“Over there.”
The sheriff pointed with a solemn arm towards a covered thing on the ground in the furthest zone of light. I saw as we moved towards it that it was a blanket-wrapped body strapped to a stretcher. The Sheriff said to Trevor:
“If you feel up to looking at her, I’d sure appreciate it. We haven’t got a positive identification.”
“Of course.”
“It won’t be nice. She’s been in the water for a couple of months.”
“Don’t beat around the bush. Show her to me.”
The sheriff uncovered her face and turned his flashlight on it. The sea-change she had undergone had aged her rapidly and horribly. She was beaten and bloated and ravaged. A blur of tears stung my eyes, and a blur of anger. The people stood around in absolute silence.
“It’s Phoebe,” Trevor said.
His face was bone-white, bone-hard. He looked around helplessly, as if he could feel the early shocks of an earthquake that was going to topple the cliff. The shocks went through him visibly. He fell to his knees beside her. I thought he was trying to pray. But his body continued its loose downward movement until his head struck the earth.
He rolled onto his back, his upturned face turning blue, his white teeth shining in it. I kneeled beside him, slipped his tie, unbuttoned his button-down collar. He forced out words:
“Digitalis. Right coat pocket.”
I found the bottle and gave him a capsule from it, returning it to his pocket. He said through grinning teeth:
“Thanks. Bad one. Oxygen.”
I touched his left breast. His heart was pounding like the dull random blows of doom. The Sheriff bent over us, his jowls hanging out from the bone structure of his face:
“Cardiac?”
“Yes,” I said. “I shouldn’t have brought him here.”
“I better rush him into Terranova Hospital. We might as well fold up this operation for tonight.”
He brought his car to Trevor. We helped him in. The storm of pain had gone through him and left him terribly slack.
“Good luck,” I said.
He nodded and tried to smile. The Sheriff drove him away.
Chapter 21
I went back to the cliff. The deputy on the truck-bed was switching his searchlight off and on. Down below, the black seal head broke water, and the diver turned his masked face up into the eye of the light. The deputy made scooping motions at him.
A man wearing overalls over a red shirt climbed into the cab of the truck and started the motor. Slowly, the winch began to wind in the cable. It lifted the black-suited diver from the water. With both hands grasping the loop at the end of the cable he walked up to the cliff like a space man liberated from gravity. Some of the bystanders clapped as he stepped over the edge.
I saw when he took off his mask that he was a boy of eighteen or nineteen. He reminded me of Bobby Doncaster. He was very big for his age, with swimmer’s shoulders exaggerated by his thick rubber suit. An aqualung was strapped to his back. A canvas bag, a long sheath knife, and a miniature crowbar swung from a web belt around his waist.
The man in overalls got out of the truck and helped him remove his aqualung and other gear. He growled at the boy in pride:
“Have you had your fill of the water for once?”
“Can’t say I did, Dad.”
The boy wasn’t breathing hard. He didn’t even look cold. He took off his flippers and swaggered around a little in his bare feet. The deputy interrupted his promenade:
“Did you get the trunk open, Sam?”
“Yep. There was nothing in it but some tools. I didn’t bother to bring ’em up.”
“What about the registration slip?”
“I couldn’t find any sign of it. That doesn’t mean a thing, though. The wave-action down there is pretty terrific.”
I said: “It’s a green Volkswagen, isn’t it?”
“Used to be. Like I said, there’s a lot of wave action under the cliff. It sand-blasted most of the paint off of her already.”
“Are you the one who brought the body out?”
His face went sober. “Yessir.”
“Was she in the front seat or the back?”
“The back. She was wedged down on the floor between the front and back seats. I had to dig her out of the sand in there. The car’s chuck full of sand.”
“Did you notice her clothes?”
“She wasn’t wearing any,” the deputy said. “She was wrapped in a blanket. You got a special interest in her, mister?”
“I’m a private detective, and I’ve been looking for the girl for some time. I came here with her uncle, Carl Trevor.” I turned to the boy: “Do you mind if I ask you some more questions, Sam?”
Sam was willing, but his father intervened. “Let him get some dry clothes on first.”
He helped his son to pull off his rubber suit, revealing long woollen underwear; and brought him jeans and a sweater from the truck. Sam’s big moment was fading. The onlookers were straggling back to their cars. I followed the deputy to his:
“Do you have any witnesses to the accident?”
“No direct witnesses.” He added grimly: “It was no accident, mister.”
“I know that. Were there indirect witnesses?”
“Jack Gayley and his son think they saw the Volksie the same night it went over. Of course there’s lots of green Volksies on the roads.”
“Where did they see it?”
“Going past their place in Medicine Stone, headed this way. This was a couple of months ago, along about midnight. They were just closing up their station for the night, and this guy went by in the Volksie. The thing is both of them knew him, or so they claim. Young Sam says he even yelled hullo at him, but the guy didn’t stop. I guess he had his reasons, if he had the body in the back seat.”
“Who was he?”
“They don’t know his name, or where he’s from. He camped near Medicine Stone for a while last summer. Sam saw him at the beach a couple of times, and Jack says he was in their coffee shop more than once.”
“Could they give you a description?”
“Yeah. Sheriff Herman’s sending out an all-points on it. Young fellow with reddish hair, over six foot tall, good-looking, well-built.” He clucked. “The damnedest types are taking up murder these days. He probably got the girl in a jam and figured that this was a way out.”
“Yeah,” I said absently. The description fitted Bobby Doncaster, who had been at Medicine Stone the previous August. He had met her here, I thought, and parted with her here.
The deputy looked into my face: “This ring any bells for you?”
It rang a dull dead tolling bell, but I denied it.
I caught the Gayleys before they took off in their tow-truck. They confirmed the deputy’s story of the red-headed boy in the green Volkswagen driving through their little town at midnight. The boy said:
“He was going tike a bat out of hell.”
“Watch your language, Sam,” his father put in.
“Hell isn’t swearing.”
“It is in my book. You don’t want to get too big for your britches just because you can swim good under water.”
The boy grinned sheepishly. I said to both of them: “Are you certain of your identification?”
“Pretty certain,” the boy said. His father nodded, and he went on: “We still had our bright lights going, they shone on his face. I shouted something at him, but he didn’t stop. He didn’t even look sideways.”
“But it was definitely someone you knew?”
“I wouldn’t say I knew him. I saw him on the beach a couple of times last summer. We said hello.”
“When last summer?”
“I think it was in August.”
“Yeah,” Jack Gayley said. “It was in August, couple of weeks before Labor Day. I remember he came into the coffee shop.”