Mystery

The other policeman faded away toward the long passage out to the street, and Natchez leaned down to try to pick up Glendenning Upshaw’s body. After a second, Andres bent to help him.

The red taxi with the dangling headlight was parked across the sidewalk from the back end of Maxwell’s Heaven. The two men carried Glendenning Upshaw’s limp body to the rear of the taxi, and Tom opened the trunk. When he slammed it down on the curled-up body, the noise came to him soft and diminished, like the closing of a bank vault.

Andres got behind the wheel. “Maybe I shouldn’t have followed,” he said. “I went out to the Founders Club behind you, five or six cars back, all the way, and I parked where I did yesterday. After you came out, I followed you back here and saw you go into the Courts. I went in behind you, and then I got lost, so I walked around until I found my way back out, and then I drove around to the other side. When I heard the shots, I came in.”

“You did the right thing,” Natchez said. “What I wonder about is whether we’re doing the right thing.”

“Drive,” Tom said, and Andres pulled away from the curb. Natchez flashed his badge at the guardhouse, and the red taxi wound through the palms and sand dunes to Bobby Jones Trail and pulled up in front of the long white bungalow. When the three of them got out of the cab, Kingsley came out through the arch and began making his way down the steps. Tom held up a hand and stopped him. “Get your wife and take her into your quarters. Leave the front door open.”

“But—”

“Stay in your rooms until I tell you to come out. Something is going to happen that you can’t see.”

“What?” Kingsley said, too disturbed to remember his usual formality.

“We’re going to find my grandfather,” Tom said.

“But Master Tom, he—”

“Make sure your wife stays in the room with you,” Tom said.

Kingsley nodded sadly and turned himself around and began tottering back up the steps.

“Kingsley,” Tom said.

The butler sagged aginst the railing and looked back at him.

“Has the mail come yet?”

“It just arrived, Master Tom. I put Mr. Upshaw’s letters on his desk.”

“Fine,” Tom said.

Kingsley gazed at Tom like an old dog that fears a beating, and said, “He was at home that night, Master Tom. You remember—the night you called him from Eagle Lake?”

“I don’t blame you for anything,” Tom said.

The butler nodded again and began toiling up the steps like a marionette with a couple of broken strings. Tom went back to the car and stood beside the two men, who had opened the trunk and were staring down at the swollen black thing inside it. At the back of the trunk, a little fringe of white hair showed above the rucked-up jacket and a bent arm.

“I guess I know what you want to do,” Natchez said. “But why do you want to do it?”

“Poetic justice,” Tom said.

“Does this have anything to do with Damrosch?”

“I don’t know. It might. I think he tried to kill Buzz Laing, and he could have gotten rid of Damrosch to end the investigation. I think Lamont von—I think my father was trying to get me to think about that before he was killed.”

“Are we going to take him out of the car?” Andres asked.

“I’ll help Natchez do it,” Tom said. “Would you wait for us out here, Andres? It’d be better if you didn’t see this.”

“I didn’t see nothing all day except Lamont,” Andres said. He stepped back, and Tom and Natchez leaned into the trunk and pulled out Glendenning Upshaw’s heavy legs. One of his trousers had ridden up on his leg, and a long expanse of white flesh glared from the top of his sock. One of his feet swung from side to side over the black road. They leaned back in and pulled his waist and hips farther out of the trunk, and the stiff foot thumped the asphalt. The front of the suit was wet with urine, and Tom’s hand instantly felt slimy. He wiped his hand on the hem of the soft black jacket. A bubble of gas farted out of the body. Tom and Natchez got their hands on his shoulders and pulled him upright. His head lolled back, and his mouth fell open.

“Get his right arm over your shoulders,” Natchez said, “and put your left arm around his back. I’ll get on his other side, and we’ll try to walk him in.”

Tom propped one thick, heavy arm around the back of his neck and positioned himself. When Natchez was ready, they lifted up with their legs. Glendenning Upshaw hung between them like a fat scarecrow filled with wet cement. Something in his stomach sloshed and gurgled. His head fell forward, and Tom smelled cigars, blood, aftershave, and gunpowder. It felt like his grandfather was trying to push him down through the asphalt. Natchez stepped forward, and Tom moved with him. They moved up on the sidewalk and began dragging the body toward the steps.

“He must weigh three hundred pounds,” Natchez said.

Tom had to stoop so that the dead arm would not slip off his shoulders, and his back ached by the time they got up the steps. Blood from the back of the black suit soaked through to his arm.

Natchez said, “Do you want to put him down for a second?”