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LOOK FOR THE BODY
Author: Matt Christopher
2009 Reissue Edition
5.5"x 8.5" Trade Paperback
$14.95US; 176pp

ISBN 978-1-933523-54-5
LCCN 2009928749

CHAPTER ONE

If the kid hadn't died in the operation, I probably would have continued living a living the quiet, normal life of a county physician, being simply Dr. Brooks Carter, and not somebody whom the newspapers were finding hilarious enjoyment in printing about.
      I wouldn't have minded the publicity, except that it wasn't the kind I relished over a breakfast table. Or a dinner table, either, for that matter. A wild, fascinating woman linked with my name isn't exactly my dish. Add the nefarious business of crime to that, and Dr. Brooks Carter turns into Dr. Mud.
      I met Janet Charlane at Frank Wello's house party that night after Bob Underwood's operation. Frank owned a gaudy woman's clothing shop in downtown Towers, called it the Hollywood Fashion Shop. Our acquaintance resulted from an appendectomy I had performed on him a few weeks ago. Apparently to show he had taken a liking to me and wanted to preserve our friendship, he had invited me to this party he was giving.
      Frank was a big man, a human giant. He was six-foot-four, and weighed two hundred and seventy pounds. He was wearing a dark blue suit tonight and a plain yellow necktie. His coat was unbuttoned, a habit of his. He never kept it buttoned, as if he were proud to display the rotundity of his stomach. Ever since the first time I had met him, he had become an impressionistic personality in my memory, a man who intrigued and interested me. There was something about him that seemed good, and yet also something evil. I couldn't say whether I liked him or not, only that he teased my curiosity. I think it was partly for that reason that I accepted his invitation to attend his house party.
      If it weren't for the kid dying, which resulted in my being in the dumps, I doubt that I would have attended. As it were, I was damned glad the party happened to be that night.
      Anyway, to get back to Janet Charlane: She was dressed in captivating red gown that glinted in the high spots from the several brightly shining lamps in the big, luxurious living room.
      If she wore that conspicuous color to attract attention, it was unnecessary. Her looks were enough to catch any man's eyes, whether they were wandering or not. Her jet-black hair was done in a startling upsweep-hairdo. She was about five-foot-four, and slender, without seeming thin. There was something about her eyes that hit you as she looked at you. Sort of an impact you could feel down to your toes. Or probably it's just because they affected me that way.
      She was with a tall, lanky fellow about twenty-seven years old. A smiling, impetuous, happy-go-lucky sort. They had just come into the living room through the double French doors. I noticed a look of resentment on Frank Wello's face as he watched them.
      With a note of bitterness in his voice he said, "Where you two been?"
      The smile seemed a permanent fixture on the tall fellow's lips. With his blue eyes mocking at Frank, he said calmly, "Just outside on the patio. Why? Anything wrong with that?"
      Frank snorted. "Your sense of humor ain't any better than your old man's," he rasped. "So happens you have a girl sitting there in the chair. And very pretty, too. Or are you too blind to see?"
      "Thanks. I know, Frank," the other said, with that conde-scending quality still in his voice. "But we just stepped outside a minute. Miss Charlane took a sudden interest in Astronomy. She wanted to know where Venus was in relation with Mars. I showed her. Is that a crime?"
      "Almost anything you do might be," Wello retorted sar-castically. He jabbed a plump thumb against my chest. "This is Dr. Carter. And this, Doc, is Andy Ettinger. If you don't know the Ettingers, then you don't know milk."
      I knew my milk. In this part of the country milk and Ettinger were practically synonymous. As if they went in pairs, like ham and eggs, or Anthony and Cleopatra. The Ettingers were acclaimed dairy people, their cows probably the leading milk producers in the state.
      "This is a pleasure, Doc," he said. "And don't pay too much attention to the fat man. Just because he and the old man graduated from Cornel in 1919, he considers himself my foster father."
      "Harumph!" Wello snorted indignantly. "This is Miss Charlane, Doc, Janet—Dr. Carter."
