Find a Victim

Chapter 6

Meyer lived in a big frame house that stood against a eucalyptus grove at the rear of a vacant lot. The lot wasn’t entirely vacant. Eight or nine car bodies, T-models, A-models, an old Reo truck, and a pickup lay among its weeds in various stages of disintegration.

I left my car in the driveway and crossed the rank lawn, circling a concrete fishpond whose stagnant smell competed with the uric odor of the eucalyptus trees. The old-fashioned deep veranda was shadowy and cluttered with garden tools and tangled hose. Its boards creaked under my feet.

A sharper sound split the silence, twice, three times. I tried the front door. It was locked. Three more shots cracked out, from somewhere deep inside the house, probably the basement. Between them I heard the tap-tap of approaching footsteps. A woman’s voice said through the door: “Is that you, Brand?”

I didn’t answer. A light went on over my head and she pulled the heavy door open. “Oh. I’m sorry. I was expecting my husband.”

She was a tall woman, still young, with a fine head of chestnut hair. Her body leaning awkwardly in the doorway was heavy-breasted and very female, almost too female for comfort.

“Mrs. Church?”

“Yes. Have we met somewhere?”

Her malachite-green eyes searched my face, but they were only half-focused. They seemed to be looking through me or beyond me for something in the outside darkness, someone she feared or loved.

“I’ve met your husband,” I said. “What’s all the shooting about?”

“It’s only Father. When something upsets him, he likes to go down in the basement and shoot at a target.”

“I don’t have to ask you what upset him. In fact, I want to talk to him about the truck he lost.” I told her my name and occupation. “May I come in?”

“If you like. I warn you, the house is a mess. I have my own house to look after, and I can’t do much for Father’s. I’ve tried to get him to have a woman in, but he won’t have a woman in the house.”

She opened the door wider and stood to one side. Stepping in past her, I gave her a close look. If she had known how to groom herself, she could have been beautiful. But her thick hair was chopped off in girlish bangs, which made her face seem wide. Her dress was too young and it hung badly on her, parodying her figure.

She backed away from my gaze like a shy child, turned quickly, and went to a door at the end of the hallway. She called down a lighted stairway: “Father, there’s someone to see you.”

A rough bass answered: “Who is it?” – punctuated by a single shot.

“He says that he’s a detective.”

“Tell him to wait.”

Five more shots sounded under the floor. I felt their vibration through the soles of my shoes. The woman’s body registered each one. When they had ceased she still lingered in the upslanting light from the basement stairway, as if the shots had been an overture to music I couldn’t hear. A strange wild music that rang in her head and echoed along her nerves and held her rapt.

Heavy feet mounted the stairs. She backed away from the man who appeared in the light. There was something strange in her eyes, hatred or fear or the last of the silent I music. He looked at her with a kind of puzzled contempt.

“Yeah, I know, Hilda. You don’t like the sound of gunfire. You can always stuff cotton in your ears.”

“I didn’t say anything, Father. This is Mr. Archer.”

He faced me under a deerhead, a big old wreck of a man who had started to shrink in his skin. His shoulders were bowed and his chest caving under a wrinkled horse-hide jacket. White glinted in the reddish stubble on his cheeks and chin, and his eyes were rimmed with red. They smoldered in his head like the last vestiges of inextinguishable and ruinous passions.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Archer?” His grooved, stubborn mouth denied his willingness to do anything for anybody.

I told him I had stumbled into the case and wanted to stay in it. I didn’t tell him why. I didn’t know exactly why, though Kate Kerrigan had something to do with it. And perhaps the dark boy’s death had become a symbol of the senseless violence I had seen and heard about in the valley towns. Here was my chance to get to the bottom of it.

“You mean you want me to hire you?” Meyer said.

“I’m giving you the opportunity.”

“Some opportunity. My daughter’s husband – he’s the sheriff – is out on the roads right now with thirty deputies. And don’t think I’m not paying them, in taxes. What have you got to sell that they can’t give me?”

“Full-time attention to the case, my brains, and my guts.”

“You think you’re pretty hot, eh?”

“I have a reputation down south. Not a very pleasant one, but a good one in my line ”

“I wouldn’t know about that.” He looked down at his grained hands, flexing the big-jointed fingers. I could smell the smokeless powder on them. “I work for my money, boy. I don’t lay none of it on the line unless I see value received, first. What do I stand to gain? The truck’s insured, so’s the payload.”

“What about your standing with the shippers? These things are hard on business.”

“You’re telling me.” He thrust his gray head forward. “Who you been talking to? Has Kerrigan been griping?”

“Where does he come in?”

“It’s Kerrigan’s whisky they lifted.”

“You mean he owns the payload?”

“In a way. It was billed to him from the distributors. But unless he gets delivery, I’m the one that has to take the loss.”

“You said it was insured.”

“Ninety per cent insured. I didn’t have full coverage. The other ten comes out of my pocket.” He grimaced painfully, as if he was describing a surgical operation that he faced, a moneyectomy. “Seven thousand dollars more or less.”

“I’ll work for ten per cent of the ten per cent. Seven hundred if I get the load back.”

