* * *
“Counselor,” the sign said, its twisted tubes of red and blue glass
blank and unlighted in the sun. A glaring shell driveway led off the
road to the left to swing up before the wide veranda of what had
obviously been a residence at one time, a large house with the
columned stateliness of another era. An expanse of lawn was now a
parking area, completely empty at this time of the afternoon.
Reno slowed, going past on the highway. This was where it was, he
thought. He was pulled off here at the side of the road with the car
and boat trailer, just looking at the place, when the girl went by and
saw him. Maybe he was waiting for somebody, or maybe, if he really
was Counsel, he was looking at the house he used to live in turned
into a joint with two tons of neon out in front. He glanced around at
the drowsy late-summer afternoon, the dark wall of moss-hung oaks
on both sides of the highway beyond the inn, and the steel bridge up
ahead shimmering in the sun, appraising the somnolent peacefulness
of it. And, on the other hand, he reflected, maybe his name was just
what he said it was and he was only running out on his wife like a
thousand other men and I’ve got rocks in my head.
Beneath the bridge the water was dark and still, some fifty yards
across and overhung with trees. One of the arms of Counsel Bayou, he
thought, trying to remember the map he had studied. It connected
with the larger, dredged Bayou that was the ship channel, off to the
left, and there should be another arm of it crossing the highway a
mile or so ahead. Then he saw the other sign on the right, just beyond
the bridge. “Gulfbreeze Camp,” it read. “Cabins. Boats. Live Bait.”
The road swung off the highway into the oaks, and as he made the
turn he caught glimpses of buildings and the sheen of sunlit water
somewhere beyond.
Go Home, Stranger — 46
One weathered building contained a lunchroom and a store with a
gasoline pump out in front, and behind it, along the edge of the
bayou, a row of cabins squatted dejectedly under the trees with their
backs to the water. Weeds poked their way up through the ubiquitous
shell paving in places and all the buildings needed a coat of paint.
Dying on its feet, Reno thought, as he got out of the car.
He went into the lunchroom. It was empty except for a blonde girl
in a white apron sitting at one of the stools rasping her nails with an
emery stick. She glanced languidly up at him as he came in, and got
up to go around in back of the counter.
“Yes, sir?” she asked, raising her eyebrows a little. They were
plucked to a thin line, and the somewhat petulant small mouth was a
crimson splash of lipstick.
“Cup of coffee,” Reno said. As she was drawing it he noticed a large
mounted bass over the door going out into the store at the other end
of the counter. Good eight pounds, he thought.
“They catch that around here?” he asked, nodding.
She put the coffee down and glanced indifferently at the fish. “I
reckon so.”
“Nice bass.”
She shrugged. “Is that what it is?”
Fine front man for a fishing camp, Reno thought. But maybe bass
just don’t do anything to her. “You got a vacant cabin?” he asked.
“Sure. Lots of ‘em.” She was studying her nails again.
I can understand that, he thought. “I’d like to rent one, if it wouldn’t
trouble you too much. How much are they?”
“By the day or week?”
“By the week.”
She appeared to look at him for the first time. “Alone?”
“That’s right.”
“Eighteen dollars, I think. You can talk to Skeeter. He’ll be back in a
minute.”
“Skeeter?”
“Mr. Malone. He owns the place.”
He wondered if Mac had talked to her. It was a girl living at this
camp who saw the car and boat parked in front of the inn. And where
was it he first began to get the hunch that Conway was Robert
Counsel? It couldn’t have been from this girl, though, because she
Go Home, Stranger — 47
wouldn’t remember that much about Counsel. She wasn’t old enough.
He had been gone from here for nine years, and she wasn’t over
twenty-two or twenty-three. But somewhere down here Mac had
found out a lot of things. Too many things, he thought.
“Business a little slow?” he asked, stirring the coffee.
“Lousy. Except on week ends,” the girl replied. A car pulled up in
front and he could hear a man come into the store. “There’s Skeeter
now, if you want to talk to him.”
He paid for the coffee and went through the door into the other
room. The shelves were filled with groceries, and a long showcase
contained fishing tackle, mostly cheap stuff from the looks of it, the
kind of things vacationers and tourists bought. The man was behind
the opposite counter at the cash register.
He glanced up at Reno with the briefest of nods, a thin, tough slat of
a man dressed in khaki trousers and shirt, the sallow face and small
black eyes as devoid of expression as a closed door. “What can I do
for you?” he asked.
“I’d like to get a cabin for a couple of weeks if the fishing’s any
good,” Reno said. “How’re the bass hitting?”
“They been taking some. Mostly with live bait, though. Water’s
pretty warm.”
“Well, I’ll give it a whirl.”
He paid a week’s rent in advance, and Malone came outside with
him, carrying the key. Getting into the car, he followed the lank figure
around the corner of the building and along the row of cabins. It was
the last one, directly behind the store building and next to the boat
landing, where a half-dozen skiffs were tied up. Malone unlocked the
door and they went in. It smelled musty, but the bare pine floor
looked clean. It contained a bed and an old dresser with one of the
drawers missing, and a door at the back opened into a small kitchen
with a wood cookstove and an oilcloth-covered table. The door at the
right of the room led into the bathroom, which had a small window
looking out toward the boat landing.
“Hot water tank’s hooked to the cookstove,” Malone said. “If you
don’t figure on doing any cooking, you can get hot water to shave
with up at the kitchen.”
