“WHAT! What did you say? Hey, wait a minute! Hold the phone!” I yelled for Dennis to cut in on my wire, then I went back to Jean Pierre.
“Now, just a minute, Mister! Take it easy, don’t get excited. What were you saying?”
“Excite? Me? I am not excite. Mebbe it is you who are excite. Me, I am ver’ calm. I jus’ total you zat girl she is dead. I fin’ her today but she has been dead long tam. Two, t’ree week, mebbe. Ze gar feesh, ze bayou butchers, ‘ave mas’ eat her up. All but ze face is mas’ gone, mebbe ze butcher he don’ lak ze powder she use.” He chuckled.
I shuddered. “You’re sure it’s the girl we’re looking for?”
“Mais certainement! Is ze face, lak I tal you.”
“What time today did you find her?”
“Two, free, mebbe four hour ago. Her body, she has float to ze top and is caught in ze rush weed by ze bank. She has been dead long tam, ver’ long tam.”
“Ugh! Where do you live?”
“Me? I live by here and I feesh ze bayous and trap ze woods. Everywan knows Jean Pierre! Everywan!”
“Everyone but me. Now exactly where do you live?”
“Sairteen mile from New Iberia, nort’ by ze wes’ road. Is easy to fin’”.
“How do I get there?”
“Listen by me. You tak’ wes’ road from New Iberia and turn nort’ on fork which goes nort’ and sout’ and zen you find Jean Pierre. Comprez-vous?”
“I don’t know. Where are you now?”
“By ze fork wiz ma fren Sheriff Beaudron. He is in charge of whole Parrish and by him you fin’ me. You come now, no?”
“And how! Where do I find this sheriff?”
“By his office in New Iberia. How soon you come?”
“Soon as I can get there. Just hold onto that girl!”
“Hol’ on? She can go no where. She is dead!”
“I know that! You wait for me. I’ll be there as soon as possible.”
“Is long trip to here. You come tomorrow?”
“Today, brother! Just wait for me.
I grabbed my hat, shoved it on the back of my head and went over to Dennis.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked.
“Why, to New Iberia of course!”
“Morgan’s going. This is no job for a woman.”
I blew up! “Why you louse! I am so going! Right now too!”
“You’re not!” he shouted. “You’ve stirred enough trouble with this case. Sit down, dammit!”
“Don’t shout at me!” I yelled. “Shouting is the defense of a limited mind and I am going, dammit!”
“Not on any order from me, you’re not.”
“Now look, Dennis, be reasonable,” I pled. “You know these have been my murders right from the first one. If you send Morgan he’ll take hours getting there by train or car. I think I can get Brett to fly me down and I can phone in the story in time to make the Sunday paper, maybe even make the Saturday Final! Please, Dennis!”
He looked at me. “If you can get your brother to fly you for free you can go. Otherwise Morgan goes. I’ll give you ten minutes to see about it.”
I flew to my desk and started phoning. Brett wasn’t home! I frantically called the field and after waiting for what seemed hours, he came to the phone. At first he flatly refused to fly up there unless the paper paid for the gas.
I wept, begged, screamed, and howled, and at last he agreed to take me.
“You’re lucky,” he said. “I still have gas left from that last charter I took out. Enough to get us there and back several times. It’s only about an hour’s Bight. But hurry up. I want to be back by dark.”
“I’11 be there as soon as my car will bring me.” I hung up and yelled to Dennis it was all right, Brett was going to fly me. Then I called Tommy Gross.
“Talk fast,” he warned. “I’m leaving town right away.”
“To New Iberia?”
“How in hell did you—oh, those reward calls. of course! You got the news before I did.”
“How are you going?”
“I’m driving—and no, you can’t go with us. I’ve got a full load.”
“Wait until I ask to go!” I snapped. “I thought maybe you’d like to fly, that’s why I called you.”
“Fly? With who?”
“Brett and me. He’s taking me up and well make it in an hour.”
“That would be swell! Got room for Beton?”
“If he must come along, yes. But no one else.”
“What about these reporters and camermen?”
“Let them get there the best way they can. I’ll pick you up in a few minutes. Be outside waiting.”
I slammed down the receiver, grabbed my purse. and galloped out. Tommy and Les were waiting for me. We made it to the field in less than forty minutes and piled into the plane which was all ready to take off. It seemed I’d barely got settled in my seat after the takeoff before we banked and came in for a landing on a field that looked like a cow pasture. It was just 3:45 and I’d taken that call at 2:00. Ten minutes after we landed we were in the sheriff’s office.
