Blood on Lake Louisa Page 5

  “Hit runs inter the Manasaw River a piece down— ‘bout eight miles I reckon. ‘Taint likely no boat come up from the Manasaw. Plum growed up with hyacinths. She’s putty clar for three miles down from hyah tho. Cain’t get up her from hyah at all. Big log dams her up jest a piece above the house.”

  “Three miles down, hunh? By jiminy, that’s right by Sawdust Ford, isn’t it? The old Bodman Lumber camp?”

  “Putty dost, Sheriff, putty dost.”

  “I wonder—tomorrow I’ll go out there and have a look.”

  “If youall’s goin’ huntin’ a boat, Sheriff, you kin save your time. ‘Taint no wooden boat been hyah. ‘Taint a wooden boat mark. Foldin’ canvas that you kin tuck right in a car. Takes down in ten minutes. Bo’t like that’ll float in a foot of creek watah.”

  “That’s something to work on, Pete, isn’t it?” Marvin asked.

  “It sure is. I think Cass is right, too. A heavy boat wouldn’t navigate this creek. Some of those canvas boats will take an outboard motor, too. A boat like that would be hard to find if it was hidden, but it shouldn’t be hard to—”

  “Trace through the company,” I suggested.

  “Right, Doc. That’s just what I intend to do. I’ll get a list of all the manufacturers tomorrow. It’s the first hopeful thing we’ve stumbled on to.”

  We made our way back up to the house. All of us were feeling slightly elated. I knew that Crossley had a long difficult task ahead of him, but at least he had uncovered a starting point. He was not a brilliant man. What he lacked in brilliancy he made up for in common sense and the tenacity of a snapping turtle. It turned out later that his tenacity was to win out only by sheer hard work on his part. It takes hard work for a county sheriff to beat a clever criminal. Police in the cities are helped with every mechanical device known to science. The sheriff of a small county is dependent on his knowledge of his people and the country in which they live. Had any of us realized in part the devilish cunning of the man who had pitted himself against society, we would not have been cheered up a whit. As it happened, all of us were out-thought at every turn. Perhaps his ability to do that very thing should have been our strongest clue.

  Luke Pomeroy had made a careful search of the cabin by the time we returned. The cupboard had been stripped bare and all the articles piled on the table. A small tin box had yielded twenty-four dollars in crumpled bills and a few old receipts for groceries. His minute search of the bunks and mattresses had been fruitless.

  The excitement which had kept me going had worn off. I felt that I could not stand on my feet another instant. It became painful to hold my eyes open. My long drive to the lumber camp during the day, and the worse one which followed it during the night, were having their effect. I shuddered at the thought of having to face the trip through Tiger Swamp again.

  Pete had noticed that I was on the verge of collapse. He thoughtfully suggested a cup of coffee before we started on the trip home. As eager as I was to leave the place, I nevertheless felt that it would be a life saver. I did not believe that I could manage to drive without something to keep me awake.

  “Hold tight, Doc,” Pete said. “I’ll have it in a jiffy.”

  He rinsed out the big coffee pot and filled it from a bucket of water which stood in the corner. There was a can of a good brand of coffee standing on the table. He took off the top and started to measure out the savory contents with a large spoon. Then quickly he reached into the can and pulled out an object which gleamed dully in the fire light.

  “I’ll be damned!” he ejaculated. “It’s David Mitchell’s watch!”

  7

  The false dawn was in the sky when we headed into Tiger Swamp on our way home. The Sheriff had left Luke Pomeroy in charge of the shack, and the silent form which such a short time before had been a living and breathing man. It was going to be no easy task to carry the body of Red Salmon to a place where Amos Pryor could take charge of the remains. Pete had decided to stop at Malo and arrange for a dozen men from the turpentine camp to accompany the mortician. It would take at least that number working in relays to get the casket through the swamp.