“O.K.,” Reno said. They went out and stood for a moment on the
small porch, squinting at the white sunlight. “Boats are extra, I
suppose?”
Go Home, Stranger — 48
Malone nodded. “Two dollars a day. I’ll bring down a pair of oars.”
He went off toward the store and Reno began carrying in his duffel
from the car. Malone came back in a minute and leaned the oars with
their leather guards against the wall of the porch.
“Take any boat you want,” he said, jerking his head toward the
landing float.
“Thanks.” Reno leaned against the door and lit a cigarette. “Lots of
water back up in there, I guess.”
Malone took out a plug of tobacco and whittled off a corner with his
knife. “Never fished here before?”
Reno shook his head. “I’m from out of state.” He jerked a hand
toward the license plate of the car.
“I wouldn’t go too far, then, without a guide. Them bayous wind all
over hell, and a man could get lost if he didn’t know ‘em.”
“Why’s everything around here named Counsel?” Reno asked
casually. “The roadhouse over there, and the bayou?”
“Counsels used to own all of it. Rich family.” Malone spat out into
the yard, the black eyes flashing at nothing.
“But not any more?”
“Don’t own any of it now. Ain’t but one of ‘em left, anyway, and
nobody knows where he is. In the pen, probably, now he ain’t got
enough money to keep him out of it.”
Not one of the old family friends, Reno reflected. If Conway was
Counsel and he was coming back here, it probably wasn’t to see
Malone.
After the other had gone he finished unpacking and took off the suit
he had been wearing, slipping on khaki trousers and a T shirt and an
old pair of Army shoes. Going out on the porch to escape the stifling
heat inside the cabin, he squatted in the shade and opened the tackle
box. He took the reel out of its cloth bag and began methodically to oil
it, his mind busy with the same old rat race of thought.
You figured out the answer to one question, and a dozen new ones
sprung up to take its place. You could see now why Conway had
brought his own boat, if he had to have one for some reason he alone
knew. It figured if you added it up that way: Conway was Counsel,
he’d grown up in this country and everybody would know him on
sight, if he tried to rent one he’d be recognized, and presumably he
didn’t want anybody to know he was here. But that still left the big
one. Why had he needed a boat?
Go Home, Stranger — 49
And the new one, Reno thought. If everybody knew him, how was it
possible he’d been here since the twentieth of July without anyone’s
seeing and recognizing him? He considered it, and knew there were a
couple of good answers to that. Maybe he wasn’t here any more, and
hadn’t been since that first night. And maybe he was dead.
And in that case, who was doing all the shooting?
Impatience; took hold of him and he was no longer able to sit still.
He slid the reel back in the tackle box. And stood up. One thing I can
do right now, he thought, is to find that road where he turned off the
highway. Setting the box back inside the cabin, he locked the door
and was just going out to the--car when he heard a boat. The sound
was different from that of an outboard, and he looked curiously up the
bayou.
It shot into view around a wall of trees a hundred yards away, a
two-seated runabout planing swiftly down the channel. Off the camp
the man at the wheel swung hard over and came skidding in toward
the landing, giving it full astern at the last moment. The boat settled
as if pushed down in the water and eased up alongside the float.
Reckless, Reno thought, but he can handle a boat. The man reached
out a hand and steadied it while a girl stepped nimbly out, holding
what looked like an old brief case under her arm.
She turned, laughed, and said, “Thank you.”
The man in the cockpit raised his white cap in a mock-courtly
gesture that revealed flaming red hair, and pushed at the float with
his hand. There was a deep-throated growl of power as the boat slid
away from the landing and vanished around the turn in the channel.
The whole thing hadn’t taken more than a minute.
Reno stood beside the car watching the girl come up from the
landing. She was a little over average height wearing white slacks
and a short-sleeved blouse, her short jet-black hair wind-blown from
the ride. As she came nearer he observed that her eyes were dark
brown, heavily lashed, and that the face was beautifully tanned.
Memory stirred. There was no doubt of it. Her chin, though quite
stubborn and firm, was undeniably dimpled. This was the girl Vickie
had described.
“Hello,” he said, as casually as he could.
The girl met his inspection coolly, nodded a “Good afternoon,”
which was neither friendly nor unfriendly, and went on past. She
turned into the third cabin up the row.
Go Home, Stranger — 50
He had turned and started toward her cabin, but before he had
taken a step he checked himself. Suppose it wasn’t really the same
girl? Or suppose she was, but denied it? He’d have tipped his hand
before he had been here twenty minutes. And there was something
else. The papers had been full of the McHugh murder case for over
ten days, and she had never come forward to back up Vickie’s story.
Maybe he’d be a sucker to let her know who he was before he found
out a little more about her. At least he’d found her. She would keep.
Go Home, Stranger — 51
Seven
He was still thinking about her as he got in the car, and it wasn’t
entirely about what she might know. A terrific-looking girl, he
decided. And Vickie, with her professional ear, had called the shot
when she’d said she had a good voice. The smooth contralto purr of
that “Good afternoon” was like music. As he came around the store
and started out to the highway he stopped on sudden impulse and
went inside. Right here was a good place to get the lab report, he
thought with sardonic humor.
The blonde girl was reading a newspaper at the counter. She looked
up as he came through the door.
“Pack of cigarettes,” he said. She reached in the case and handed
them over, and as he slipped the cellophane off he asked, “Who’s the
Latin type?”
She smiled sweetly as she handed him his change and a book of
matches. “Pretty, isn’t she?”
