Free The Famous Dar Murder Mystery by Graham Landrum Page A

needn’t have worried about what to do because Helen told me what it was.
    â€œTake down this number,” she said. It was the number of the commonwealth attorney. “The best thing to do is call him,” she said. “They are not going to do a thing at this end as long as they can deny the identity. But if you call Ron
Jefferson and demand clarification, the next move will have to be his.”
    So Helen and I hung up, and I dialed that commonwealth attorney and just barely caught him in the office because by that time it was almost five o’clock there in the East. I offered to send him publicity stills for identification, but he said the only way to identify the body was for someone who knew Lu to look at the corpse.
    Now, I really wasn’t interested in a transcontinental flight to some place called Borderville in the Virginia boondocks. I mean, after all, even though my Daddy was on the Bible-Belt revival circuit for years, I don’t manage country and western. I was very dubious. He said I should let him know if I was going to make the trip so he could get an exhumation order. It really didn’t sound like a party I wanted to attend.
    After we rang off, I got to thinking about it. I was in the soup on this anyhow I looked at it. I dithered about it all evening and finally called Janie again the next morning. We did considerable talking before I asked for the name and number of Lu’s lawyer, which was why I called her in the first place.
    The lawyer said that there would be trouble with the estate unless we could get a death certificate for Lu Garcia and, what’s more, that Janie was the biggest beneficiary of his will.
    After that second talk with Janie, I was ready to do just about anything to look like Mr. Big to her. So I thought maybe I would go back there to Borderville and identify the remains. All the same, it looked to me like the round-trip ticket would be just a little pricey. But then I asked this lawyer if the trip might be charged to the estate. As soon as he said yes, my mind was made up that I was going to take a trip east.
    So I went to Borderville.
    I got to Three City Airport at 11:45 P.M. on Sunday, March 6, because I missed a connection at a place called
Charlotte, North Carolina. I checked in at the Sunset Inn just next to the terminal at Three City and didn’t wake up the next morning until half past ten. I called this Jefferson person—the commonwealth attorney. He sounded relieved to hear from me because he had the undertaker ready to dig up the coffin. He told me he would send a car for me at two o’clock.
    As soon as I looked out, I saw mountains; and believe me, it was cold outside with heavy clouds. I got in the car beside the driver and began to wish I hadn’t. The roads were like absolutely drunk, and this guy’s driving was like something else.
    We finally pulled into a cemetery and drove clear to the back, which seemed to be where they plant paupers and such.
    The grave had already been opened, and the coffin all crudded up with red clay was on the surface at one side. Jefferson shook my hand, said he was glad to see me, and asked how it was at the Sunset Inn, then told the undertaker’s man to open her up.
    It was worse than I expected. The lower part of Lu’s face looked like it had been tenderized. His nose was smashed in, and the undertaker hadn’t bothered to rebuild anything.
    There was no hair topside, but the suntan came right up to the line and the scalp was strictly pale skin from there on. The face was in really bad condition, and he had been dead for some time, but I knew in my vitals that this was Lu Garcia.
    I nodded, “That’s him.”
    The D.A. turned to the undertaker and said, “Take him to the morgue. I suppose the body is to be sent to California?”
    â€œYes,” I said, though I hadn’t thought of it before. I sure hoped that somebody would do something to make Lu look better