The Corpse Without a Country (6 page)

Arne said in a comparatively quiet tone, “Fenney had a right to be here. He was working for me.” He swung his heavy jaw in Reese Fuller’s direction. “And he isn’t on
your
boat. He’s on
my
boat.”

Fuller paid no attention to the rebuke. He was obviously thinking of the other part of Arne’s statement. “Working for you?”

I was interested in the expression on Reese Fuller’s face. It was definitely one of annoyance. And I was interested, too, in the color of Fuller’s complexion. It had the quality of a mud flat at low tide.

Maslin said, “What kind of work was he doing for you?”

Arne took an ancient, charred pipe from his pocket and sucked noisily on the well-gnawed bit. “I hired him three or four weeks ago,” he said. “He came and asked me for a job. I gave it to him.”

I could see the flicker of annoyance from Maslin. Arne hadn’t answered his question, but because this was Arne Rasmussen, Maslin couldn’t make an issue of it.

He tried again, keeping his voice mild, “What kind of a job could Fenney do for you?”

Arne grinned, obviously enjoying himself. “Odd jobs,” he said.

I thought I knew the answer Maslin wanted. I could hear Arne saying to me, “I don’t need you snoopers. I got one of my own.” And I could see Fenney getting out of that chartered boat and being in too big a hurry to linger and talk to me.

Maslin gave up. He said, “When did you last see him?”

There was a brief hesitation before Arne said, “A couple weeks ago. He came over to the
Queen
and asked for some money. I gave him five hundred.”

“So then he went out on a two-week drunk,” Reese Fuller said.

Arne said almost quietly, “I didn’t ask him what he did with the money. With the first two hundred I gave him, he bought a new suit—not that one he’s wearing, but lubber clothes. Maybe he bought this outfit with the five hundred.”

His tone said that Reese Fuller should mind his own business. Maslin opened his mouth to ask another question, but one of the lab men came up carrying a large envelope. “The contents of Fenney’s pockets, Lieutenant.”

Maslin opened the envelope and glanced inside. I was reminded of my report. After sending Jodi off to phone the police and report Fenney’s death, I had looked in the locker. The report was gone. I hadn’t been surprised.

I had also gone through Mike Fenney’s pockets, and part of what should legally be in Maslin’s envelope was now in my wallet. Maslin wasn’t going to appreciate this when he found out. He wasn’t going to appreciate, either, the fact that I’d decided to say nothing to him about meeting Fenney in Bellingham. Not for the moment, at least. I had a few ideas beginning to stir and I didn’t want Maslin’s well-meaning interference to get in their way.

Maslin scowled as two men came in with the basket and began to load the body. This meant the doctor was through, and in a moment he came up and took Maslin aside and spoke briefly to him. Maslin nodded and turned to Arne.

“You seem to be the last man associated with him. Maybe you can tell us why someone should break his neck.”

Arne just shrugged his big shoulders. I knew the symptoms. He had talked all he was going to and, for the time being at least, he had withdrawn to think matters through carefully before he said or did anything more. Part of Arne’s phenomenal success was the careful, Scandinavian way he had of thinking important things through before acting.

I had wanted a private talk with him, but I knew from his attitude that I would get no further than Maslin had. I said, “Since Reese says this is his boat, maybe he should answer that.”

Maslin wasn’t interested in helping me with my feud with Reese Fuller. He turned his scowl on me. “If I remember right, you came here to pick up a report you’d stowed on board. Maybe you should answer it.”

Fuller grinned with pure pleasure. “Durham will blame it on a mysterious blonde; that’s his answer for everything.”

Maslin’s eyebrows went up. He jerked his thumb toward the deck.

I went with him. He said, “Let’s have it about this blonde.”

We were pretty good friends, and we’d remain good friends as long as I knew when not to hold out on him. I told him the whole story. His expression didn’t tell me how much of it he was buying.

He said, “What was in that report of Harbin’s?”

“Everyone says that there was nothing in it. But Tom’s in the hospital and I’ve been shot at. Add it up.”

“Are you trying to tie Harbin’s being in the hospital with Fenney’s broken neck?”

