How Like an Angel

Nineteen

Nothing seemed to have changed since Quinn’s first visit. The cattle grazed in the pasture, tails to the wind; the goats were still tethered to the manzanita tree, and the sheep in their log pen stared incuriously at the car as it passed. Even the spot on the path where Quinn had met Mother Pureza earlier in the day bore no traces of the encounter, no drops of blood, no footprints. Oak leaves and pine needles had drifted over it, and the dark orange flakes of madrone bark that looked like cinnamon. The forest had hidden its records as effectively as the sea.

Sheriff Lassiter got out of the car, glancing around uneasily as though he half expected to be ambushed from behind a tree. He gave orders for the deputies in the second car to stay where they were until he had a chance to inspect the place, then he and Bill, the driver, followed Quinn up the sharp ascent of the path.

There was no sound. No wind moved the quiet trees, the birds had not yet started to forage for their evening meal, and if the three men were observed as they approached the dining building, the observer gave no audible alarm. Now and then a tired little wisp of smoke climbed out of the chimney and disappeared.

“Damn it, where is everybody?” Lassiter said. His voice sounded so loud in the thin air that he flushed with embarrassment and looked ready to apologize if anyone had appeared to accept the apology.

No one did.

He knocked on the kitchen door, waited, knocked again. “Hello in there!”

“They may all be at prayer in the Tower,” Quinn said. “Try the door.”

It wasn’t locked. When he opened it, a draft of hot dry air struck Lassiter’s face, and the sun pouring in through the enormous skylight almost blinded him.

The long wooden table was set for the next meal, tin plates and cups and stainless steel utensils. The kerosene lamps were filled, ready to be lit; the fire in the wood stove was going and more logs lay piled neatly on the floor beside it, to be added later when Sister Contrition arrived to start supper.

The place on the stone floor where Sister Blessing had fallen had been scrubbed clean, and there was an acrid smell in the air like burning wool. Lassiter went over to the stove and lifted the lid with the handle. The charred remnants of the cloths used to clean the floor were still smoking.

“They’ve burned the evidence,” Lassiter said in helpless fury. “Well, by God, they’re not going to get away with this if I have to lock every one of them behind bars. Put that in your peace pipe, Quinn.”

He made several futile attempts to retrieve some of the remnants of cloth with a poker, but they fell apart at a touch. He threw the poker down. It barely missed his foot and he glowered at Quinn as if Quinn had been the one who had thrown it. “All right, where’s the Tower? I want to ask these buddies of yours a few questions.”

Bill was watching his boss anxiously. “Take it easy, Sheriff. Like Mr. Quinn says, this is foreign territory. Maybe we sort of need an interpreter, somebody can talk their language. What I mean is, sure, you have a viewpoint, but maybe they have a viewpoint, too, and if we kind of go easy at first—”

“What’s happened to you?” Lassister said. “You getting soft in the head like Quinn here?”

“No. But—”

“O.K., then. No buts, Billy-boy.”

The only sounds as they walked were the occasional crunch of an oak leaf underfoot and the squawk of a scrub jay sensing danger and giving the alarm. In silence, the three men passed under the entrance arch of the Tower into the inner courtyard. The dead man lay where he had fallen, in front of the shrine.

The body had been covered with a blanket, and on a bench nearby sat Mother Pureza, clutching a rosary and watching the intruders with unblinking eyes. She had been washed and wore a clean white robe.

Quinn spoke to her softly. “Mother Pureza?”

“Dona Isabella, if you please.”

“Of course. Where are the others, Dona Isabella?”

“Gone.”

“Where?”

“Away.”

“They left you here all alone?”

“I’m not alone. There’s Capirote—” She pointed a bony forefinger at the dead man, then at Quinn. “And you. And you. And you. That’s four, and I make five. I’m not nearly as alone as I was when I had to sit up in my room with no one to talk to. Five is a good little conversational group. What shall we choose as an opening topic?”

“Your friends. The Master, Sister Contrition, Karma—”

“They are all gone. I told you that.”

“Are they coming back?”

“I don’t think so,” she said with an indifferent shrug. “Why should they?”

