Corkscrew by Ted Wood Page A

she said nothing, and as gently as I knew how, I broke the news about Kennie's death.
    She gave a little shriek of horror, then gathered her strength and said, "Catch the man. Tell me you'll catch him and punish him."
    "I'll do my best, Mrs. Spenser, and a lot of people will be helping." Spenser had come in behind me, and he moved past me to stand next to his wife and put his hand on her arm. It looked like a gesture that would drain her strength rather than help, but it was well meant, and she reached out and clenched her other hand over his fingers.
    I took out the photograph signed "David" and showed it to her. "Do you recognize this boy? Kennie had this picture with him."
    She looked at it, then at me. "You don't think he did it, do you?"
    "I don't think anything. I'm just trying to tie up all the loose ends, that's all. If you know this boy, it will be something."
    She handed the picture back. "That's Reg Waters. He has a camera, and he and Kennie were friends."
    "But it's signed 'From David,'" I prodded.
    "That was a joke. Kennie took the picture last month, after Reggie won the tennis championship at his club. He was up against a much bigger and tougher boy, so they were calling the match the battle between David and Goliath. I remember Kennie telling me about it."
    "Thank you." I debated with myself whether to bring out the other photo, but I could see the tension in Spenser's face, and I didn't do it. She had enough on her plate already without my asking if she knew her husband was two-timing her, which was the most obvious reason for the way he was acting. Instead, I asked if I could look through her son's belongings. She led me to his bedroom. It was a typical rented bedroom, furnished with the least possible number of items.
    She watched without speaking, clutching her husband's hand as I went through the boy's few belongings. There was nothing to help me. A drugstore envelope from Parry Sound with another set of photographs in it, the same variety as he'd had on the reel that Carl had developed for me. There were no more letters or anything else that might be useful. I finished inside ten minutes and thanked her. There was no need to remove anything.
    "If you want to go home, it will be all right," I told them. "There's nothing more for you to do here. I'll contact you with any news as I get it."
    She nodded, and Spenser growled that they would leave in the morning, and I nodded and put my cap back on and left.
    I called the station and told Fred where I was going. She answered crisply in her normal voice. I wasn't sure if she was getting bored or just running out of accents. "Hi, Reid. Nothing new for you. A lot of people have called, but they were mostly just nosy, asking for particulars. I told them there was an investigation going on, like you suggested."
    "Thanks, Fred. I'm afraid this isn't the weekend you'd planned. We don't get busy often up here, and they had to pick today. I'm sorry."
    "Nothing's wasted," she promised. "After today I can audition for the Judy Holliday part in Bells Are Ringing."
    "Stay away from casting couches," I told her, and she laughed and signed off.
    I parked the cruiser by the marina and unlocked the little boathouse where we keep our beat-up old cedar-strip. The township had sprung for a new motor a couple of months earlier, a Mercury 25-horse that skipped the boat along at a good clip. It wouldn't take me too long to get up to Indian Island. Sam settled into the bow, and I backed out, past the cruisers where long, cool women were sipping long, cool drinks while their red-faced men talked routes and weather like hardened sailors. One or two of the women had that restless, bored look you see in singles bars. They looked me over with more interest than they were giving the conversations around them. I guess isolation will do that.
    The breeze was cool out on the water, and the few mosquitoes that had started to gather at dockside dropped away. It was the time of day I usually head