“And if you don’t?”

“One hundred for expenses. Paid now.”

He stood in front of me, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. His voice was like a wood rasp rubbing constantly on a single theme. “That’s a lot of money. How do I know you’ll do anything to earn it?”

“Because I’m telling you. Take it or leave it.”

He smiled for the first time, foxily. “I hear you telling me. Okay, I’ll make you a deal. Come in and sit down.”

His living-room was the kind of room you find in back-country ranch-houses where old men hold the last frontier against women and civilization and hygiene. The carpets and furniture were glazed with dirt. Months of wood ashes clogged the fireplace and sifted onto the floor. The double-barreled shotgun over the mantel was the only clean and cared-for object in the room.

He sat on the swaybacked davenport and motioned me to a chair. “Tell you the deal I have in mind. Seven hundred for the truck and the load. Nothing for nothing.”

“Aren’t you pretty business-as-usual, for a man who lost a driver and a truck? Not to mention a daughter.”

“What daughter are you talking about?”

“Anne. She’s missing.”

“You’re crazy. She works for Kerrigan.”

“Not any more. She dropped out of sight last Friday, according to Mrs. Kerrigan. They haven’t seen her all week.”

“Why doesn’t anybody tell me these things?” He raised his voice in a querulous shout: “Hilda Where the hell are you?

”

She appeared in the doorway, wearing an apron that curved like a full sail over her breast.

“What is it, Father? I’m trying to clean out the kitchen.” She came forward hesitantly, looking at him and around the room as if she had wandered into an animal’s lair. “Everything in the house is filthy.”

“Forget about that. Where’s your sister taken herself off too? Is she in trouble again?”

“Anne in trouble?”

“That’s what I’m asking you. You see more of her than I do. Everybody in town sees more of her than I do.”

“It’s your own fault if you don’t see her, and she’s not in any trouble that I know of.”

“Have you talked to her lately?”

“Not this week. We had lunch together one day last week.”

“When?” I said.

“Wednesday.”

“Did she say anything about leaving her job?”

“No. Has she quit?”

“Apparently,” Meyer said. He went to the telephone that stood on a desk in the corner of the room, and dialed a number.

Hilda looked at me anxiously. “Has something happened to Anne?”

“Let’s not jump to conclusions. You wouldn’t have a picture of her around, a recent picture?”

“I have at home, of course. I don’t know if Father has. I’ll see.” She moved to the door on white flitting legs as if she was glad to escape from the room.

Meyer dropped the receiver. He turned to me with his hands open, the palms held forward in a helpless gesture. “She don’t answer. Doesn’t Kerrigan know where she is?”

“He says not.”

“You think he’s lying?”

“I got the idea from his wife.”

“Don’t tell me she’s waking up after all these years. I thought he had her buffaloed for keeps.”

“I wouldn’t know,” I said cautiously. “Who is this Kerrigan?”

“A phony, in my opinion. He come to town along toward the end of the last war, had a job at the Marine Base – public-relations officer or something like that. He was younger then, and a lot of the girls went for the uniform and the big line. Annie wasn’t the only one.”

He had said too much, and covered quickly: “Look at the girl he married, Judge Craig’s daughter. She come from one of the best families in town if that means anything, but Kerrigan got her dancing to his tune. He sold off the Craig ranch property the first year they were married, and went into real estate. Then he shifted to the liquor business. Then he decided there was more money in motels. He’s no businessman, I can tell you that. I gave him five years when he started. Well, he’s lasted seven so far.”

“How’s his credit?”

“Pretty shaky, I hear.”

“Seventy thousand dollars’ worth of bourbon is a big order for a man with a bad credit rating.”

“Biggest I ever handled for him. But that ain’t my worry. They tell me what they want hauled and I haul it.”

“Do you do all his hauling?”

“Far as I know.”

“Did he know what driver you were going to use?”

“I guess he did at that. Tony’s the only one bonded for that amount.” His small eyes peered at me from under bunched gray eyebrows. “What kind of line are you thinking along, boy? You think he ’jacked his own whisky?”

“It’s a possibility.”

“If I thought that, I’d cut out his liver and lights and eat them for breakfast.”

“It’s a little early to plan a menu,” I said. “I need more facts. Right now I need a hundred dollars from you.”

“Damn it, I thought you forgot about that.”

He turned his back on me, but I caught a glimpse of his roll. It would have choked a brontosaurus. He thrust it back into his jacket pocket and buttoned the leather flap. Two reluctant fifties changed hands.

“Anything else?”

“As a matter of fact, there is. About your daughter Anne, has she been in trouble before?”

“Nothing serious. Just the usual.” He sounded a little defensive. “Annie was a motherless girl, see. Me and Hilda did the best we could, but we couldn’t always control her. She ran with a fast crowd in high school, and after she went to work she spent more than she earned. I had to bail her out a couple of times.”

“How long has she worked for Kerrigan?”

“Three-four years. She started as his secretary. Then he gave her a course in management down south so she could run his motel business. I wanted her to come home and keep my books for me, only that wasn’t good enough for Annie. She wanted a life of her own, she said. Well, she’s got it.”

