Diane Davidson - The Main Corpse

I veered onto the road and brought the Jeep to where Bo stood. He holstered his gun and assumed a paternal tone. “Please get into the back, Goldy.”

As I hopped out of the car, a blue van traveling eastward slowly passed us and stopped on the shoulder twenty feet below the ambulance. The Front Range ambulance lights flashed inexorably: red and white, red and white. The guard’s body did not move. I couldn’t see or hear the ambulance driver.

I opened the door to the back seat. Jake began to howl. On the shoulder twenty feet from the ambulance, two women emerged from the van. They were calling to us: Need help? Everything all right? Need… call on … cell phone? Suddenly I felt Bo’s hand grip my shoulder.

“Get back in the goddam car, Goldy. Climb back there with your son, now!”

Arch was crying. His body was stiff with fear. I lost my balance trying to sit and ended up both beside and partly on top of Jake. The dog snuffled and whined. I was sorry to have scared Arch. But seeing Marla so weak and frightened strengthened my resolve.

Bo checked the mirror, then zoomed the Jeep across three lanes and careened up onto the bumpy median. The Jeep rocked from side to side as it bounced, too fast, over the rocky, unlandscaped strip dividing the interstate. Finally the car shot up on the westbound side of the highway. Bo snapped the steering wheel to straighten the shuddering car. The Jeep’s engine ground ominously as we sped back toward Aspen Meadow.

Marla struggled to breathe. The rash on her chubby bruised face made her look monstrous. Jake snuffled and licked my hand. General Bo was staring straight ahead, pushing the Jeep to high speed.

I looked back. Below the median, I could just make out the two women approaching the ambulance. The guard’s body was still sprawled, limp, on the road.

We were fugitives.

16

“Goldy… I’m sorry you had to …” Marla rasped. “I can’t believe you and… Bo … what you did…”

“I need your wrist,” I said matter-of-factly. “I’ve got to monitor your pulse. That epinephrine could zap your heart right into overtime.”

“Great.” She struggled to catch her breath. “So then what? Call an ambulance?” Finding this amusing, she wheezed with laughter.

“Look,” I replied, “cool it. I can’t do blood pressure or EKG, but you need to let me check you for extra heartbeats. We may end up at the hospital yet.”

Marla cackled and gasped again. “Leave it to Goldy to break me out of jail using food. Marvelous – “

“Try to calm down,” Bo ordered her gently. Instead, to my dismay, she gulped for breath and started to weep. She thrust her left hand in my direction. I clasped it, felt for a vein, and checked my watch. Normal. I knew enough about adrenal-type stimulation to expect bad side effects, if there were going to be any, within thirty minutes. On the other hand, the epinephrine should start alleviating her allergic reaction within a minute. Let us pray.

With her free hand, Marla opened the glove compartment. A cellular phone fell out. Sniffling, she slammed the compartment shut, groped in the storage compartment between the bucket seats, and pulled out a tissue. Awkwardly, she blew her nose. “Bo … I’m so … sorry I haven’t been nicer to you…” She laughed between sobs. “Great time for remorse, huh?”

“Would you please stop talking and hold still?” I demanded. Still, the wheeze appeared to be fading from her voice. I concentrated on the vein in her wrist.

But Marla would not be quiet. “When I heard Bo’s voice, saw the two of you, I … I didn’t know what to think. What… what have you done? What’s going to happen to us?”

Bo’s smile beneath the fake blood streaks was small and guarded. He took a clean tissue Marla offered and dabbed at his face. “Is that allergic-reaction medication working? Do you need some ointment for your hives?”

She ignored his questions. “Why, Bo?” she insisted. Her pulse remained normal. The scratchiness definitely had cleared from her throat. “Aren’t you violating your parole? Why are you here?”

He glanced over at her. “You’re beginning to sound better.” He frowned. “Why am I here? Because Goldy asked me to help. You know me, I’m a military-action kind of guy.”

“Cut the crap,” Marla snapped.

“All right, then,” he snapped right back, “I did it because whatever’s gone on between us, we’re family.”

“I don’t know, guys,” Arch interjected. His voice wavered. “This is all pretty… heavy.” With my free hand, I patted his shoulder. He shook me off with a muttered, “Quit it.”

Still clasping Marla’s wrist, I twisted in the leather seat to check whether anyone was coming for the guard and the ambulance driver. But the roadside scene had long ago been swallowed in fog. I tried not to imagine how much trouble Tom would get into when news got out that his wife had held up an ambulance. I turned back and focused on Marla’s pulse. Hunched over the wheel, General Bo sailed up the interstate. His prominent chin jutted out at a determined angle. The speedometer needle quivered just above seventy miles per hour.

“That guard’s going to be fine,” Bo reassured Arch. His grip tightened on the wheel. “She must have studied acting, that one. Or maybe she was truly passing out. When I want to kill or maim someone, I do it.”

“So…” Marla groaned. “Where are we going? How is all this… going to end up?”

No one answered her. Bo glanced into the side mirror and changed lanes. 1 checked my watch: Ten minutes had passed.

“Getting back to cutting the crap,” General Bo said mildly, “why don’t you, Marla, dear, tell us what’s going on. Goldy didn’t have a lot of time to fill me in. She said you’d been accused of killing your boyfriend. Did you?”

Marla bit her bottom lip and said nothing. “Self-defense?” Bo prompted. His eyes didn’t move from the road. “Maybe you were just pissed oft? God knows, I invested in that mine, too. I’m pissed off”

Marla shuddered. “I did not do anything to Tony. I know it looks bad, because I was the last one with him… .”

“Well, next to last, anyway,” Arch added helpfully.

Marla went on: “Besides my hundred thousand in Prospect, he’d borrowed another eighty thou from me to put down on land in Steamboat Springs. He probably owes money all over the Denver metropolitan area. I want my money back. But I didn’t kill him.”

“Maybe he was cheating on you, and you just thought you’d hurt him,” Bo offered, his eyes still fixed on the road. “Maybe he insulted you. Maybe you’d just had enough. Frankly, I don’t care. But before we go farther, it would be best to know all we can.”

Marla didn’t bother to hide her hostility. “You’re as bad as the cops. I haven’t even begun to tell you how they treated me.” She turned around. Even with the hives receding, her bruised face seemed hideous to me. “You should have heard them. ‘What were you mad at Tony about? Did you hit him? How many times did you stab him?’ “

The general groaned sympathetically, but glanced at her expectantly, as in, Well? How many times did you stab him?

Marla’s tone was frosty and deliberate. “I don’t know who hit me, I don’t know why, I don’t know who hit Macguire, I don’t know who put the bloody shirt and knife in my car. I didn’t take Tony’s damn watch, and I certainly don’t know where Tony is.” She glared at us.

Another uncomfortable silence filled the Jeep. “Jake could f-i-n-d Mr. Royce,” Arch spelled out confidently.

“Dead or alive,” the general whispered. “So what are we going to do?” Marla asked angrily. “Go back to Goldy’s house and wait for Tony to call?”