Diane Davidson - The Main Corpse

“Farquhar here.”

“It’s Goldy,” I began. The enormity of what I was about to tell him almost made me light-headed. I plunged ahead. “I have some bad news about Marla. She, I, we … need your help. We need to get her out of danger and clear her name.” Then I quickly outlined, through the crackling static, what had happened. Or what I thought had happened. How Marla had gone on a fishing trip with her boyfriend. How she’d been attacked at night and had to hitch a ride home. How it looked as if the assailant had also attacked Marla’s boyfriend, Tony Royce. Now Tony was missing, the police had found some bizarre evidence both in Marla’s car and strewn around the campsite, and Marla had been charged with murdering Tony Royce. I told him about the high water at Grizzly Creek, about the signs of a scuffle, the knife and the bloody shirt in Marla’s car. “Formal charges,” I concluded, “are going to be filed within two days.”

General Bo swiftly digested all this. “My dear,” he said promptly, “what can we possibly do?”

“My idea is illegal,” I said bluntly. “But I’m going to need you, a four-wheel-drive vehicle, camping equipment, and food for” – I counted mentally – “five people for two or three days, I think. And, uh, a good map of the back roads and the trails along Grizzly Creek.”

“Can do,” Bo Farquhar said.

I looked at my watch: eleven o’clock. “Can you be at my house with all that by five tonight?”

“You know,” he observed wistfully, “I’ve always wanted to help my sister-in-law. I’m very fond of Marla.”

“So you’re willing to help?”

“We’ve just finished our equipment trials here. My ankle’s healed up. I’ll be at your house at seventeen hundred hours,” he said crisply. His voice bristled with the authority that had become familiar when I was working for him. “I’ll bring the supplies.”

I hung up. My stomach growled fiercely. The mundane – in this case, no food all day – invariably intrudes when you least want to take care of it. I’d call Arch and then get over to the hospital. A place that made marvelous spring rolls was on the way. I’d take some to Macguire, too. Every time I’d been in the hospital, I’d spent a lot of time fantasizing about food.

I plunked in another coin to call home and heard Jake howling even before Arch could say, “Goldilocks’ Catering… Jake! Be quiet! Where everything – “

“It’s me. Listen, hon, there’s something I need you to do.”

“Jake, hush! Where are you, Mom?”

“Oh, honey, it’s a long story, but Marla’s having some problems.” A mild understatement.

“She’s not back in the hospital?”

“No.” I took a deep breath. “She’s in jail.”

“In jail? For what?”

“She’s charged with a murder she didn’t do. But listen, I have to go over to Wheat Ridge to visit Macguire – “

“I like Macguire! May I visit him, too? What’s he doing in Wheat Ridge?”

“Honey, he’s in the hospital. He … got beaten up by the same person who got Marla into trouble.”

“Can’t I come with you? What’s going on?”

“I promise I’ll tell you when I get home, if you’ll just do this one favor for me. Please call the main number for the sheriffs department and get connected with the women’s side of the jail. Ask that Marla call you at home as soon as possible.”

“Call the jail? Get Marla to call me from jail? What am I going to talk to her about? I’m going to feel really dumb.”

“You just have to tell her one thing. It’s very important, Arch. Tell her the message is from me, and that she has to eat as much Jell-O as possible at dinner tonight. Have you got that?”

He paused. “That is the stupidest message I ever heard. Besides, if you haven’t checked – “

“Jell-O, Arch,” I interrupted him, “you got it?”

His voice was resigned. “Oh-kay! Whatever! Can I be in on this, what you’re planning?”

“Arch!” Then I relented. “Please just call the jail.”

I hung up to Jake’s melancholy howl.

I zipped the van down Interstate 70 to Saigon Carry-Out, ordered a batch of spring rolls, then crossed to Thirty-eighth Avenue and headed for Lutheran Hospital. Help me, Goldy, help me! That had been the pained cry from the best friend I’d ever had, as she was led away by two storm troopers. I tried not to think about her, tried not to imagine each situation she was going through down at the jail. Still, worries wormed into my mind. Oh, Marla, what are they saying I to you? Are they dressing your bruises and cuts? Are you taking your medications? Do you believe I’m trying to help you?

Once I was on the right floor of the hospital, it didn’t take long to find Macguire. A television advertisement for chain saws seemed to be emanating from a room with its door half open. But it was not the TV; Macguire’s roommate was snoring. When I tiptoed into the room, Macguire raised his head from the pillow and squinted at me. His face lit up with such delight that I refused to gasp at the thick bandage around his head and the gash running across one of his acne-scarred cheeks.

I whispered, “Oh, Macguire! Look at you!” I glanced at his dozing roommate. “How can you sleep with that racket?”

Macguire wrinkled his nose. “I’m used to it now. Afraid I won’t be able to sleep once I get back to Elk Park, it’ll be so quiet. Listen, did you find Marla? How’s she doing? How about Tony?” He sniffed. “Is that food? I’m starved. It feels as if all I eat here is oatmeal. Even if it’s beef stew, it tastes like oatmeal.”

I wheeled his bed tray over and opened up the bags of spring rolls. My appetite had mysteriously left me, but Macguire’s was certainly healthy. When I scraped a metal chair over to his bedside, the snorer rumbled, stirred, and flopped over. “Things are pretty bad,” I began, as Macguire dug into his second roll. I told him what had happened to Marla.

“Murder? Are you kidding?” Macguire exclaimed when I’d finished. He fell back on his pillow, then screeched, “Ouch!” He gaped at the ceiling. “That is just too far out. But Marla was beaten up? So … you think the same person hit me? But the cops think it was Marla? Marla wouldn’t hurt me, I mean, she likes me! Man, I guess I’m lucky to be alive.”

“Maybe so. Please, Macguire, you’re going to have to try to remember if you saw anything else that night. Marla needs you.”

Macguire pushed the food away and looked at the window, where fog nuzzled the glass like gray fur. His face crinkled in thought. “Okay,” he said, “there are a few things I’ve been thinking about, stuff I didn’t have time to tell you over the phone. It’s all kind of disconnected, but maybe you or Tom can make some sense out of it. Could you hand me my backpack, from that closet?”

I hauled out the ragged maroon knapsack while he reached for a pad of paper on his nightstand. Then I glanced at my watch: just past noon. Time was going by too quickly. I wondered if Marla had reached her lawyer yet.

“Do you remember Albert Lipscomb from the party?” I asked Macguire. “Is there any way you could have seen him at the campsite?”

“Yeah, I remember him from the party. Bald guy,” Macguire replied as he leafed through his wallet. “Naw, I didn’t see him. All I saw were Marla and Royce. But I did take pictures before it got dark up there. I probably shouldn’t have, it was sort of invading Marla’s privacy, I guess. I mean, nobody’s actually hired me to do surveillance. But I thought it would be such a great idea – “

“You took pictures?” I said sharply. “Where’s the camera? Where’s the film?”

“Well, you’re not going to believe this.” He hoisted himself back up and gingerly touched his swollen cheek. “But I’d taken pictures of Elk Park graduation on the first part of one roll. So I took a bunch of pictures to finish that roll. When I reloaded the camera I put the first roll in my backpack and locked it in my trunk. When I got hit, I lost the stupid camera! Anyway, I stumbled out onto the road with my backpack, and I was all hurt and bloody and everything, and that guy in the truck picked me up and drove me down here – “