Diane Davidson - The Main Corpse

I sighed and looked out the window at fog so thick I couldn’t even see my neighbor’s house. Would this wretched weather never end? I ground a cupful of coffee beans, scrupulously remeasured the water, and then pressed the button for espresso. While the dark strands of liquid began to spurt out, I again punched the numbers for Marla’s house. This time I got a busy signal. My heart leapt: I tried again and once more got a busy. The next time I punched in her number, I encountered her machine. I waited this time and said, “It’s me, pick up! It’s Goldy! If you’re there, damn it, pick up!”

No response. Perhaps someone else had been calling the machine just at the moment I’d dialed and received the busy signals. I shook my head, then tried Tom again.

He answered on the first ring. “Schulz.” His voice was guarded, as if someone were right there looking over his shoulder. “Can you talk?” “One sec.” He put me on hold, then came back. “Go ahead.”

“Macguire just called. He’s in the hospital. Tom, have you heard of any accidents? Has something happened to Marla?”

“Wait, wait.” He lowered his voice. “How do you get from Macguire Perkins in the hospital to something happening to Marla?”

“Let me back up,” I blubbered. “I should have told you that Macguire had started to fancy himself an investigator. He’s decided to become a cop instead of going to college. I didn’t tell you because I was afraid you would think it was dumb. Anyway, I saw him Friday outside the soup restaurant, and I guess he was tailing them – Marla and Tony. I never thought that he’d follow them on their fishing trip this weekend.” I gave him the substance of my conversation with Macguire in the hospital. He listened patiently, without interrupting once.

“First of all, Miss G., I don’t think anybody’s aspirations are dumb, okay? Marla is his friend. He was worried about her. Now, where’s Headmaster Perkins? Has somebody let him know his son’s in the hospital?”

“I don’t know where Perkins is. Vermont, I think. For a month-long educational conference? I’m not sure. Macguire’s calling the school secretary, and he’s due to get out of the hospital tomorrow. But, Tom, where could Marla be? I mean, if Macguire was following them, and he got hurt, and then he couldn’t find Marla and Tony in the storm… where are they? Have you heard anything about people hurt up at Grizzly Creek? Tony Royce’s office just called – “

“Hold on a sec.” He put me in telecommunications limbo for what seemed like an age. When he came back his voice was grim. “Okay, they got a call late yesterday morning, a trucker said he picked up a hitchhiker who claimed a bear had torn up a campsite where Tony Royce and Marla Korman were camping. We haven’t heard from Marla or Tony, but you know the phones in Aspen Meadow were down most of yesterday.”

“The hitchhiker was Macguire.”

“A team’s already gone up to Grizzly Creek. Because it was Tony and Marla, Captain Shockley’s put himself personally in charge.” His tone very clearly said, And you know what that means. “Goldy, you’re going to have to let me get back to you.”

“Are there any …” I couldn’t say the rest.

“No reports of death, no bodies floating in the creek or washed up on the shore,” he said curtly, and hung up.

I grabbed my mug of coffee and my keys and ran out the back door.

Once I was in the van, however, I sat, bewildered. What was I doing, exactly? I took a slug of espresso and thought, What’s a logical explanation for this? Okay, Tony and Marla were miserable out there camping in that awful storm. There was some kind of problem with Marla’s Mercedes, so they got a ride out. Macguire said they only had the one car, and he didn’t see them leave. Then some animal got into their campsite while Macguire was asleep in his car. After that, a rock hit Macguire… . No.

I inhaled more caffeine and struggled to kick-start my brain. Okay. Say they came back early, for whatever reason – they could be at Tony’s place right now, or Marla’s, sleeping in, having fun, being naughty and missing Monday morning appointments. Maybe Marla’s answering machine was on but the volume was off – she rigged her phone that way all the time. She could have called somebody this morning when I got the busy signal, but not heard me begging for her to pick up later. So … was I going to go hauling over to Marla’s house, if that’s where they were, and barge in?

Was I up to making a fool of myself? Well, it wouldn’t be the first time. And anyway, what if Marla and Tony weren’t even there, what if they were at a hotel somewhere? I turned the ignition on, then off.

What about Macguire? What was the worst-case scenario? I wondered about Albert Lipscomb. If what Eileen Tobey had said was true, then the Eurydice Mine venture was Tony’s project as much as it was Albert’s. If it was a bust, Prospect might not recover. Maybe, I wondered wildly, maybe Albert hadn’t left town at all. Tony had told everyone he and Marla were going fishing at Grizzly Creek this weekend. Albert could easily have come back for revenge on his partner, after Marla had found problems in the assay reports. Revenge for what? For not analyzing the mine properly? For risking the assets of the entire firm? Huge maybe questions. Then, after doing something to Tony and Marla, Albert had whacked Macguire for good measure, and slashed his tires, so that he could make his getaway with all that money before anyone got back to Aspen Meadow… .

But then where were Marla and Tony? With Albert Lipscomb? Dead in the rain near Grizzly Creek? I suddenly knew what I had to do.

Fog pressed against my windshield as the van inched toward Main Street. Cottony mist wove through streetside aspen branches. The van crunched over rutted gravel left in the destructive wake of the heavy rain. Once again, I had to slow behind a line of traffic. Ten car-lengths ahead, a road crew with two bulldozers scooped up the remains of a rock slide. I drank the last of the tepid espresso and tapped the steering wheel in frustration. I didn’t want to think about rock slides.

Where was Marla? Twenty minutes later I pulled up in front of her house. A large pine branch, blown down in the storm, lay like a gnarled black bone in her groomed flower bed. The driveway was empty, the draperies pulled. There was no sign of movement on her street. I hopped up the stone steps. If Tony was here, I was going to recommend he break up with him. Immediately. Being involved with investment advisers, shady or otherwise, was getting to be burdensome on my cardiac health.

The doorbell dingdonged inside the silent house. I stared at my blurred reflection in the brass nameplate inscribed Chez Marla and waited. I rang again.

Decision time. She’d had a heart attack last summer. I’d gotten two busy signals and then nothing this morning. What if she was inside, and couldn’t call out, because she was having another heart attack? What if she needed me to do CPR? That’s my mom, I could hear Arch’s mocking voice. Always imagining the worst, and making you pay for her imagination.

Lucky for me, Marla frequently locked herself out of her own home. I hurried to the lock box under the utility gauges where I knew she kept at least two spare keys. I wrenched the box open, grabbed the one spare that was there, and sprinted back around to the front of the house.

The cold key bit into my palm as I once again pressed the doorbell and listened to it bong through the interior space. The key slipped from my hand and clanged onto the flagstone entryway. I picked it up and gently fit it into the lock. Unlike me, Marla had no sophisticated security system to protect against the Jerk or anyone else. She always claimed she had her ferocious personality to keep enemies at bay. The latch clicked, the knob turned, and I pushed the door open.