Chapter 15
No one knew exactly how or when Mavis Preed escaped from the mental hospital that crisp winter night wearing only a coat over her thin nightgown, or how she managed to sneak off the premises undetected. It must have been some time between ten o'clock, when the night staff took over, and midnight. Most of the staff were being entertained at a New Year's Eve party given by the student body. The first anyone knew of Mavis' disappearance was when a night nurse, checking her room around five after twelve, following routine, found the bed unoccupied and the room in disorder.
Although her clothes had hung in the closet, apart from coat and shoes Mavis hadn't bothered to dress. She had just walked out into the night and disappeared.
The general opinion was that she couldn't have gone far. The Police were notified. Naturally, the authorities took every precaution to keep any information from the newspapers, as yet. The search continued all that night and throughout the next day. But the deranged woman seemed to have crawled into a hole and vanished. On the third day they had to release news of the missing patient when some astute reporter got wind of the search, and the public was asked to co-operate.
But it was the Police who found Mavis Preed, on the fourth day just as dawn was breaking, chill and grey, over the mist shrouded East River.
Snow was falling, sifting onto the dark, oily water. Floating ice formed a thin skin here and there that cracked open with the wash created by passing barges and other craft, and reformed as the swell flattened.
Two patrolling cops found the body. Ironically, one of them was Sam Davis, recently transferred from subway duty. Sean Casey, the cop with Davis, paused in his slow pacing and stood for a while in the shelter offered by the angle of a loading shed wall. He removed his gloves and chafed his chilled hands.
"Shure 'tis cold enough to freeze the marrow in a man's bones," he complained. "Will we no' be after droppin' on me auld friend, Murpry, for a...."
. He broke off, stared hard towards a spot Davis was indicating with pointing arm. Something bobbed there in the scummy shallows under the wharf piles, dragging on the ice-bound shingle like a bundle of old rags.
Casey sighed. "Another one," he growled. "Shure that makes the fourth stiff this week. Be Jazus, Sam 'tis a hell iv a way to be startin' the New Year...."
They made for the steps leading down to the river. The stone was treacherous, slippery with frozen slime. Sam Davis clamped a big hand round Casey's belt and held him firmly while the raw-boned Irish cop leaned far forward with long arm reaching out. "Gimme that piece of busted pole," he demanded. With the wood he was able to poke at the floating body and angle it round towards the steps until he could take hold of the sodden clothing. Davis helped him and together they dragged the corpse up the steps and let it flop onto the wharf, face down.
"Another woman," Casey remarked. "Been in the water a couple of days or more." He sighed again.
"You reckon it's murder or another suicide?"
"Suicide's more likely, her being half-dressed the way she is, nightgown and all. Every year about this time, it's the same."
"It is that, Sam. Shure, if I had a dollar for every stiff I've seen on this beat these past ten years I'd be able to retire an' go home to the aukl country, that I would. Let's take a look at her."
He turned the body over. Casey was a tough cop, hardened by more than twenty years on the waterfront. To him, a corpse, faceless or not, was just a corpse. Sam Davis was no rookie, but his stomach heaved when he saw the horror that had once been a woman's face. Neither he or Casey spoke for a while.
I'll be after callin' the wagon," Casey said at length, tonelessly, "God rest her soul-'tis a shockin' waste an' a cryin' shame so it is, an' herself little more than a girl by the look iv her...."
Sam Davis nodded. He stooped, tugged at the shapeless coat until he got it off. He spread it over the horribly scarred, unrecognisable features, the lank, trailing hair, and the pallid breasts....
"Poor little bitch," he said gruffly, "I wonder who she was?"
Across the water a tug hooted mournfully, loomed like a grey ghost through the wreathing murk. A gull, perched on the bow rail, peered, as if brooding, into the swirling flood. Casey spat into the settling snow, pulled his coat collar higher.
"I'll be after lookin' in on Murphy," he said. Sam Davis nodded.
"And tell the fat slob to put something in the coffee to keep out the cold," he instructed. "I'll be along presently."
He stood staring down at the still form. Large, sifting snowflakcs clung to the freezing clothing, the stark limbs. Davis scowled. Suddenly he was reminded of another youthful figure, of flesh flushed with health and vitality, not fish belly white and water wrinkled, of a girl with mocking eyes and inviting, provocating lips whose voluptuous loveliness was etched indelibly in his memory. What, he wondered, as he had wondered a thousand times since Mavis Preed ran from his sister's home, had become of her?
He swore. This was a hell of time to be thinking of her, harping on the same old theme-if only he'd known, if he'd guessed what sort of girl she really was, if he'd allowed his instincts to take over instead of trying to play the guardian angel....
The old, old story. If! And yet he thought of her still. He couldn't seem to shake her from his mind. Maybe some day, somewhere, he'd bump into her again.
He shivered as snow sifted down his neck. Where the hell was the wagon? Angrily he kicked at a half buried billet of wood.
"Damn this lousy, stinking job!" he muttered sav-avely. "Damn the cold, damn everything!"
He fished a cigarette from an inside pocket, found a match, scraped it against the solid grip of his night-stick, blew smoke into the air.
The glimmer of daylight increased, fanning over the bleak terrain. Another hour and Davis would be home, enjoying a hot meal. Home....
He glanced again at the silent corpse. She'd taken the long way, but she was already home. Maybe, he thought, she was better off. WhaT the hell was there in life anyway? A rat-race all the way, nothing but grief and disappointments, with death the only certainty in the whole stinking set-up.
Davis sighed. He needed a shot of Murphy's laced coffee-he was getting maudlin. He heard a laboring motor, flung his cigarette into the water, and turned slowly.
He watched them load the body into the vehicle, drive away, and with the corpse out of sight his morbid thoughts left him. Ten minutes and two cups of hot coffee later he finished drafting a report and put his notebook in his pocket. Another day, another stiff. That was the way it went. That was life. Drinking his third cup of coffee, Davis realized he was bored, choked to the saturation point. Even the coffee seemed tasteless.
"Sean," he said decisively, banging down the cup, "Tonight I'm gonna get blind, stinking drunk. You want to know why?"
"Is it a reason you need to get drunk? Shure an' 'tis meself will be right along with yez, Sam, an' for no other reason but that I like the drink an' 'tis the start of a new year."
"I can't forget that girl. Her face...."
The big cop placed a hand on Davis's knee. "Divil take the corpse," he said. "Shure an' there'll be a round dozen or more afore the middle iv next week. It don't mean a thing when you're dead, Sam. They come an' they go, an' divil take the hindmost. Drink up, boy. Shure the world's a dreary place at best but life's for the livin', am I not right, Murphy? Then let's have a drop more iv whiskey. Shure I'm that cold me pants are nigh frozen to me...."
The snowfall thickened, covered the spot where the corpse had lain, and the tire tracks leading away.