Blood on Lake Louisa Page 3

  Bartlett looked hurriedly through the “M’s” in a small indexed book which he picked up from the desk.

  “There is no record of it here, Mr. Crossley, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t in the store. It is quite likely that neither Tim Reig nor Mr. Spence would make a record of a watch left by anyone they knew as well as Mr. Mitchell. We’ll have a look in the watch rack.”

  He unlocked a small safe under the watch repair desk where Timothy Reig did his delicate work, but the racks which he took out with numerous busily ticking watches hung on their own tiny hooks yielded no results. While we were rather hopelessly checking them over again we heard a “Hello folks,” and turned to find Tim Reig standing inside the door which we had not locked behind us when we entered. He gave an inquiring glance at the trays of watches. Bartlett hastened to explain.

  “Maybe you can help us, Tim. We’re trying to find out if Mr. Mitchell’s watch is here by any chance—”

  “The one given him by the Chamber of Commerce?”

  “Oh, you know it then?” asked the Sheriff.

  “Certainly. I engraved the testimonial on it, but I’m certain it’s not here. It was a high priced watch and practically new. Why should he have brought it here?”

  “Daddy said something about it gaining,” Celia told him. “I just thought—“ She stopped abruptly and walked to the door. I could see she was again fighting to control herself.

  “It’s been missing since his death,” Pete went on in a low voice. “We thought there was a bare possibility—”

  “Well, I’m sorry I can’t help you, Mr. Crossley. I’m sure Mr. Spence won’t be able to either, for all the watches come to me. Now if there is nothing else—I’m rather tired—I just happened to be passing and saw the store was lighted. My car is parked in the next block if I can drive any of you home—no? Well good-night.” He was gone as quickly as he had come.

  “Not very sociable, is he?” Bartlett asked with one of his rare smiles. “He certainly never has much to say around the store.”

  “Who? Tim Reig?” Crossley chuckled. “Say, I’ve known Tim for fifteen years—maybe longer—and he talked more tonight than I’ve heard him in all that time. I still know less about him than anyone else in Orange Crest—”

  He was interrupted by a car which came to a quick stop in front of the door. The driver got out without shutting off the motor and peered in the window. I recognized Ed Brown. When he saw Crossley was inside he came in himself and walked up to Pete who was standing with me somewhat apart from the others.

  “Sheriff,” he said, “I thought you all would like to know that Marvin Lee got back to town on the ten thirty-five!”

  4

  The day following the return of Marvin Lee to Orange Crest I was called many miles out in the country on a confinement case which kept me busy until late in the afternoon. My patient was the wife of a logger, and I waited several hours before I added another eight pound boy to the seven children already swarming over their three room shack. During the day I held a sort of impromptu clinic, for one woodsman after another kept dropping in to consult me about minor ailments. It was evident that the news of Mitchell’s death had penetrated even this remote logging camp situated deep in the woods on the edge of a large cypress swamp. I was bombarded with questions, most of which I was totally unable to answer. I am certain that I left my inquisitors with the impression that if I had not personally committed the crime I at least knew much more about it than I admitted.

  It was after five when I arrived home to find that Marvin had called me three times, and had finally left a message asking me to come over to his rooms at Mrs. Nelson’s as soon as I returned. Although I was very tired I stopped only long enough for a quick bath and a bite to eat, for it was a request that I could not very well ignore.

  Mrs. Nelson was a widow whose husband, Bert, a prosperous orange grower, had died suddenly seven years before leaving her with two children and a beautiful eight room bungalow set in a small grove on the edge of town. Like so many men astute in other ways Nelson had been very neglectful of life insurance. When his estate was finally settled it was discovered that most of the large groves had gone and that there was only a small income left to provide for his family. Marvin Lee had fought hard to save what he could for the widow, for he was an orphan and had practically been raised by the Nelsons. He now occupied two large rooms and a sleeping porch in the bungalow, and had a private bath which he had built on at his own expense. He contributed largely to the upkeep of the place, and Mrs. Nelson regarded him as her own son. The grove was surrounded by a wire fence to keep out marauding cattle, and when I got out of the car to open the gate so I could drive in I saw Marvin walking down the sand road which led to the house.