      I looked at Miss Charlane. Her hair was coal-black, and her eyes flashed like hard metal as the light touched them. She was already smiling and extending her hand. I took it. It felt cold and velvet-smooth. I thought my hand would tremble and she would laugh if she noticed. But neither thing happened.
      "I am pleased to know you, Dr. Carter." She smiled amiably.
      "The pleasure's all mine, Miss Charlane."
      By now the girl who had been sitting on the armchair had risen to her feet. Her dark hair lay in a rippling mass to her shoulders, framing an oval face that seemed to be struggling between a desire to cry and to laugh. She didn't quite come up to Miss Charlane's height, but when it came to figures, she and Miss Charlane had something in common.
      "This is Patricia DeAngelis," Wello continued in his oratorical voice. "Her mother's a Czech, and her father's an Eytalian. The smartest dago that ever sailed to this country. Came without a cent at the age of eleven, started by digging ditches, now owns four of the largest hotels in the country." He cleared his throat. "I'm dry. Let's go for a round of drink."
      He grabbed Janet Charlane's hand and propelled her briskly through the dining room, then through a swinging door into the kitchen. I turned to regard the rest of the people Frank had invited to his party. Patricia DeAngelis and Andy Ettinger were having a tête-à-tête, which, from the reddened expression on Patricia's face, indicated something unfavorable going on between them. Ted Shirer, a tall, balding fellow who Frank had said could match Vincent Lopez at playing the piano, saw me standing alone, and came toward me, leaving his tiny, buxom wife to carry on with the others. We had a nice talk, touching on the weather and world affairs, before Wello and Janet came in with a silver tray loaded down with Scotch and soda.
      For an hour or more the party continued on in channels of drinking and storytelling.
      Several times my thoughts strayed to the whereabouts of Frank Wello's wife. I knew he was married and I assumed she was living. But even during the earlier part of the evening, I had begun to get the Doubting Thomas feeling. There was something about the way he kept looking at Janet Charlane. It looked to me a little more than just ordinary friendliness.
      Finally, as Frank paused to ask me how I was enjoying myself, I grasped the opportunity to get the question off my chest. "Frank—" I used his surname now, for we had become pretty well acquainted during the course of the evening, "pardon if I seem inquisitive, but Mrs. Wello—isn't she one of the missing? I mean I—"
      Too late. I suddenly knew I had opened my mouth at the wrong time. Frank Wello's melon-shaped face did not change a muscle, nor did the merriment leave his small, opaque eyes. But I could see the expression of perplexity that had suddenly appeared, like a silken curtain veiling the mask of reality. Presently the mouth softened a little and the opaque eyes showed a sign of sadness.
      "Sorry, Doc. I should've told you, I suppose. She doesn't care for parties. And she isn't well. She hasn't been for a long time. Anyway, she can't walk a step."
      So that explained it. I wondered why he hadn't told me this before. But then I realized he wasn't the kind of man to accept the sort of notoriety his sick wife might have caused, nor the type to accept sympathy.
      "I'm sorry to hear that Frank," I said apologetically. "I shouldn't have brought it up."
      "That's okay, Doc." He grinned. "And don't worry about the noise, either. When she's asleep, a regiment couldn't wake her." He looked at the half-filled glass in my hand. "How about letting me fill that up for you? You haven't had enough to wet the throat of a mosquito."
      I laughed. "Al right. You can fill it up, but it'll be all I'll want tonight." I held my glass while he poured my Scotch and soda into it. I gazed at him. "Frank, I'll let you in on a secret."
      He frowned. "Go ahead."
      I laughed again, a little crazily. "I wanted to get stinking drunk. So drunk the ceiling will look upside down, and the walls topsy turvy, and my head crawling between my legs."
      Wello cut short a dry chuckle. "You'd look a sight, Doc, believe me. But why not? What's the matter? Think maybe somebody might squeal to the public?"
      "No. I just changed my mind."
      "What made you want to get stinking drunk?"
