A Bullet for CinderellaMacDonald, John D. (John Dann)
General
A Bullet for Cinderella
MacDonald, John D. (John Dann)
American fiction -- 20th century; Detective and mystery stories
The spectators had gone, most of them. A wiry little man came over to
where we stood. The swimmer, back in uniform, had come down from the
cabin. I could smell a strong reek of liquor on his breath. Somebody
had evidently found a cold preventative for him.
Prine said to the elderly little man, "I told you people to stay back
there."
"Don't you bark and show your teeth at me, boy. I want to talk to you
fellows. Maybe you might learn something."
"Get off the--"
"Hold it, Steve," Captain Marion said in a mild voice. "What's your
name?"
"Finister. Bert Finister. Looking for bodies, somebody said. That's
what you're doing. You could listen to me. I live off back there, other
side of the road. I do chores around here. Most of the camps. Everybody
knows me. Carpentry work, plumbing, masonry. Put the docks in. Take 'em
out in the fall. I know these camps."
"So you know the camps. If you were hunting for bodies, Finister, where
would you look?"
"I'm getting to that. I know the camps. I know the people that come
stay in them. Knew George and Timmy Warden and their pa. Knew that
Eloise, too. Knew when Timmy used to come up and swim all the way
across to see Ruthie Stamm. Showing off, I guess. Then last year there
was a fellow named Fitzmartin up here. Guess he rented this place
from George. First time it was ever rented, and now it's been sold,
but that's beside the point. You know there's all this do-it-yourself
stuff these days. Takes the bread out of a man's mouth. Takes honest
work away from him. People do things theirself, they botch it all up.
Me, I take it like an insult. That Fitzmartin, he was digging around.
Didn't know what he was doing. I figured whatever he was doing it was
something he could hire me to do. Then by God, he trucks in cement and
he knocks together some forms, and I be damned if he doesn't cement the
garage floor. Pretty fair job for an amateur. But it was taking bread
out of my mouth, so I remember it. He put that floor in last May. If
I was looking for any bodies I'd look under that floor because that
Fitzmartin, he's a mean-acting man. I come around to help and he chases
me clean off the place. Walks me all the way up to the road with my arm
twist up behind me and calls me a trespasser. Nobody ever called me
that before. Folks are friendly up here. That man he just didn't fit
in at all. And I'm glad he wasn't the one who bought it. The folks who
bought it, people from Redding, they seem nice. Got two little kids.
I let them know when they want anything done, they get hold of Bert
Finister."
We stood in the glow of car lights. Captain Marion looked at Prine.
"Fitzmartin?"
"Runs the lumberyard for George. Shall I go get him?"
"We better look first, Steve."
"That cement floor fooled me. I went over it carefully. It hadn't been
dug up and patched. It never occurred to me that the whole floor had
been--"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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