Sheriff Beaudron was a large and typical Cajun and his car was a large and typical Lincoln capable of doing a hundred miles an hour. With no regard for life and limb, he did it—piloting that sixteen-cylinder juggernaut as fast as it would go over the worst roads in the country. We turned on one wheel into the narrow oak-lined road that led to the fishing settlement and from then we stayed on one wheel—first on one, then the other. By some miracle of gravitation the car stayed upright and we reached the settlement at 4:00—a record which must still stand.
We paused to pick up Jean Pierre and then went to the spot where the body lay on the banks of the bayou. It was about three miles from the fishing docks. We made it in one minute. Or so it seemed.
I got shakily out of the car as Beaudron said, “Me, I ’ave not move ze body wan inch. Jean Pierre, he pull her from ze bayou and, pouf! Ze arm she come off!”
I gulped and walked over to the bank of the waterway. I’d thought after seeing Ned McGowan no dead body could ever affect me again, but the sight of the water-logged and mutilated corpse of Lucille St. Clair was almost too much for me. The stench was awful, even in the open air, and flies and other insects hovered around the spot where the body lay. I moved hastily into the lee of the wind, gritted my teeth, and looked at her.
The butchers of the bayou and other scavenger fish had done a good job. In another three weeks it would have been a thorough one. Only a few shreds of mortifying flesh hung on the leg and arm bones and a pair of stilt-heeled black leather tie shoes hung from the feet bones. The clothing was in tatters, torn by the needle-sharp teeth of the gars. Miraculously her face and neck had barely been touched. Part of an ear was gone and a piece was out of the right side of her neck and the right eye was only an empty socket.
There was a small round hole just behind her left ear, a shot from a small caliber weapon. A small caliber bullet hole under the left ear? Memory stirred lazily—that combination seemed familiar.
Case-hardened Tommy and Beton stared and both were pale pea green. Brett gasped, “My God in Heaven! What a sight!” and staggered to the side of the road, out of range of stench and view. I stood quietly, trying to pin down whatever was stirring in my mind about that wound.
Tommy recovered his self-control and spoke rapid patois French to the settlement people who had gathered around. I caught enough to know he had asked for a conveyance to take the body into the town morgue and for a smudge fire to keep insects away. Then he started questioning the pirogue fisherman-trapper who’d found her.
He told a straight, clear, highly accented story.
“Firs’ I pole down bayou from ma house and catch wan, two small feesh. I see feesh seem to go up bayou so I pole up and catch t’ree feesh. Zen I catch zis!” He indicated the body, which was now covered with sacking. “I pull her from bayou and pole fas’ for home where I get ma Ford and go fin’ Sheriff Beaudron who is ma fren. I tal heem what I fin’ and he shows to me ze picture. It is same girl. So he show me ze papier and I call heem and tal girl what I fin’. It is all.”
It wasn’t quite all. A boy of about twelve ran up, carrying a leaf-stained bundle.
“M’sieu Gendarme! Jacques and me. we fin’ dese tings back by a tree. half bury under leaves! Look!”
The bundle was wrapped with a black fur-collared coat. It contained a wide-brimmed, soft felt hat, a small overnight kit, and a black leather pouch purse. Tommy opened the purse and explored its contents. I watched.
Besides the usual women’s trappings there was a thermometer in a black case and a bank book showing a balance of over six hundred dollars. The book was in Lucille’s name and her nurse’s registration card was pasted inside the cover. The overnight kit held what an overnight kit usually does.
Tommy sighed. “Well, that seems to be that.” He turned to Beton. “I’m going to leave you here to attend the inquest Monday. I’11 go back with Margaret.”
“Okay, Captain. This was a tough one to crack all right, wasn’t it?”
I looked at him in surprise.
“You mean you think the case is cracked? Now?”
“Sure. It’s murder and suicide.”
“You’re crazy! It’s three murders, that’s what it is!”
“You’re the one who’s crazy! Why it’s as plain as the nose on your face!”.
“That’s because you never look beyond your nose,” I said disgustedly. “How you ever made a grade as detective is beyond me! I suppose she came to this out-of-the-way place, shot herself under the left ear, and then walked into the bayou! You don’t make sense!”
The arrival of a covered truck interrupted our argument and Brett took advantage of the pause to tell Tommy he wanted to leave.
“I want to get away from—that,” he said.
Tommy nodded and walked over to give instructions as to the handling of the pitiful body. Beton took up where we’d left off.
