The Corpse Without a Country Read Online Free Page A

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    I rode with them to the hospital and followed as Tom was wheeled into the emergency ward. A competent-looking young doctor was on duty. He uncovered the cut, took a long look, and whistled softly.
    “What does the other guy look like?” he asked.
    “The other guy,” I said, “was a twenty foot boat.”
    He shook his head. “Not unless it swung a pistol barrel at him it wasn’t. See that groove? It was made by a gunsight.”

IV
    I WATCHED THE BOSS drop the phone gently into its cradle. He looked at me and shook his head. “No change,” he said. “Tom’s still in a coma.”
    I felt sorry for him. Tom Harbin was my friend, but he was this man’s son. He was all Oscar Harbin had.
    I stabbed a finger at a bulky manila envelope lying on the desk. I said, “Isn’t there anything in Tom’s report to help at all?”
    Harbin pushed back a lock of graying hair that had fallen over his forehead. He looked thoroughly beat. “I’ve read the damned thing backwards and forwards and I can’t find a thing. Pure routine. Nothing else.”
    It was nearly twenty-four hours since I had ridden in the ambulance to the Island hospital. I had called the boss, and he flew up, and we spent the night waiting with Tom. He had arrived at the hospital in a coma, and when we left he was still in the coma. His condition tonight hadn’t changed.
    I was tired. After flying home with the boss, I had gone to my apartment for some sleep, but I had lain awake more than I had slept. My eyes were grainy and my head felt heavy, yet I was probably in top condition compared to the boss.
    I said, “Why don’t you give it up for a while. Let me take the report. Maybe I can find something you missed.” I shifted in my chair and fumbled for cigarettes. The boss pushed the box he reserved for clients toward me. He even held out his desk lighter. I only got this red carpet treatment when he was too upset to think clearly.
    I dragged deeply on the English cigarette he had provided. “I talked to Arne and I saw the setup, so there might be something that has meaning for me.”
    He handed me the envelope. I laid it in my lap. I said, “The thing that bothers me most is Tom’s not reporting in before he rented that charter boat. That isn’t like him.”
    The boss said, “He did report. He called in at two-thirty in the morning and again at eight.”
    I said, “Hell, when you called me in Anchorage, you said …”
    The boss made a sour face and jerked his thumb toward the outer office where Emily Calvin, our secretary, was giving the electric typewriter a workout. “She told me tonight—before you got here. I can’t blame her, I guess; she’s still pretty new. But when she came in yesterday morning, the answering service called and said they were sending over a taped message. She fouled up putting it on the playback so she could type it and wiped the wire clean.”
    We made use of one of those automatic answering services that records confidential messages on wire. It was a very handy device, since Tom and I often reported in at odd hours. But right now I was wishing for a little less electronics and a little more human power.
    I said, “If he called at two-thirty, it was probably to tell you why he was going out. And if he called again at eight, that must have been a report on something he’d found out.”
    “My guess,” the boss agreed. “The two-thirty call was from Bellingham. The eight o’clock call was from the San Juans.”
    “So we know that at eight he was still going strong. He must have gone back to Boundary after that.”
    The boss said hopefully, “Maybe his call was just more routine.”
    I grunted at that. I said, “Emily didn’t get any of the message?”
    “Not a word. I called the answering service, but the girl there swore she’d switched the call right on to the recorder and hadn’t listened in. I believe her,” he added gloomily.
    When he believed anyone, they had to be telling the truth. I stood up,