“To take care of you.”

“Capirote will take care of me when he wakes up.”

Lassiter had removed the blanket from the dead man and was bending down, examining the head wounds. Quinn said to him, “I can’t believe her husband would have left her like this to fend for herself.”

Lassiter straightened up, his face grim. “Can’t you?”

“He seemed very fond of her.”

“This is another country, remember? Maybe fondness isn’t a word in their language.”

“I think it is.”

“All right, what do you suggest? That they haven’t really gone away, they’re out there playing hide-and-seek in the trees?”

“No.”

“What then?”

“Either the Master plans to return, or else he left his wife here deliberately, realizing the time had arrived when he could no longer care for her properly. He knew we’d be coming, that she wouldn’t be alone for any length of time.”

“You mean he felt the old lady would be a hindrance while he and the rest of them were on the run?”

“No. I think he intended her to be found and to be put in an institution. She needs custodial care.”

“Your interpretation of the Master’s motives are pretty charitable,” Lassiter said. “It doesn’t change the facts: a murder has been committed, perhaps two, and an old lady sick in the head has been abandoned.”

“He would never have abandoned her for purely selfish reasons.”

“You’re having another peace-pipe dream, Quinn, and the smoke’s gotten in your eyes.”

“I can’t hear you,” Mother Pureza interrupted sharply. “Are you saying anything interesting? Speak up, speak up. What’s the good of conversation that can’t be heard?”

“For Pete’s sake, keep her quiet,” Lassiter said. “She gives me the creeps. I can’t think.”

Bill, who had gone on a brief inspection of the upper levels of the Tower, returned with the news that the place was empty. He glanced sympathetically at Mother Pureza. “I have a grandmother like that.”

“So what do you do to keep her quiet?” Lassiter said.

“Well, she likes to suck Life Savers.”

“Then for Pete’s sake give her a Life Saver, will you?”

“Sure. Come on, Grandma. Let’s go sit outside. I’ve got something nice for you.”

“Are you a good conversationalist?” Mother Pureza said, frowning. “Can you quote poetry?”

“You bet.” Bill helped her to her feet and led her slowly toward the archway. “How’s this? ‘Open your mouth and close your eyes, and I’ll give you something to make you wise.’”

“I’ve never heard that before. Who wrote it?”

“Shakespeare.”

“Fancy that. It must have been during one of his lighter moments.”

“It was.”

“Do you know any stories?”

“Some.”

“Will you tell me the one about how they all lived happily ever after?”

“Sure.”

Mother Pureza’s eyes brightened and she clapped her hands in delight. “Start right now. ‘Once upon a time there was a woman’ — Go on, say it.”

“‘Once upon a time there was a woman.’” Bill repeated.

“‘Named Mary Alice Featherstone.’”

“‘Named Mary Alice Featherstone.’”

“‘And she lived happily ever after.’”

Lassiter watched them leave, wiping the sweat off his face with his shirt sleeve. “We’ll have to take her back to San Felice with us, County General Hospital, I guess. A hell of a thing, leaving an old lady alone like that.”

The immediate problem of Mother Pureza had overshadowed the fact of Haywood’s death. His body seemed hardly more than a prop of scenery against which real, live people were acting out their personal dramas.

“Are there any other buildings?” Lassiter said.

“A barn, a couple of washrooms, a storage shed.”

“Take a look around, will you? I’ll radio headquarters to send an ambulance and put out an A.P.B.”

Quinn went to the barn first. The lone occupant was a mother goat suckling her new kid. The truck and the green station wagon were gone. The washrooms were empty, too; the only sign of recent occupancy was a bar of gray gritty soap lying in a couple of inches of water in a tin basin. The pieces of wool used for towels were all dry, an indication to Quinn that the colonists had abandoned the place shortly after his departure. They had stayed long enough to clean up the kitchen, burn the evidence, cover Haywood’s body, then they had taken off.

The big question was, where could they have gone? Whatever their destination, they could hardly hope to escape notice, all of them robed and barefooted and the Brothers with their heads shaved. To avoid attracting immediate attention they must have changed to ordinary clothes, perhaps the very clothes they had worn when they first came to the Tower. It wasn’t like the Brothers to throw anything away.

