The Cool Cottontail (9 page)

A slender girl met him behind the desk. She matched the place perfectly, subdued but appealing. She wore a simple dress and very little makeup. Her light-chestnut hair had a natural look that suggested that all she had to do was brush and comb it in the morning and it would look fine all day.

Dick Mooney took off his uniform cap and let his face show that this was an official, but not necessarily unpleasant, errand. “Good morning, Miss,” he said with some formality. “I’m making a routine check through the area.”

“Are we in any trouble?” the girl asked.

“Not that I know of,” he reassured her. “I only want to ask you a question about reservations. I presume you take them here?”

“Yes, we do,” she answered. “Most of our guests—at least during the season—come by reservation. Some make them a full year ahead.”

Mooney put his cap down on the counter for a moment and consulted the clipboard in his hand. “Within the last two weeks has any guest who had a reservation failed to appear? In particular, a man of about fifty or so who may have been coming in from overseas, but not necessarily so.”

The girl shook her head. “No,” she answered. “Everyone who had reservations is here with the exception of the Hacketts; they phoned and canceled. They are quite young—in their late twenties or early thirties, at the most.”

Dick wrote down the name of the resort on his report sheet. “Thank you,” he said. “They wouldn’t be the people.”

Because his manner was pleasant and because she wanted to be sure of his continued good will, the girl saw him to the door. “We have a very quiet place here,” she explained. “Most of our guests come back to us year after year. They aren’t usually the kind who get into trouble.”

The anxiety in her voice caused him to say, “It isn’t that. We’re looking for someone who is missing, that’s all.” It wasn’t the exact truth, he knew, but it was easier said that way.

The girl let her shoulders drop a trifle to indicate that she was no longer concerned. “Well, everyone we expected is here apart from the Hacketts, as I told you, and none of our guests would fit your description except Uncle Albert, and we’re never sure when we’ll see him.”

“Thank you for your trouble,” he concluded, and got back into his car. It was the last stop and he turned back toward the station.

He reported in briefly. “All negative.”

It was the expected answer and the duty man nodded. Mooney took the sheet off his clipboard and turned it in; that finished the job and he was free of it.

“Nothing at all in the whole area,” the duty man told him. That was expected, too, but usually the men working on something like to know the outcome. It would have stopped there forever if he had not added “Not even a nibble” for the sake of something to say.

That touched a slight recent memory in Mooney’s mind. “A girl at Pine Shadows Lodge said something about expecting an uncle who fitted the description, but she didn’t know when to look for him.” His conscience was clearer for having put in this bit of added information.

Later in the day, the duty man reported back to Pasadena. “A full check of the area was negative,” he advised. He debated the idea of saying any more; it would probably do nothing but give somebody extra trouble. But because he was proud of the efficiency of his unit and basically liked to talk, he added, “We have one place that
might
be expecting someone who fits your description, but there’s no ETA on him.”

“O.K. Thank you.”

The full report, including the fragmentary comment, was passed on to Bob Nakamura, who was correlating the incoming information for Tibbs. When Virgil at last came in, foot-weary, at six, Bob was there to give him the report. “Practically everything is in,” he said. “All negative. One small place up in the mountains is expecting someone who fits the description, but no definite time of arrival.”

“From overseas?” Tibbs asked.

“I gathered so. There weren’t any details.”

“What was the name of the place?”

In the fresh coolness of the next morning the girl sat quietly at her small desk beside a half-open screened window and carefully filled in the figures on the week’s expense record. The light wind stirred the pine branches overhead just enough to give a sense of something moving in an otherwise static world. With business-like care she sorted the bills she had before her; after each bill had been entered, she turned it upside down to keep them in sequence. When a chime sounded indicating that someone had crossed the electric doormat at the front entrance, she finished the entry she was making and rose to meet her visitor.

As she stepped through the doorway into the small lobby,
she saw that the caller was a well-dressed, rather slim Negro. Her first thought was that he was looking for work. Whatever his errand, she took her place behind the counter and said “Good morning” with exactly the right degree of restraint.

