I was wide awake, you understand. Wide awake and beyond the first agony of paralysed panic. It seemed idiotic to me that I could have ever believed the blood in cabin number 11 belonged to Ann. Ann was gone and — I was sure — in danger, but I no longer believed she was dead. The danger, it seemed to me, was very real. If she was gone, there was a good reason for her absence, and the blood in cabin 11 seemed like a very logical and strong reason. People don’t voluntarily bleed on a closet floor. Where there’s blood, there’s danger.
So I drove quickly and with purpose. I was a cop and I was being tolerated. But the shield I carried was weightless, and I needed the heavy hand of the local law to put the machinery of fear in motion.
Fear.
A very helpful thing to a cop. Everybody’s got a skeleton someplace, and nobody wants it dragged into the middle of the living room during tea. Fear urges the innocent man to protect his own skeleton by telling the truth about someone else’s bag of bones. Fear can lead the guilty man to panic, and panic is the great undoer among criminals.
There was a little bit of fear on the face of Oliver Handy when he opened the door for me. The fear surprised me. Perhaps he was just the kind of man who automatically becomes frightened when someone raps on his door in the wee small hours. But there had been a light burning in the cabin when I pulled up, and when Handy opened the door — even though he was in pajamas and robe — he did not have the look of a man who had come directly from a warm bed. There was something else strange about the way he admitted me. I knocked, and he didn’t ask ‘Who’s there?’ or anything. He came straight to the door, opened it, and said, ‘Oh, Colby — almost as if he’d been expecting me.’
‘I’m glad you remember me,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ he said, nodding. His eyes were very tired. He looked much older than he’d looked earlier — when he’d been telling me about the good fishing at Sullivan’s Point. The blue of his eyes had been piercing then; it was faded now. His Cupid’s bow mouth had been animated then; it now looked as if it had shot its last arrow.
‘What is it, Colby?’ he asked.
‘I’d like to talk to you.’
He nodded briefly. ‘Come in.’
I followed him into the cabin. There wasn’t much change since I’d left it three hours earlier. Handy had probably gone straight to bed the moment Ann and I cleared out. I looked around the room quickly. The only thing that stuck in my memory was the cigarette burning in an ash tray near the telephone.
‘I was asleep,’ he said. ‘What is it?’
‘I didn’t mean to wake you,’ I said.
‘That’s all right. What is it?’
‘I want some policemen.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s complicated,’ I said.
‘Life usually is,’ Handy replied, and he sighed a curiously forlorn sigh. ‘Since you got me out of bed, why don’t you tell me about it?’
‘My fiancée is missing,’ I said.
‘What do you mean by that, exactly? Handy asked. He slipped the lid from the cut-glass cigarette box and took a filter-tip cigarette which he immediately placed in his mouth. ‘Cigarette?’ he asked.
‘No, thank you.’
Handy fired the cigarette, using the lighter from the table. ‘Now what’s this about your fiancée being missing?’ he asked. He blew out a long stream of smoke. Some of the life seemed to be coming back into his eyes. ‘Bad habit,’ he said. ‘Always take a cigarette when I wake up.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘The girl—’
‘Do you believe this stuff about throat cancer?’ Handy asked.
‘What?’
‘Cigarettes,’ he said. ‘Causing throat cancer?’
‘Oh. I don’t know. I’ve never given it much thought.’
‘All the good things in life are either forbidden or no good for you,’ Handy said. He smiled tiredly. ‘That’s not the way it goes. I quoted it wrong.’
‘We checked into a motel run by a man named Mike Barter,’ I said.
‘Yes. At the Point.’
‘Yes. I left Ann in her cabin. She’s gone now. Clothes, luggage, everything. Gone.’
‘Who did you leave in the cabin?’ Handy asked.
‘Ann. My fiancée.’
‘Oh,’ Handy said. He looked puzzled. He drew in on his cigarette slowly.
‘The girl who was with me this afternoon,’ I explained.
Handy blew out another stream of smoke. ‘I don’t think I follow you, Colby,’ he said thoughtfully.
‘The girl who was with me,’ I said patiently. ‘When your trooper pulled us in. This afternoon. When he gave me the ticket.’
Handy lifted his eyes to meet mine.
‘What girl?’ he asked.
‘The girl—’ I stopped dead. Our eyes were locked over the table. The Cupid’s bow mouth was taut and drawn now. The blue eyes were wide awake and alert. Justice Oliver Handy was en garde and ready to start fencing.
‘I don’t remember any girl,’ he said. ‘Fred brought you in alone this afternoon.’
‘I see,’ I said.
Handy smiled. ‘Perhaps it was the long drive,’ he said.
‘Or perhaps it was the telephone call,’ I answered.
‘The what?’
‘The call you undoubtedly received just before I got here. The reason for the burning cigarette in that ash tray.’ I gestured with my head. ‘What’s going on, Handy?’
‘I have no idea what you mean,’ Handy said.
‘Don’t you? You know goddamn well I had a girl with me today. Now what’s the pitch?’
‘If there was a young lady with you, I didn’t see her.’
‘She fell asleep right on your couch!’ I shouted.
‘I didn’t see her!’
‘What are you trying to pull? What’s happening here? Why the big coverup? Do you think you’re going to—’
‘I didn’t see any girl,’ Handy said firmly.
‘Okay, Handy.’ I got up. I pointed my finger under his nose and said, ‘You may think this hick burg is the beginning and the end of the world, but you’ve got your geography figured a little wrong. There are state cops, and there are federal cops, too — and kidnaping happens to be a federal offense!’
‘There’s a state trooper who will testify that he arrested you while you were alone,’ Handy said. ‘Why don’t you relax, Colby?’
‘There are state troopers who’d shoot their own mothers, too,’ I said. ‘I want some cops. Do I get them from you, or do I have to start working?’
‘Why do you want cops? To trace the disappearance of a nonexistent girl?’
‘No,’ I said. I grinned. ‘You don’t think I’m crazy, do you? You don’t think I’d ask for police aid on something as obviously lunatic as that, do you? I want cops because I found a pool of blood in a motel closet. I think the cops might be interested in finding out who or what made that blood.’
‘They might,’ Handy said.
‘Well?’
‘I’ll call a trooper,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to stand in the way of a private citizen reporting a suspected crime.’ He shrugged. ‘About the girl, though...’ He shrugged again.
‘What girl?’ I said.
Handy lifted his eyes, and a slight smile began forming on his face. Slowly, methodically, he stubbed out his cigarette. ‘I’ll call a trooper,’ he said, and he rose and walked to the telephone. The cigarette in the ash tray there had burned down to the filter tip and was beginning to smolder. Unceremoniously, Handy stubbed it out. He lifted the receiver and dialed four numbers.
‘I have a theory about people,’ he said to me.
‘Yeah?’
‘Yes. I happen to believe that most of them are sensible. I’m also something of an optimist. I believe—’ He cut himself short and said into the phone. ‘Hello, Fred? Did I get you up? Oh, well I’m sorry. No, nothing too important. Remember that young fellow you brought in this afternoon? Speeding. The detective, remember?’ Handy paused. ‘No,’ he said emphatically, ‘he was alone. Nobody with him.’ Handy paused again, listening. ‘Yes, that’s right. Yes, now you’ve got it. Well, he thinks he’s run afoul of some trouble out at Mike Barter’s place. Thought the local police might give him a hand. Think you can take a run over?’ Handy listened. ‘No, not Mike’s. I’m calling from my place. Sure. Okay then, we’ll be expecting you. Listen, tell Janet I’m sorry about calling at this hour, will you? Fine.’