the kid. What with going over the shoulder and me pulling her out of the car, her skirt and sweater got sort of shifted around. And if she should come to it won’t help her any to find a bunch of strange men gawking at her.”
Sheriff Pritchard set the example by turning his back. “Kurt’s right. Let’s give the girl a break. How would you feel if she was your kid sister.”
When Marie had finished making Tamara as decent as she could, Kurt carried her up the slope to the police car. Her eyes were still closed. Her breathing was still shallow. He wished he knew if she was really unconscious or faking. Either way he would have to play it by ear until he could talk to her alone.
The early morning wind was cool. Prichard drove with the front windows rolled down. Renner should have been cold. He wasn’t. His face felt flushed and hot as he rode holding Tamara in his arms in the back seat of the police car. When she did recover consciousness, if she did, he still had to tell her what she was supposed to do, what she was to allow and incite Kelcey to do to her.
It wasn’t a pleasing prospect. As far as he knew, up to now he’d been the only man in Tamara’s life.
They reached the court without passing Doctor Flanders car. Manners had turned out the big neon sign and the floodlights but the lounge and the station were still lighted.
“There’s Flanders now,” Prichard said.
He swung the police car up on the apron and braked it to a stop beside a red Buick being gassed.
A big, blunt, bull of a man in his middle fifties, addicted to good whisky and expensive Havana cigars, Flanders was known locally as a ladies’ man. Renner could never decide if he liked him or not. He was willing to bet that if all of the sweet young things, married and single, who had taken off their clothes in Flanders’ examination room and then emerged from the office with a contented smile on their faces and their ten dollar bills still clutched in their hot little hands were to hold a convention, the local Odd Fellows hall wouldn’t hold them. Still, he was a good doctor.
Flanders came over to the police car trailing a plume of fragrant smoke from his inevitable cigar. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “It took me longer at the Beeson ranch than. I figured it would.”
Renner got out of the police car and stood holding Tamara.
“How badly is she hurt?” Flanders asked.
“There’s nothing broken, we think,” Prichard said. “We think it’s mainly shock. But if it hadn’t been for Kurt she wouldn’t be here. He pulled her from the car just as it went over the cliff.”
“And the man she was with?”
“He’s dead. And so is Angel Guitierrez.”
Flanders felt the pulse in Tamara’s throat with the back of his fingers. Then, throwing his cigar away, he used a pencil flashlight to peer into the eye he pried open.
“She’s a pretty little thing,” he said finally. “Has she been unconscious all the time?”
“No,” Prichard said. “She’s come to twice. Once in the wrecked car while Kurt was trying to lift her. She told him, in Hungarian, that her name was Tamara Daranyi and that the driver of the car, the man who was killed, had picked her up at the Greyhound bus stop in Cove Springs.”
“And her other lapse into consciousness?”
“Right after Kurt pulled her from the car. She came to pretty bare in the wrong spots and instinctively tried to cover herself with her hands. She didn’t say anything but from the way she acted I figured the last thing in her conscious mind was the dead man making a play for her.”
Flanders glanced at Renner. “That right?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Renner said. “I was being sick at the time. And when I came back Bill had covered her with a blanket.”
Flanders thought a moment. “You say she tried to cover herself. Did she succeed?”
“As far as possible.”
“Did she seem to have any difficulty in co-ordinating the movements of her hands and arms?”
“No. I’d say not,” Prichard said. “Why?”
Flanders bit the end from a fresh cigar. “Just ruling out a few things.” He glanced at Renner. “Well, don’t just stand there. Take her into one of your units so I can examine her.”
Renner told Manners to get him the key to Unit Two. Then when the old man had brought the key and unlocked the door he carried Tamara inside and laid her small body gently on one of the thirty dollar fawn-colored spreads mono-grammed with famous Western ranch brands that he had bought to attract the luxury tourist trade that was still nine months distant.
Sprawled on the big double bed she looked pathetically tiny and young, more like a child than a woman. Her face was smudged with oil and grease and blood. Bits of leaves and twigs and powdered rock were embedded in her hair. If she’d had a coat, she’d lost it. There were runs in both of her stockings. One of her shoes was still in the car that had gone over the cliff. There was a hole in the sole of the other.
Doctor Flanders sat on the bed beside her and took her pulse and listened to her heart. Seemingly satisfied with what he found, he turned her head this way then that on the pillow and examined her cranial structure with deft fingers.
Flanders shrugged. “So far so good. I imagine it’s mostly shock. But you never can tell about these things.”
Sheriff Prichard said dryly, “Speaking of these things, the dead man’s zipper was open. So while you are at it, as Medical Examiner for the county, you’d better make it a thorough examination. If the dead guy raped her she has a good suit against his estate.”
Flanders was short with him. “I know my business.”
He pulled up Tamara’s sweater to examine her upper body then turned his head quickly and as he did a flake of hot ash dropped from his freshly lighted cigar and fell on the deep purple aureole of one of the girl’s exposed breasts.
Tamara winced but her eyes remained closed.
You damn butcher, Renner thought, then turned his head to see what Flanders was looking at. They weren’t alone in the unit. Kelcey Anders and four curious paisanos and Marie and her escort had made almost as good time getting back to the court and were jostling for vantage points in the doorway.
Flanders brushed the flake of ash from where it had fallen, then took his cigar from his mouth. “You know,” he said dryly, “there are times when the entire human race disgusts me. And this is one of the times. If you men don’t know what the unclothed female body looks like by now, you haven’t been trying. Now get out of here, all of you.” He singled out Marie. “With the exception of Sheriff Prichard and that girl.” He pointed with the wet end of his cigar. “And that includes you, Renner.”
“Whatever you say,” Renner said. It was no hardship on him. He knew what Tamara looked like. He added for her benefit, so she wouldn’t be too frightened, “I’ll be right outside if you need me.”
Four
THE MORNING WAS