  It was daylight when we reached the cars. I was ready to lie down on the ground and sleep indefinitely. My feet were numb and my head was singing from the overwhelming fatigue. Pete asked Cass Rhodes to drive his, Pete’s, car to town, and to take Marvin with him. He said he would like to ride in with me as he had a few things he wanted to talk over. Salmon’s Ford was run in under a rude shelter, which I had not noticed the night before, and left there in case Luke found it necessary to come to town before he was relieved.

  I drove and listened to Pete summing up the events of the past few days. I had really been so absorbed in my own part of the mystery that I had forgotten the Sheriff’s office was working on it at all. It was something of a shock to learn the amount of effort which had been expended without any tangible results.

  The morning following my discovery of Mitchell’s body, Crossley, Ed Brown, and Pomeroy had gone back to the lake at daybreak. They had searched carefully over the ground surrounding the scene of the crime, the Simmons’ house, and the grove behind it.

  The banker had owned for many years a beautiful, hand chased, double barreled shotgun of English make. It was found leaning against a tree about a hundred yards from the edge of the lake where I had made my gruesome discovery. There was a loaded shell in each barrel and both hammers were fully cocked. Pete stopped when he told me that, and lit us each a cigarette. I saw that his hand was shaking as he held the light. He flicked the match out of the window and took a long inhalation of smoke.

  “Does anything strike you funny about that?” he asked.

  “You mean about the gun being cocked?”

  “Exactly. Mitchell has carried that gun for years. He wouldn’t have anything to do with a hammerless or a pump gun. Claimed they were unsafe.”

  “Maybe he was after some singles from a covey—”

  “So he leans the gun fully cocked up against a tree where the dog can knock it over and goes to the lake to fill his water bottle. Don’t forget, Doc, there would be plenty of time for him to cock the gun after the dog pointed—”

  “Then you think he saw the murderer and tried to defend himself.”

  “It occurred to me, but it won’t make sense either. He certainly wouldn’t stand the gun up against a tree so someone could shoot him. And I can’t picture anyone who has just shot a man carrying another gun for a hundred yards and leaving it in that position.”

  “Maybe it was the other way around,” I suggested. “You mean Mitchell was carried down to the lake. By gosh! That may be possible, Doc. You may have hit the nail on the head. But I still don’t see why—”

  “To hide the body. Or conceal it in the grass around the edge.”

  “But the place is covered with thick bushes all around where the gun was found. It looks like taking unnecessary chances to me. The edge of the lake is about the worst place he could have put it. You found it there in no time.” I must have looked rather miserable for he changed the subject.

  “What do you make of the dog being killed? It was quite a while before we discovered her. I doubt if we’d have found her at all if it hadn’t been for buzzards.”

  “Say!” I exclaimed. “Isn’t that the solution to the gun being found cocked? Rather than stop to reload his own gun the murderer took Mitchell’s to kill the dog. Probably thought she would give an alarm by wandering back to town, or howling. Then he remembers that Mitchell’s gun will have a light quail load, and may only sting Bess at a distance. He puts the gun down by the tree and uses his own.”

  “It’s a darn clever thought, Doc. But I still don’t think that explains it. Mitchell was killed with one load of buck shot. It is very unlikely that the criminal was firing a single barrel gun—although I admit that’s possible. If he wasn’t, he would still have one, and maybe more buck shot shells left without reloading. The murder itself shows that he was a good shot—and Bess
was only shot once. I’m afraid we’ll have to look further for the real answer.”

  “You seem to get back to the conclusion that Mitchell placed that gun up against the tree himself. Have you managed to work out any theory that would fit in with that?”

  Pete was silent for a long time before he replied. We crossed the tiny stream which had seemed so large to Marvin and me during the night, and finally left the woods road for the brick one. I stepped on the gas for I was anxious to get home. Pete leaned forward and raised the windshield a trifle. The morning air felt cool and refreshing. The terrible events of the night before began to take on the muddled aspect of a bad dream. I was rather annoyed when he answered my question.

  “If David Mitchell placed that gun against the tree himself—one thing is certain; he thought he was going to shoot at something or someone just before he did it.”

