Chapter 4
Nona awoke in a rush, hearing a loud knocking on the cabin door. She scrambled out of bed, grabbed her robe and slipped into it. As she left the bedroom, she saw that Ivy had beat her to the door.
The rectangle opened under Ivy's hand, and Nona was surprised to see a man standing there in the doorway. He wore a modified Western hat, gray shirt and gray trousers. And a gun belt! A officer ...
"Well, what's this all about?" Ivy drawled, smoothing her short brown hair. Ivy's robe was thin, and the man's blue eyes surveyed her rather lush figure. He didnt' smile. He looked stem.
"I'm Carl Hinton, a deputy from the sheriff's office," he said, stiffly. "A girl was murdered near here last night. I'd like to ask a few questions."
"Murdered!" Ivy blurted.
Nona felt a shock. She belted her robe more tightly about her waist and moved forward.
"That's right, Miss," Hinton said. "I'm sorry to bother you two." Nona saw him glance in her direction. "Could I come in a minute?"
"Well, naturally!" Ivy replied.
The deputy removed his hat. All three took chairs. Nona listened intently. A girl named Zelda Nesbitt had been found on the edge of the village, dead. She had been strangled. Most of her clothes had been ripped off, and there was some evidence of rape.
Nona placed the girl right away. Zelda had been in the Craig tavern the night before when she and Andy had a couple of beers apiece. Nona remembered Zelda as a large, voluptuously-built creature, bursting with sex in a too-tight dress. The town bar-tart.
No one, for that matter, could have helped noticing Zelda. She was a big blonde, her lush figure almost fully revealed by a skin-tight dress. She had evidently been drinking more than beer some time during the evening, for her voice was high-pitched and shrill. She was having an argument with the man she was with, and suddenly he jumped up from the table, said something to her in a low voice, and stomped out of the tavern.
"Bet you she won't be alone long," Andy said. "Look at those knockers of hers. If she takes a deep breath they'll pop right out of her dress."
"Don't be vulgar!" Nona snapped.
"Who's being vulgar?" Andy protested. "If she didn't want guys to get a gander at those boobs she wouldn't be waving them all over the place. Boy, I'll bet she's hot stuff!"
"If you keep on talking like that, I'm going home," Nona warned.
"Okay. Okay." Andy snickered. "No need to get jealous."
Nona remembered all this now. For all her outward vulgarity of appearance, the girl Zelda had been bursting with life as well as sex.
Now she was dead. Murdered. Raped and murdered.
"The local people are pretty tight-lipped," Hinton went on. "Seem to think it was bound to happen, sooner or later. I was hoping to get a lead from some of the vacationers-the ones left.. . "
Nona related how she had spent the evening, failing to include the bit of peeping she had indulged in. Ivy said she had remained in the cabin, which was a lie, but Nona didn't dispute her statement. She would ask Ivy about that later!
"What do you know about this Nick Sturgis?" Hinton asked.
"Oh, he seems very much a gentleman," Nona said, and then flushed. Ivy had been carrying the load of the conversation.
Hinton nodded and stood up. "Sorry to bother you girls, but it's a bad thing, no matter what the local people think."
Nona and Ivy agreed. Ivy invited him to have coffee, but he refused-and soon was gone. Nona watched him, through the window, walk toward Lucy's elaborate cabin.
"Well, you certainly gave this Nick Sturgis a clean bill of health!" Ivy said dryly. She adjusted her sheer robe over her bosom. Although rather plain looking, Nona had to admit that Ivy's figure, was superlative. Her frequent walks and swimming kept her in good trim. Her long, full legs were her best asset.
"A man like him wouldn't have to rape a girl!" Nona said, defensively.
"Ho-ho! He does have a lot of appeal, all right. The deputy didn't mention the so-called Ridge-runner. Maybe he did it!"
Nona remembered something. "Why did you say you'd been here all last night? When I came in you were out...."
Ivy's brows went up. "Darling, would I rape a girl?"
Nona flushed. "I'm sorry."
