While she was looking me over I gave her a quick appraisal. I supposed she wore the latest fashions, but, anyway, her clothes became her for she was beautiful, as always, in a cool sophisticated way.
“I’d love to talk to you, Hon,” I said, “But right now I’ve got a rush job on my hands and a customer due in ten minutes for a sitting.” I flashed a smile at her to take the sting out of what must have sounded to her like a polite brush-off. “And as you can see I’ll have to make myself presentable.”
“I wasn’t aware that you went to so much trouble for your clients, Matt.”
“Well, this one’s kind of special. Charles Henry Lane. You remember. Prominent young businessman and son of one of our oldest families. I think I quoted our DAILY NEWS correctly.”
Anita smiled softly. “Hum. Perhaps you aren’t a total loss after all, Matt.”
I knew what she was leading up to so I quickly changed the subject. “How long are you stopping in this humble wayside town?”
“Two weeks.”
“Two weeks!” I exclaimed. “What is this?” Anita rarely stayed longer than a couple of days.
“I’m on vacation. Two whole weeks.”
“And you’re spending it here?”
“Why, yes, Matt. I thought it would do me good to get away from the city for a while.”
“I’m sure you’ll enjoy yourself. We have plenty of clean fresh air. Wholesome milk to build strong bones and teeth, and quiet to soothe ruffled nerves. By the way, aren’t you a little thin?”
She ignored me and walked toward the door. “You don’t have much time to dress to receive Charles Henry Lane, Matt. Call me when you’re free. See you later.”
With a wave she was gone. I watched her disappear up the street and suddenly I felt an old, but not unfamiliar, sensation somewhere in the region of my heart. Quickly I willed it away and, glancing at my watch, dashed for the back room.
I had just slipped my tie around my collar when I heard the chime on the door ring. A few moments later I hurried out to the front room.
When I saw Charles Henry Lane I felt a little foolish for having made those remarks to Anita. For all the pompous words flung around about him by the DAILY NEWS Charles Henry Lane was small-town upper-class at its best. At forty-five he still had the neat athletic build of a man ten or fifteen years younger. His dark brown hair was beginning to recede and there were some rather deep lines around his eyes and his mouth, but they only served to give him a mature and rather distinguished look.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Lane. Just got back from the Banning farm. I suppose you’ve heard of the excitement out there.”
“No. I haven’t heard.”
He spoke very slowly, almost as though he were carefully choosing his words. I was a little surprised at the expression on his face; it was almost wary. Or was it puzzlement?
“Someone found a body out there. A woman. Sheriff’s pretty sure it’s murder.”
Lane looked shocked. Remembering my own reactions when I saw the body I felt comradely toward him. He too had been through a war and seen violent death. But like me he had spent the years since in a town which hadn’t had a murder since 1895.
“It’s rather a shock, isn’t it?” I offered sympathetically.
“Yes, it is,” he answered. “Of course it happens every day in the cities but here—” He stopped and looked at me rather helplessly.
“I suppose the world had to catch up with us sometime, Mr. Lane. Although I wish it had waited a little longer.”
“Yes. Yes, so do I. I just got back last night from Cincinnati.” He grinned ruefully. “I kept thinking all the way home last night how nice it would be to get back home where everything’s nice and quiet.”
“Business trip?” I asked politely.
He nodded. “Yes. Left early Sunday. One of those conventions. Don’t really know why I go. Never seem to accomplish anything.”
The sitting didn’t go very well. I kept seeing that woman’s ghastly face every time I looked in the camera and Lane seemed preoccupied. I had to repeat every direction to him about three times. I took a couple of extra shots for insurance and then called it quits. I knew Clyde would be anxious to get my pictures so as soon as Lane left I went right to work. A couple of hours later I locked the studio door behind me and carrying a stack of slightly damp enlargements walked up the street to Clyde’s office in the county jail.
Clyde was talking on the phone when I walked in. He waved me to a chair as he finished his telephone conversation. A minute later he swung around in the swivel chair to face me. His movements were as quick and sure as ever but I caught a bewildered look in his eyes that had never been there before. He glanced quickly through the stack of photos and then piled them neatly on the corner of his desk.
“Thanks, Matt. That looks like a good job. As usual,” he added, giving me a grin that faded too quickly from his lined face. I took out a pack of cigarettes and after giving him one took my time about lighting up.
“Any idea who she was, Clyde,” I began. “I like to keep my records pretty complete, you know.”
Clyde shook his head. “And I like to keep my records complete, Matt. But so far, nothing. No identification on the body, no one’s recognized her so far, and her clothes could have come from any large department store in the state or maybe the whole country. Just nothing. Except it’s pretty certain she was strangled. Doc’s working on that now. And she’s probably been dead about forty-eight hours.” He threw up his hands in a helpless gesture. “I’ve started through all the channels, missing persons, the FBI for fingerprints, but all that takes time. And in the meantime...” He paused and looked at me intently.
There was a catch in my throat. “In the meantime, there’s a killer running around loose.” I finished it for him.
He nodded. “It’s probably an out-of-town killing and someone just happened on that abandoned farm and thought it a good place to dump the body.”
“But the silo, Clyde? Sure, an abandoned farm’s a fine place to get rid of a body. But why the silo? Why not a shallow grave somewhere on the farm? That silo just doesn’t make sense.”
Clyde nodded. “That’s what puzzles me, Matt. If it weren’t for that silo I’d be pretty sure this was an out-of-town killing. Or rather out of the county. It’s almost as though someone knew that silo was going to be filled soon but didn’t think that Clem would clean it out first. It if weren’t for that, why hard telling how long that body could have stayed in there.”
I saw what Clyde was getting at. If that silo had been filled on top of the body it would be months before the silage was fed out down to the body. And if it wasn’t all fed out and the silo wasn’t used the next year or the next, it might even be years before it was used again.
“I’m calling on the auxiliary deputies, Matt. If I have to I’ll run everybody in the county through that morgue. Someone here must know her.”
“Yeah,” I answered. “Someone knew her well enough to kill her. But suppose the killer’s the only one who knew her, Clyde?”
Clyde sighed wearily. “I know, Matt. That’s what’s worrying me. If the killer’s the only one who knew her he’s not likely to let us find that out.”
The afternoon was pretty well shot when I left Clyde. There was no hurry on Lane’s pictures so I decided to call it a day. I called Anita at her parent’s home. When I suggested we share an early dinner she accepted rather too eagerly to suit me and I was sure she’d heard about the murder and would be full of questions. For a moment I was sorry I’d asked her out. I’d had about all I could take of that murder for one day.
When I stopped off at the home I shared with my older brother Clint and his wife Maggie for a quick shower and change of clothes I learned news of the murder had reached the back-fence clothes-line circuit hours before. Maggie seemed to sense that I didn’t want to discuss it and quickly switched to something else. I felt better then and only hoped Anita would be as perceptive.