  “At what?” I demanded. We were passing another car and my hands were full trying to hold the wheel as we jounced off into the deep sand ruts at the side of the road.

  “Doc, if I knew the answer to that I’d probably know who killed him. But for the sake of argument let’s consider some of the things that cause a hunter to cock his gun in the Florida woods.”

  “Well the main thing is if the dog goes on a point.”

  “Yes, I know that,” Pete agreed acidly. “But I’m not talking about the main thing. I’m talking about things outside of birds—”

  “Snakes?”

  “Maybe. There are other things, too. Wild hogs, for instance. Sometimes a wild cow roaming around loose. Then there’s a hawk flying overhead. Or maybe the smell of a skunk close by. But with any of those things a hunter will either shoot or uncock his gun. He won’t stand it up against a tree.”

  “Granting you’re right, what does that prove?”

  “Nothing definitely. But you asked me if I had any theory. Well I have. I believe that Bess was the cause of Mitchell cocking his gun—but I don’t think she was pointing.”

  “What then?”

  “I think she was nosing around as bird dogs sometimes do. Some dogs will do it with snakes, and some with rabbits. Bess may have done it with a human being.” Pete spat reflectively through the open window. “Any dog may have done it with a human being—if the said human being happened to be hiding in the bushes. What do you think?”

  “I think it sounds reasonable enough. But what about the gun? I don’t see where you have explained his leaving it cocked.”

  “I haven’t, but here’s what I think: Mitchell sees Bess acting funny and nosing around in the bushes. He cocks his gun and goes up carefully to investigate expecting to find a snake or see a rabbit run out, and instead he finds a man—maybe another hunter—he’s so upset at the thought that he was close to shooting someone that he leans his gun up against a tree without thinking to lower the hammers. Before he can get it again he’s been shot.”

  “Then you do agree that the murderer carried him down to the lake?”

  “I don’t agree to anything, Doc. Maybe he was so upset he wanted a drink of water, and there was none in his bottle, and he was actually down by the lake when he was killed. I’m sure I don’t know.”

  “That’s apparent,” I agreed.

  We rolled into Malo and I stopped the car and waited for Pete to hunt the camp foreman and make arrangements for the men to help bring in Red’s body. Pete sent a man out from the commissary with a cold bottle of orange soda which I drank with relish. I settled back in the seat and the next thing I knew Pete was pummeling me in the ribs and telling me to wake up. I dazedly opened my eyes. We were parked along the curb by the Court House in Orange Crest.

  “I just shoved you over and drove in myself,” he told me with a broad grin. “I was afraid you’d drive off the road in your sleep if you tried to make it from Malo. Besides I want you to come in the office for a few minutes before you go home. I have to have a statement from you about Mitchell and Red.”

  “Great guns!” I protested. “I’m dead. Can’t that wait?”

  “Doc, I wouldn’t ask you for worlds if it weren’t necessary,” he assured me ruefully. “Carl Sanderson, the State’s Attorney will be in town this afternoon and I just have to have it.”

  Painfully I unlimbered my cramped muscles and climbed out of the car to follow him into the Court House. I yawned prodigiously at the thought of the cool sheets waiting for me at home. All my bones creaked protestingly as we walked up the granite steps and entered the corridor. My eyes felt like they were filled with fine sand. I sank into the Sheriff’s own chair and groaned loudly when he called Miss Phillips, his secretary. Through the haze which enveloped me I dictated a statement of my finding the bodies of David Mitchell and Red Salmon. From the way I felt it should have been totally incoherent, but when I read it later on it appeared very clear and lucid. While Miss Phillip’s nimble fingers were flying over the keys transcribing her notes Pete’s monotonous voice kept beating on my numbed brain.

  “Will you be there?” I heard him ask.

  “Will I be where?” I demanded sulkily.

  “I’ve already told you three times, you old crab. Sanderson is going to be at my house this evening. I would like to have you and Marvin there about eight. Will you come?”

  “What for?”

