Charles Williams - Man on a Leash

His arm was grabbed by a big paw, and he was whirled around. It was Bonner, his face savage. “How old is she? What did she look like?”

Romstead jerked his arm away. “I don’t know how old she is.” He got the instrument back to his ear to hear the chief deputy bark, “—the hell is going on there? Dead woman in whose bathroom—?”

“Captain Romstead’s. She broke in a window.”

“We’ll be there in five minutes. Stay out of the house!”

He dropped the phone back on the cradle. Bonner lashed out at him, “God damn you, what did she look like?”

“I don’t know,” Romstead said. “Except she had red hair.”

The big man wheeled and ran for the doorway. “Brubaker said to stay out,” Romstead called, but he was gone. The front door slammed. Before he and Paulette could reach the walk outside, there was a snarl from the Porsche’s engine and a shriek of rubber, and he was tearing down the drive. They got into Romstead’s car and ran down the hill onto the highway. By the time they’d turned in through the cattle guard the Porsche had already come to a stop, and Bonner was running in the front door. He stopped behind the other car, but they did not get out. When he looked around at her, there were tears in her eyes.

“Maybe it’s not,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “She was one of the most beautiful girls I ever saw, and she had dark red hair.”

“Was she on drugs? There was a needle in there.”

“He was afraid she was.”

“Where did she live?”

“San Francisco.”

“She knew the old man?”

“Yes. How well, I don’t know, but she was with my husband and me on that sailboat when he picked us up at sea. Could you tell what happened to her? Did she fall in the tub and knock herself out, or what?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But my guess would be an overdose.” He told her about the packet of heroin, or whatever it was, and the way the dresser had been ransacked.

“I don’t get it,” she said, baffled. “I just don’t believe it—”

She broke off then as Bonner emerged from the house and walked slowly toward his car. They got out, but there was no need to ask.

“I’m so sorry, Lew,” Paulette said.

He made no reply. He leaned his arms on top of the Porsche and stood, head lowered, staring at the ground. It wouldn’t do any good, Romstead thought, and he might be just asking for it, but he had to say something.

“I’m sorry, Bonner,” he said. “I’m sorry as hell about it.”

Bonner spoke without looking around, his voice little more than a ragged whisper. “Don’t bump me,” he said. “Don’t crowd me at all.”

* * *

It was hot in the room, and there was a strained, tense silence as they waited for Brubaker and the others to finish in the bedroom. Romstead had drawn the drapes and opened the sliding glass door to get a movement of air through it, but it didn’t help much. Bonner stood with his back to the others, looking out at the terrace. Paulette Carmody was smoking a third cigarette. Romstead stared at the rows of books without seeing them. The coroner had gone now, as well as a deputy with a camera, the picture taking completed. Two men came out through the vestibule carrying the sheeted figure on a stretcher. Brubaker was behind them. He watched the body go out to the waiting ambulance, his face bitter.

“Junk,” he said. “Goddamned junk.”

Bonner spoke without turning. “Nice she knew where to find it.”

Romstead said nothing. What could he say? He asked himself. There was no use trying to kid himself or anybody else the girl had had the stuff with her. She hadn’t walked four miles in the dark and illegally broken into a house to take a bath. There was no use even conjecturing on how it had got here, but there it was. The girl was dead because of it, and Bonner was running very near the edge, so this might be one of the really great opportunities of a lifetime to keep his mouth shut.

“It looks like just another overdose,” Brubaker said. “There are no marks on her of any kind, she didn’t fall and hit her head, and there’s no evidence anybody else was in the room. We’re checking for prints as a matter of routine, but we’re pretty sure what happened is that it was pure heroin instead of being cut four or five to one, and she took too much. The autopsy and lab tests should verify it.”

“But,” Paulette interrupted, “why was she in the tub?”

“Don’t forget she’d just walked four miles, probably running half the time, and she was suffering withdrawal symptoms—a couple of which are profuse sweating and screaming nerves. And she’d just walked into an addict’s paradise—at least a week’s supply of junk and a place nobody could find her and take it away from her. All she wanted was to get some of it into a vein, relax in a hot tub while her nerves uncoiled, and then float off for days. So just about the time she got the tub filled it hit her. She was probably sitting on the side of it testing the water, and she went over backward into it. She drowned, technically, but she’d have been dead anyway.”

“If you want to ask me any questions,” Bonner said harshly, “ask ‘em. I’d like to get out of this place.”

“You say she came back last week? How?”

“On the bus. She said she’d quit her job and wanted to stay a few weeks while she made up her mind what to do. But she worried me, the way she acted.”

“How?”

“She couldn’t seem to decide on anything. One minute she was going to New York; then it was Los Angeles, and then Miami. She was going to try modeling; then she was going to study computer programming. I told her I’d lend her the money for any kind of trade school she wanted or even for college if she wanted to go back. She’d be all for it, and half an hour later it was out; she was going to get a job on a cruise ship or hook up with some couple sailing around the world. The only thing she never mentioned was going back to San Francisco, which was screwy, because she was always crazy about it.”

Brubaker frowned. “Well, did she see any of her friends?”

“No. She didn’t even want anybody to know she was here. She was nervous as a cat, pacing all the time, but she wouldn’t budge out of the house. I told her she could use the car any time she wanted it and asked her why she didn’t drive out to Paulette’s and visit and have a swim, but no, she didn’t want to see anybody. She’d jump six feet when the phone rang, or the doorbell—”

“And you didn’t know she was on the stuff? There were needle tracks all over her arm.”

“God damn it, maybe I didn’t want to know! Anyway, she always wore things with sleeves like so—” Bonner made a slashing gesture with one hand across the other forearm.

“Three-quarters,” Paulette said.

“When was the last time you saw her?” Brubaker asked.

“About two o’clock this morning.”

“When you got home from the store?”

“Yeah. Her bedroom door was closed; but I looked in, and she was asleep.”

Brubaker shook his head. “Probably faking it so you’d cork off and she could slip out. If she was desperate enough for a fix to walk four miles and burglarize a house, she wasn’t sleeping, believe me.”

“Well, why did she wait till I got home? I was at the store from six P.M. on, and she could have taken off any time.”

“Maybe it still wasn’t unbearable then, and she was trying to sweat it out. She probably had a little she’d brought from San Francisco. Also, after two A.M. there’d be no traffic on the road and she wouldn’t be seen. Did she ever mention Captain Romstead?”

“No, not that I recall.”

“But she did know he was dead?”

“Yes. At least, I told her, but you could never be sure she was paying any attention to what you were saying. It didn’t seem to interest her.”