Don't Explain: An Artie Deemer Mystery by Dallas Murphy

Author:Dallas Murphy [Murphy, Dallas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Brash Books
Published: 2014-09-02T00:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

Do you think Edith did it?” Crystal asked me in the boat on the way home.

The notion had flitted across my mind, but so does a lot of baseless stuff. “You mean intentionally?”

“Sabotage.”

“Do you?”

“Well, she had a funny look on her face as he was sloshing around in there. She didn’t look surprised. I don’t know these people, of course, and maybe she was in shock, but she didn’t look surprised.”

I gave that some thought…Two dead in three days. New York pace. I supposed Sheriff Kelso would investigate, but he probably didn’t know submarines, couldn’t tell if this one had been sabotaged or not. “Didn’t you feel a little sorry for him floating around in there spread-eagled in his Speedo?”

“Sure, but I feel sorry for Edith, too.”

It seemed odd that Edith would endure a decade of shit from him, if that was the case, while he built the damn thing, then drown him in it on the day it was launched, at the very climax, didn’t it? On the other hand, maybe the timing was all the more reason to suspect Edith; but the truth of the matter no doubt was that Commander Hickle was a crank and a shitty submarine builder.

“Tell me more about Clayton’s father,” Crystal said.

I didn’t want to become enmeshed in local legend.

“So what does everybody think? That he took a powder?”

“I love it when you talk like that.” But it was no use. Crystal was interested. When she gets interested in a thing, she seldom lets go of it.

“Do we know for sure that he wasn’t burned up in the fire?”

“They had experts in. I guess it’s hard to burn up all traces of a human body.”

After a time, we stopped talking about Kempshall and put our arms around each other. She laid her head over on my shoulder. Jellyroll looked back at us from the bow. He was smiling contentedly. This is what I wanted. Was it wrong to want contentment and safety, or just unrealistic?

Suddenly he began to retch. The whole routine: the full-body heaving, the hideous yawn, veined lips curled inside out at the moment of expulsion. Crystal had seen it before. She knew to avert her eyes when the climax came.

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