      Deep inside I felt like telling him, to get it out of my system. But I knew I couldn't. There was such a thing as medical ethics. I couldn't tell him that Dr. Strome, who so many people thought was one of the leading physicians in the city, was responsible for young Bob Underwood's death, because he hadn't properly analyzed Bob's throat condition. That was a secret, like so many other secrets you could not tell the layman, your friend, your wife if you had a wife.
      Actually, here is what happened: Dr. Strome had analyzed Bob's throat infection as simply another case of tonsillitis, and had given Dr. Baldwin and me the authority to remove the tonsils. After the removal of one of them, we had noticed something wrong. The youth had developed a condition of cyanosis and an acute dilatation of the heart. I had the tonsil tested in the lab. It was full of diphtheria bacilli! I could hardly believe my eyes.
      We did all we could. But the kid died.
      All that happened this afternoon. I had wanted to get soused, so that liquor would wash the hate out of my system. The hate toward Dr. Strome. The hate toward my own pro-fession in general for permitting Dr. Strome to continue in his active capacity as a physician.
      I could appreciate that we, as normal human beings, were not invulnerable about making mistakes. But when those mistakes were the results of chronic alcoholism and downright carelessness, there was no reason for it.
      To top it all, he was my opponent in a new hospital construction plan for which a committee had been selected and I chosen as chairman. We felt that a separate hospital to take care of the rural areas would be a remarkable achievement and a justifiable one. But there were a few hard-as-nails opposition-ists who were in a position to stave us off, and Dr. Strome headed the list.
      The answer you can describe in one word: Politics.
      So you see why I couldn't tell Frank.
      I looked at him, eye to eye. "It's something personal, Frank. I can't tell you. Sorry I said anything about it. Let's just skip it."
      Just then Janet Charlane came toward us across the carpeted floor, and I was glad. Her hair was bouncing softly against her shoulders, and she was smiling.
      "Here comes Janet," Frank said. "Want to dance with her, Doc?"
      His words came as if from a distance. I was gazing at her, feeling spellbound by her beauty. She looked like a moon rising in the dark night, a blood-red moon that generated an intoxicating thrill, like a drink of sizzling champagne. Her face came closer, and I saw her eyes on mine. They seemed to be telling me something.
      "I'd be glad to, Frank," I said. "Will you ask her?"
      He chuckled. "Why not?"
      His small eyes rolled around to mine, shining with too much drink, the soft skin crinkling at the corners in a smile. Then his eyes leaped away from me.
      "Hello, Janet. Having a good time?"
      "Oh, yes, Frank. A very lovely time." She glanced at me, her black eyelashes fluttering, then settling to rest almost against the curved lines of her brows. "And how about you, Dr. Carter? Are you enjoying yourself, I hope?"
      "I certainly am," I said. I found myself fidgeting with the glass of Scotch and soda in my hand, twirling it around with my fingers.
      "A . . . Janet," Frank Wello broke in quietly, "the doc's feet are itching to cut a little rug. Want to show him around the floor?"
      "Of course."
      I set the glass on the table, carefully.
      I took her in my arms and we started dancing. Suddenly warning signals shot through my pulses.
      The nearness of her body sent tiny electrical shivers zigzagging through me. The charges seemed to become accen-tuated the first few minutes we danced around the floor. My mind went spinning. I knew how it felt to dance on a cloud, to exist in a world of fantasy with no one around you but the girl you have in your arms.
      I looked at her, and met her eyes. They were smiling, teasing. The music seemed far away.
      "Frank seems to like you quite a lot," her voice burst into my senses, soft and husky, but still with a certain melodious-ness about it.
      "I hope so," I said. "I kind of like him, too."
      "He kind of likes me, too," she murmured. "But I'm afraid I don't share your affection."
      I stared down at her. "Why not?"
      She shrugged. "For one thing, he's too fat and gruesome. For another, he's married."
      "So Frank has been trying to charm you, has he? I can say this: he has an eye for taste."
      Her long black lashes fell. Her eyes met my mouth, my tie, then lifted like smoke to my eyes. "What kind of taste, Doctor?"
