Visibly nervous, Fleming agreed. “All right. I reckon it won’t do any harm for me to look around — just to satisfy Mr. Windrow that everything’s aboveboard.”
“By all means,” said Shayne, “satisfy Mr. Windrow.”
Half a dozen men were grouped outside the cabin. Cal Strenk stepped forward from among them. “What’s happenin’ inside? You found out who fired that shot?”
“Looks like you might have been right. We’ve about agreed that a ghost did it — then dissolved up the chimney.” Shayne dropped his bantering tone. “Come on with us. I want to look for footprints down toward the creek where you said a man might have crossed.”
Strenk said, “There’s a path back this way. We usta carry water up from the crik. Hard to tell about footprints on these rocks, though.”
In the circle of light cast by the patrolman’s flashlight, Shayne saw nothing that looked like a path, but Strenk led the way downward confidently.
The roar of rushing creek waters increased as they neared the bottom of the gulch. Strenk stopped on the edge of a narrow turbulent stream and pointed to some flat rocks partially covered with foaming water.
“There’s where we usta dip our pails in. Comes floodin’ down like this every time it rains heavy in the hills.”
“Is it too deep to be waded now?”
Strenk squinted at the tumbling stream and calculated aloud, “Just over the top of them rocks now, an’ it’s goin’ down fast. Reckon it ain’t more’n two feet deep in the middle. A man could wade ’er if he could stand up against the current.”
“Throw your light up and down the bank,” Shayne told the patrolman. “If anyone left the cabin in a hurry, he might easily have missed this thing Strenk calls a path.”
The officer’s light flickered along the edge of the water downstream. The bank was steep and rocky, and showed no trace of footprints.
He turned his light upstream, manipulating the focusing mechanism to make the beam smaller and brighter as the distance grew greater.
He stiffened and made a low, jerky exclamation when the bright beam touched what appeared to be a bundle of discarded clothing not more than thirty feet away.
Shayne swore softly and grabbed the light from the officer’s hand. He had seen that pinkish color before.
It wasn’t pink. It was orchid.
He stumbled forward, holding the flashlight extended before him. The bundle of discarded clothing took shape — the shape of a slender young girl.
Shayne slowed to a walk. It was far too late for hurrying now. Nora Carson was quite dead.
Chapter eleven
THE TOP OF THE ACTRESS’S HEAD was smashed in, the edges of the gaping wound showing clean and unbloody under the light of the flash. She lay curled about the base of an old tree stump as though she embraced it in dying. Her shoulders and arms were bare, creamy-smooth in the bright light; the orchid evening gown was twined tightly about her body from the knees upward.
Cal Strenk and the patrolman came up behind Shayne quietly. The miner’s breath made a faint slobbering noise in the stillness. None of them said anything.
Shayne bent and touched one of Nora Carson’s bright blond curls and her gown. Both were soggy. A few inches from her feet the creek water swirled and foamed over small boulders. The rocky bank surrounding her was clean-washed, with no sign of blood anywhere.
Shayne sent the beam of the flashlight up the steep slope, muttering, “She wasn’t killed here. Might have rolled down from above and lodged against this stump.” The light reached upward to the path leading to the cabin without revealing anything to indicate where the murder had occurred.
“Might of,” Cal Strenk agreed in a curiously choked voice. “But looks like her purty dress would of got torn on the rocks if she rolled down. With her bein’ so wet, looks like she was doused in the crik.”
Shayne played the light up and down the slope above the present water-line. “I don’t see any high-water marks. Do you think the water’s been above this stump tonight?”
“I reckon it has, all right. Turn your light down here again.” Strenk bent over the stump and nodded. “Yep. It’s soakin’ wet, too. She might of been washed downstream hour or so ago.”
“Or else placed here while the water was high in a position to indicate she’d been washed downstream. But hell!” Shayne rubbed his chin irritably. “Could the creek have fallen this far since eight-thirty? It doesn’t seem possible.”
“It’s not only possible, but it’s quite probable.” The young patrolman spoke for the first time since his light had touched the girl’s body. “Easterners don’t understand our mountain cloudbursts. I’ve seen a twenty-foot wall of water roll down a dry creek bed — and in thirty minutes it would all be past.”
“That’s right,” Strenk corroborated. “Depends on how much it rains up in the mountains.”
Shayne grunted sourly and circled the body and stump, holding his light on it. He decided, “Her body was either placed there carefully, or it was washed down the creek during high water and lodged against the stump. In either case, it was done while the water was high, else there would be some indications of blood on the rocks. That leaves us a nice wide-open question as to where the murder was actually committed. She might have been dumped into the creek any goddamned place above here while the water was high and roaring down.”
“Is it necessarily murder?” the state officer asked respectfully. “Couldn’t she have fallen in the creek — struck her head against a rock?”
Shayne laughed shortly. “Could have, but I’m betting a thousand-to-one it’s murder. Such things follow each other, you know.” He dropped on his knees beside the girl, made a close and careful examination of the head wound.
“I was thinking of that previous murder — wondering if we might not be jumping to conclusions. There isn’t necessarily any connection, is there?”
Shayne rocked back on his haunches and demanded, “Do you know who this girl is?”
“One of ’em from the opry house, ain’t she?” asked Cal Strenk when the patrolman shook his head.
Shayne stood up and with apparent carelessness flashed his light into the miner’s face. “Her name is Nora Carson. She identified Screwloose Pete as her father a few minutes before he was murdered tonight.”
The old man clawed at his whiskers and blinked into the bright light. “Do tell? I’d look for a jackass to pappy a thoroughbred colt quicker’n I’d expect ol’ Screwloose to beget a purty actress daughter.”
“That’s your connection,” Shayne told the officer. “One of the reasons why it’s a cinch for murder. And this blow on the top of her head wasn’t accidental. It’s too much like the wound that killed her father.” He turned the light back on Strenk and demanded:
“Are you backing Jasper Windrow in his attempt to prove she lied about Pete being her father?”
“Is that what he’s up to?” The miner sounded properly indignant. “Might know he’d wanta grab Pete’s share, too. After puttin’ up not more’n five-six hundred dollars all told, he ain’t satisfied with a third share of a million-dollar mine. No, sirree. I ain’t throwin’ in with Windrow. Not ’less he splits with me, I don’t. Pete allus said if he died fust he wanted for me to have all his share in our claims.”
“He never mentioned having any heirs to you?”
“Nope. Never said nothin’ about none.”
“He didn’t put that in writing, did he? That you should have what he left?” Shayne’s voice was hard, biting.
“Nope. I don’t reckon Pete could write much. He could make out to read a mite.”
Abruptly, Shayne said, “To hell with dividing up an estate before the bodies are buried.” He handed the patrolman his flashlight. “Wish you’d stay here with the body while I go up and tell Sheriff Fleming his grief has just begun. While you’re waiting, you might look around for a coat Nora Carson was wearing when she left the hotel.”