Manhunt. Volume 2, Number 10, December, 1954

Then it also occurred to me that Helena Powers had a remarkable talent for placing her aides in positions where they had to protect her in order to protect themselves. For she had me in the identical position she had Harry Cushman. We all three had to hang together, or hang separately.

Helena broke into my thoughts by inquiring, “How do you plan to get rid of Lawrence?”

Glancing at my watch, I saw it was seven P.M. “I don’t tonight. He’ll keep in his icebox another day. But we’ve got some scouting to do. Better put on a jacket, because it may be chilly along the lake.”

I drove the car on our scouting trip. Our tourist court was not far from Berwyn Summit, and I cut straight east to the University of Chicago. Then I turned south along Lake Michigan until we began to run into beach areas.

At eight-thirty Helena said, “Shouldn’t we be thinking about dinner soon?”

“No,” I said shortly. Ever since I’d lifted that burlap bag I hadn’t been able to think of anything but the iced corpse beneath it, and the thought didn’t induce much appetite.

I drove as slowly as the traffic would let me, checking signs on the left side of the road. Finally, about nine o’clock, I spotted one which looked promising. It was on a wooden arch over an unpaved road and read: “Crestwood Beach, Private Road.”

We were past it before I spotted it, however. I had to drive on another mile before I could turn around.

Crestwood Beach proved as promising as it had looked. The beach itself was but a narrow strip of sand, and clustered along its edge were some two dozen modest summer cottages. I noted with satisfaction lights showed in not more than a half dozen.

Parking next to one of the dark cottages, I examined it carefully before getting out of the car. Apparently its owner’s summer vacation had not started yet, for the windows were still boarded up. The cottages either side of it, each a good fifty yards away, were dark also.

I climbed out of the car and told Helena to get out also.

Together we walked the scant fifty feet down to the water. As I had hoped, each of the cottages had its own small boat dock. Nothing much, merely a series of planks laid across embedded steel rods, but adequate for an outboard boat.

“Think you can find this same place alone tomorrow night?” I asked Helena.

“If I have to.”

I pointed out over the calm, moonlit water. “I’ll be out there somewhere in an outboard. I won’t be able to tell one beach from another in the dark, so you’re going to have to signal me with the car lights. We’ll set a time for the first signal, and you blink them twice. Just on and off fast, because we don’t want any of the other cottagers out here to come investigating. Then regularly every five minutes blink them again. Got it?”

“Yes.”

We went back to the car and I drove back under the wooden arch to the main road again. A mile and a half northwest of Crestwood Beach I stopped once more, this time at a sign which read: “Boats for rent.” This sign too was at the entrance to an unpaved road. I followed the road only about fifty yards before coming to the boat livery.

The proprietor was a grizzled old man in his seventies who chewed tobacco. He sat on the screened porch of a small cottage reading a Bible by the light of a Coleman gasoline lantern.

“They’re all taken tonight, mister,” he said as soon as I put my feet on the steps. He shot a stream of tobacco juice at a cuspidor halfway across the porch. “Everybody heard the large-mouths is biting.”

Then he let out a cackle. “Don’t know who starts them rumors. Look at that lake. Calm as glass. They’ll come in with a mess of six-inch perch.” He spat again.

“You booked up for tomorrow night?” I asked through the screen-door.

“Nope.” He got up and opened the door for me.

Walking onto the porch, I said, “Then I’d like to reserve a boat. When’s best to go out?”

“Ain’t much point till it gets dark. If you mean to use live bait, that is. Eight-thirty, nine o’clock.”

I told him I’d be there at nine and paid in advance. The price of a boat and a fifteen-horsepower motor was six dollars, a Coleman lantern fifty cents extra, and I gave him a dollar for a can of night crawlers.

When I got back to the car, Helena asked, “May we eat now?”

I stopped at a roadside eatery and let her have some dinner while I drank two cups of coffee. I hadn’t eaten since noon, but I still couldn’t develop any appetite.

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