Diane Davidson - The Main Corpse

“He gets his blood drawn by his girlfriend the med student. A Vacutainer tube has a blood preservative in it: You can keep it in the refrigerator for a week, sometimes two, and it won’t coagulate. And he has ten days.

He buys the bald cap. He fakes some of Albert’s identification, which Tom is always telling me is fairly easy to do or get done. Then on Monday after the party, he tries to withdraw the cash from the partnership account. He can’t get it that day, but he gets it on Tuesday, when he proceeds to charm the teller and then strangles her so she wouldn’t identify him. Now he’s got three and a half million in cash, plus two hundred-thousand in gold from the mine safe. After all, why leave it behind, when it’s so easy to make someone else look responsible for the theft and murder?”

I took a deep breath. “He persuades Marla to move up the fishing trip they planned. He pretends to be interested in investing in restaurants, the new venture for Prospect Financial Partners. He leaves his fancy watch at Marla’s so it’ll look as if he didn’t mean to be absconding permanently. And now we know how he staged his whole fake stabbing and drowning death.

Unfortunately, he spotted Macguire Perkins, so he let him have it, too.”

“Macguire’s lucky Tony didn’t kill him,” the general observed grimly.

“Macguire’s strong,” I replied with a smile, “that’s one of the reasons he’s such a good catering assistant. He probably gave Tony a bit more muscle than he was expecting.”

“Sounds like you were a bit more than Tony was expecting, too,” Bo said with an answering smile.

“Yeah, I guess all of us might have been. Especially Jake. When Jake scented Tony up at the mine and howled, that was what let him know we’d really found him.” I paused. “Tony always wanted something from me. And from other people, too, like his old girlfriend Eileen Tobey. He felt as if we owed it to him.”

The general furrowed his brow. “Owed him what?”

“Oh, attention. Contacts.” I could remember Tony’s persuasive smile, the charming twinkle in his eyes. Know any rich doctors? Guess not. Dentists? No. Plumbers? No. How about pilots?

Pilots. Yes, I knew one. One unemployed ex-Braniff captain who had received a FedEx delivery last week of navigational maps. I had been the one who told Tony about Sandy Trotfield. I had told him, too, that Trotfield’s wife – the one with the money – invested in art, but she might want to get into venture capital. Tony appeared to be interested in them as clients, but nothing more. Albert had even given them a cookbook. But I knew something else that I’d learned when the Trotfield’s had booked me for last week’s party: Sandy Trotfield was due in today from Rio de Janeiro. It was my guess that it was Sandy Trotfield whom Tony Royce had been waiting for. Sandy Trotfield who had. acted so angry when the cops had invaded his kitchen. Sandy Trotfield who could fly Tony Royce out of the country without attracting attention, and be paid handsomely for his efforts. All this I told the general. I looked out at the sky. The clouds were breaking up, offering a rare glimpse of a Wedgwood-blue expanse. The fast-moving front appeared to be passing through. Could this actually be happening? Could the sun truly be appearing, like Eurydice after a lengthy stint in the underworld?

The general groped under his seat for the cellular phone, found it, and punched in the numbers L told him.

“Yes,” he said gruffly. “Mr. Alexander Trotfield? This is Investigator Beauregard Farquhar of the Furman County Sheriffs Department. We have a fugitive, a murder suspect, a man we believe has contracted you to fly him out of the country? Name of Anthony Royce. We need to know everything about your contact with Mr. Royce.” He listened for several minutes, then gave me a thumbs up. “Furman County Airport? When? One-thirty. Your Citation. Which hangar?” Bo waited while Sandy talked. “Mr. Trotfield,” Bo said urgently, “you may keep this appointment with Mr. Royce. But tell him there’s been a delay. Do not act alarmed. When I arrive, please introduce me as your copilot. We will meet you at the hangar. Yes, the sheriff’s department will reimburse you for all the expenses you incur. Thank you for your cooperation.” He pressed a button to disconnect.

I said breathlessly, “Do you think he believed you?” General Bo glanced at the clock on the dashboard and grimaced. “I’ve got an hour to buy a bomber jacket and find some dye to rub through my hair, just in case Royce got a glimpse of me at the mine; which I doubt.” He reflected. “Did Trotfield believe me? I don’t really care. The one I have to do a good acting job for is Royce.”

I shivered. Sandy Trotfield wanted to be reimbursed for his time and effort. What a joke.

“Hey,” said General Farquhar. “You better trust my acting ability, too. I’m going to need to talk my way close enough to Royce to snag him.”

“Oh, yeah? And where am I going to be?” The general’s face was grim. “Nearby. Holding my gun.”

22

“No,” I said quietly. “I’m not using a gun. I’m calling Tom.”

Bo’s glance was chilly. “You’d better not have him bring those two cops who arrested Marla.

“Don’t worry.”

I called; once again, Tom was not at his desk. I almost screamed with frustration, but instead left a two-sentence message on his voice mail: “The armed and dangerous person you seek is attempting to leave the country from the Furman County Airport this afternoon. We need help to catch him at Hangar C-9.”

By twelve-thirty General Bo Farquhar and I had made two stops. The first was a sporting goods store in the foothills, where the general bought a leather bomber jacket and aviator sunglasses. His prominent chin held aloft, he scanned the outerwear racks as if he owned the place, and had just stopped in to pick up a new outfit in which to circumnavigate the globe. I saw him flash his thin-lipped, much-knowing smile at the female sales attendant, who predictably melted. How would he pay for his purchases, I wondered. There was probably a kidnapping charge outstanding against him, and any credit card use was sure to be traced. Well, if we were successful in trapping Tony Royce, we could worry about Marla’s prison break and its consequences later.

“All I need now is a Navy pilot to give me grief,” the general mumbled as we pulled up to our second stop. “They do get their noses so out of joint when a nonflyboy wears a bomber jacket.”

I grinned. “I do believe Navy pilots are the least of our problems, sir.”

General Bo grinned. He was loving this. But I suddenly felt the weight of what we were about to do. The sheriffs department was twenty, perhaps twenty-five minutes from the airport. I judged we were a little less than half an hour away. This was all wrong. When I couldn’t reach Tom, I should have called someone else at the sheriffs department and come clean. But thinking about Shockley made me shudder. I just want to see him and Arch again, I thought. And maybe even Jake.

We zipped along toward the airport. Since Furman County is mostly mountainous, the people who built the airport had been at some pains to find an area large and level enough for hangars and a runway. They’d eventually paid a rancher a staggering sum to move his herd of cattle to eastern Colorado. The starry-eyed airport builders had proceeded to divert a local brook, destroy two prairie dog villages, and pave over an elk migrating area while smoothing the rancher’s fields. Then they’d failed to build hangars and purchase computers that were even close to within their budget range. The airport had not been profitable, and the resultant wrath of environmentalists and downgrading of the airport’s municipal bonds had provided juicy material for The Mountain journal for several years.