“If you like ‘em like that, I guess. What’s she here for, the fishing?”
“Why didn’t you ask her? As soon as you got your breath?”
He shrugged. “Oh, I was just curious. Doesn’t matter. But she
doesn’t look as if she’d care much for fishing.”
“Well, not for bass, anyway.”
Sharpen your hatchet, kid, he thought. You can do better than that.
He started to turn away indifferently. “Probably a schoolteacher on
vacation.”
Go Home, Stranger — 52
The girl tucked a wisp of hair back of her ear. “She says she’s an
artist.”
“A painter, eh?”
“I understand she likes muscles. She had Max Easter pose for her
without his shirt.”
“Easter? Who’s he? I mean, when he has his shirt on?”
“A giant. Lives in a houseboat up the bayou. Some kind of a
screwball.” She looked at Reno appraisingly. “Built about like you are.
Maybe she’ll let you pose for her, too.”
“Uh-uh. I’m just fat.” He lit a cigarette and threw the match toward
the door. “What’s your name?”
“Mildred. Mildred Talley. And I know you’re not interested in hers,
but it’s Patricia Lasater. Or so she says.”
“Mine’s Pete Reno.” He went toward the door. “I’ll see you at
dinner, Mildred.” He stopped then, half through the doorway. “By the
way, who’s the redhead with the speedboat?”
“Hutch Griffin. He runs a boat service a couple miles down the
channel. If you want to know any more about him, you could ask her.”
He shook his head and waved, and went on out the door.
He drove slowly down the highway, looking, for the road turning off
into the timber. According to Mac’s report, the girl—Patricia Lasater,
probably, he thought had passed Conway parked across from the
Counselor. Then he had started his car and come along behind her for
a short distance before he swung off into the trees. So it had to be
somewhere very near here. He went a half mile, a mile. Another steel
bridge loomed up ahead. The other arm of the bayou, he thought,
remembering the map.
He was almost past it before he saw it, a faint pair of ruts leading
off the highway into the oaks. He had to hit the brakes and back up a
little to make the turn. You’d certainly have to know where that was
in order to find it, he thought.
It was quiet in the moss-hung dimness of the timber. The road, little
more than a pair of ruts, dodged sharply around tree trunks and
pushed through overhanging limbs that scraped along the top of the
car. After about a quarter mile the underbrush thinned out a little and
he could see the glint of sunlight on open water as he neared the edge
of the bayou. He stopped and got out. It was fairly open here under
the crowns of the big oaks and he could see the remains of two or
three long dead campfires. Fishermen, he thought. There’s probably a
piece of shelving bank along here somewhere where you can launch a
Go Home, Stranger — 53
boat off a trailer. Conway might have been headed here, all right. But
for what? And if he launched his boat, what became of it? And the
trailer? And, for that matter, Conway?
An examination of the hard ground told him nothing. There had
apparently been a few cars and campers in here since the last rain,
but there was no way of knowing when that had been. And it had been
a little over a month now since Conway had turned his car into this
dead-end road, so the chances were very remote that any of these
traces were his. He prowled moodily along the bank, having no idea of
what he sought but drawn merely by the fact that this spot, this old
camping place under the trees along a wild section of bayou, was the
last place with which the mysterious Conway could be definitely
linked before he had vanished.
He stopped to light a cigarette, squatting on his heels and looking
out over the bayou through an opening in the tree wall along the
shore. He smoked the cigarette out to the end and dropped it into the
water below him. A small fish came up and batted at it, and then
another. Fingerling bass, he thought, ready to tackle anything, even
at that age. Idly he ran his gaze along the edge of the water, looking
for more. And then suddenly he stopped, his face still and his eyes
staring at a spot some eight feet off to the left while the hair prickled
along the back of his neck. It was impossible. It just couldn’t be.
He jerked his glance upward, measuring the height of the bank. It
was at least four feet and almost vertical, a straight drop from the top
of the bank to the edge of the water, where the sloping mud bottom
began to drop away, gradually at first, and then plunging down out of
sight through the tea-colored water. And still there it was, quite
plainly seen just under the surface of the water, the track of an
automobile tire!
He shook his head. It was just some kid, he thought, playing with an
old tire. Hurriedly springing up, he walked over and looked down. And
there was another one, just the right distance over and more deeply
pressed into the mud than the first, every tread distinct. There wasn’t
any doubt of it.
But no, he thought, his mind beginning to react now— not a car. A
trailer—a boat trailer. But what fool would try to launch a boat here?
It would probably go in upside down, and he’d never get the trailer
back on the bank.
But maybe, he decided suddenly, whoever put it down there didn’t
want it back on the bank. What he needed was a boat and something
to sound with. Turning, he ran back to the car and climbed in.
Go Home, Stranger — 54
When he got back to Gulfbreeze Camp, Mildred Talley was lying on
the float in a fragmentary bathing suit and blue rubber cap. He waved
to her as he went inside the cabin after the rod and his tackle box.
Locking the door again, he gathered up the oars and went down to
the float to pick out a skiff.
“Hello,” she said, raising on one elbow. “How about a cigarette?”
“Sure.” He dropped the gear in a boat and walked over to her.
Pretty, he thought, if she’d give her face a chance. Did she expect to
swim in all that make-up? She’d poison the fish.
“You close the lunchroom and go out of business?” he asked.
“Delia is up there,” she said. “She’s my sister. Mrs. Skeeter
Malone.”
“I see.”
