The Blue Hammer

XXIV

She went to her office in the back of the store and returned brandishing a postcard. On the front was a colored picture of Siesta Village, which was one of the newer waterfront motels in Santa Teresa. A shaky hand had written on the back, beside Juanita Grimes's name and address in Copper City:

Dear Nita:

Am staying here temporarily till I find a better place. The foggy whether does not agree with me, in fact am not feeling too well. The Calif. climate is not what its cracked up to be. Don't quote me but am looking for a nursing home where I can stay temporarily and get back on my feet. Not to worry-I have friends here.

Mildred

I handed the card back to Mrs. Grimes. "It sounds as if Mildred's in some trouble."

She shook her head, perhaps not so much in denial as in resistance to the thought. "She may be. It isn't like Mildred to complain about her health. She's always been a hardy soul. She must be over seventy by now."

"When did you get this card from her?"

"A couple of months ago. I wrote her an answer and sent it to the motel, but I haven't heard from her since."

"Do you know who her friends in Santa Teresa are?"

"I'm afraid I don't. Mildred was pretty close-mouthed about her friends. She lived a very full life, to put it mildly. But old age finally caught up with her." She looked down along the slopes of her own body. "Mildred had a lot of trouble in her time. She didn't go out of her way to avoid it, either. She's always had more guts than she could use."

"Were you close to Mildred?"

"As close as any other woman in town. She wasn't-she isn't a woman's woman. She's a man's woman who never married."

"So I gather. Wasn't William an illegitimate son?"

Mrs. Grimes nodded. "She had a long love affair with Felix Chantry, the man who developed the copper mine. William was his son."

"How well did you know William, Mrs. Grimes?"

"Paul and I saw quite a lot of him. He was a budding painter, too, before the army took him. Paul thought he had more potential talent than his brother Richard. He didn't live to develop it. He was murdered by an unknown hand in the summer of '43."

"The same summer that Richard and his wife went to California."

"The same summer," she repeated solemnly. "I'll never forget that summer. Mildred drove over from Tucson-she was living with a painter in Tucson then-and she drove over from there to view poor William's body in the morgue. Afterwards she came to my adobe, and as it turned out she spent the night. She was strong and healthy in those days, no more than forty, but the death of her son came as a terrible shock to her. She walked into my house like an old woman. We sat in the kitchen and killed a quart of bourbon between us. Mildred was a lively conversationalist most of the time, but that night she hardly said a word. She was completely used up. William was her only child, you know, and she really loved him."

"Did she have any idea who had killed him?"

"If she had, she didn't tell me. I don't think she had. It was an unsolved killing. It stayed that way."

"Do you have any thoughts on the subject, Mrs. Grimes?"

"I thought at the time it was one of those senseless killings. I still do. Poor William hitched a ride with the wrong party, and he was probably killed for the money in his pockets." She was looking intently into my face as if it were a clouded window. "I can see you don't believe that."

"It may be true. But it seems too easy. William may have hitched a ride with the wrong people, but I doubt that they were unknown to him."

"Really?" She leaned closer. The part in her hair was white and straight as a desert road. "You think William was deliberately murdered by someone he knew. What do you base that on?"

"Two things, mainly. Talking to the authorities about it, I got a feeling that they knew more than they were saying, that there may have been a deliberate or half-deliberate cover-up. I know that's vague. The other thing on my mind is even vaguer. However, I think I give it more weight. I've worked on several dozen murder cases, many of them involving multiple murders. And in nearly every case the murders were connected in some way. In fact, the deeper you go into a series of crimes, or any set of circumstances involving people who know each other, the more connectedness you find."

Her eyes were still intent on my face; I felt as if she were trying to look directly into my mind. "You believe that Paul's death the other night was connected with William Mead's death in 1943?"

"Yes. I'm working on that theory."

"Connected in what way?"

"I'm not sure."

"You think the same person killed both of them?" In spite of her age, she sounded like a young girl frightening herself with a story whose ending might frighten her more. "Who do you think it was?"

"I don't want to lead you. You seem to have known all the suspects."

"You mean you have more than one suspect?"

"Two or three."

