You Live Once Part 13

"Yes? Yes... I see... Where... ? No, that's okay.. Yes, I'll tell them."

He hung up. He had his own little sense of drama. He walked back to the middle of the room and said, "They found her."

"Is she all right?" Uncle w.i.l.l.y asked.

"She was strangled to death. Probably some time Sat.u.r.day night. Her body was dumped in the brush up in the hills, a half mile or so off the main road. d.a.m.nedest thing. There was a troop of Brownies on a hike yesterday.

What the h.e.l.l are Brownies? One little girl wandered off and saw the body and was too scared to tell anybody.

Today she was so upset her mother finally got her to talk and drove her up there to prove it was just the little girl's imagination. But it wasn't. She got hold of the state troopers."

In the long silence w.i.l.l.y said softly, "Oh my G.o.d."

Myrna leaned forward and put her face in her hands.

Her shoulders shook gently. I looked over at the Raymonds. Nancy held her head high, her face tilted slightly upward. From a long high window, a sort of skylight effect, the light of the pale grey day came down, touching the delicacy of her face, the parted lips. Cherry glow of fire made a highlight on the soft line of her jaw.

It was a face almost without expression, clear, clean and perfect. If there was any expression, it was as though she listened for some expected sound. Dodd sat with his head bent, staring at his large clenched fist as though he held something small there, captive.

Stine had a high weak voice.

"w.i.l.l.y, I'll tell you this.

I'll tell you this definitely. And Jud Sutton will back me up, I know. No man a.s.signed to this case is going to get a complete night's rest until we've got the person or persons who did this thing."

"I appreciate that, Tom," w.i.l.l.y Pryor said in a low voice. He turned and faced the fire, hard brown hands locked behind him.

Kruslov broke into the mood with his heavy factual voice.

"We'll forget the kidnapping angle for right now.

Let's all put our heads together as long as we're here and figure out who might want to kill that girl. Who hates her?"

Miss Bettiger, surprisingly, was the one who answered.

"I guess I, or nearly anybody who knew Mary, could make out a list of the people who didn't like her. She didn't go around trying to make friends. She had a lot of friends, but she snubbed a lot of people. Phonies, mostly. People who wanted to be seen with her and sponge off her. She got that income from the trust funds and.. "

"How much income?" Kruslov asked.

w.i.l.l.y, without turning, said, "Sixty thousand a year.

She didn't throw it away. She had her own investment program. Got money sense from her father, I guess. She was getting a good return from her own investments and reinvesting that too."

"Who gets it now?" Kruslov asked. I could understand why Stine and Sutton had brought him along. He could ask the ugly questions they couldn't ask because of their personal relations.h.i.+p with the Pryors.

w.i.l.l.y turned and gave him a look of mild surprise.

"I guess that what the government doesn't get will stay in the family. We'll get it. If I remember Rolph's will correctly, it set up trust funds for Nadine, John and Mary. I guess Rolph considered each settlement ample, because in the case of the death of any of them-the children without issue-Myrna and I, or our children, were named as residual legatees."

"Wouldn't he have wanted to leave it all to his kids, to the survivor?" Kruslov asked.

w.i.l.l.y's face hardened.

"I have no idea what was in his mind, my good man. It may be that he remembered, at the time he made out his will, that he married Pryor money at a time when he needed it very badly to save the Olan interests. Perhaps he felt that it was proper, after providing for his wife and children adequately, to see that in case of common disaster or the death of any of them, the money would revert to the Pryor family. The Citizens Bank and Trust acts as executor. If you check with them you will find that the estate has not been entirely settled, even after sixteen years, due to the unfortunate illness of my sister. Furthermore, Captain, I can a.s.sure you that we do not need the money. I a.s.sume you can check that fact somehow."

Kruslov refused to be backed down. I had to admire his stolid dignity.

"Thanks for the information, Mr. Pryor. I will have to have a list of the men Miss Olan has been going out with."

"I can tell you that," Miss Bettiger said.

"At least I can tell you who she's gone out with since she got back from Spain in February."

"How long was she in Spain?"

"Six months," w.i.l.l.y said.

"I disapproved of her going on a trip like that alone. She was restless. I couldn't stop her."

Bettiger frowned into the fire.

"Let's see. Bill Mulligan.

Don Rhoades. Mr. Sewell." She looked apprehensively at w.i.l.l.y.

"There's one other, but..."

"But what?" Kruslov asked, moving closer to her.

"I don't want to get him in trouble."

"I'll have to know that name, Miss Benson."

She looked at Kruslov with exasperation, but didn't correct him.

"All right, but there goes a good job. Nels Yeagger."

w.i.l.l.y's brown face turned the color of a brick.

"That's a d.a.m.n lie!"

"It's not a d.a.m.n lie!" Miss Bettiger shrilled.

"And don't try to call me a liar, w.i.l.l.y Pryor."

"Who is this guy?" Kruslov demanded.

"He works at our place at Smith Lake," w.i.l.l.y said.