“What kind of a life has she got?”

“Don’t ask me.” He hefted the twin burdens of his shoulders. “Annie left me when she was fifteen and I hardly seen her since. Only time I do is when she wants something.”

He shuffled to the fireplace and stood looking down into the dead ashes. The light from the naked ceiling fixture fell on his head like the glare of loneliness.

“Annie never cared about me, neither of them ever cared about me. Sure, Hilda comes and sees me once in two-three months. Probably her husband puts her up to it, so he’ll inherit the business when digger gets me. Well, he can wait, the bastard can wait.” He turned and announced in a loud, hoarse voice: “I’m going to live to be a hundred, see.”

“Congratulations.”

“You think it’s funny?”

“I’m not laughing.”

“Laugh if you want to. I come from a long-lived family and I’ll have the last laugh, boy. Digger won’t get me for a long time yet.” His feelings shifted suddenly, away from himself: “What about Annie? Is she mixed up in this some way?”

“It was your idea. There may be something in it. She’s close to Kerrigan, and pretty close to Aquista, I understand.”

“You understand wrong. Tony was stuck on her, all right. She couldn’t see him for sour apples. Hell, she was scared of him. She came around here one night last year, she wanted–” He paused, and looked at me warily.

“Wanted what?”

“Something to protect herself with. The guy was bothering her, making a nuisance out of himself, and it was getting her down. I told her I’d fire him and run him out of town, only she couldn’t see that. She’s a pretty softhearted kid in her way. So I gave her what she asked for.”

“A gun?”

“Yeah, an old .38 revolver that I had.” He caught and answered my silent question: “Anne didn’t shoot him with it, if that’s what you’re thinking. All she wanted was something to protect herself from him. It just goes to show that Tony was a big nothing to her.”

“Is Kerrigan?”

“I wouldn’t know about that.” But his eyes clouded with embarrassment.

“Have they been living together?”

“I guess so.” The words came hard, forced from the bitter mouth. “I heard last year that he was paying the rent on her apartment.”

“Who are you talking about?” Hilda said from the doorway.

He looked at her sideways, swinging his head like a bull. “Kerrigan. Annie and Kerrigan.”

“It’s a lie.” She came toward us, pale and stiff with emotion. “You should be ashamed of yourself, passing on that rotten lie. The people in this town will say anything about each other. Anything.”

“I was ashamed all right. Not for myself. What could I do about it? There was no way I could stop her.”

“There was nothing to stop,” she said to me. “It was all a lot of gossip. Anne wouldn’t have anything to do with a married man.”

“That’s not the way I heard it,” the old man said.

“Hold your dirty tongue.” She turned on him like a hissing cat. “Anne is a good girl, in spite of everything that you could do. I know you tried to corrupt her–”

He took a step toward her, the back of his neck creased and reddening. “You hold your tongue, hear.”

An electric arc of hatred flared between them. He hunched his shoulders threateningly. Hilda raised one arm to defend her face, which was radiant with fear. She was holding a rectangle of shiny paper in her upflung hand.

Meyer snatched it from her. “Where did you get this?”

“It was stuck in your bureau mirror.”

“You stay out of my room.”

“With pleasure. It smells like a bear-cage.”

He shrugged her off and looked down at the snapshot, shielding it like a match-flame with his hands. I asked him to let me see it. He passed it to me unwillingly, handling it like money.

The girl in the snapshot was sitting against a white boulder on a sun-drenched beach, holding her legs as if she loved their shape. Her curly dark hair was windblown, and she was laughing. She bore some resemblance to her sister, though she was prettier. She bore no resemblance at all to the girl I had seen with Kerrigan.

“What color is her hair, Mrs. Church?”

“Brown, reddish brown, a little lighter than mine.”

“And how old is she?”

“Let me see. Anne’s seven years younger than I am. Twenty-five.”

“Is this a recent picture?”

“Fairly recent. Brandon took it last summer at Pismo Beach.” She looked at her father with cold curiosity. “I didn’t know you had a print of it.”

“There’s a lot of things you don’t know.”

“I wonder.”

Her ice-green eyes stared him down. He crossed the room to the desk in the corner and started to fill a pipe from a half-pound tin. Somewhere outside, a car engine purred.

Hilda lifted her head and went to the window. “That must be Brandon now.” Headlights slid along the street and vanished. “No, it wasn’t Brandon. Didn’t you say he was going to call for me?” she asked her father.

“If he could make it. He’s pretty busy tonight”

“I think I’ll take a taxi. It’s getting late.”

“It’s a two-dollar fare,” he said dubiously. “I’d drive you myself, only I can’t leave the telephone. Why don’t you take the old Chewy? I’m not using it.”

I said: “I’ll be glad to drop you off.”

“Oh no, you’re very kind, but I couldn’t.”

“Sure you could, Hilda. Mr. Archer don’t mind. He was just leaving anyway.”

She shrugged her shoulders helplessly. Meyer regarded me with satisfaction. At least he was getting something for his money.

“Good night, Father.”

“Good night, Hildie. Thanks for coming to see me.”

He stayed in his corner like a tired old bull in his querenzia.