"Who are they?"

"You tell me, Mrs. Grimes. You're an intelligent woman. You're probably acquainted with all the people involved, and you know more about them than I ever will."

Her breasts rose and fell rapidly with her breathing. In some way, I had touched and excited her. Perhaps she was feeling that something she said or did might after all make a difference to the world, or to her dead husband.

"Will I be quoted?" she said.

"Not by me."

"All right. I know something that very few people know. I got it from Mildred Mead."

"On the night when the two of you killed the bottle of bourbon?"

"No. Some time before that, not long after her son William was drafted. It must have been back in 1942. He got a girl pregnant and had to marry her, Mildred told me. But he was really in love with Richard Chantry's wife. And she was in love with William."

"Are you suggesting that Richard murdered William?"

"I'm telling you he had a motive, anyway."

"I thought you said that Richard Chantry was homosexual."

"Bisexual, like my husband. It doesn't rule anything out-I learned that the hard way."

"Do you think Richard killed your husband, too?"

"I don't know. He may have." She peered past me into the bright empty street. "Nobody seems to know where Richard is or what he's doing. As all the world knows, he's been gone for twenty-five years."

"Gone where? Do you have any ideas, Mrs. Grimes?"

"I have one. It struck me when I heard that Paul had been killed. I wondered if Richard was hiding out in Santa Teresa. And whether Paul had seen him, and been silenced." She hung her head, wagging it dolefully from side to side. "Those are terrible thoughts to have, but I've been having them."

"So have I," I said. "What does your daughter Paola think about all this? You said you talked to her on the phone."

Mrs. Grimes closed her teeth over her lower lip and looked away. "I'm afraid I don't know what she thinks. Paola and I don't communicate too well. Has she talked to you?"

"Soon after the murder. She was in shock to some extent."

"I'm afraid she still is. Would you be good enough to look her up when you go back to Santa Teresa?"

"I was planning to."

"Good. Would you take her some money from me? She says she's completely broke."

"I'll be glad to. Where is she staying?"

"The Monte Cristo Hotel."

"That sounds like swank."

"It isn't, though."

"Good." She gave me two twenties and a ten out of the cash register. "This should at least cover her rent for a couple of days."

The morning was running out. I went back to Southwestern Savings, which I found open now, and approached a bright-looking woman who sat at a desk by herself. The name-plate on the desk identified her as Mrs. Conchita Alvarez.

I told her my name. "I'm looking for a friend named Mildred Mead. I understand she does her banking here."

Mrs. Alvarez gave me a hard look that was almost tangible. She must have decided I wasn't a con man, because she nodded her shiny dark head and said, "Yes. She did. But she's moved to California."

"Santa Teresa? She often talked about moving there."

"Well, now she has."

"Can you give me an address for Mrs. Mead? I happen to be on my way to Santa Teresa. Mr. Biemeyer is flying me over in one of the company planes."

Mrs. Alvarez stood up. "I'll see what I can find."

She went through a door and was gone for some time. She came back looking rather disappointed.

"The only address I have for Miss Mead is a motel called Siesta Village. But that address is two months old."

"Is that where you're sending her mortgage payments?"

"No. I checked into that. She rented a P.O. box." Mrs. Alvarez looked at a slip of paper in her hand. "Number 121."

"In Santa Teresa?"

"In the main post office in Santa Teresa, yes."

I drove out to the airport and turned in my rented car. The company jet was already warming up, and Doris and Fred were in it. They were sitting in separate seats, Doris in the front behind the pilot's compartment and Fred in the back. There seemed to be no communication between them, perhaps because the sheriff was standing guard at the door.

He seemed relieved to see me. "I was afraid you weren't going to make it. I thought I'd have to make the trip to California myself."

"Has there been any trouble?"

"No." He turned a cold eye on Fred, who winced away. "I've got so I don't trust anybody under forty."

"I'm afraid I qualify for your trust."

"Yeah, you're more like fifty, aren't you? And I'll be sixty on my next birthday. I never thought it would happen, but I've started to look forward to retirement. The world is changing, you know."

But not fast enough, I thought. It was still a world where money talked, or bought silence.