Quinn walked quickly along the path to the storage shed. The small room where he had spent the night at the Tower seemed to be in the same condition as he had left it. The two blankets were still on the iron cot, and underneath them was Karma’s old school book which Sister Blessing had given him to read. The window was still open, the padlocks on the doors leading to the other compartments still in place. But on closer examination he saw that he was mistaken. One of the padlocks had been too carelessly or too hastily closed and had failed to snap shut. Quinn removed it and opened the door.

It was a small, square, windowless room that smelled of must and mildew. When his eyes adjusted to the dimness he could see that the place was filled with cardboard cartons of all sizes, some with lids, some without, some empty, some stuffed with clothing, books, handbags, hats, bundles of letters, hand mirrors, wallets, hair brushes, bottles of medicine, boxes of pills. There was a fan made of peacock feathers, an old-fashioned hand-crank phonograph, a miniature outrigger canoe constructed of matchsticks, a red velvet pillow pitted with holes, an abalone shell, a pair of hockey skates, a lamp with a tattered silk shade, a framed reproduction of Custer’s last stand, a headless doll and an oversized coffee mug with dad on it. Each of the cartons was labeled with the name of a member of the colony, printed in crayon.

One of the cartons looked new and bore the brand name of a detergent that had only recently been put on the market. It was labeled Brother Faith of Angels. Quinn carried it out, put it on the iron cot and opened the lid.

The dark gray fedora on top was identical to the hat he had seen George Haywood wearing when he had met Willie King at the empty house in Chicote. Both the hat and the dark gray suit underneath it came from Hadley & Son, Chicote, California. The white shirt, undershirt, shorts and two handkerchiefs carried the same laundry mark, HA 1389X. The black oxfords and striped blue tie were made by nationally known manufacturers and could have been bought anywhere. There was no wallet or personal papers of any kind.

He was in the act of replacing the clothes in the carton when Sheriff Lassiter appeared in the doorway.

“Find anything?” Lassiter said.

“George Haywood’s clothes, I think.”

“Let’s have a look.” He examined the items carefully, holding each one up to the light, squinting against the slanting rays of the sun. “Are there any more of these cartons?”

“Dozens.”

“O.K., we’d better get going on them.”

Sister Blessing’s was brought out first. A thick layer of dust on the lid indicated that it had not been opened for some time. It contained a black wool coat, some white uniforms, a flowered crepe dress, underclothes, two pairs of white nurses’ shoes, a calfskin handbag, a few pieces of costume jewelry, a man’s gold watch and chain, and a sheaf of letters, some very old, signed your loving husband, Frank, and a few more recent, signed Charlie. The last one was dated the previous December:

Not even by reading between the lines could Quinn detect any sign of love or affection in the letter. Charles had written it in anger, and if he intended it as a real invitation for his mother to come and share his house, it was poorly expressed. Four words would have done the trick: We need you here.

“There’s no time to read letters now,” Lassiter said sharply.

“You’d better glance at it. It’s from her son, Charlie.”

“So?”

“You’ll probably have to phone him and break the news.”

“That will be pleasant. ‘Hello, Charlie, your old lady’s just been done in!’ “ He took the letter Quinn handed him and put it in his pocket. “O.K., let’s bring out the rest of the junk. I don’t want to be stuck in this joint all night.”

The hockey skates belonged to Brother Light of the Infinite, the abalone shell to Brother Behold the Vision, the lamp and coffee mug to Sister Contrition. It was Brother of the Steady Heart who had cranked the phonograph, Brother Tongue of Prophets who had glued together the outrigger, and Karma who had cherished the headless doll and the velvet pillow.

Underneath the pillow Quinn found several sheets of paper filled on both sides with single-spaced typing. It had obviously been done by someone just learning to type, on a machine whose ribbon was running out of ink. There were sentences, half-sentences, numbers, letters of the alphabet in order and in reverse order, lines of semicolons and punctuation marks, and, interspersed here and there, the name Karma.

Some of the sentences were factual, others adolescent fantasy:

“What’s that?” Lassiter said.

