The Blue Hammer

XVI

The morning wind had died down. The air was clear and sparkling. Like a flashing ornament suspended from an infinitely high ceiling, the red-tailed hawk swung over the Biemeyer house.

Jack and Ruth Biemeyer both came out to meet me. They were rather conservatively dressed, like people on their way to a funeral, and they looked as if the funeral might be their own.

The woman reached me first. She had dark circles under her eyes, which she hadn't quite succeeded in covering with makeup.

"Is there any word about Doris?"

"I think she left town with Fred Johnson last night."

"Why didn't you stop her?"

"She didn't give me notice that she was leaving. I couldn't have stopped her if she had."

"Why not?" Ruth Biemeyer was leaning toward me, her handsome head poised like a tomahawk.

"Doris is old enough to be a free agent. She may not be smart enough, but she's old enough."

"Where have they gone?"

"Possibly Arizona. I have a little bit of a lead in Tucson, and I think they may be heading there. I don't know if they have the picture with them. Fred claims it was stolen from _him."_

Jack Biemeyer spoke for the first time. "That's horse manure."

I didn't argue with him. "You're probably right. If you want me to go to Tucson, it's going to cost you more, naturally."

"Naturally." Biemeyer looked past me at his wife. "I told you there would be another bite. There always is."

I felt like hitting him. Instead I turned on my heel and walked to the far end of the driveway. It wasn't far enough. A five-foot wire fence stopped me.

The hill slanted sharply downward to the edge of the barranca. On the far side stood the Chantry house, miniatured by distance like a building in a bell jar.

The greenhouse behind it had a half-painted glass roof. Through its flashing multiple panes I could make out dim movements inside the building, which was choked with greenery. There seemed to be two people facing each other and making wide sweeping motions, like duelists too far apart to hurt each other.

Ruth Biemeyer spoke in a quiet voice behind me. "Please come back. I know Jack can be difficult-God knows I know it. But we really need you."

I couldn't resist that, and I said so. But I asked her to wait a minute, and got a pair of binoculars out of my car. They gave me a clearer view of what was going on in the Chantry greenhouse. A gray-headed woman and a black-haired man, whom I identified as Mrs. Chantry and Rico, were standing among the masses of weeds and overgrown orchid plants, and using long hooked knives to cut them down.

"What is it?" Ruth Biemeyer said.

I handed her my binoculars. Standing on tiptoe, she looked over the fence. "What are they doing?"

"They seem to be doing some gardening. Is Mrs. Chantry fond of gardening?"

"She may be. But I never saw her doing any actual work, until now."

We went back to her husband, who all this time had been standing in a silent stony anger beside my car, like some kind of picket.

I said to him, "Do you want me to go to Tucson for you?"

"I suppose so. I have no choice."

"Sure you have."

Ruth Biemeyer interrupted, glancing from her husband to me and back again like a tennis referee. "We want you to go on with the case, Mr. Archer. If you need some money in advance, I'll be glad to give it to you out of my own savings."

"That won't be necessary," Biemeyer said.

"Good. Thank you, Jack."

"I'll take five hundred dollars from you," I said.

Biemeyer yelped and looked stricken. But he said he would write me a check, and went into the house.

I said to his wife, "What made him that way about money?"

"Getting some, I think. Jack used to be quite different when he was a young mining engineer and had nothing. But lately he's been making a lot of enemies."

"Including his own daughter." And his own wife. "What about Simon Lashman?"

"The painter? What about him?"

"I mentioned your husband's name to him this morning. Lashman reacted negatively. In fact, he told me to go to hell and hung up on me."

"I'm sorry."

"It doesn't matter to me personally. Still I may need Lashman's cooperation. Are you on good terms with him?"

"I don't know him. Naturally I know who he is."

"Does your husband know him?"

She hesitated, then spoke haltingly. "I believe he does. I don't want to talk about it."

"You might as well, though."

"No. This is really painful for me."

"Why?"

"There's so much old history involved." She shook her head, as if it were still encumbered by the past. Then she spoke in a smaller voice, watching the doorway through which her husband had disappeared. "My husband and Mr. Lashman were rivals at one time. She was an older woman than my husband-actually she belonged to Lashman's generation-but Jack preferred her to me. He bought her away from Lashman."

"Mildred Mead?"

"You've heard of her, have you?" Her voice grew coarse with anger and contempt. "She was a notorious woman in Arizona."

"I've heard of her. She sat for that picture you bought." She gave me a vague disoriented look. "What picture?"

"The one we're looking for. The Chantry."

"No," she said.

"Yes. Didn't you know it was a picture of Mildred Mead?"

She put her hand over her eyes and spoke blindfolded. "I suppose I may have known. If I did know, I'd blanked out on the fact. It was a terrible shock to me when Jack bought a house for her. A better house than I was living in at the time." She dropped her hand and blinked at the high harsh light. "I must have been crazy to bring that picture and hang it in the house. Jack must have known who it was. He never said a word, but he must have wondered what I was trying to do."

"You could ask him what he thought."

She shook her head. "I wouldn't dare. I wouldn't want to open that can of worms." She looked behind her as if to see if her husband was listening, but he was still out of sight in the house.

"You did open it, though. You bought the picture and brought it home."

"Yes, I did. I must be going out of my mind-do you think I am?"

"You'd know better than I would. It's your mind."

"Anybody else would be welcome to it." There was a faint rising note of excitement in her voice: she had surprised herself with her own complexity.

"Did you ever see Mildred Mead?"

"No, I never did. When she-when she became important in my life, I was careful not to see her. I was afraid."

"Of her?"

"Of myself," she said. "I was afraid I might do something violent. She must have been twenty years older than I, at least. And Jack, who had always been such a skinflint with me, bought her a house."

"Is she still living in it?"

"I don't know. She may be."

"Where is the house?"

"In Chantry Canyon in Arizona. It's on the New Mexico border, not too far from the mine. In fact it was the original Chantry house."

"Are we talking about Chantry the painter?"

"His father, Felix," she said. "Felix Chantry was the engineer who first developed the mine. He was in charge of operations until he died. It's why it was such an insult to me when Jack bought the house from the old man's estate and gave it to that woman."

"I don't quite follow you."

"It's perfectly simple. Jack took over the mine from Felix Chantry. Actually he was related to Felix Chantry. Jack's mother was Chantry's cousin. Which was all the more reason why he should have bought the Chantry house for me." She spoke with an almost childish bitterness.

"Is that why you bought the Chantry picture?"

"Maybe it is. I never thought of it in that way. I bought it really because I was interested in the man who painted it. Don't ask me how interested, it's a moot question now."

"Do you still want the picture back?"

"I don't know," she said. "I want my daughter back. We shouldn't be standing here wasting time."

"I know that. I'm waiting for your husband to bring me my check."

Mrs. Biemeyer gave me an embarrassed look and went into the house. She didn't come out right away.

I still had my binoculars hanging around my neck, and I carried them down the driveway to the edge of the slope again. The black-haired man and the gray-haired woman were still cutting weeds in the greenhouse.

Mrs. Biemeyer came out of the house by herself. Angry tears were spilling from her eyes. The check she handed me was signed with her name, not her husband's.

"I'm going to leave him," she said to me and the house. "As soon as we get through this."