Nemesis

“You didn’t ask,” Meyers said ironically. “Now let me explain just how funny that is. Supposing you’re telling the truth. We started out this morning believing you. We started looking for a body. That’s where those thirty thousand legs go to work. All of them, looking for this dead girl. We know where you said she was. Nelson Boulevard. Good. We send a few hundred legs out there to start looking. They found out that you was out there. We got people who saw you. But nobody saw a body. We found out the block you stayed in last night. Not the house, but the block. That’s close enough, because we got plenty of legs. The legs went through every house in that block. Every room. And they didn’t find a body.”

He looked through the smoke at Larry. “See what I mean? We know you’re lying. Now we’d like to find out why you lied. If you just had the shakes and a bad dream we want to know that. If you’re covering up something else we want to know that and we intend to find out.”

“There was a dead girl lying beside me when I woke up,” Larry said. “I didn’t dream it. I was sick and half-drunk but I didn’t imagine it. I tell you I saw her. You saw the blood on my shirt, didn’t you? And there’s not a cut on me, is there? How do you explain that away?”

“We don’t do Sherlock Holmes stuff here,” Meyers said. But he frowned. “The blood we can’t figure. We took a test of your blood and it ain’t the same type as on your shirt sleeve. And anyway you weren’t cut anywhere. So the blood came from somebody else. We’d like to know about that.”

Larry felt a shiver of terror. He might have been dreaming. Maybe there wasn’t a girl. Maybe there wasn’t a knife stuck into the cup of her breasts. Maybe the blood had come from someone else. What had really happened last night?

If it was just a horrible dream he was in the clear. But until he knew what had happened he’d never sleep. Not with something dark and horrible and unknown hanging over his head.

Meyers was still looking at him thoughtfully.

“I believe you,” he said finally. “That makes me a fool. But I can’t help it. Maybe I do use a crystal ball. Maybe thirty thousand legs ain’t enough. But there’s got to be a body.” Larry said, “Give me a cigarette.” He took one from the pack Meyers extended and inhaled gratefully. He wasn’t feeling better. But he was intelligent enough to know that there was a reasonable explanation for this mystery. And whether it incriminated him or not, he had to know.

“Look, Meyers, nobody has found the body yet. Let’s suppose I’m not lying. And that I wasn’t dreaming. What could have happened to it?”

Meyers looked gloomy. “Bodies are hard to get rid of. When people find an ordinary body they generally call a doctor. Or maybe the fire department. Some people call a priest first. But they call somebody. Just so they can talk about it. And when they find a body with a knife stuck in it, they call everybody. They call the police first though. We know that from experience. Nobody wants to get mixed up with a murder case. This is normal, innocent people I’m talking about. Now a murderer has a different problem. He’s either got to make it look like somebody else did it, which is the way most of them figure, or else he’s got to get rid of the body. No body, no murder, that’s the law. He can burn the body in a furnace, he can throw it in the river, he can stuff it down a sewer, he can bury it, he can hide it in a trunk, or he can toss it into a barrel of acid.

“All them things have been done. But none of them was done in this case. Because we had our legs out there fast. And they been all over the place. They looked in furnaces, they looked in trunks, the neighborhood is miles from the river, and nobody saw any vats of acid around. So they did something else. That’s not what’s bothering me though. I want to know why they did it. If you’re not lying or crazy you fell into a nice frame. Why you were framed I don’t know. You ain’t important enough to frame. You got no enemies. You don’t know anybody. So you beat the frame. You wake up and walk out. Maybe that’s what they wanted you to do. I don’t know. If I had a nickel for everything I don’t know about this case, I’d retire.”

He stood up and sauntered to the door.

“I’ll send your wife in when she gets here. If we ain’t got a body by six o’clock tonight the captain says to let you go. He says you’re a nut or blind drunk. Maybe both.”

“What do you think?” Larry asked.

Meyers grinned sourly. “I don’t use my brain. I use my legs. So I think I’m going to use ’em a little bit on this case.” He shook his head disgustedly. “My food don’t taste right when I’m all mixed up. The old lady has ham hocks and cabbage tonight and it’ll taste like sawdust to me. Hell of a note.”

He went out and the uniformed copper closed and locked the door behind him.

Chapter V

They let Fran in at four thirty. Larry stood up when she came in and for a moment they stared at each other. Her eyes were red, but she tried to smile.

“Larry,” she whispered.