She sat up and took the cigarette, waiting for him to light it. “You
just missed your friend.”
He held the match for her. “My friend?”
“Miss Lasater. She just went up the bayou with an outboard.”
“Oh,” he said absently, still thinking about the trailer. The sun was
far down against the wall of trees now and he had a long mile to pull
with the oars to get back there.
“Maybe you’ll run into her up there. If you go far enough.”
“Is that what she goes up there for? To run into people?”
“I didn’t say that.” She smiled archly. “You did.”
“Maybe she’s painting,” Reno said absently. Why’s she got her
harpoon in that black-headed girl? He thought. “It’s impressive
country for landscapes.”
“I guess so,” Mildred replied. “Anyway, she spends a lot of time up
there. And I’d be the last one in the world to suggest that she was
going fishing with Robert Counsel.”
He had been only half listening to her, and the name came slashing
into his reverie like a whip. He managed to keep his face still. “Afraid
I don’t get you,” he said, puzzled. “Fishing with who?”
She laughed. “I forgot you didn’t come from around here. It was a
kind of saying they used to have. Going fishing with Robert Counsel.”
“And not referring to bass fishing, I take it?”
“Not so you could tell it. It meant a girl was up to something she
shouldn’t be. Wild parties. That kind of stuff.”
“And who was Robert Counsel?”
Go Home, Stranger — 55
“His grandfather used to own all this land around here. The
Counselor’s their old house. He lived there with his mother when I
was just a kid. And he had a fishing camp or lodge way up the bayou
that she didn’t know anything about. I used to hear the older girls
talking about it. Ummm, brother!”
“Wonderful what you can do with money,” Reno said.
“It wasn’t only the money. Or the speedboats and the foreign car.
He was a smooth job himself. Old family. And good-looking. I used to
see him once in a while, but I was just a kid and he never noticed me,
of course.”
“And now I suppose he’s married, with three or four kids, an ulcer
and a job in the bank?”
She shook her head. “Nobody knows. He’s been gone from here for
years. Never did come back after the war.”
“Was he killed overseas?”
“No, I don’t think so.” She stopped and was silent for a moment,
gazing out abstractedly over the water. “Somebody who’s well known
like that, you hear all kinds of stories about him. You know how it is.
He was blinded. He was court-martialed for some silly thing. He lost
both legs. A lot of people didn’t like him, anyway. And a few of them
hated him, I guess. Like Max Easter.”
“Easter? Oh, the big guy. He hated him?”
She nodded. “Robert Counsel ran away with his wife. Or so they
think.” She broke off abruptly. “But I’m keeping you from your
fishing.”
So Easter hated him, Reno thought, pulling up the bayou with long
strokes of the oars. Maybe he had a lot of enemies around here.
Maybe that was the reason he was trying to get in here without
anyone’s recognizing him. But why the boat? He swore under his
breath and yanked savagely at the oars. I could stop that, he thought
irritably. If I want to beat my brains out, why don’t I just wonder what
he was doing with a vacuum pump?
The sun was gone from the water by the time he rounded the last
bend and the long reach of the bayou stretched out dark and tranquil
ahead of the skiff. He pulled over against the shore and began
watching, knowing he was close. It was even darker under the trees,
but in a few minutes he made out an open space that looked like the
camp ground. Easing the boat up against the bank, he located the tire
marks just under the surface of the water. Now, he thought.
Go Home, Stranger — 56
Pulling a short distance straight out from shore, he let the boat
come to rest on the mirror-like surface and set up the casting outfit,
tying on a heavy spoon with a treble hook. The first two casts were
unproductive. Maybe the water was a little deeper than it looked, he
decided. The next time he let the spoon sink until he was sure it was
on the bottom before he started his retrieve. This time he hit it. He
felt the spoon bump something, hang up for an instant, and jerk free.
Casting back to the same place, he hooked it solidly.
Not brush or weeds, he thought, feeling the excitement now. It was
too rigid. Slowly he began winding the reel, pulling the boat back over
the spot. When the line led straight down into the darkening water he
lay flat on the stern of the boat and poked around with the rod tip. It
encountered nothing. Still deeper, he thought. Hurriedly slipping the
reel off its seat so it wouldn’t get wet, he stretched farther out over
the stern, putting his head into the water and extending the full
length of his arm and the five-foot tubular steel casting rod. He felt it
then. The rod tapped something below him and the sound was
unmistakably that of metal against metal. Swinging the rod back and
forth, he heard it scrape against steel for two or three feet before he
lost contact. He knew what it was—the pipe frame of a boat trailer,
the shaft between axle and trailer hitch.
He raised his head and let water run out of his hair while he took a
deep breath and considered his find with growing elation. It had to be
Conway’s trailer. Nobody else would deliberately push into the bayou
something that probably cost well over a hundred dollars, and it
proved beyond any doubt that Conway had been up to more than a
simple fishing trip.
But what next? He’d have to get a rope to haul it out where he could
get a look at it. That was what he would do—go to town in the
morning, pick up a piece of light line, and come back here with the
boat. It would be easy to swim down and make the line fast to it, go
ashore with the other end, and haul it up. Maybe there was some
clue. . . . Maybe Conway was on it.
Looking up, he turned his head to estimate the distance from the
bank and fix the spot exactly. It was about thirty feet straight out
from the tire marks. It was then he saw the boat.