“Some of Karma’s doodling on the typewriter.”

“There’s no typewriter here.”

“Whoever it belonged to must have taken it along.”

It seemed a logical conclusion and the subject was dropped.

The carton labeled Brother Crown of Thorns contained no sentimental mementos of the past, only a few pieces of clothing: a tweed suit and a sweater, both riddled by moths; a broadcloth shirt, a pair of shoes, and some woolen socks so full of holes they were barely recognizable. All of the articles had been lying undisturbed in the carton for a long time.

Quinn said suddenly, “Wait a minute.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Hold one of those shirts up against your chest as if you were measuring it for size.”

Lassiter held the shirt up. “Pretty good fit.”

“What size do you take?”

“Sixteen and a half.”

“Try the suit coat on, will you?”

“Just what are you getting at, Quinn? I don’t like messing around other people’s clothes.” But he tried the coat on anyway. It was too tight around the shoulders and the sleeves were too long.

“Now the sweater, I suppose?”

“If you don’t mind.”

The sweater was a fairly good fit except that once again the sleeves were too long.

“All right, Quinn.” Lassiter tossed the sweater back into the carton. “What’s the pitch?”

“A real sinker,” Quinn said. “Those clothes don’t belong to Brother Crown. He’s a man of medium build, a little on the short side even.”

“Maybe he’s lost weight since he arrived here—”

“His legs and arms didn’t shrink.”

“—Or the carton was mislabeled. There could be a dozen explanations.”

“There could be, yes. But I want the right one.”

Quinn carried the sweater, the coat and one of the shirts over to the doorway and examined them in sunlight. Neither the sweater nor the coat bore a manufacturer’s label. Inside the collar of the shirt there was a label, Arrow, 16Vz, 100% pure cotton, Peabody & Peabody, and the barely distinguishable remains of a laundry mark.

“Have, you got a magnifying glass, sheriff?”

“No, but I have twenty-twenty vision.”

“Try it on this laundry mark.”

“Looks like an H to begin with,” Lassiter said, blinking. “HR. Or maybe HA. That’s it, HAI or HAT.”

“How about HA one?”

“You may be right. HA one. The next looks like a 3 or a 2. Then an 8.”

“HA 1389X,” Quinn said.

Lassiter sneezed, partly from annoyance, partly from the dust hanging in the air like fog. “If you knew it already, why did you ask me?”

“I wanted to be sure.”

“You think it’s important?”

“That’s George Haywood’s laundry mark.”

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Lassiter sneezed again. “Judging from the amount of moth damage and dust, I’d say these things had been in here for years. What’s it add up to?”

“When Brother Crown first came to the Tower he was apparently wearing George Haywood’s clothes.”

“Why? And how did he get hold of them?”

Quinn wasn’t quite ready to answer the question though he was pretty sure he knew the answer. Willie King had given it to him the previous night in the courtyard motel. Of George, coming out of the anesthetic, she had said. “He was a scream... He thought I was Alberta... and told me I was a silly old spinster who should know better... He was mad at her... because she’d given away some of his clothes to a transient who’d come to the house. He called her a gullible, soft-hearted fool... Alberta might be a fool but she’s neither gullible nor soft-hearted. If there really was a transient, and if she gave him some of George’s clothes, she must have had a reason besides simple generosity.”

Quinn felt a painful triumph rising inside him. The connection he’d been searching for, between Alberta Haywood and the murder of Patrick O’Gorman, was gradually becoming clear. The transient to whom she had given George’s clothes, the hitchhiker O’Gorman had picked up in his car, the writer of the confession letter to Martha O’Gorman, had all been the same man, Brother Crown of Thorns.

Questions still unanswered raced around in Quinn’s mind. Where was Brother Crown now? How had he managed to persuade the entire colony to disperse in order to save him from arrest? Was it George Haywood’s sudden appearance at the Tower that made Sister Blessing’s death necessary? And what reason besides simple generosity had prompted Alberta Haywood to hand over her brother’s clothes to a stranger? Suppose, though, that he was not a stranger, or didn’t remain one very long. Suppose Alberta, on opening the door to him, had sensed in him a desperation that matched her own and had offered him money to kill O’Gorman.