“To my mind the picture is perfectly clear. She got a ride and was let off somewhere along here. She waded out into the water and shot herself. It’s simple.”
“And so are you!” I retorted. “But it’s not reasonable and neither are you. How could she shoot herself under the left ear? Unless she was left-handed—and I don’t think she was.”
Tommy came back as Les lifted his right hand and pointed the forefinger at his left ear.
“That would be easy to do, particularly with a small gun.”
I snorted. “You’re nuts! Why should she come way out here to kill herself when she could have done it in New Orleans?”
“She may have meant to skip, but gave up the idea in favor of suicide. She probably thought her body would never be found here.”
“Baloney! Why did she leave her purse and all her identification? Why not sink that in the bayou?”
“Aw! You got murder on the brain,” he said disgustedly. “But this is suicide.”
“Yeah!” I derided. “That’s what you said about McGowan, then when I proved it murder you tried to pin it on me. If you would stop to figure out things with that dimwitted half of brain you own you’d see this is murder tool”
Tommy sighed deeply. “Migawd! Are you two going to start that name-calling again? Break it up! And shut up, both of you.”
“All right. I’ll shut up,” I said. “We’ll leave it to the coroner. Even a Cajun coroner should be able to tell that wound was never self-inflicted.”
Tommy took his gun out of the holster and pointed it toward his left ear, using his right hand.
“Let’s see. The bullet hole was about here.” He placed the muzzle in the approximate spot, under and somewhat back of the ear. “She was shot with a smaller bore, probably a .25 automatic.” His hand was twisted trying to match the proper location. “It would be awkward, almost impossible.” He shifted the .38 to his left hand and tried again. That time it looked much easier. “She could have done it with her left hand.”
His fooling with that revolver was making me nervous.
“Be careful with that damn thing!” I begged. “If it went off and killed you Beton would swear it was my fault!”
He grinned and replaced the weapon. “The safety was on,” he said and herded us all back into the sheriffs car.
We rode for about five minutes without speaking. Finally I broke the silence.
“I still think it’s murder,” I said stubbornly. “And it’s all part of a pattern somehow. Ned poisoned, Miss Cheng brained with a poker, Lucille killed with a pistol. Poison, poker, and a pistol. All weapons starting with the same letter; strange coincidence that. Strange too the way Lucille was brought into the story and promptly disappeared. And the woman Vangie saw in the hotel and said wasn’t Lucille because she wore low heels. The corpse wore stilt-high ones. Then this coat and hat find, just like the ones both Bob and Vangie described. It’s too damned pat.”
“Who do you suspect of the murders?” Brett asked.
“Mrs. Dellman. She’s the only one left to suspect.”
“Oh, come off that, Margaret!” Brett protested. “I know Marta Dellman very well. She couldn’t have done anything like that Cheng killing.”
“Do you think Lucille could have done it?”
“N-no. I can’t. She was always so gentle and soft-spoken.”
“The thing I can’t get away from is how it all ties up with Mrs. Dellman. Everything.”
“What do you mean, Margaret?” Tommy asked.
“You may think I’m batty. Bob said the woman in the elevator nervously tore a handkerchief to pieces. When Mrs. Dellman was in Nelson’s office she pulled out a torn linen handkerchief from her purse. There’s the car angle, even though she said Lucille was driving it. And the plumpness, you could see by her body that Lucille was very thin. Mrs. Dellman is plump. The height too. Lucille never wore low heels but I’ve seen Mrs. Dellman wear them and they do make her look shorter. And then there’s that scent I smelled in the apartment that night. I’ve smelled it since—on Marta Dellman.”
“You mean that odd sort of odor Marta uses?” Brett asked.
“Yes. It’s distinctive, not something you’d confuse with Shalimar or Christmas Night.”
“It’s distinctive all right, but the whole Dellman house and everyone who lives in it smells of the stuff. It’s oil of Patchouli and Marta sticks pieces of cotton saturated with it everywhere. In drawers, closets, under sofa cushions, and even back of picture frames. I can detect it on my clothing after only spending the evening there.”
“Oh,” I said flatly. “Well, I still don’t think this is the end of the story. The final scene is going to be played in New Orleans. I’d bet on that.”
We had reached the sheriff’s office. It was just 5:45 and I was talking to Dennis by 6:00. Tommy instructed me to say that there was a definite possibility of it being suicide and I reluctantly complied. Dennis seemed pleased at getting the story from the spot in time for the Final, but he had to growl about something so he growled that he’d had to hold the front page after deadline waiting for the call to come in.
