Double

14: “Wolf”

It was after seven when I got back to the Casa del Rey. The talk with McCone had cheered me somewhat; now that I had additional confirmation that peculiar things were going on at the hotel, I would call Tom Knowles, tell him about Timmy and his mother, and then quit worrying and try to enjoy what was left of this so-called mini-vacation. I wished McCone would do the same thing. She was too stubborn and headstrong for her own good — and too young to respect the letter of the law as much as she should. But she’d learn eventually. The hard way, if she kept on creating and compounding felonies whenever it suited her.

There was a different clerk on the desk now, older and not quite as spiffily dressed as the other one. Along with my key, he delivered a couple of messages. One was from Charley Valdene; he wanted me to call him about our movie date tomorrow afternoon. The other one was from somebody I had never heard of, June Paxton. It said: Can we talk about Elaine Picard? I’ll be on the terrace bar for a while. Chubby woman, mid-fifties, dressed in black. Below that was her name and the time the note had been written: 6:15.

I asked the clerk, “Would you know a woman named June Paxton?”

“Yes, sir,” he said. “Ms. Paxton is an officer of the Professional Women’s Forum.”

“What’s that?”

He gave me an arch look and said patiently, as if explaining something obvious to an idiot, “An organization of professional women. They meet here regularly.”

“What sort of profession is Ms. Paxton in?”

“She is a certified public accountant, I believe.”

“Was she a friend of Elaine Picard’s?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Too bad about Ms. Picard, isn’t it?”

A pained look this time, but it was more professional than genuine. “A terrible accident,” he said in a voice like a bad actor playing an undertaker. “Terrible.”

“Yeah. All that bad publicity.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Never mind.”

I left him looking puzzled and went through the Cantina Sin Nombre and out onto the terrace bar. It was moderately crowded with conventioneers, Japanese tourists, and other people who liked fresh air, ocean views, and sunsets. Especially sunsets. There was an elegant one brewing out over the Pacific — dark reds, oranges, a little shading of lemon yellow, and some cloud wisps that were blackening at the edges like pieces of paper that had just been set afire.

June Paxton wasn’t hard to find. She was sitting by herself off to one side, and she was the only person there who was wearing mourning black. Chubby was a good word to describe her; another was homely, and a third was sad. At some other time, she might have resembled a graying Betty Boop. Now, hunched over something in a pineapple shell with two straws sticking out of it, she looked exactly like what she was: somebody who had just lost a close friend.

I stopped at her table and said, “Ms. Paxton?” and she looked up at me out of blue eyes that had a glazed sheen, like pottery fresh from baking in a kiln. Whatever the pineapple-shell concoction was, she’d had more than one of them. I told her who I was, and she nodded bleakly and said, “Sit down,” and then proceeded to study me while I got myself into the chair across from her.

Pretty soon she said, “You don’t know who I am, I guess. I mean, we’ve never met. I’d remember you if we had.”

“Would you?”

“Oh, sure. Big men are my weakness. Always have been.”

“Well, the desk clerk told me who you are.”

“Him,” she said. “He’s a faggot. Not that I’ve got anything against faggots, you understand, unless they’re obnoxious like that one. One of Elaine’s and my best friends is bisexual.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Karyn Sugarman. You know Karyn?”

“No, I don’t.”

A waiter came by and I told him I’d have a Miller Lite. June Paxton ordered another of the pineapple things; then she rummaged around in a fat black purse and got out some cigarettes and lit one awkwardly. Out over the ocean, the sunset colors had begun to shift and blend together, and the cloud wisps were darker at the edges and backlit as if by flames.

“I quit smoking four years ago,” she said. “Not a single goddamn coffin nail until this afternoon. As soon as I heard... I wanted a cigarette. Isn’t that funny? One of your best friends dies and all of a sudden you start craving nicotine.”

I didn’t say anything. What can you say?

She said, “I’m getting drunk. You don’t mind, do you?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Stop calling me ma’am. Do I look like a ma’am? My name is June.” She blew smoke toward the beach, and her lower lip quivered, and I thought for a moment she might burst into tears. But she held her control and said, “Damn,” in an empty little voice. Then she said, “You saw it happen. That’s what they said on the TV newscast I heard.”

“I saw it. I wish I hadn’t.”

“They said it was an apparent accident. ‘Apparent.’ What’s that mean? Was it an accident or wasn’t it? That’s why I want to talk to you.”

“Do you think it might have been something else?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I wasn’t there, I didn’t see it happen. Was it an accident?”

“It might have been. But the way she came over the railing... well, she could have jumped. She could even have been pushed.”

“Damn,” June Paxton said in that same empty little voice. She scrubbed out her cigarette in a clamshell ashtray and immediately lit another. “She killed herself. That’s what happened, she threw herself out of that tower.”

“Why do you say that?”

“She wasn’t herself lately. Just wasn’t the same.”

“How do you mean?”