I said, “I just don’t know, Maslin. After all, Fenney was well known on Skidroad. If he showed down there dressed like he was and with a wad of bills, one of those winos could have tailed him here.”

“He had only two dollars in his wallet,” Maslin murmured. Then he said, “But how many of those Skidroad characters know how to break a man’s neck with a jujitsu trick?”

“Is that the way it happened?”

“The doc says so.” Maslin started for the pilot house again. He stopped and looked back at me. “Anything more to tell me?”

I spread my hands. “You know as much as I do.”

He said flatly, “When you do have something more, remember my phone number.”

The way he said it left no room for argument. I just nodded.

I
HAD TO WAIT TO GET
my car off the pier. The police sedans were still blocking the way. When Maslin left me. I just climbed in the heap and sat.

After a few minutes, Jodi joined me. We sat together in the darkness. I could smell her perfume and I could feel the warmth of her nearness. Bushed as I was, my goosebumps began coming out again.

I lit a
cigarette
and Jodi took it away from me. I lit another. She said, “Is it true that Arne hired Mike Fenney to work for him?”

I said, “He’d be a fool to make up a story like that now.”

“Peter, Arne’s been acting strangely ever since I came home in the spring.”

“Maybe business is bad,” I suggested.

“Hardly. I helped him set up the schedule for his boats this year: when they’d start fishing and where each one would go and when they’d come home. Business, from what I saw, has been good.”

The police cars started leaving. I got my motor going. Jodi said, “Can I ride as far as my car? It’s outside the fence.”

I said, “Sure,” and started backing. Reese Fuller stopped me.

“Let’s go have a drink,” he said to Jodi. He wasn’t including me.

“Not tonight, Reese. I’m awfully tired.”

“Okay,” he said. “See you tomorrow.” He walked away.

For an engaged couple, they sounded about as affectionate as two rival fishermen. Fuller didn’t even seem to mind the obvious brushoff she had given him.

I wanted to talk to him and I wanted to talk to Arne, but I was in no shape to do it now. And I had the feeling that neither of them wanted to talk to me.

I let Jodi off by her car, a wicked-looking sports car painted a bright red, waved good night, and bounced over the gravel and onto Canal Way. A quarter of a mile below Arne’s, the road branched, one piece going up the hill to the apartment houses on the Bluff, the other continuing along the canal to give access to the houses built at its edge. Between this lower road and the water were some of Puget City’s fanciest new homes. Jodi’s was one of them, and I envied her for it.

But right now my apartment was going to look very good. I took the upper road and began the steep, twisting climb toward the summit of the Bluff. I had gone over halfway to the top when I noticed the headlights hanging about twenty yards behind me.

If this was the blonde again, I wasn’t going to argue with her. Not this time. I reached down under the seat and got my hand on the gun I carried in a clip there. I laid the gun on the seat beside me.

I went over the summit with the headlights still twenty yards back. I swung around a curve and then turned sharply to the right, into the parking area behind the apartment house. I rolled the heap into my slot and cut the motor. The headlights crested the rise and then swung to the right.

Jodi’s red sports car darted to a stop beside me. She cut the switch and the snarl of its motor faded. I got out of the heap. She joined me. As she jumped out, her rose-colored skirt swirled aside. She had terrific legs.

“I want to talk to you, Peter.”

I said, “I’m going to take a bath.”

“You’re just as rude as you were fifteen years ago,” she said. And added, “Some of the time.”

I didn’t answer but started for the door of the building. It was six stories and constructed on a steep hillside so that the rear entrance was actually on the third floor. All I had to do was walk into the hall, turn to my left, and go to the front corner and I was home. I was eager to get there and into a shower. The sticky feeling of the dirty canal water was still on my skin.

I was so eager that I almost closed the door on Jodi tagging at my heels. I stepped inside and let her in. “Speaking of people being the same as they were,” I said, “you still get in my way.”

Jodi had my wet suit in her arms. I had forgotten all about it. She dropped it onto my hardwood floor. “You could at least offer me a drink.”

I pointed to the cellerette across the room. “Help yourself.” I scooped up the damp clothes and went into the bedroom. I shut the door on the clink of ice dropping into a glass.