He sat up, startled. It was Patricia Lasater in a skiff less than fifty
yards away, pulling down the channel on the oars and looking over
her shoulder at him. He had been so intent on his activity he hadn’t
heard her. But why hadn’t she been using the motor he could see on
the stern of her boat?
Go Home, Stranger — 57
She stopped rowing and the skiff came to rest alongside his. He
looked across at her and nodded, busy putting the reel back on the
rod and conscious of the water dripping out of his hair onto his
clothing.
The brown eyes regarded him with faint irony. “A new method of
stalking bass?” she asked.
“No,” he said shortly. “Hung up on some brush. I was trying to work
the spoon loose.”
“Oh.” She smiled delightfully, looking very cool and attractive in the
blouse and crisp white slacks. “I was afraid you were going to drown.
You looked for all the world like a feeding duck.”
Reno was conscious of the baffled irritation of all males caught in
something ridiculous by a pretty girl. “Is your motor broken down?”
he asked stiffly.
She shook her head. “It’s all right. I was just rowing because I like
the bayou at dusk and wasn’t in any hurry.”
That’s possible, he reflected grudgingly. After all, she shouldn’t
have any reason to suspect what was down there. He was becoming
suspicious of everybody. “Have you been sketching?” he asked,
nodding toward the old brief case in the stern of the, boat. “The girl at
the camp tells me you paint.”
“A little.”
“Oils?” “
She nodded. “I teach it at college.”
“Have you been here long?”
“About two months. Did you get your plug loose?”
“No. It’s useless.” He reeled in the rest of the line and yanked
straight back through the guides. The line parted. “It’s time to start
back, anyway.”
She glanced around at the deepening twilight. “Pass me your
anchor rope and I’ll give you a tow with the motor.”
* * *
He was up early the next morning, out on the bayou working the
shore line with a bass plug. Since he was supposed to be here for the
fishing, he had to make it look good. At eight o’clock he changed
clothes and went into Waynesport to buy the line. He thought of going
to see Howell Gage, but decided to wait until after he had the trailer
Go Home, Stranger — 58
out. There might be something really important to tell him after he’d
had a look at it.
When he got back to camp he remembered he hadn’t bought
cigarettes while in town. He walked around to the lunchroom. It was
empty, but just as he stepped inside he heard the low sound of voices
out in the store.
A woman said something he didn’t catch, and then there was the
deadly monotone of Skeeter’s voice. “I tell you she talks too damned
much. If you can’t shut her big mouth, I can—” It chopped off abruptly
as Reno let the door close.
A woman he hadn’t seen before came through the doorway at the
end of the counter. Delia, he thought; Mrs. Skeeter. She was an older
version of Mildred, faded a little, and coldly intelligent rather than
petulant.
“Yes?” she said.
“Package of cigarettes,” Reno replied. Tough baby, he thought. I
wonder if Mac talked to her.
He went back to the cabin. Picking up the tackle box and rod, he got
the coil of rope out of the car and went down to the float. He put the
rope under the stern seat and shoved off, and as he swung to look up
the channel a flash of movement caught his eye. Swinging quickly
back, he looked again, and saw it was Patricia Lasater in her skiff,
going slowly along the opposite shore near the first turn. When he
rounded the turn, some two hundred yards ahead, he looked again.
She was nowhere in sight. The whole stretch of the bayou to the next
bend was empty.
That was odd. She couldn’t have gone ashore; her boat would still
be along the bank somewhere. And she certainly couldn’t have
reached the next bend; that was at least a quarter mile away. Then he
remembered. There was another of the innumerable arms of the
bayou branching off along here somewhere. He had seen it last night.
When he pulled abreast of it he saw her. She had just beached her
skiff not fifty yards away, inside the entrance, and was climbing out.
He suddenly ceased pulling at the oars, and stared in amazement at
the man who had just stepped out of the timber along the shore.
He was one of the largest men Reno had ever seen, a gray haired
giant whose shoulders had the solid, wedge-shaped look of power and
who towered over the girl as if she were a child. He carried a rifle in
the crook of his arm and made no effort to help her as she climbed the
bank. While Reno watched, they turned and started into the timber,
the big man in the lead. Easter, he thought, remembering Mildred
Go Home, Stranger — 59
Talley' description. There couldn’t be two people that size around
here. A screwball of some kind, she had said. Just what had she meant
by that? Probably, he reflected cynically, anybody who doesn’t chew
gum. But why had Patricia Lasater met him up here, and where were
they going? , He shrugged, and dug in the oars. There was no use
guessing, and he had more important business. There shouldn’t be
any interruptions this time.
When he arrived at the spot some twenty minutes later he set up
the casting rod again, without the reel, and carefully lined up the tire
marks in the mud. Lying flat in the stern, he began swinging the rod
back and forth below him as he had yesterday. The rod encountered
nothing, and after a minute or so of futile search he raised his head,
taking another bearing on the tracks. The boat had drifted over a
little.
He moved it slightly, using one oar as a paddle, and tried again. Still
he met with no success. With vague irritation he raised his head and
looked around, thinking he would have to drop anchor anyway to hold
the boat still. But no, it was where he had put it.
Nuts, he thought impatiently, why waste time probing for it? He had
to dive anyway. Stepping forward, he dropped the anchor overboard,
then looked up and down the desolate stretch of bayou. There was no
one in sight. Stripping off his clothes and watch, he dropped quickly
over the side. He took a deep breath and let go the gunwale,
swimming straight down. The water was only some ten feet deep, and
almost immediately he felt the soft mud bottom under his hands.