      "Good taste."
      Her lips curled smugly at the corners.
      "Just good?"
      "All right. It's much better than good. Okay, Miss Charlane?"
      "Not Miss Charlane," she said. "Janet. It's shorter, and I like it better."
      "Okay—Janet."
      "That's better." She laughed, a soft, tinkling sort of laughter, like musical glass on a Chinese lantern. "And from you, it's much nicer."
      I bowed. "Thank you."
      We stopped dancing for a moment, waiting for the record to change. I turned to see if Wello was watching. But he was pouring wine into crystalline goblets. When I turned back to Janet she had a prepared smile on her lips.
      "Don't be worried. He means nothing."
      I laughed.
      She took my hand. The music had started again. "Let's dance towards the doors leading to the patio. We can look at the stars a minute."
      "I'm not an astronomer like Andy."
      She looked at me. Her smile faded. "Does it matter—Doctor?"
      "No. I guess not."
      We danced toward the French doors. Her hand fell upon the crystal-glass knob just a fraction before mine did, so that my hand fell upon hers. I kept it there a moment. I don't know why. Her face swung about, her ebony hair so close the ends caressed my cheeks. Her eyes danced in the light, and her lips broke in a smile. Then I lifted my hand. She turned and went out, and I followed.
      The floor of the patio was flagstone with cemented grooves between them creating an embossing effect. Two tall slender junipers graced the two forward corners, and there were a couple of lounge chairs, both orange-colored, for a peaceful evening of solitude and rest, if such were what you wanted. Intuition told me such wasn't what I wanted.
      Janet clutched my arm and drew me away from the shaft of light that streamed through the closed French doors.
      "Let's go over here," she whispered. "Besides this tree."
      I tagged along like a kid trying to make of it what was coming.
      We stopped beside the tree.
      She tipped back her head, shook her hair slightly from her shoulders, and tilted her eyes to the star-studded sky. For a moment I studied the white, curving forehead, the soft, round-ed sweep of her nose, the sharp chin that enhanced a definite character of strength and arrogance.
      "Look," she said into my thoughts, "that's Venus. I shan't point, because I've heard that pointing at a star is bad luck."
      "That's right. How bad I don't know, but it's bad luck."
      "Do you know about Venus?"
      "No. Except that if you're referring to the Roman goddess of love and beauty, she has nothing on you."
      She laughed. "You mean I'm cuter, or better clothed?"
      I caught the laugh by the tail and hung on a minute.
      "You catch on fast." I said. "Now, what about those statistics?"
      She turned away and looked up at the sky again. "It's the second planet in distance to the sun from Earth," she intoned, like a little girl giving a recitation in class. "It resembles Earth more than any other body in the solar system." Then she looked at me seriously. "Do you know why scientist cannot get an actual view of her surface?"
      I smiled. "You mean Venus?"
      She broke out in soft laughter. "I left myself open for that, didn't I?"
      "Uh-huh." Then I said, "Janet, tell me about yourself. What do you do? Where are you from?"
      Her lashes wavered slightly, but she didn't look away. "Does it make any difference, Doctor?" she said, quietly.
      I shrugged. "No, I suppose it doesn't. Except that it might make interesting conversation."
      She laughed lightly. "Well, I work for Frank Wello, and I live at 516 Water Street North. Does that help?"
      She looked at me, turning on a smile, as if this slight surface scratch of her history were just to tease me on.
      I said, "With your folks?"
      "No. With myself."
      "Yourself?"
      "Yes"
      "Do your folks live in Towers? Or—?" I paused briefly. I didn't want her to think I was gathering material to write her life history.
      "Or what?"
      "Oh—never mind."
      Her eyes drifted away.
      A movement from the house caught my attention. It appeared in an upstairs window. I quickly glanced up. The window was open at the bottom.
      A woman was watching us. Suddenly she leaned with her hands upon the window, closed it shut, and walked away.

©2009 Matt Christopher Royalties, Inc.

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