I stripped off the clothes Arne had lent me and got under the shower. I lathered three times before I felt clean. I gave my hair two good soapings and then sluiced off the suds with a sharp, hot spray. I got the water too hot. I could feel what energy I had left draining out of me. I reached for the tap and turned on the cold.

When I got out to towel myself I was wide awake. In Puget City, the cold tap water runs at about forty degrees. I went into the bedroom, my teeth chattering a little.

I had a clean pair of shorts on and was debating which shirt to wear when the bedroom door opened. Jodi came in, carrying a drink in each hand.

“I fixed you rye and water,” she said. “There’s more rye than anything else, so I guess you’ll like it.”

I suddenly wanted that drink badly. I said, “Thanks. Now go away.”

She put the drink in my hand, stepped back and examined me with a critical eye. “You’re heavier than you used to be. In the chest,” she added.

I said, “If you came to talk, then talk.” I was surprised to hear myself add, “If you came for a seduction, go somewhere else.”

Jodi laughed and perched on the edge of my bed. She juggled her drink while she lit a cigarette. “Go ahead and get dressed. I won’t bother you.”

I began to feel uncomfortable again. I took a deep pull of my drink. It tasted fine. I finished it and set down the glass. I took a shirt from the closet and started to put it on.

Jodi said, “What are you going to do, Peter?”

I got out a pair of slacks and put them on. “Think,” I said.

“I want to help.” The lightness had gone from her voice. “I didn’t follow you to tease you, honest, Peter.”

I must have looked skeptical because she said, “I’m not thirteen years old any longer, remember. And I didn’t come here to admire your broad shoulders. I got over my crush long ago.”

I said, “There’s nothing you can do. This is a case for the police.”

“I don’t mean about that,” she said. “I mean about the fires. Arne’s terribly worried. And then there’s Tom Harbin … and, well, I just want to help you.”

I remembered her saying she had been associated with Arne’s business earlier in the summer. And she had been on Corning Island when the fires broke out on the boats. I wondered if perhaps she
could
help.

I said, “I don’t know much more about the case than you do. Maybe not as much.”

“Then I can help!” She sounded eager, like the thirteen-year-old brat I had known.

I said, “Maybe you can answer some questions.”

Jodi wriggled her bottom to settle herself on the bed. I sat on the occasional chair and put on a pair of shoes. She said, “Shoot, Hawkshaw.”

“First, the fires,” I said. “You were on Corning when they happened?”

She nodded. “I didn’t know about them, of course. I can’t see Boundary from my place. But Reese told me.” She made a face. “He spent half the summer coming up and bothering me when I was trying to work.”

“How did Reese take the fires?”

“He didn’t act concerned by the first one,” she said. “But after the second he seemed a little worried.”

“I should think so,” I said. “He’s the kind of guy who’d set those fires just to make more salvage business for himself and raise his gross income.”

“Peter!” She up-ended her glass. “Just what is the trouble between you and Reese?”

I ran a comb through my hair and started for the living room. Jodi jumped up and followed. I said, “We don’t get along. We didn’t get along the first time we met. I was investigating a request for extended coverage Reese put in to the insurance company. I caught him cutting a few corners on safety equipment. He tried to make me out a liar. No-body’d buy that so then he hinted I could make a little side money if I closed my eyes now and then. I gave him a fat lip.”

“Reese should have known better,” Jodi said. She didn’t sound as if she cared very much.

I went to the bar and replenished our drinks. “Speaking of Reese, has he any theories on the fires?”

“He suggested sabotage,” she said. “But he can’t imagine who would sabotage Arne, or why.”

I said, “I can’t either.” We thought about it for a while.

Jodi said suddenly, “Do you think that blonde killed Mike Fenney?”

I said, “She wanted the report badly enough to shoot at me, but she wasn’t shooting to kill. Anyway, why should she come back? As far as she knew, I had the report when I jumped into the water.”

Jodi nodded. I said, “Let’s get back before the blonde. Did you hear anything the night I brought Tom to Corning? Or the day before?”

“I was busy painting both days,” she said promptly.

I couldn’t put my finger on any one thing—tone of voice or choice of words or expression—and say, “Jodi, you just let me know you’re lying,” but I knew she was. And I wondered if there might be more to her tagging after me than just wanting to help.