Moving slowly then, in a widening circle, he put out his arms to keep
from bumping the wheels or axle with his head. He had a bad moment
when the thought occurred to him again that Conway might be tied to
the trailer, but with quick revulsion he shoved it out of his mind. Once
his hand brushed something and he thought he had found it, but it
was only the concrete block of the anchor. When his lungs began to
hurt he kicked upward and took another breath as his head broke the
surface. I couldn’t have been that far off in my bearings, he thought
angrily. It’s got to be right here under me.
The truth began to come home to him then. The next dive settled it.
Lying on the bottom in the warm, tea-colored water with his hands
probing into one of the holes in the mud where the wheels had
settled, he knew the answer.
There had been a trailer, or something, here last night, but it wasn’t
here any more. Somebody had moved it.
Go Home, Stranger — 60
Eight
He climbed back into the boat and dressed, and stared coldly out
across the bayou as he thought of Patricia Lasater. So she’d just
happened to come along, the way she’d just happened to be with Mac
the night he was killed. He cursed, and sculled the boat over against
the bank to find the tracks where it had been pulled out. Then he sat
and stared. There weren’t any.
The old tracks were still there, but after he’d covered a hundred
yards in each direction he knew the trailer had not been pulled up on
the bank. It had been moved by boat. But how? None of the skiffs at
the camp would support it, even the submerged weight of it. And
when he stopped to think of it, how could she have moved it anyway?
It would have taken a powerful man to lift that trailer far enough off
the bottom to tow it. Well, she knew a powerful man, didn’t she? She
was with him right now.
Back at the camp he took a shower, changed into white slacks and a
T shirt, and drove back to Waynesport. Howell Gage was prowling the
office, dictating to a pretty brunette. When they were finished, Reno
went in and sat down.
“Who’s Robert Counsel?” he asked abruptly.
“An atavism,” Gage said. “Feudal aristocrat washed up on the shore
of Twentieth Century democracy. Why?”
“You remember Mac was looking for somebody?”
Go Home, Stranger — 61
Gage sat down on the corner of his desk and tapped a cigarette
against his thumbnail. “Joker by the name of Conway, as I recall.
Vickie told me. So you think it was Counsel?”
Reno nodded. “I know it was. What I’m trying to find out is why.”
Briefly, he told of Mrs. Conway’s narrow escape and of Mac’s reports.
“How about the description?” Gage interrupted.
“Tall. Gray eyed. Erect way of walking. Cultured sort of voice, with
only a trace of southern accent. Very assured, English-public-school
manner, fluent Italian—”
“Counsel,” Gage interrupted, his eyes thoughtful. “But he couldn’t
have been around here all this time without being recognized.”
“I realize that,” Reno said impatiently. “But the fact remains.
McHugh found out it was Counsel he was after. The telephone call to
Mrs. Conway clinches that. He wanted to know those other two
things, and when she verified them he was certain. Then Mac was
killed. Somebody got Mrs. Conway down here and she was almost
killed. So when you add all that up, what do you get?”
“Counsel’s well hidden. Or he’s dead.”
“Right. And either way, somebody’s trying to cover his tracks.” He
told of finding the trailer, and of its disappearance after the girl had
caught him poking at it with the rod.
“Same girl who was with McHugh that night,” Reno added.
“We’ll have her picked up.”
“No.” Reno shook his head. “Sure, Vickie can identify her, if she is
the same one. But just suppose it’s not, or that she refuses to talk? It’s
just Vickie’s word against hers as to what she and Mac were doing
together. And if she’d wanted to clear anything up, she’s had ten days
already.”
“I see what you mean.” Gage nodded, deep in thought. “But I’d
better warn you. You can get yourself in a jam. First, you didn’t report
the attack on Mrs. Conway. And now you’re harboring a fugitive. That
girl is still wanted—”
“And I still want the guy who killed Mac,” Reno said curtly. “I tried
to sell the police this Conway deal and they weren’t having any. I’m
telling you so you’ll have this much to go on just in case the guy gets
behind me the way he did Mac. What I’ve got to find out is why
Counsel came back here.”
Go Home, Stranger — 62
“That’s not going to be easy. If he’s alive, you’re up against one of
the damnedest minds I’ve ever run into. And if he’s dead, he won’t tell
you much.”
“I know. But look, here’s one other thing. It was something in the
paper, the Waynesport Express of July twelfth, that brought him down
here. Mrs. Conway’s positive of it. Can you get hold of a copy, from
the paper itself or from the library?”
Gage thought a minute. “That’s easy.” He pressed the buzzer on the
intercom. When the brunette came in, he tossed her the keys to his
car. “Drive out to my mother’s house, Miss Crews, and ask her to let
you have the July twelfth Express.” He looked at Reno and grinned.
“Tell her I’ll take good care of it.”
When the girl had gone, he added, for Reno’s benefit, “My mother
hasn’t thrown anything away since her bridal bouquet. She keeps the
papers for six months and sells them to the junkman.”
“Good,” Reno said. Then he went on, “Did you know Counsel?”
“As well as anyone, I guess. My grandfather used to have a place
out near the Bayou, and I saw quite a bit of him when he was home.
He and his mother spent a lot of time in Italy.”
“Can you think of any reason he’d come easing in here dragging a
boat? After being gone that long?”
Gage shook his head. “None at all. Except that nothing Robert
Counsel did would ever surprise me.”