  He was usually immaculate in his appearance, and I noticed with some surprise that his clothes were unpressed and dusty. His hair was ruffled and a limp strand hung down over his high white forehead. He kept pushing this up impatiently, a characteristic gesture of his when worried or excited. I had watched him many times in court and it was an invariable sign that things were not going to his liking when he started fighting with that stray lock of hair. Neither of us spoke beyond a casual greeting until we were stretched out in two long wicker chairs on his screened-in porch. He nervously lit a cigarette and began without preamble.

  “Doc, they’re trying to hang this Mitchell murder on me!”

  ‘mo is?”

  “The Sheriff’s office.”

  “Don’t be silly, Marvin. You’re overwrought and jumping at conclusions.”

  “Certainly I’m overwrought, but I’m not jumping at anything. I know Pete Crossley and the way he works better than anybody in this town and he thinks I did that killing.”

  “But Marvin, it shouldn’t be a difficult matter—”

  “To prove that I didn’t. Listen, Doc,” he snuffed his cigarette viciously in the ash tray beside him. “I’m a lawyer and I know how black this thing looks. I was the last one to see David Mitchell alive. I talked with him less than a mile from Lake Louisa at four o’clock on the afternoon he was killed. I followed him into the woods carrying a shotgun because I wanted people to think I was hunting and not looking for him.”

  “Why all the secrecy?”

  He rose from his chair and held up a capable white hand in a gesture of silence.

  “Wait, please. Let me sum this up for you in my own way. It may make it clearer to both of us.” He began to pace slowly back and forth as I had seen him do when addressing a Jury. I lay back in my chair and watched the shadows left by the setting sun change into violet, and the violet darken slowly until only an outline of the orange trees surrounding the house remained. Still he paced back and forth evidently trying to get a concrete picture of the facts together in his mind. Suddenly he began to speak again.

  “I know all the questions that are arising in your mind.

  I spent the day, today, with Crossley and Ed Brown in the woods around Louisa. They asked me all of them: Why did I want to talk to Mitchell? Why did I leave Orange Crest so quietly? Where did I go? Doc, the hell of the thing is—I can’t answer those questions—yet. It may be two weeks or it may be three months, or even longer, before I can talk. What is going to happen in the meantime? Celia I can count on, thank God! She believes in me. I hope I can count on you, but I won’t blame you if you believe anything.” He switched on the small reading lamp which stood on a table between our chairs and sat down disconsolately. L reached over and laid a hand on his shoulder.

  “You can count me in to the limit.”

  “Thanks,” was all he said, but when he looked up I saw that his gray eyes were moist with tears. He lit another cigarette and continued quietly. “There is more, Doc. I have a new will of Mitchell’s in which he leaves me twenty-five thousand dollars. I needed the money badly. It will furnish Pete with a fine motive, won’t it?”

  “Not necessarily, when you are going to marry Mitchell’s daughter.”

  “Yes. T
hat’s a point, but the marriage is some time away.”

  “Marvin, you’re making mountains out of molehills. There must be plenty of others with motives just as strong as any you might have. Let’s look at this thing sensibly—”

  “Doc, you still don’t understand,” he interrupted impatiently, “I can name plenty of people with motives— moonshiners—game violators—even Forman Spence—”

  “Forman Spence?”

  “Yes. Mitchell was a silent partner in his business, and Spence owes him nearly fifty thousand dollars. It was a personal matter and there is nothing covering it in writing. I know Mitchell has been pushing him and his business is in bad shape. I told Crossley all about it today. But it won’t wash, Doc. I’ve been picked out for the victim. They may get me yet.”

  “You mean Crossley?”