  “Good gosh, Doc. I want him to hear your story himself. He’s a smart man. He may be able to help us. We’ll need all the help we can get to clear up this mess. You’ll be all right by then after you get some sleep. Can I count on you?”

  “Yes,” I said dully. “I’ll do anything if you’ll give me that statement to sign and let me go to bed.”

  I affixed my signature to the papers he laid before me without stopping to read them. Like a somnambulist I walked out of the Court House and climbed in the car. How I managed to get it in the narrow driveway by the house I do not know. I guess it was just force of habit. The next hour was crammed full of heavenly recollections. Hot steaming water and thick lather relaxing muscles and nerves that were tight as the doors of a closed bank. Golden iced orange juice—light fluffy muffins—wide-eyed staring eggs and crisp crunchy bacon—Mocha and Java and thick yellow cream—dark shades and cool linen sheets—soft downy pillows—my own blessed bed—and sleep—sleep—sleep.

  8

  It was seven o’clock in the evening when I was awakened by Mae knocking on my door and telling me that I just had time for supper if I hurried. I shaved quickly and went downstairs to join her at the table feeling much refreshed, although I was still a trifle stiff from my exertions in Tiger Swamp. There had been three telephone calls for me during the afternoon, but luckily none of them was very urgent and Mae had not disturbed me. While I was eating I told her more in detail about the happenings of the night before.

  “Do you think Red Salmon killed Mr. Mitchell?” she asked me directly when I mentioned that the banker’s watch was found in the shack.

  “No, my dear, I don’t,” I told her after a moment of reflection. “Although I’ll admit that it was in my mind several times on the way home. But I always seem to run up against the blank wall of: why was Salmon killed if he was the murderer? Salmon undoubtedly knew who killed Mitchell, but I don’t think he did it himself.”

  “Where did he get the watch, then? I thought you said it was taken from Mr. Mitchell’s body. Do you think the murderer gave it to Salmon?”

  “We don’t actually know that it was taken from Mitchell’s body. I told you it wasn’t found on him, and that Celia said he always carried it. She got the idea that the watch might have been left at Spence’s for repairs but there was no record of that. I was there night before last when Pete checked up.”

  “But Will, dear, Celia told me about that check up in the store and I don’t think you know any more about that than you did at first.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked in some surprise.

  “Only that you have no real proof that the watch wasn’t left there. You only questioned that young man, Bartlett, and Timothy
Reig, and Tim said that Mr. Spence wouldn’t know anything about it. Has the Sheriff questioned Forman Spence himself?”

  “I don’t know but—”

  “Well it wouldn’t make any difference anyhow,” She interrupted with a smile. “You still wouldn’t have any proof. Would you?”

  “But, my dear, you surely don’t think that Forman and both the men in the store would lie about a matter like that. Why, Forman Spence—”

  “—Is one of the leading citizens of Orange Crest. Certainly, Will, I know that. We weren’t discussing anyone’s standing, my darling. We were discussing proof. I think that is what detectives always demand in the stories I have read—p-r-double-o-f. You can tell Pete Crossley that he hasn’t any proof that the watch was on David Mitchell when he died, and he hasn’t any proof that the watch wasn’t in the possession of someone in Forman Spence’s when Mitchell died. Now run on or you’ll be late, and please don’t attempt to roam any more swamps tonight. You’ll be needing your own services if you do, I’m afraid.”

  I was pondering on my wife’s statement as I backed the car out of the garage. It was perfectly true, and I doubted if Pete had considered that phase of the situation any more than I had. If the two murders in our community had been in the hands of city police the personal element might have been entirely eliminated. In a place the size of our town such a thing was impossible. We all lived too close together, and no suspicion of our neighbors could find a place in our hearts. Pete Crossley, Forman Spence, and I had attended a small district school together. Any one of the three would have accepted the other’s word without question. Pete, although he was Sheriff of the County, was bound to feel much the same way about the people surrounding him whom he had known for years. Such an attitude on the part of a peace officer was certain to prove a handicap in the solution of a difficult case, but it was highly preferable to having a sheriff who lacked sympathy and understanding.