Read Bring Back Her Body for Free Online Page A

course — Toby makes a lot of contacts for Munger.”
    He must, Cain thought. To live in the style Toby affected would require a large income. Cain said, “Is this a producing farm he has here?”
    “Farm is a misnomer. There’s a house and an old barn. He just uses the place for parties. There is a caretaker and his wife. They do his cleaning up. And most of the time they aren’t around.”
    “Nice, working for Toby.”
    “Nothing connected with Toby is nice,” she said in an ugly voice.
    They walked in silence a few moments, the beach on their right, the thick stand of timber on their left. Cain used the silence to think over a few of the things he had heard tonight. He was a deliberate man and most of this had come too fast for his taste. He knew he could not judge logically under pressure. He was glad for the respite afforded by Lisa’s silence and slow pace.
    Questions piled in on Cain: Why did Honor seem to dislike Lisa so? What was Lisa’s stake in all of this? She claimed she hated Toby enough to kill him, yet she tagged along with him and his crowd. And above all, Cain could not help wondering why Toby would lay himself open by publicly stating that he was going hunting for Paula Ryerson’s body if he had actually done harm to her.
    Cain had a few more questions to ask himself but Lisa made a sudden turn inland and he found himself busily fighting underbrush and tree branches.
    Her arm came out, stopping him. “Listen.”
    He listened. Somewhere ahead of them there was a crashing as though a person or a large animal were blundering through the forest in the dark. The noise grew. Then there was a shout. “I found it! There it is!” It was a woman’s voice, oddly muffled.
    “They beat us,” Lisa said. “Let’s go.” She increased her pace despite the tight shoes that now had her limping badly. She guided herself with the two-celled flashlight she had in the runabout. Cain trotted behind her, and they burst into a clearing. Lisa swung her light up, outlining someone on the far side.
    Cain stopped dead. “My God!” He wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it. As he watched, a woman wearing an evening gown and high-heeled slippers was running toward an oblong wooden box placed in the center of the clearing. From neck to waist she was encased in “chain mail” and over her head was a knight’s helmet, the visor down. One hand clutched a good-sized flask.
    Behind her ran a man. He carried a flashlight in one hand and a flask in the other. It was Curtin and he was very drunk.
    Lisa snapped off her light. Neither the man nor the woman had seemed to notice it. The woman shouted, “See, there it is!”
    There were other sounds now. A couple appeared arm in arm. Cain recognized Smathers, the lawyer, and assumed that the costumed woman with him was his wife. Then the doctor came staggering out of the trees, tripped over a root, and fell headlong. He lay where he had fallen, hiccoughing gently. Each of the men carried a flashlight.
    The first woman had reached the oblong box by now. She lifted her skirt and clambered to the top and started kicking at Curtin as he tried to join her. He backed off and took a long drink from his flask. The woman took advantage of the respite to pull off her helmet. It was Anne, the redhead. She busied herself with her flask.
    “Congratulations,” a voice said, and Toby Patton came into view. He walked as if he were quite sober, swinging his light negligently.
    Lisa said to Cain, “Let’s angle to the left. We can get a little closer to his damned ‘prize’ that way.”
    They worked around the edge of the clearing until they were some distance closer to the oblong box. There Lisa stopped. She said to Cain, “Toby tried to get Robin Hood costumes for the men but I didn’t have time to order them. This is supposed to be Sherwood Forest, I think.”
    “Where’s Maid Marian?” Cain asked.
    Toby was talking again and Cain left his question hanging to listen.