  “Not only Pete, Doc, it’s deeper than that. Listen to this: I carried Mr. Nelson’s old shotgun to the woods with me that day. This morning Pete asked where it was, and I told him it was here in my closet. He wanted to see it— matter of routine and all that—but when we came out here to get it—it was gone!”

  “Gone!”

  “Vanished completely. Mrs. Nelson and the children are away for two weeks. Someone just walked in and took it while I was away.”

  “But why?”

  “Doc, it isn’t damning enough to have the array of circumstantial evidence already existing. They have added the fact that I can’t even produce the shotgun I carried to the woods with me. I’ve seen juries convinced on thinner cases than the one against me right now.”

  I sat staring into the darkness thinking how heavily the shadow of the banker’s death had fallen on our community. The terror of the night when I still thought that I had been the careless assassin was so fresh in my mind that I could realize something of the helplessness which had gripped Marvin Lee. I was certain that he had no hand in such a dastardly crime. I nevertheless had to admit to myself that the case against him was black. Above everything I could not understand his refusal to tell where he had been or why he had followed Mitchell into the woods. Heroic gestures seemed a bit out of place when a man was becoming entangled in a net of murder. Still, I knew the dogged determination of the young attorney, and the uselessness of trying to persuade him to change a course he had made up his mind to follow. Evidently his reasons were good, for his whole career had proved him a man of sound judgment.

  “I’m going to need your help, Doc!” he snapped out, bringing me back to our own miniature closed-in world on the porch. “Every bit of it that you can give to try to clear this thing up.”

  “I’ve told you you could count on me to the limit.”

  “I’m taking you up. You’ll have to believe in me and take a lot of things on trust. I talked to Celia last night and told her I was going to ask you to help us. She agreed with me—“ He stopped as though listening and then went on with an apologetic laugh. “I guess my nerves are going. I thought I heard someone moving out in the grove.” We sat silent for a few moments listening intently, then with the thought in mind that we would make excellent targets I turned the switch on the reading lamp leaving us in absolute darkness. I had hardly done so when I was startled into a panic by a ghostly whisper close to my head.

  “Doctah Ryan, hit’s Cass Rhodes. Don’ turn on the light, sub, please. I come in through the grove and I’m standing hyah by the poach!”

  I was relieved to hear the soft voice of the lanky cracker, for I knew that he was a man to be trusted, although he had been mixed up in moonshining for many years. I was, however, mad clear through at the scare he had given us.

  “What’s the idea, Cass, coming in here like a sneak thief? We’re not revenue agents!”

  “Nossuh, Doctah, hit’s not that. I come from Red Salmon. He’s a mighty sick man. Hit’s not safe for me round hyah. I’m skeered right now the Sheriff knows I’se in town. I cain’t be too keerful.”

  “Well, what is it, Cass?”

  “Doctah, hit’s jest like I told you. Red’s mighty sick. He’s ailing with a bad fever and chills, and coughing so he kin hardly speak. Hit come on him sudden-like. There’s something about this killing he wants to tell you all, and he ain’t going to talk to no sheriff. But you better hurry. There’s no time to lose.”

  “What about it, Marvin?” I asked.

  “Let’s go. I’ll trust Cass. Where is he, Cass?”

  “He’s hiding out and hit’s quite a ways from hyah. You all give me about thutty minutes, then drive out to Half Mile Creek on road numbah two. I got Red’s Ford there. Stop a mite this side of the creek and dim your lights three times. When youall see a tail light ahaid follow hit. There’s walking to be done, and hit ain’t nice. Youall betteh wear some clothes that’s fit to be spiled. Hit’s suah bad!” He was gone even more silently than he had come. The faint snap of a twig and the soft swish as a tree branch snapped back into place were the only sounds to mark his passing through the thick grove.