“Good morning,” the Negro answered, and those two words revealed that he had been educated. “I didn’t see your sign. Is this Pine Shadows Lodge?”

He was not, therefore, casually looking for work. “Yes, it is,” she replied. “I’m sorry about the sign. Apparently a car knocked it down last night. It was on a post by the gate and we haven’t had time to put it back up.”

The Negro took out his wallet, extracted a small white card, and laid it on the desk before her. She looked down at it, and her mind moved forward rapidly. He was from the Pasadena Police Department, but Pasadena was many miles away. In any problem involving the lodge, the sheriff would be in charge. The only reasonable assumption, then, was a solicitation for some police-sponsored benefit. If so, the Pasadena people were ranging very far indeed from their normal area. It occurred to her that they had deliberately sent a Negro to make turning him down slightly more embarrassing. The accounts that she had been working on told her the state of the lodge’s finances; she would give him a dollar and conclude the matter.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Tibbs?” she asked politely.

“I would like to ask you a few questions, if I may,” he answered. “Would you give me your name?”

At that the girl tensed a bit. Her prognosis had clearly been wrong and she did not know what to expect. She was the kind of person who liked to do things calmly and in proper order.

“I am Ellen Boardman.” It was all he had asked, and it was all she answered.

He glanced at her left hand, which was devoid of jewelry. “Are you an employee of the lodge, Miss Boardman?” His voice was courteous, but she did not like the question; it was an invasion of her private life, which she preferred to keep to herself.

“You might say that. My parents own it. I’m managing it for them in their absence.”

He sensed her restraint, the coolness in her voice. “Miss Boardman, the matter I am currently investigating is quite serious. There is only a remote chance that it might involve this lodge or you, but that possibility does exist.”

Her first reaction was almost automatic: if the matter was so serious, why had they sent this Negro man? Then the full impact of his words reached her and she was a little frightened.

“What has happened?” she asked. “Are my parents all right?” Her voice climbed out of its accustomed smoothness and became audibly tight and tense. “Has there been an accident?”

“I don’t believe your parents are involved,” he said quickly. He stopped there and gave her a moment to recover herself. She looked down and saw that her hands were clenched; consciously she relaxed them and rested them on the counter. She looked up as a signal that he was to go on.

“Yesterday, I believe, an officer stopped in to see you concerning any reservations you might have had that weren’t either canceled or picked up. You mentioned something to him about expecting someone else—a relative or a member of the family.”

It tied in now, and she blamed herself for talking too much. She raised her hand and brushed her hair back from her cheek. “I’m terribly sorry,” she answered. “I hope you didn’t come all the way up here just on account of that.”

“Please tell me who you were expecting,” Tibbs said.

Her sense of restraint rushed back upon her, but now she had no choice. “I was referring to my Uncle Albert,” she replied, still annoyed with herself. “My mother’s brother. He’s retired and prefers to spend most of his time overseas. He comes to visit us every summer.”

“How old a man is he?” Tibbs asked.

“Fifty-two.”

“Can you describe him?”

A certain sense of foreboding that had been lurking in the back of her mind began to take hold of her. She thought before she spoke. “I guess he’s about five feet eleven—just under six feet, I’d say. He’s fully built—not fat, but substantial. Perhaps he weighs a hundred and eighty or a hundred and ninety pounds, but that’s just a guess. I haven’t seen him for a year, you understand.”

Tibbs nodded. “Can you tell me anything about his eyesight?”

“His—Well, he wears glasses,” she said. “He has for years. Actually he has trouble with only one eye. It was injured in a laboratory many years ago.” She thought for a moment. “Well—he may not be wearing glasses now,” she added. “He wrote us a few months ago that he was trying out contact lenses, and apparently he liked them very much.”

“When were you expecting him?” Tibbs asked quietly.

“I don’t really know. About this time—no definite date. He just wrote he was going to visit some people in England and
then come here in time for the board meeting.”

“Do you know the date of the meeting?”