“Don’t be too sure. Maybe this will.” Reno pulled from his pocket
the copy of the letter from McHugh’s friend in the FBI. He tossed it
across the desk.
When Gage had read it, he shook his head and handed it back.
“That’s Robert. Bored with the court-martial.”
“You’re not surprised he was caught stealing. Had he been in
trouble before?”
“Not as far as I know. But let’s just say that it wasn’t out of any
regard for what he’d consider middle-class morality. Probably he’d
never had to steal before.”
Reno gestured with irritation. “He doesn’t make much sense to me.”
Gage crushed out his cigarette and leaned back in his chair. “And
the more you talk to people around here, the less he’s going to make.
Too many contradictory factors.”
“Such as—” Reno prompted impatiently.
Go Home, Stranger — 63
“Well, to begin with, Robert Counsel should have been a mamma’s
boy, by all the rules. But he wasn’t. He was one of the coldest-nerved
devils I ever saw. Mamma thought he was her little darling, all right,
but she didn’t know the half of it. He had all the drive, audacity, and
brilliance of one of those success-story characters who’s born on the
wrong side of the tracks and winds up owning half the continent
before he’s thirty-five—except that he was already rich when he was
born and had nothing but contempt for all the peasant virtues like
work. But there was a touch of genius about him in the things that did
interest him, like poetry, architecture, the fine art of seduction,
speedboat design, and explosives.”
“Explosives?” Reno asked, puzzled.
“Just one of the facets of a brilliant mind. I’m trying to show you
what you’re up against in attempting to guess what it was he came
back for. While the young princeling was being privately tutored, he
was already branching out into one of the fields Mamma didn’t know
anything about. In his spare time he was trailing around with another
genius named Max Easter, learning to crimp dynamite caps and tamp
powder charges to blast stumps out of fields. This Easter was a
radical and a troublemaker, and an old-time powder monkey who
could remove a stump right from alongside a house. Robert, I
understand, could do the same thing, except that according to Max he
had to watch him all the time to keep him from cutting the fuses too
short just to relieve the tedium. The subconscious death wish, or only
a screwball kid playing with dynamite? Take your choice.”
“Sounds more all the time like what Mac’s friend called him. A rare
one.”
“He was. But if he’s really gone bad, God help everybody.”
“You say they were rich. And now the property’s all gone. What
happened?”
“Nothing. Just attrition. Expensive tastes and no management after
the grandfather died. They gradually sold everything. His mother died
shortly after he was drafted.”
Reno sat deep in thought. “Well, that’s all we’ve got. He served his
time in the military prison and then went back to Italy. When he
returned to the States he came in through here on a ship. So in spite
of what people think, he had been back once before he came down in
the car. Something he saw in the paper made him come back, this
time, bringing the boat. He and the boat both disappeared, and when
Mac got too hot on the trail he was killed. What was he after?”
Go Home, Stranger — 64
“That’s your question,” Gage said. “You answer it. I wouldn’t even
guess.”
* * *
Some fifteen or twenty minutes later Miss Crews returned with the
newspaper. They each took a section, and for an hour they studied the
columns for a clue.
They traded, and tried again.
Trying to put himself in Counsel’s place, with the information he
had gained so far, Reno first read all the local news items, a column at
a time, but nothing clicked. What was there here that could have
brought a man all the way from California? He ground his way
doggedly through the obituaries, the want ads, the shipping news,
and even the editorials. There were a half-dozen ads under the
“Personals” heading in the classified section, but they were only the
usual come-ons. The shipping news was routine: two loaded tankers
had sailed, the government had let another contract for additional
dredging of the channel, a Norwegian ship was discharging coffee
from Santos. It occurred to him that he didn’t know the name of the
ship on which Conway, or Counsel, had returned from Italy. He could
call Mrs. Conway and find out, but what would it prove? He folded the
paper at last, conscious of the futility of his search. How could he find
a clue when he didn’t even know what he was looking for?
Gage did the same, and sighed. “Assuming Mrs. Conway was right,”
he said, “whatever it was jumped right into Robert’s eye as soon as he
looked at it. Only we’re not Robert.”
Reno stood up. “I’ll bring it back to you in a couple of days. It’s right
here in front of us, and I’m going to keep trying until I stumble onto
it.”
“How about it Vickie? You want to see her?”
Reno hesitated, feeling the desire pulling at him. Maybe he could
cheer her up. . . . At last he shook his head. “The less we advertise
who I am, the better chance I’ve got. Just tell her to hang on a few
more days.”
Go Home, Stranger — 65
Nine
But what about the trailer? The girl had told somebody she’d found
him poking at it with the rod, and the man she’d told had moved it.
But did they suspect who he was? Or did they merely think he’d
stumbled on it by accident, and had moved it before he could learn
what it was? It made a lot of difference. He was playing a dangerous
game with somebody in the dark, and if it developed the other man
could see, his chances of finding out anything—or even of staying
alive—were approaching the vanishing point.
Where did Patricia Lasater fit in? And how could she have any
connection with this ugly business, whatever it was? She wasn’t even
from this part of the country, judging from her automobile license
plates. And how did you tie in those brown eyes and that delightful
smile with murder? He grunted, and angrily flipped the cigarette out
into the darkness. Brown eyes, hell! She was in this up to her neck.
