Charles Williams: Man on a Leash

“Lew,” she began the introduction, “this is Eric—”

He cut her off. “I know who he is.” The eyes flicked contemptuously across Romstead and dismissed him along with the rest of the scenery. “Have you seen Jeri?”

“Mr. Bonner.” The tone was sweetly dangerous. “May I present—” She broke off herself then. “Jeri? You mean she’s here in town?”

“She came in last Tuesday. But when I woke up awhile ago, she was gone. No note or anything.”

“I’ll see you up at the house,” Paulette said.

“Right.” Before he turned away, Bonner swept Romstead with that flat stare again. “Going to take over the family business?”

“Shut up, Lew!” Paulette snapped. Romstead stared thoughtfully after him but said nothing. The Porsche shot back down the drive.

“I’m sorry,” Paulette said. “Usually he has at least as much social grace as a goat, but he’s a little off his form today.”

Romstead shrugged. “Something’s chewing on him.”

“It’s his sister. I’m worried about her, too.”

“Who is he?”

“He used to work for my husband, and before that, he played pro football, one of the Canadian teams. Owns a liquor store now.” She got into the car. “See you in a little while.”

“Hadn’t I better skip it?” He nodded after the Porsche now disappearing around the bend in the highway. “I don’t think we’re going to grow on each other, and it’ll just be unpleasant for you.”

“Oh, he’ll be gone before then.”

She swung the big car and went back down the drive. Romstead returned to the house. He rinsed out the two glasses and dropped the beer bottles in the kitchen garbage can. There was another room in this wing of the house, directly back of the garage, its entrance through a doorway at the rear of the dining area. He went in.

It was a library or den. There was another fireplace, a big easy chair with a reading lamp, a desk, and a coffee table. On the walls were more books, an aneroid barometer, some carved African masks, a bolo, a pair of spears, and several abstract paintings. A magazine rack held copies of Fortune, Time, and Scientific American. The cigars were in a closet, each box individually wrapped and sealed in plastic.

In the other wing the small bedroom at the front of the house was apparently a guest room. The next door down the hall was a bathroom. He glanced in briefly and went on. The master bedroom was at the rear. He stepped in and stopped abruptly in surprise. After the neatness of the rest of the house it was a mess.

It was a big room containing a king-sized double bed with a black headboard and matching night tables with big lamps on each side. One of the lamps was lighted. The drapes, the same dark green as the bedspread, were all closed. Off to his left, the door to the bathroom was ajar, and he could see a light was on in there too. Beyond the bathroom door was a large dresser, all its drawers pulled open and their contents—shirts, socks, underwear, handkerchiefs, boxes of cuff links, pajamas—thrown out on the rug.

On top of it was a woman’s handbag, open and lying on its side, a kitchen knife, a spoon, a hypodermic syringe, and a small plastic bag containing some fraction of an ounce of a white powder. He strode on in to look at the floor on the other side of the bed. A yellow dress and a pair of scuffed and dusty pumps with grotesque square heels lay on the rug beside it. Next to them on a hassock were a slip, nylon pants, and a bra. There was no sound at all from the bathroom. He felt the hair prickle on the back of his neck as he went over and slowly pushed the door open.

To his left was a stall shower and at the other end the commode and washbasin. The oversized tub was directly opposite, a slender leg draped over the side of it with the doubled knee of the other leg visible just beyond. He stepped on in and looked down. She was lying on her back, her head under the spigot and turned slightly to one side with the long dark-red hair plastered across her face so that little of it was visible except the chin and part of the mouth. There was about an inch of water in the bottom of the tub, but no blood and no marks of violence on her body.

The tub had apparently been full when she fell in, but owing to an imperfectly fitting plug in the mechanical drain assembly, the water had slowly leaked out over the hours, leaving her hair to settle like seaweed across her face. There was no need to touch her to verify it; she’d been dead from the time she fell in. Had she struck her head on the spigot? There was no hair stuck to it, no blood. The heroin, he thought, or whatever that stuff was she’d shot herself with. But, hell, even somebody drugged should be able to climb out of a bathtub before he drowned. He was suddenly conscious of the passage of time and that he was wasting it in disjointed and futile speculation when he’d better be calling the police. He whirled and went out.

4

There was a telephone on one of the night tables. He grabbed it up, but it was dead; it had been disconnected. It was then he noticed the shards of broken glass on the rug against the far wall. He went over and parted the drapes above it. It was a casement window. She’d knocked out enough glass and then cut away part of the screen, probably with the kitchen knife, so she could reach in and unlatch it and crank it open. There was a wooden box on the ground beneath it, along with the remains of the screen. It was at the side of the house, so he hadn’t seen it when he was out back.

But why in the name of God had she broken in here to shoot herself with that junk? He looked then at the scattered contents of the dresser drawers, at the mute evidence of her frenzy, and felt a little chill between his shoulder blades. But, damn it, Brubaker had searched the house. For Christ’s sake, get going, he told himself. He ran out to the car.

He was out on the highway before he remembered he hadn’t even closed the front door of the house. Well, it didn’t matter. He made a skidding turn off the road and shot up the driveway toward the Carmody house, wondering now what the urgency was, since the woman was dead and had been since last night or maybe even the night before. Bonner’s Porsche was parked in the circular blacktop drive under the big trees in front. He pulled up behind it and hurried up the walk to punch the bell. He heard it chime inside, and in a moment the door was opened by a pleasant dark-haired woman with liquid brown eyes.

“Could I use your phone?” he asked.

“I’ll ask,” she said. “What is your name?”

“Romstead.” At that moment Paulette appeared in the small entry behind her. “Why, Eric, come on in.”

He stepped inside. “I’ve got to use your phone. Something’s happened.”

Paulette smiled at the maid. “It’s all right, Carmelita, I’ll take care of it.” Carmelita disappeared. Paulette led him through a doorway at the left into a long living room with a picture window and French doors at the back of it opening onto a flagstone deck and a pool. Bonner was sitting at a table under a big umbrella. He saw them and got up.

The phone was on a small desk across the room. He grabbed the directory, looked inside the cover for the emergency numbers, and dialed.

“What is it?” Paulette asked. “What happened?”

“There’s a woman in the house. Dead.”

“Oh, my God! Where?”

“Back bedroom. In the tub, drowned—”

“Sheriffs department. Orde,” a voice answered.

“Could I speak to Brubaker?”

“Just a minute.” There were a couple of clicks.

“Brubaker.”

“This is Eric Romstead,” he said. “I’m calling from Mrs. Carmody’s. I’ve just come from my father’s place, and there’s a dead woman in the bath—”