Diane Davidson - The Main Corpse

Once I exited to Aspen Meadow, I passed a popular creekside picnic site that had been claimed by the overflowing Cottonwood. This was probably the place Sam Perdue and his sprained-ankle customer in the ambulance had encountered the near-drowned child. I shuddered. Water had boiled above the edges of the creekbed and now ran freely through a wide area of flattened grass. It gushed up the sides of a picnic table and bench. On the far side of the site, the grill stood just a few inches higher than what now looked like a fast-flowing river.

I wondered where Albert Lipscomb was at this very moment. I hoped that he, too, was soaking wet and suffering. Suffering abysmally.

I began driving down the new, recently widened highway that led to Aspen Meadow’s Main Street, eight miles away. Mountain residents had bitterly fought the widening of this byway, formerly a tortuous two-way road. A broader route would bring more unwanted people, with their blight of problems, to our little burg, the protesters claimed. These invaders would drive away wildlife, wildlife that was viewed by a preponderance of Aspen Meadow residents as being a higher life-form than humans. Now, with the clouds lifted just above the treetops, the tawny meadows on each side of the road looked deserted. Suddenly, though, the meadow seemed to shiver. I slowed and pulled the van onto the muddy shoulder. Moving deliberately across the sodden grass was a herd of elk, maybe forty head. Half a dozen calves trod haltingly next to their mothers on impossibly thin, delicate legs. Coming from the East Coast, Marla and I treasured this kind of sight. Lord, how I wanted her back.

I revved up the van and drove home. Without Marla to talk to and plan with, and without Tom to give me updates, I felt anchorless.

I’d been on the periphery of some of Tom’s cases before. From time to time, I’d even become more involved than he would have liked. But with my friend under arrest, things didn’t look promising for my taking merely a benign interest in the case. I sighed. My idea might not be feasible. It certainly wasn’t legal. But what was the alternative? Go home and wait for your friend to call. It might as well have been, Go home and wait for your friend to have a heart attack. Go home and wait for us to maltreat her. Go home and wait for our captain to convict her of murder.

I ran toward my front door. I had to do something for Marla, because nobody else would.

“Gosh, Mom, where have you been?” Arch demanded as he came bounding down the stairs with fake’s long, nut-brown body at his heels.

“Did you get hold of Marla?” I demanded. Jake gave me his usual mournful, slobbery look.

“Yes, and I told her to eat Jell-O,” Arch said. “She ;aid you’d better bring her Epipen down to the jail. She said you’d know what that was.” His face lengthened. “Mom, she said she was miserable.”

My weight of guilt doubled. “Any other messages?” “General Bo called. We had a nice talk. He asked all about how I was doing and about Jake.” He paused to pat the hound reassuringly. “Anyway, Bo kept saying he wanted to talk to you bad. He’s on his way over.”

“Really?” It was just past three o’clock. I had lots to do, but I needed to talk to Arch. “Listen, hon, I want you to hear this from me instead of from your friends. Tony Royce is missing from the camping trip he took with Marla. The police think Marla hurt Tony. They arrested her this morning, and that’s why she’s in jail – “

“Yeah,” he said, interrupting me, “Marla told me. I turned on the news, but there wasn’t anything. Do you suppose the arrest will be in this week’s copy of The Mountain Journal?”

I had no idea whether Marla was a big enough fish to warrant news coverage, even from our weekly excuse for a paper. I certainly hoped not.

“Probably not, hon. Arch, uh, may I borrow Jake?” His face clouded. He clasped Jake’s collar and the two of them awkwardly backed away from me.

“Why?” His voice cracked. “For how long?”

“Well, he needs to be part of the thing I’m planning with Marla. But I want you to stay home, because it might be dangerous.”

“No,” he said stiffly. His fingers held Jake’s collar in a death grip. “You’re not taking him. He’s my dog and he trusts me. Jake was mistreated by his last handler. What do you want him to do? I’m his handler now. He won’t perform well for anyone but me.”

“Oh, please, Arch, I’m not going to mistreat him, and this is for Marla – “

Arch turned to go up the stairs. “C’mon Jake, let’s go to my room.”

“Wait, honey, wait.” He stopped and gave me a hostile gaze. “Okay, Arch, you can come. But you have to promise to obey me if we get into a dicey situation.”

“Dicey how?”

“I’m not quite sure yet. Please just go pack up clothes for an overnight. As if you were going camping,” I added.

I ran up to Tom’s and my room. The clock said three-fifteen. Dicey how? Good question. I packed some warm clothes. In the kitchen, I loaded paper bags with Jake’s spare leash, kibble, homemade dog biscuits, and large plastic bags as well as small ones that zipped closed. I scribbled a note to Tom, telling him not to worry, no matter what happened. Then I glanced around the room – what could I have forgotten? Oh, yes.

“Arch!” I called up the stairs. “I need you to bring all your fake blood!”

While he was objecting, the front doorbell rang. Arch, Jake, and I arrived at the door simultaneously, and a quick glance through the peephole revealed General Bo Farquhar in a black sweat suit and heavy jacket. At least it wasn’t camouflage gear. Arch turned off the alarm system and opened the door.

“Well,” Bo boomed as he stepped inside, “long time no see! As in less than five days.”

It might as well have been five months. Miraculously, General Bo’s distracted air had vanished, as had his slumping posture and three-day growth of beard. He was freshly shaven, and I wondered how he could have become so tanned, given all the rain we’d been having. If his face seemed older for his prison ordeal and his bout with depression, he now had a firmness in his facial muscles that spoke of new resolve. Apparently the compound did have a barber. He’d had his pale blond hair cut so short he was almost bald. His pale blue eyes, cloudy and unfocused when I had visited him at the compound, now possessed the razor clarity and mesmerizing intensity I knew of old. He quietly closed the door behind him.

“Hello there, General. How’s your ankle?”

He shrugged dismissively and held out his hands. “My dear Goldy. Arch, my buddy.”

I shook his right hand, but Arch opened his arms and threw himself against the general’s chest. Bo embraced him warmly.

“Wow! I can’t believe it’s really you!” Arch exclaimed as Jake gave a low, suspicious woof. My son pulled away. “This is my bloodhound, Jake. Jake, meet General Bo Farquhar.”

I shook my head in disbelief as Bo stooped and put both his hands under Jake’s chin. He said, “Jake, I’m very happy to meet you.” The dog whined joyfully and wagged his entire body.

The general turned his ice blue gaze on me. “You want to tell me what your plan is?”

“What plan?” asked Arch. “What kind of Jell-O plan using Jake needs fake blood?”

Quickly, I outlined the essentials of how I thought we might be able to clear Marla.

“Gosh, Mom,” Arch commented when I finished, “Tom is going to be so ticked off with you.”

“That’s something I’ll just have to risk,” I said. “First we need to make a stop at Marla’s house.”

It took longer than I expected to pack up the jet black Jeep Grand Cherokee General Bo Farquhar had borrowed from someone at the compound. I led the way in my van; Bo and Arch followed in the Jeep. By the time we reached Marla’s house it was just after five o’clock. Fog still curled through her garden, and the house looked ominously deserted.