Beaudron gave us a fast ride back to the field and we landed in New Orleans a few minutes after 7:00. Tommy and I got in my car and drove leisurely back to town. I’d had enough fast driving to last me for some time.
“Did you ever meet anyone who drives a car like that maniac?” I asked.
“Huh?” he asked absently.
“That Beaudron. I said he drives like a maniac.”
He laughed. “He does. Even I tore the upholstery going around some of the turns.”
“Me too. You know something, Tommy—” My voice trailed off.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking.”
“About what, Margaret? What are you cooking up in that red head of yours?”
“I’m not cooking up anything!” I protested, all innocence.
“Oh yes, you are. I know you, baby. You’ve got a brain wave and when you get one you usually ride it to shore. So tell papa.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” I insisted.
“Don’t give me that wide-eyed innocent look. You’re fixing to do something you shouldn’t. Now what is it?”
“I’m fixing to go home and eat. I’m starved.”
“It won’t go over. What are you really planning?”
“Nothing.”
“Very well. You stay with me until you come clean.”
I gave up. “Oh, all right! I thought I’d go out and see Mrs. Dellman,” I said sulkily.
“That’s what I figured. You believe she’s a triple murderess, but you were going right out to her house and tell her you knew she’d done it and she might as well tell the police all about it! Are you nuts?”
I slowed the car to a walk and looked at him.
“Oh ho! So you don’t believe Lucille was a suicide!”
“Of course not. Look, Margaret, you’re a bright child and a good reporter, but I’m a detective. I didn’t make chief by letting people get away with murder. Crime is my business and I make a fair living at it. If you could see it was murder, give me credit for having the intelligence to do the same.”.
“Well, Beton hadn’t!”
“Oh, murder makes Les work too hard.”
“But you even demonstrated how she could have held the gunl And you made me tell Dennis it could be suicide I”
“That was what I wanted Dennis to print,” he said smugly. “I didn’t want the quarry to become alarmed. I wasn’t going to say anything to you until I got the hunch you meant to go barging in on Mrs. Dellman.”
“Aren’t you a smarty pants!”
“Sure,” he said blandly. “Now I want your word you won’t go there tonight or any time alone. If you won’t promise I’11 either have to keep you with me or send a man to see you stay at home. I don’t want you to get hurt. I have too much fun with you when you’re alive. Airplane rides and fights with Beton; things like that. So promise you’ll be good.”
I hesitated. I hate to make promises unless I’m sure to keep them. But I knew Tommy meant what he said and I didn’t want any tail put on me.
“Okay. I’ll be good. But I want the first break on this story. It’s mine from start to finish. If you cross me I’11 hex you!”
“I won’t cross you up. You’ll get the first break. I give you my word.”
“You do believe she’s the killer?”
“Everything points to her. McGowan was killed out of jealously, Miss Cheng was either a surprise witness or she was deliberately playing detective—as you were. But this last is the worst of the lot. This girl was killed because she found out something and was going to tell the police or,” his voice hardened, “she was killed to provide an alibi for the real killer.”
“That’s horrible'” I shivered. Then added, “But that’s just about how I had it figured!”
“I said you were a bright child.” He smiled, then grew serious. “This girl was done away with sometime between Ned’s death and Saturday morning. If it was murder for an alibi she could easily have persuaded the unsuspecting girl to go riding with her, killed her, and thrown her body in the bayou. The body had been in the water a long time, there’s no way of telling just how far up the stream it Hoated before it was found.”
“Not far,” I said. “Remember her things were right there on the bank.”
“That’s right, too. Those things were planted so that if the body was found it would look like suicide from remorse. My God!” he exploded. “It seems incredible a delicate, gentle woman could do such things!”,
“That’s about what a jury will think, too,” I said drily. “unless you can get her to make a confession. That might prove tough. She’s not so gentle as she appears to be—not if she handled that poker!”
‘Well take care of that angle,” he promised grimly.
I looked at his set jaw and felt sorry for anyone who tried to best him. I knew too that once the law nailed you to the cross, money meant nothing and social position even less. Suddenly I began to shake. I pulled to the curb and stopped.
“You drive,” I said, my teeth chattering. “I’ve got a sudden attack of the jitters.”
“Reaction from your nerves,” he said calmly. “What you need is a drink and I could use one myself. Let’s go find us a joint where they break the law and sell that nasty stuff.”