The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks - lanyon Josh - Страница 3

A funny feeling prickled across the back of Nick’s scalp. It was a feeling he had learned not to ignore during fourteen years in the service -- though unexpected in a broken-down mansion in the middle of the Vermont woods.

He considered, and discarded, going back to his quarters and arming. He was pretty confident he could handle any garden-variety scumball who might have sneaked in.

Approaching the kid’s apartment cautiously, Nick turned the doorknob.

The door swung open onto a large chilly room that smelled of rain and turpentine. It looked more like an art studio than someone’s living quarters. The curtains had been removed to allow more light. A spattered drop cloth covered much of the floor. A canvas half-covered with inky pine trees rested on an easel near the window. Blank canvases were stacked against the wall; painting utensils covered what appeared to be the dining room table. There were paintings everywhere: on the walls, on the floor.

In the middle of the room was a suitcase.

So the kid had been gone overnight; that meant someone could conceivably have got into his rooms and…dropped dead.

Except the bathroom door was open, the light on. Nick had a clear view of the tub. It was empty.

Surprise.

Had he really expected to find a dead man in a bathtub?

Nah, but something had sure scared the shit out of little Perry. The few times Nick had passed him on the stairs he seemed quiet, polite, and reasonably sane.

Nick advanced down the hallway.

The bathroom was big, old-fashioned, the twin of his own. The tub was one of those claw-foot porcelain jobs, running hot and cold water through separate spouts, making it ideal for scalding your feet. There was a small, bullet-shaped window over the tub. For laughs Nick opened it, gazing down on distant muddy ground and tree tops sparkling wet in the house lights.

Nobody and no body.

There was a streak of brown on the inside of the tub. He knelt to check it out. Red clay? Paint? Rust? That smear could be a lot of things, and yet instinctively the hair rose on the nape of his neck. He scratched at it with his thumbnail, sniffed his thumb. Was he imagining that coppery, metallic smell?

No damn way.

He noticed black scuff marks on the tile. Like somebody’s heels were dragged across the floor?

Nick’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Rising, he made for the bedroom. Not much to see. A twin-size bed, a battered bureau. The only thing out of order was one brown shoe lying in front of the closet. He picked it up. Cheap leather. Size 14. There was a hole in the sole. Nick set the shoe on the window ledge, glancing at the bed. A stack of books sat on the night table. Library books. I Like ’Em Tough, They Can’t All Be Guilty, I Found Him Dead, Secrets of a Private Eye. A bookshelf was packed with paperbacks flaunting equally lurid titles.

His mouth curved wryly. Okay, now things made sense.

Still, remembering the terror in those wide brown eyes, he opened the closet door. Oh boy. The kid even hung up his pajamas.

He glanced under the bed. Someone had raised their little boy right. No dust bunnies, no dead bodies.

Cursorily, Nick glanced through the other rooms and closets. No corpses. There was an asthma chart pinned to the refrigerator, which told its own sad little story, and a box of Froot Loops on top of the fridge, which Nick found grimly amusing.

As he shut the front door, the painted canvases lining the living room caught his attention. Nick didn’t know anything about art, but he knew what he liked. He liked these. There was a sureness and maturity to these calm studies of covered bridges and autumn woods that one wouldn’t expect. Chalk one up for the boy next door.

The landing on the second floor was deserted when Nick reached it. Stein had either got bored or fallen over the balcony. Same scenario in the front lobby. MacQueen had escaped back inside her apartment and turned up the TV volume. In fact, the only people left were Foster, who seemed to have recovered somewhat -- the inhaler was no longer in sight -- and the voluptuous Ms. Bridger, who stood before the unlit fireplace.

“All clear?” she inquired cheerfully. Her red hair and green dressing gown were like a shout in that drab room.

“Yeah.” Nick remembered the streak of red clay on the tub and dismissed it.

“No way. That can’t be!” Foster’s thin face tightened. “Then they moved him,” he said stubbornly.

“They? What, it’s a conspiracy?”

Foster flushed. He had that baby-clear skin that advertised his emotions like a billboard.

“Sweetie, sweetie,” cooed Bridger. “Couldn’t it have been a bad dream?”

“Or too many detective stories?” Nick put in.

Foster was still sitting on the bottom step or the grand staircase. He glared up at Nick. “I wasn’t asleep!” He turned that angry gaze toward the Bridger chick. “I got back from the airport, walked in, and there he was. I wasn’t sleeping. I wasn’t hallucinating.”

“There’s no dead body now.”

Foster swallowed hard. “I think we should call the police.”

Bridger looked in dismay to Nick. How was it Nick’s problem? Let them call the police. Just leave him out of it.

“But, sweetie, Mr.…uh. Mr. --”

“Reno,” Nick supplied reluctantly.

“Mr. Reno has already checked. The police won’t find anything now. Right? We don’t want to cause trouble.”

Nick glanced at her. Maybe a little hard around the edges, but still a surprisingly good-looking woman to be living out here in the middle of nowhere. What was it about the cops that worried her?

“The police have forensic people,” Foster said stubbornly. “Trained people who have equipment that can find microscopic traces of blood or hair.”

Nick thought of the bloody streak in the tub again. The possible scuff marks on the tile. “Listen, kid --”

“Perry. Perry Foster.” Foster rose as though he had made up his mind.

“Whatever. Foster, the police are not going to send out their forensics team in the worst storm of the decade because of a crank call.”

“I’m not a crank! There was a dead body. Someone put him in my locked apartment and took him away again. Someone in this house.”

Bridger glanced nervously at MacQueen’s closed door. She chewed her bottom lip and said, “Sweetie, let’s the three of us go inside my apartment and think this through.”

Nick opened his mouth, but Foster beat him to it. “I can’t go in there,” he said obstinately.

“I’ll put the cats away.”

“Their dander --”

“Oh, for cryin’ out loud!” Nick exclaimed. “I don’t care what you people do, just don’t involve me.”

The kid, Foster, gritted his jaw, but his eyes were glittering ominously as he stared at Nick. “Sure. Thanks for your help,” he managed, politely.

Nick started to turn away. “The police might want to question you, Mr. Reno,” Bridger warned. Her eyes glittered like green glass.

Nick drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Let’s go inside and talk this over,” he said very calmly.

* * * * *

The police arrived while they were having coffee. The coffee was laced with brandy, which was a mistake in Nick’s opinion, but clearly the whole night was a mistake as far as he was concerned. Calling the cops was the biggest mistake, and he had waxed loud and eloquently -- but mostly just loud -- on the topic.

Now he was brooding in silence, taking up half of Jane’s horsehair sofa. The police, having heard Perry out, tramped upstairs to investigate. Nick Reno had been right. There was no forensics team, just two weary and wet deputy sheriffs in yellow slickers, looking mighty unamused.

Before the deputies headed upstairs, Nick filled them in about the mud smear on the tub and the scuff marks on the tile.

“How come you didn’t mention those things before?” Perry accused when the door closed on the officers of the law. “Those are clues.”