He got up and went inside the cabin. Switching on the light, he sat
down on the bed and spread the newspaper open again. I’m Counsel,
he thought doggedly; what do I see? Why do I have to go back to
Counsel Bayou with a boat? Everything’s sold, I’ve been away for
years. . . . Moths flickered and danced around the light bulb and a
mosquito buzzed near his ear. The old sense of futility seized him. He
wasn’t Counsel, he didn’t even know Counsel; how could he know
what the man had seen?
Why not walk over to the Counselor, and have a drink? Maybe a
little rest would freshen his mind so he could see some pattern in all
Go Home, Stranger — 66
this senseless jumble. Before he went out he put the newspaper and
the copy of Mac’s letter in one of the suitcases and locked it.
* * *
The neon sign was a blaze of garish light, and there were a few cars
parked in the shell driveway. The front door opened into a short hall,
which had been made into a hat check stand. Through an archway on
the left he could see the snowy tablecloths of the dining room, while
the bar was beyond a smaller door on the right. It was air-conditioned
and almost cold after the hot summer night. He sat down on a red
leather stool and glanced around in the dimness. Two men in white
suits rattled a dice cup against the smooth mahogany at the other end
of the bar, and a tall blonde in an abbreviated pirate costume carried
a tray of drinks back to the row of leather-upholstered booths.
Somebody had spent a lot of money here. A little overripe for the
fishing-camp trade, he reflected; there must be gambling upstairs.
“Martini,” he said, when the barman came over.
The drink was good and very cold. He was still sipping it and about
to order another when the girl came in. He had been idly watching
the door in the dark mirror behind the bar, and at first he didn’t
recognize her. Both times he’d seen her before she had been dressed
in slacks, but now she was very cool and lovely in a white skirt, white
shoes, and a tawny wide-sleeved blouse. She went on past and sat
down at one of the booths. Wonder if she gets paid overtime for
snooping after five o’clock, he thought.
On sudden impulse Reno got up and walked back to her booth.
“Hello,” he said.
“Oh.” She looked up and smiled.
“Mind if I sit down?”’
“Not at all. You’ll have to pay for your own drink, though. I’m a
schoolteacher.”
“I’ll buy you one, if you’ll let me. I’m a patron of the arts.”
When the drinks came, he said, “My name’s Reno. Pete Reno. I
already know yours. I asked.”
“Thank you. That’s quite flattering. What do you do, Mr. Reno, when
you aren’t being a patron of the arts?” She paused, and smiled
charmingly. “Or fishing with your head under water?”
Go Home, Stranger — 67
She’s a cool one, he thought. Or didn’t she know he had gone back
and found the trailer moved? “I’m a construction stiff,” he answered.
“Dams—things like that. You name it, we build it.”
“It sounds interesting.”
“So does painting. Tell me about it. Do you sell them?”
She nodded. “A few. I ruin a lot more than I finish, though.”
“Landscapes?”
“Mostly.”
“How’d you happen to pick this country. I notice from your car that
you’re from Ohio.”
She leaned back in the booth. The brown eyes were thoughtful, and
a little moody. “It’s hard to explain, exactly, I’d seen it once before,
and it interested me. It’s picturesque, but there’s more to it than that.
A feeling, you might say.”
“What kind?”
“Peace? No. That’s only partly it. Deceptive peace, with violence
just under the surface. I think that’s it. It’s a hard thing to capture,
because the violence is only felt. But I’m probably boring you.”
“No,” he protested. “On the contrary.” He held out cigarettes and lit
one for her.
“Probably most of it, of course, comes from the bayous themselves,”
she went on. “The water is so quiet and dark, and yet you have a
feeling of all sorts of things you can’t see, just below the surface.”
Like trailers, he thought. It was a good line, though, and she did it
convincingly.
He glanced around at the bar. “Odd place,” he commented. “I
understand it used to be a residence.”
She nodded, and he thought he saw a brief shadow of pity cross her
face. “The fall of the House of Counsel, I suppose you’d call it. It’s a
strange story, and a little tragic. Do you know it?”
“No. Only that they were a wealthy family and owned this part of
the country at one time.”
“You might call it from family portraits to neon in three generations.
And, incidentally, the portraits are very good. They’re all by the same
man, an Italian, dead now, but who used to get very high prices for
his commissions. The people who bought the house left them right
where they were, and I come over here for dinner two or three times
a week so I can look at them.”
Go Home, Stranger — 68
“Speaking of dinner,” he said, “I’d like to see them too. How about
having it with me, and pointing them out?”
She hesitated, then nodded. “Why, yes. Thank you.”
Probably just what she was hoping for, he thought cynically. It
should be an enjoyable meal with each of them trying to pump the
other. He paid for the drinks and they went into the dining room.
There were three of the portraits. One was a tough-eyed older man
somewhere in his fifties or sixties, the second was a handsome youth
in the uniform of a flier in the First World War, but it was the third
that caught the eye. It was obviously a young mother and her son, and
in it the artist had been fortunate or skillful enough to capture
something besides the golden good looks of the two. It was all in the
mother’s face, in the way she was looking at the boy. There was
adoration, and devotion, and an almost voracious possessiveness. The
boy appeared to be about five, with blond curly hair and gray eyes,
very much the young aristocrat.
“Robert. The last of the Counsels.”
“Grown up now, I suppose?” Reno asked politely.
She nodded. “He’d be—oh, thirty-three or thirty-four. That portrait
was painted in 1923.”
“You didn’t know him, then?”
“Oh, no. Only some of the stories,” she replied. “They say he hasn’t
been back here for years.”
No comments:
Post a Comment