“Moody. Unhappy. And she hadn’t been sleeping — you can tell when a person’s not sleeping. Kept to herself, wouldn’t socialize much. She was always private, you know, never said much about her personal life, but lately... if anyone asked her a personal question she’d just close up.”

“How long had this been going on?”

“Weeks. A long time.”

“Any idea what was bothering her?”

“A man, I suppose. Isn’t it always a man?”

“Not always. Sometimes it’s other things — like a job.”

“No, not with Elaine. She liked her job.”

“She got along with Lloyd Beddoes, then?”

“More or less. He’s a hunk, but... who knows? I’ve never seen him with a woman. Maybe he’s a faggot too.”

“Did she get along with Victor Ibarcena?”

“Definitely a faggot, that one. And a twerp. ‘Yes, sir, no, sir.’ A twerpy faggot. Whole place is probably full of ‘em.”

“So there was no trouble between Elaine and either Beddoes or Ibarcena?”

“Doesn’t matter, does it? She killed herself.”

“And you think it might have been over a man.”

“Sure. Always a damned man.”

“Any particular man?”

June Paxton frowned, and you could see her thinking it over. The waiter came back with my Miller Lite and another of the pineapple things for her. I tried to pay him, but she wouldn’t have any of it; she shoved a twenty-dollar bill at the waiter and shooed him away. Then she took a slug of her drink, shuddered, and went after her cigarette again.

“Rich, maybe,” she said. “God knows why.”

“Rich who?”

“Don’t know his last name. But I don’t like him.”

“Boyfriend of Elaine’s?”

“What else? She wouldn’t talk about him.”

“Young guy, wavy hair, odd blue eyes?”

“That’s him. You know him?”

“I met him yesterday,” I said. “Why wouldn’t Elaine talk about him?”

She shrugged. “Ashamed because he was so much younger than her, I suppose. Twenty years’ difference in their ages.”

“How long had she been seeing him?”

Another shrug. “I only saw them together once.”

“Where was that?”

“Borrego Springs. Casa del Zorro, six weeks ago.” I gave her a blank look and she said, “Borrego Springs is a town out in the desert. Casa del Zorro’s their fanciest spa. Lady friend and I went out there for the weekend, ran into Elaine and Rich having dinner.”

“Did you talk to them?”

“You bet. I went right up and said hello. Elaine was embarrassed — she didn’t say ten words to me. Him neither. Just sat there looking like a fox in the henhouse.”

“You said you didn’t like him. Why?”

“His eyes. Kind that made you feel crawly.”

“Did Elaine ever tell you anything about him?”

“No. I asked her later, but she wouldn’t talk. As much as told me to mind my own business.”

“Is there anybody else she might have confided in?”

“Well, Karyn — Karyn Sugarman. But if she did, Karyn wouldn’t say. So it had to be professionally.”

“Professionally?”

“Karyn’s a shrink. Elaine did the couch trip a few times. Don’t know why. Nobody tells me anything anymore.”

“So you don’t have any idea what this Rich does for a living?”

“Probably a damned gigolo. God, that’s the kind if I ever saw one — kind makes a woman do crazy things. He’d be the one she’d kill herself over. Not somebody like Henry.”

“Who would Henry be?”

“Henry Nyland. Been after her to marry him for months.”

Henry Nyland. That was the name of the guy Charley Valdene and I had had the brief run-in with in the parking lot Friday night. I said, “Is he the politician, the one running in the special election for city councilman?”

She nodded. “Retired admiral with plenty of money, inherited it from his wife when she died five years ago. Good-looking too. Not a bad catch, but Elaine didn’t see it that way.”

“How come?”

“Who knows? Didn’t love him, I guess.”

“Was Nyland upset by her rejection?”

She said “Who knows?” again, and then belted down some more of her pineapple drink. She squinted at me over the straw, using it like a gunsight. “I guess you’re married, huh?” she asked.

“Uh, no. No, I’m not.”

“Got a lady friend, though?”

“Yes.”

“Sure. Figures. I’m too fat anyway. Too fat and too old and too drunk.”

Uh-oh, I thought, she’s going to get sloppy and maudlin. But she wasn’t that kind at all. She pushed the drink away, saying, “No more for me. Any more and I’ll fall on my face. Or wrap my car around a pole somewhere. One death today’s enough.” She squinted at me again. “Thanks for talking to me. I wish it’d been an accident.”

“So do I, June.”

She put the cigarettes into her purse and hoisted herself out of her chair. She was a little unsteady, but it didn’t look as though she were in any danger of falling over. I said, “You want me to walk you out?” and she said, “No, I’m okay. Just need to be alone for a while. Walk on the beach’ll sober me up.” She patted my hand, gave me a melancholy smile, and went away across the terrace to a gate in the side wall, moving carefully and with dignity.

I stayed where I was, watching her waddle through the white sand toward the water. The angle of her passage made it look as if she were walking off into that elegant sunset — walking straight into the dying fire of the sun.