Ivy laughed. "Well, let's have some coffee. I've seen that Zelda wagging her big hind-end around town. Maybe she picked the wrong guy...."
"You're awful!"
Ivy sobered. "It is a shame! I hope they catchy the culprit. How did you make out with good old ' Andy?"
"I hope he never comes around any more!"
"Well, he's available. You realize there are more women in the world than men? At my age I'm not that particular!"
"H-he's got a filthy mind!" Her stutter, generally not so pronounced in the early morning, suddenly reappeared.
Ivy laughed. "Darling, we've all got 'filthy' minds-to a degree. Don't you ever look at a man and wonder how he'd be in bed? Psychology was one of my best subjects, you know. Men think that way continually!"
"Is that what you tell your students?" Nona flared.
"You know better than that! I'm in the junior-high level, as you recall. But I wish I could conduct a class in bedroom behavior and contraception."
Nona flushed again. Generally they didn't talk so openly.
When Nona didn't answer, Ivy continued, "Look, darling, if you go for Nick, drop by and see him. Quit hiding out. If I had your looks and such nice big charmers, I'd get more kicks out of life! Guys like Andy just haven't got it."
"P-please!" Nona protested.
"I'm just trying to be helpful!"
Nona was glad when Ivy went into the kitchen. Nice big charmers! She remembered how her nipples had tingled as she had watched Nick fondle Lucy.
I'll bet they had a good time, she thought. If he touched my breasts like that I think I'd swoon!
Nick struck a discord on the piano and cursed under his breath. He reached for a cigarette.
The deputy sheriff, Carl Hinton, had just left and the news about Zelda Nesbitt's death still bothered him. He recalled seeing Zelda around the Craig tavern. He had noticed her blatant sexuality, the tightness of her clothes. He hadn't known her name until Hinton told him.
The so-called Ridge-runner hadn't been mentioned, and Nick hadn't related where he had been most of the previous evening. Hinton had been very nice, actually. But Nick was a stranger here, and newcomers were always suspect.
The deputy had left the impression that he might be back with more questions.
To top it all off, Lucy called, drippy with affection. She hadn't been a very good lover. But she expected him to try again ...
It was nearly noon, and he was in no frame of mind now to continue practicing. He left the piano, turned off the tape recorder, and went into the bedroom to find his swimming trunks.
It appeared Zelda had been murdered around eleven o'clock the night before. He had no alibi that he could afford to mention-he had been over at Lucy's. Jud Marker, if he found out about his wife's infidelity, could cause real trouble.
And now if he, Nick, cut out too soon and left Craig, it wouldn't look good, either.
Lucy had told him over the phone she wouldn't breathe a word-Hinton had been by to see her, too. But, could he, Nick, trust the flighty brunette?
He undressed quickly and put on his swim-trunks. He picked up his dark glasses, an old beach robe and left his cabin by the back door.
It would be a hot day. Maybe a few hours on the beach would smooth him out. As he moved along the brush trail leading to the lake, he glanced toward the rear of the Marker spread. The racket that had interrupted the session with Lucy had come from that direction. Trees were thick there, just as at the rear of his own place.
It occurred to him that the prowler might have left a few footprints, but he didn't want to intrude. The less said about his visit to Lucy's place the better!
The fresh piney air revived him. As the beach came in sight he was relieved to see that it was practically empty. Only a couple of teenage boys were in sight. They were monkeying around an old rowboat. No young girls in view. That would be natural, following the news of Zelda's death. The tourists were nearly all gone-the local gals would stay out of sight for a while.
He spread his robe in a patch of shade near the tree-lined section of the beach and stretched out on the warm sand. A killdeer called plaintively along the shore. Far overhead, in the azure sky, a hawk wheeled. Its shadow passed along the beach like a gray ghost, swiftly.
In a week or so he'd be on the Coast, playing his single. He could forget about the man-hungry housewife who couldn't quite make it the way she wanted to. He could forget about a mauled and murdered bar-broad, who might possibly have deserved the treatment she had received.