She looked at a small desk calendar on the counter. “Three weeks from today,” she answered slowly. Her words formed involuntarily; she had just realized the man had asked about her uncle’s eyesight, and that was a very specific question. She forced herself to ask the thing she dreaded; it could have a terrible answer.

“Has something happened to him?”

“Do you by any chance have a picture of him available?” Tibbs asked in return.

She was aware that he had side-stepped the question. “Only some snapshots taken here a year ago.” She looked anxiously at him.

Tibbs nodded. The girl turned quickly and retreated into her living quarters. She did not have to search; in her room things were in place. She was back within a minute with some small glossy prints in her hand. Her fingers shook as she handed them over.

Tibbs glanced at the top one. “Suppose we sit down,” he proposed.

Mechanically the girl came from behind the counter and settled into one of the few chairs in the lobby.

When she was seated, Tibbs chose a position a short distance from hers. Then, his face revealing nothing, he carefully looked at each of the snapshots. They were clear and good. When he had finished, he laid the pictures down, and somehow at that moment she knew. From some undefined source a sense of peace came to her and prepared her for the news she had to hear.

She chose to accept it in two steps.

“He isn’t coming,” she said almost calmly.

Tibbs, understanding, shook his head slightly from side to side. “I don’t believe so,” he said. Then he waited, letting her take her time.

She drew breath and closed her eyes. “He’s dead.” She stated it as a fact so that the worst would be over. When Tibbs had not spoken for five seconds, she knew it was true.

Still the full realization had not yet come to her. She sensed a feeling of sympathetic understanding in the man who sat quietly nearby. She knew that he wanted to reach out and take her hand to offer her his strength, but that he did not do so because he was conscious of his race—or hers.

When he felt that the time was right, Tibbs spoke again. “I have one more thing to tell you, and it will not be easy to take. Should it be now, or later?”

She looked him squarely in the face. “Now,” she said.

He looked back as steadily. “I could be mistaken, but I don’t think so. Unless I am wrong, I have to tell you that he was murdered.”

Now she understood. “That is why you are here.”

Tibbs nodded.

“Do you know who did it?” she asked evenly.

“Not yet,” he admitted. “But if you will help me, I’m going to try to find out.”

After a short interval Tibbs rose to his feet. “May I use your telephone?” he asked.

After he received nodded permission he picked up the instrument on the counter, dialed, gave his credit-card number, and in a few seconds had Bob Nakamura on the line.

“I have a make,” he reported. “I’ll get a few details and then come in.”

When he had hung up, he turned toward Ellen. “Miss Boardman, I understand how you must feel, and I don’t want to intrude on you at this time. It is very important, however, that I talk with you as soon as you feel up to it. You understand why.”

Ellen Boardman stared out of the window for a moment, seeing nothing; then, with wet eyes but in control of herself, she looked at Tibbs. “If you could let me have just a few minutes. I want to phone my father so that he can break the news to mother. And I’d like to—think a little bit. After that I’ll be glad to do whatever I can.”

“Perhaps you’d like to wait until after a formal identification. I might be wrong.”

Ellen studied him for a moment. “Are you?” she asked.

It was one of the things a policeman had to do. “I don’t think so,” he answered. He rose to go.

“Sit down, please. I won’t be too long.”

“If you don’t mind,” Tibbs replied, “I’d rather go outside. It’s very pleasant up here and I’d enjoy walking around a bit.”

As soon as he was gone, Ellen rose tensely and turned toward the telephone. She had to make the call and she wanted it to be over. A few minutes later, she hung up, grateful that the brief ordeal was behind her. She wiped her eyes, replaced the snapshots where they belonged, and glanced at the clock. In ten minutes it would be noon. Relieved that she had something to do, she walked into the small kitchen that served the family and mechanically began the motions of preparing lunch. She set two places.

As she cut a tomato into wedges for the salad, she thought about her Uncle Albert. Now that he was gone, there was little she could do for him. She could pray, and she could help the police, if she was able to, in their search for the person responsible. She did not understand why they had sent a Negro, but then, she reflected, the old differences were disappearing rapidly and perhaps she was just behind the times.