The Corpse Without a Country by Louis Trimble Page B

church clock across the canal tolled three, Jodi said in a small, faraway voice, “What are we going to do about your clothes?”
    I looked across her smooth, sleek body and said, “So who needs clothes?”
    She laughed. “You have work to do come daylight, remember, darling?”
    It wasn’t what I wanted to think about at that moment.
    • • •
    Jodi lifted her head from my shoulder and rubbed sleep from her eyes. Thin streaks of light were playing on the smooth waters of the canal. It was lovely, as water at dawn always is.
    “Three bedrooms in the house and we sleep here,” she said.
    I still had Reese Fuller on my mind. I said, “Which one does Reese use?”
    She got up and reached for a robe. “You must be hungry to be nasty so early in the morning,” she said. “And he uses the downstairs bedroom for a dressing room when he comes to swim.”
    She padded off. I got up and went into the spare bedroom. In the bath I found a shaving kit. I used it. When I got back to the living room, Jodi had breakfast ready. And she was right; I was hungry.
    It was a fine meal with lots of coffee. If I hadn’t been so anxious to take a solid crack at Reese Fuller, I would have stretched that breakfast out until evening. Reluctantly I pried myself away from the table.
    Jodi didn’t need to be told what was on my mind. She said, “What do we do now, Peter?”
    “I go get some clothes,” I said, emphasing the “I.”
    “You still don’t trust me, do you?”
    I didn’t say anything. She waited a moment and then said it for me. “You know Arne really better than I do. I’ve been away so much these past years. Do
you
really think he could be mixed up in murder?”
    I couldn’t say no. Because Arne had started life out on the wrong side of the law, progressing from fish pirate to rum runner to—finally—respectable businessman. He had been legitimate since prohibition ended, but he had that rough background. And he was a lot of man, all of it self-sufficient. He had fought his way to the top and he believed in the law of the jungle.
    I said, “There is one thing about Arne. Whatever he does, he does it in the open. He doesn’t sneak around in the dark.”
    “I keep reminding myself of that,” she said.
    I said, “But people get old. There are things Arne wouldn’t do that he might close his eyes to someone else doing.”
    “Yes,” Jodi said, “if it threatened the good name of his business, he might condone a lot of things.”
    She didn’t have to say more. I knew how proud Arne was of his boat company and everything it stood for. As I understood her, she had just gently besmirched Reese Fuller’s name. There was no other way to interpret her remarks.
    I changed the subject for the moment. I wanted action now, not speculation. I called my apartment house and told the manager to let Jodi into the apartment. Then I sent her off to get dressed so she could go round me up some clothing. I told her to be careful and take the manager in with her. I hadn’t forgotten that Ilona had lifted my keys.
    When Jodi was gone, I started exploring her house. I had nothing definite in mind; I was just snooping. But knowing someone’s house is, in a sense, knowing them. And despite the past night, I didn’t really know Jodi; and I wanted to know her badly.
    The house was two stories, the second containing two bedrooms and a studio-office. One bedroom was obviously Jodi’s; the other had as obviously been fitted out for big Arne. It even had a king-sized bed. But somehow I couldn’t see him living here. I couldn’t see him living with Jodi, not when I remembered the way he had acted toward her on the boat.
    I wandered into the studio. And here I pulled up short. I was looking at one of the most god-awful messes I’d ever seen. Canvases were strewn heiter skelter. Two half finished oils leaned drunkenly on easels. Tubes of paint had been squeezed, their contents dribbled out on newspapers scattered about.
    Out of the chaos,