  We did not turn on the light. Marvin got up and made his way into the house. The window of his room lighted up and I could see he was putting on a pair of high leather boots. I decided I would stop by my house and do the same. It would be advisable to let Mae know where I was going—or at least with whom I was going for I did not know my destination myself. I wondered if I should telephone Pete and then decided against it. Cass Rhodes had told the truth when he said that Red Salmon would not talk to the Sheriff. They might arrest the cunning red headed distiller, but they would never make him talk. He had hated David Mitchell, but he was not the type who would shoot a man for revenge. Cass had said he was very sick. A real cracker does not exaggerate the seriousness of an illness. They generally wait to call a doctor until it is too late for the doctor to do any good. I hoped we would not be too late for I felt we were on the trail of the first real information anyone had had. Perhaps Red had killed the banker, and was so near dying that he was going to confess. Looking back on it now I realize that I could not possibly have known what a ghastly discovery we were to make that night, nor what terror our discovery was to spread through the countryside. Yet later I was unfair enough to blame the forces of law and order for not having known about it and done something to prevent it.

  The light in Marvin’s room went out. I heard his step on the front porch. I rose and joined him. We stopped by my house long enough for me to change my shoes to hunting boots and reassure Mae that my trip with Cass Rhodes was only a routine call. I took no weapon with me for I knew that both Salmon and Rhodes had only the friendliest feelings toward both me and my companion.

  We headed west on State Road No. 2. Just before we reached Half Mile Creek I pulled the car up on the side of the road and flashed the headlights as Cass had directed. Almost immediately a red tail-light shone in the darkness ahead of us and I started in pursuit. I did not know until later that another car was following our wild ride through the night.

  5

  Keeping the twinkling tail-light in sight on the wide State highway was not such a hard job although Cass Rhodes was giving the little car ahead of us all she would take. The speedometer crept from thirty-five to forty-five, and as we got further away from Orange Crest up to fifty-five where it hung shivering. We passed few cars for State Road No. 2 was not entirely completed, and the traffic south generally took a longer route which avoided many bad detours. We roared over the series of bridges spanning Colonel’s Prairie and left the cluster of unpainted houses, which marked the turpentine camp of Malo, far in our wake. Sixteen miles out of town the new sixty foot highway ended and gave way to the old nine foot brick road. Here our going was necessarily much slower.

  The road twisted and turned around ponds or any natural obstruction that got in its way. It dipped sharply down to the edge of creeks, to allow a precarious passage over unrailed wooden bridges, which to the uninitiated appeared to require the dexterity of a tight rope walker. Two parallel planks running lengthwise of the bridges served as guides to the driver, and woe to th
e novice who ran off them for rusty nails and flat tires were the reward, and far too often a dive in the creek.

  We covered five miles of that writhing brick nightmare at a speed which I should have considered unsafe even in broad daylight. Then I saw the dot of red light bobbing off through the woods to the left and I knew that Cass had left the main road. When I reached the place where he had turned off I saw it was an old log trail barely discernible in the lights of our car. It wound around stumps and between trees where there was scarcely room for our larger machine to get through. I brought the car to an abrupt stop. The black ominous looking water of a creek was straight ahead of us. Cass’ tail-light had disappeared.

  “Gosh!” Marvin exclaimed. “Did he go through that?”

  “He must have. The tracks lead right down to the water.”

  “Shut the motor off a minute. I’ll get out and investigate. We don’t want to get hung up on a log in there.”

  I turned the switch and Marvin climbed out and walked down to the edge of the water. As soon as the engine stopped I could hear a motor ahead of us and I knew we were not so far behind. There was a grand chorus of frogs going on which died out into an occasional “ar-rump!” as the big ones protested against our invasion of their privacy. Marvin waded in almost to the middle of the creek, then came back out and waved for me to come on. I stopped for him to get in again.

  “It’s a sand bottom,” he said, “And not too deep. I think you can make it if you take it slowly in second.” I put her in gear and started through. There was a heartbreaking moment in the center when the motor coughed politely, then we were pulling up on the other side. Cass had stopped some distance ahead to see if we made it, but when our headlights proclaimed that we were safely through he started off again.