Quinn had been considering for some time the idea that O’Gorman had had a connection with, or at least knowledge of, Alberta’s embezzlements. It was impossible to believe O’Gorman had used his knowledge to blackmail her but he might have tried to talk to her, to reason with her: Now see here, Miss Haywood, you really shouldn’t be taking money from the bank, it’s not a nice thing to do. I think you ought to stop. You’re putting me in an awkward position. If I keep quiet about it, I’m condoning your crime—

Alberta was such a timid little creature it probably didn’t occur to O’Gorman that she might be capable of hiring a man to kill him.

Yes, it all fitted together, Quinn thought. Even now, back in her jail cell, Alberta was blaming O’Gorman for her plight. Her irrational claims that he was not dead might be caused by her inability to face her guilt, a refusal to admit that she had been responsible for his death. Then where did George fit into the picture? How long had he suspected his sister of planning O’Gorman’s murder? And were his regular visits to her intended to get at the truth or to conceal it?

“Give me a hand with these cartons,” Lassiter said. “We’d better take them along in case any of the Brothers gets the notion of coming back for them.”

“I don’t think they’ll be back.”

“Nor do I. But there are always buts. Where do you suppose they’re headed?”

“South, probably. The original colony was in the San Gabriel Mountains.”

Lassiter lit a cigarette, put out the match and broke it in two before tossing it out the door. “Now if I were the Master, which God forbid, that’s the last thing I’d do, unless I wanted to be caught. Even though they’ve all put on ordinary clothes, twenty-five people in a truck and a station wagon are pretty likely to attract attention.”

“So what would you do?”

“Disperse. Drive to the nearest big city, L.A., and separate completely. They don’t stand a chance in the mountains.”

“They don’t stand much of a chance in the city, either,” Quinn said. “They have no money.”

In the back seat, lulled by the motion of the car, Mother Pureza went to sleep sucking a Life Saver. With her legs drawn up and her chin dropped on her chest, she looked like a very old foetus.

Lassiter rode in the front. When they reached the main road he turned around to frown at Quinn. “You said there was a ranch near here?”

“Yes. The turn-off’s a couple of miles down the road.”

“We’ll have to stop by and get some help.”

“What kind of help?”

“Only a city boy would ask that,” Lassiter said with a grunt. “The livestock has to be looked after. Cows can’t milk themselves. It’s a funny darn thing, the Brothers walking off and leaving behind a valuable herd like that.”

“With only a truck and a station wagon, they had no alternative.”

“I wonder if there’s any possibility that they’re hiding out in the hills near here and intend to come back for the cattle, perhaps during the night. Being a city boy, you wouldn’t understand how much a colony like the Tower depends on its livestock. The herd looked healthy and well-tended.”

“It was,” Quinn said, remembering the intensity of Brother Light’s voice as he had spoken of the cattle, the sheep, the goats. Wherever Brother Light was now, in the hills nearby, in the San Gabriel Mountains, or in the city, Quinn knew what he would be thinking of as the sun set.

The turn-off to the ranch was marked by a wooden sign, Rancho Arido, decorated with horseshoes. Half a mile up the road they were met by a man driving a jeep with a couple of collies in the back seat, barking and wagging their tails furiously.

At the approach of the sheriff’s car the man stopped the jeep and climbed out.

“What’s up, Sheriff?”

“Hello, Newhouser,” Quinn said.

Newhouser leaned over and peered through the window. “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle, it’s you again, Quinn.”

“Yes.”

“Thought you’d be back in Reno by this time.”

“I hit a detour.”

“You know, Quinn, it’s been kind of on my conscience, my leaving you on the road like I did. I’m glad you’re O.K. You never can tell what’ll happen.”

Quinn’s sudden deep breath was like the gasp of a man drowning in a flash flood of memories. Riding the crest of the flood was Sister Blessing, smiling a greeting to him: “Welcome, stranger... We never turn away the poor, being poor ourselves.”

“No,” he said quietly, “you never can tell what will happen.”