No Cure for Death Read Online Free PDF Page A

part-time deputies. He said, “Accident, Mallory, kinda confused up there, better turn around.”
    “Got the sheriff’s stepson here to see him, Ollie.”
    “Oh....” He bent down and looked into the car and nodded to John. “Good to see you, son.” He scratched his head. “Go on through, I guess.”
    I kept on at my slow pace as the hill steepened and finally approached the point of the slope that turned sharply, and would level out flat with a high, sheer wall of rock on one side and a bottomless drop-off on the other. The latter provided a postcard-picturesque view of the Mississippi, only on this dark a night, you’d have to take my word for that. A pair of flares was set just before the turn, one on the left against rock, the other to the right under a 20-mile-an-hour-curve sign. The flares glowed hot pink.
    When I rounded the turn and drove onto the flattened-out area, the night lit up like a small, cheap carnival. Half a dozenmore flares were set, several stuck into holes in the rust-rock of the upward cliff, others along the fence of stubby white posts and thick wire that guarded the drop-off. Two cars were parked flush against the rock, neither official (more civilian deputies, I supposed); the sheriff’s gold Buick, the only official car there as yet, was on the gravel parking area next to the drop-off fence, the metal bar atop the car swinging its two lights, one red, one blue, slowly around. Front and back lights were on all three cars, and six or seven men were running around the small area aimlessly, waving flashlights, moving through the darkness like big fat fireflies.
    Brennan was standing at the point in the fence where one of the stubby posts was crushed and the heavy wire trampled down; there were no skid marks on the pavement, but tire tracks were visible in the gravel in front of the crushed post.
    I pulled in next to Brennan’s car and John and I hopped out.
    Brennan took off his obligatory Stetson and tugged at a lock of brown, greased hair as he watched John and me approach.
    “Jesus H. Christ,” he said. “You pick a fine time to come calling.”
    John shrugged, thrust out his hand, and Brennan took it with mock reluctance.
    “Glad to see you, son,” Brennan said, “no matter the conditions.”
    “Glad to see you, sir.”
    Brennan turned and glared at me. “Mystery writer,” he said, derisively, then nodded toward my Rambler and said, “We already got one accident, let alone you driving up in another.” He looked at John’s fringed jacket and said, “Nice goddamn coat you got there. You had one like it during the Davy Crockett craze, too, if I remember right.”
    Nice guy, Brennan.
    I said, “What happened here?”
    This time Brennan shrugged. “Just got here myself. Car lost control, went over, far as I can tell.” He walked beyond the fence to the edge of the drop-off and looked down and pointed. “Car’s down there. You can see it didn’t catch fire when it hit or anything, don’t ask me why. Ambulance is on the way, but we don’t have any idea who or how many’re in the car, or in what shape. After a ride like that, hell.... I just hope we can haul it up with the crane on the wrecker, if there’s enough coil on the damn thing.
    “I was just getting ready to try to walk down the hill a ways when you boys dropped in for tea.”
    “We could join you,” I suggested.
    “We’ll just tag along, sir,” John said.
    “Okay....Hey, Russ!”
    One of the guys with the flashlights stopped flitting long enough to come over and say, “Yeah?”
    “You try and keep these idiots organized up here—I’m gonna try and get down to the wreck. Wrecker or ambulance get here, tell ’em what’s going on.”
    “Okay, Sheriff.”
    Brennan went back to his car, grabbed a flashlight out of the front, and returned to lead John and me on foot back down the slope of the highway. At the point at which John and I’d met Ollie DeForest on the way up (he was standing faithful guard over