he had been here twenty minutes. And there was something else. The papers had been full of the McHugh murder case for over ten days, and she had never come forward to back up Vickie’s story. Maybe he’d be a sucker to let her know who he was before he found out a little more about her. At least he’d found her. She would keep.

Seven

He was still thinking about her as he got in the car, and it wasn’t entirely about what she might know. A terrific-looking girl, he decided. And Vickie, with her professional ear, had called the shot when she’d said she had a good voice. The smooth contralto purr of that “Good afternoon” was like music. As he came around the store and started out to the highway he stopped on sudden impulse and went inside. Right here was a good place to get the lab report, he thought with sardonic humor.

The blonde girl was reading a newspaper at the counter. She looked up as he came through the door.

“Pack of cigarettes,” he said. She reached in the case and handed them over, and as he slipped the cellophane off he asked, “Who’s the Latin type?”

She smiled sweetly as she handed him his change and a book of matches. “Pretty, isn’t she?”

“If you like ‘em like that, I guess. What’s she here for, the fishing?”

“Why didn’t you ask her? As soon as you got your breath?”

He shrugged. “Oh, I was just curious. Doesn’t matter. But she doesn’t look as if she’d care much for fishing.”

“Well, not for bass, anyway.”

Sharpen your hatchet, kid, he thought. You can do better than that. He started to turn away indifferently. “Probably a schoolteacher on vacation.”

The girl tucked a wisp of hair back of her ear. “She says she’s an artist.”

“A painter, eh?”

“I understand she likes muscles. She had Max Easter pose for her without his shirt.”

“Easter? Who’s he? I mean, when he has his shirt on?”

“A giant. Lives in a houseboat up the bayou. Some kind of a screwball.” She looked at Reno appraisingly. “Built about like you are. Maybe she’ll let you pose for her, too.”

“Uh-uh. I’m just fat.” He lit a cigarette and threw the match toward the door. “What’s your name?”

“Mildred. Mildred Talley. And I know you’re not interested in hers, but it’s Patricia Lasater. Or so she says.”

“Mine’s Pete Reno.” He went toward the door. “I’ll see you at dinner, Mildred.” He stopped then, half through the doorway. “By the way, who’s the redhead with the speedboat?”

“Hutch Griffin. He runs a boat service a couple miles down the channel. If you want to know any more about him, you could ask her.”

He shook his head and waved, and went on out the door.

He drove slowly down the highway, looking, for the road turning off into the timber. According to Mac’s report, the girl—Patricia Lasater, probably, he thought had passed Conway parked across from the Counselor. Then he had started his car and come along behind her for a short distance before he swung off into the trees. So it had to be somewhere very near here. He went a half mile, a mile. Another steel bridge loomed up ahead. The other arm of the bayou, he thought, remembering the map.

He was almost past it before he saw it, a faint pair of ruts leading off the highway into the oaks. He had to hit the brakes and back up a little to make the turn. You’d certainly have to know where that was in order to find it, he thought.

It was quiet in the moss-hung dimness of the timber. The road, little more than a pair of ruts, dodged sharply around tree trunks and pushed through overhanging limbs that scraped along the top of the car. After about a quarter mile the underbrush thinned out a little and he could see the glint of sunlight on open water as he neared the edge of the bayou. He stopped and got out. It was fairly open here under the crowns of the big oaks and he could see the remains of two or three long dead campfires. Fishermen, he thought. There’s probably a piece of shelving bank along here somewhere where you can launch a boat off a trailer. Conway might have been headed here, all right. But for what? And if he launched his boat, what became of it? And the trailer? And, for that matter, Conway?

An examination of the hard ground told him nothing. There had apparently been a few cars and campers in here since the last rain, but there was no way of knowing when that had been. And it had been a little over a month now since Conway had turned his car into this dead-end road, so the chances were very remote that any of these traces were his. He prowled moodily along the bank, having no idea of what he sought but drawn merely by the fact that this spot, this old camping place under the trees along a wild section of bayou, was the last place with which the mysterious Conway could be definitely linked before he had vanished.

He stopped to light a cigarette, squatting on his heels and looking out over the bayou through an opening in the tree wall along the shore. He smoked the cigarette out to the end and dropped it into the water below him. A small fish came up and batted at it, and then another. Fingerling bass, he thought, ready to tackle anything, even at that age. Idly he ran his gaze along the edge of the water, looking for more. And then suddenly he stopped, his face still and his eyes staring at a spot some eight feet off to the left while the hair prickled along the back of his neck. It was impossible. It just couldn’t be.

He jerked his glance upward, measuring the height of the bank. It was at least four feet and almost vertical, a straight drop from the top of the bank to the edge of the water, where the sloping mud bottom began to drop away, gradually at first, and then plunging down out of sight through the tea-colored water. And still there it was, quite plainly seen just under the surface of the water, the track of an automobile tire!

He shook his head. It was just some kid, he thought, playing with an old tire. Hurriedly springing up, he walked over and looked down. And there was another one, just the right distance over and more deeply pressed into the mud than the first, every tread distinct. There wasn’t any doubt of it.