Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 51, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2006
- Автор: Бетанкур Джон Грегори, Jr. William J. Carroll,
- Год: 2006
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines/Crosstown Publications
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 51, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2006». Краткое содержание книги:
It was plain that Steensen was long gone, but unless he’d done himself, he didn’t seem to have planned on being as long gone as he was, and that, I realized, made my job something that wouldn’t have a happy ending.
And as I started to leave, with a hard call to make to Scotty on my mind, I saw the map.
Tacked to the wall beside the door was a section of a standard road map, but with markings made on it, and a big X, beside which was the word “cave.”
It was clearly a map of the area I was in, and the marks made on the map were a kind of trail that led south through the swamp, following the east bank of Nasty Creek, but I didn’t know what to make of it.
I didn’t know what to make of anything.
And the whole business was starting to depress me, so I put the map in the bag and hiked back to my truck. I drove back to Tarboro in a harder rain, deciding on the way that despite Scotty’s warning, talking to the cops at this point was the best move to make.
Crowded by ancient trees, the Edgecomb County Sheriff’s substation, just south of Tarboro, was one of those new/old buildings — a newer, concrete structure extended back from and around either side of an older Victorian building, complete with broad porch and columns.
I parked outside, climbed up onto the porch, and went inside, told my story to a uniformed clerk, and was eventually directed to the office of Deputy Sheriff Gerald Matini.
A short balding man, with a weightlifter’s physique that threatened, in places, to burst through the khaki uniform he wore.
He looked at Crash’s picture after I’d introduced myself, then said, “I know him. Haven’t seen him in six, seven months.” He frowned at me. “He wanted?”
“Not that I know of,” I replied.
Matini motioned me to a chair beside his desk and we both sat.
“Steensen’s the friend of a friend,” I explained, “and I’m just trying to locate him.”
“Steensen?”
“Ralph Steensen, yes.”
He frowned at the picture again. “Pretty sure he lived in an old cabin, down past Polecat Springs...”
“I’ve been there, and he’s not.”
“Hmph.”
“And it doesn’t look like he moved out.”
I described the state of the cabin, and watched him do the math.
“That don’t sound good,” he said.
“I know.”
“Lot of wild country down that way. The swamp and all.”
He gave me a you-fill-in-the-blanks look, that I answered with a nod.
Matini handed me back Crash’s photograph, then leaned back in his chair. “Not a bad guy, as I recall, but a little loosely wrapped.”
“So I’ve been told.”
He smiled. “Came in here one day, all in a lather about something I couldn’t make heads or tails of.”
“Oh?”
“Something about finding a body somewhere, but he couldn’t tell me much that made any sense.”
“When was this?”
“Like I said, ’bout six, seven months back,” he shrugged. “But he just didn’t make sense, you know? Sounded more like he had a real bad dream. Couldn’t tell me where this cave was, except it was somewhere south of Polecat.”
“A cave?”
He nodded. “I told him to draw me a map, and he got all excited, like I had accused him of lying, and stormed off.”
I dug the map out of Steensen’s bag and showed him.
“Well, this is a map,” Matini said, after studying it. “Maybe he did find a body.”
“Did you follow up on it?”
He nodded patiently. “I gave Chief Gettis down in Bayette a call about it — that area south of Polecat is beyond the county line — but old Gettis couldn’t figure where that cave could be, and there weren’t nobody local reported missin’, so...” He shrugged.
I nodded.
“I’ll fax this on down to Chief Gettis; once we’re past this hurricane, I’m sure he’ll look into it.”
I nodded again.
“About your friend...” he began.
“What kind of man is Gettis?”
“The best kind,” he answered with no hesitation.
“I’m just wondering why Steensen didn’t go to him.”
Matini shrugged. “This station’s closer to where Steensen lived,” he pointed out.
“Okay.”
Matini gave me a long look, then said, “You figurin’ on goin’ down to Bayette, nosin’ around, you check in with Chief Gettis, you hear?”
“I will.”
He gave me another long look, then got to his feet, his hand extended. “Nice talkin’ with you, Mr. Virginiak.”
Before leaving, I got a copy of the map made, then headed back to my motel, showered, and changed into my uniform because I only had one other dry set of civvies that I wanted to save. Then I had an artery-clogging session at a nearby restaurant, and returned to my room to watch the latest news on Amanda, which was then five hundred miles to the southwest and trying to make up its mind where to go next. I debated whether to call Scotty then and there and tell him the hunt for Steensen was done, or to go on to Bayette.
But it wasn’t much of a debate.
And because it was just two P.M., and checkout was at three, I went ahead and checked out, then I gassed up the truck and put it on the road, heading south to Bayette.
Under even darker skies now, but with no rain for once, I drove again through Polecat Springs.
When I was about five miles north of Bayette, which according to my road map was a tiny speck nestled along the river, I saw flashing lights in my rearview.
I slowed and moved over, and when the police cruiser slowed itself and came up behind me, I knew I was the object of his attention, so I stopped.
Wondering what the problem was.
I got out my license and registration and insurance, then waited because he took his time. Took a long time, in fact. Ten minutes ticked by, then fifteen, and my edginess turned into irritation. Finally, I saw the door to the cruiser pop open, and a tall, skinny cop, wearing an orange poncho, emerged.
I rolled down my window as he came up to it and looked in at me.
“In kind of a hurry, ain’t ya?” he asked.
I hadn’t been, but I didn’t argue. I just handed up my paperwork, which he didn’t take.
“Asked you a question,” he said.
I looked at him.
He was thirty-fiveish, with a dark, pitted face and angry eyes.
“In-kind-of-a-hurry, ain’t ya?” he asked again, slowly.
“Not particularly,” I replied.
“Step out of the vehicle,” he told me, standing back from the door.
Right, I thought.
“If I was speeding,” I told him, “just give me the ticket, and...”
“I said, get out of that vehicle, boy!” he snapped, one hand going up under his poncho.
I smiled, nodded, and got out.
“Turn ’round,” he said, “put your hands on the roof, step back, spread your legs.”
I went along with it, not wanting to make more of the farce, and let him pat me down — looking for what, I don’t know — but he found only my wallet.
“Turn around,” he said.
I faced him again.
“Got yerself a real fancy rig there, don’t ya?”
It was just a truck.
“Pick up a lot’a girls, do ya?”
I hadn’t been fighting them off lately, but I said nothing.
He sneered and tossed my wallet at me, which I caught, then he came up close to me and said, “Soldiers comin’ down here, drivin’ like maniacs, got a lot’a nerve, thinkin’ they can get away with anythin’ just cause they got a uniform on.”
I guessed it was Old Grand-Dad, but it might have been any bourbon.
“Know what I think?” he whispered.