After leaving Lucy, he hadn't slept well. Sure, he had got himself hauled, but he had been with better dames. Now, if Nona Mills were to act a little more interested, there might be something. Or even Ivy English. She was older. She would know her way around-she had a fine figure, even if she wasn't exactly pretty.
But the dames did the picking. He had learned that at an early age. They found ways to make a man think he was the aggressor ...
Eyes closed, he was commencing to doze when a voice jerked him wide awake.
"Mind if I join you?"
He sat up. He focused on a woman in a skimpy two-piece swim-suit. It was Ivy. He hadn't met her, but resorts, even small ones, tend to throw people together. In the general store he had noticed her slow grace, the ampleness of her hips, her long legs. An almost-bikini added to her manifest attractions.
Short brown hair gave her oval face an almost boyish cast, but the rest of her, including her rounded breasts, was all-woman.
"Hell, no!" he said.
"I'm Ivy English, one of your neighbors."
He grinned. "I guess you know my name. Sit down!"
She spread her towel near his and moved lithely to a sitting position. She had brought along a portable radio. Her tan was superlative. She wiggled around a little, adjusting her bottom, as dames do.
Here was a broad about his own age, unattached-and obviously giving him a come-on. The ripe turn of her lower lip intrigued him. She had good teeth. Her brown eyes surveyed him.
"Yes, you're quite well known, Nick. Do you always shy away from the gals?"
"No. I've been working, as you may have heard."
She laughed. "All work and no play-"
Something about her struck him suddenly, and he knew he had seen her undraped figure before-in several sexy poses. She had posed for Lucy and her camera. Although the photos hadn't shown the model's face, he felt sure he was right. Maybe the schoolmarm had a few intimate frustrations, too.
"Terrible thing about Zelda Nesbitt," she said.
"Yes." He glanced at her radio. "What's the latest?"
"Nothing. A coroner's jury returned the usual verdict."
"Hinton come around to see you and Nona?"
"Well, naturally. I tried to get Nona to come with me, but she wouldn't." She added, banteringly, "I think she's got a crush on you."
Nick's ears perked up. "Nice girl-what I've seen of her. But I usually prefer them more mature."
"Good! Not many people around. Maybe we can make progress...."
He smiled. She stretched one fullish leg out and drew the other up, flexing her whole body. The hug of her pink shorts around her hips titillated his imagination.
"I like the idea of all this brush, too."
Her laugh was throaty, warm. "I'm not as easily pulled up in the bushes as you might think!"
He started to answer when a young couple strolled onto the beach. They had used the main trail from the village. The girl was slender and blonde, her companion very dark. They spread a blanket and he set up a large, striped umbrella.
Nick turned to Ivy. "Can I pull you into the lake?"
"That sounds better."
Nona washed the breakfast dishes and cleaned up the cabin. She was restless. Ivy had asked her to go to the beach, but she hadn't felt quite in the mood for swimming. She kept thinking about Nick and Lucy, and her unreasonable jealousy returned.
Nick had hardly spoken to her!
She remembered Ivy's words about being bolder and more aggressive. Maybe she should visit Nick!
But there was the old conflict again. Sex and love. Could they be separated? If she flung herself at Nick, he would expect some kind of sex-and she didn't want that alone.
Could a girl risk an affair and hope it would turn into something deeper? Many gals did. They managed to survive. With all the contraceptive stuff available, there was no need to risk getting caught. A man like Nick would know.
Ivy didn't worry too much about love, and not at all about becoming pregnant. She made no bones about it. She carried a diaphragm in her purse!
Nona slipped into her bedroom and removed her robe, then her nightie. She would go over and see Nick! From all she had seen and heard, he was a gentleman. At least they could become acquainted!
Before stepping into the shower, she surveyed her image in the vanity mirror. Just thinking about what she was going to do had had an effect on her nipples! They were already out. She recalled how they had tingled as she had watched Nick fondle Lucy ...
I'm younger than Lucy, she thought. But I wish I knew more about exactly what to do!