The Blue Hammer

XXXIII

I parked at the head of Mrs. Chantry's street and walked down to her house. Fog was crawling up the barranca behind it. On the hill above, the Biemeyers' place was full of cold light. But Mrs. Chantry's house was dark and still.

I knocked on the front door. I must have half expected to find her dead, or gone, because her immediate response took me by surprise.

As if she'd been waiting there all night, she said through the door, "Who is that? Rico?"

I didn't answer her. We stood on opposite sides of the door in a long waiting silence. It was unevenly filled by the noise of the waves that mounted the beach like giant blundering footsteps and then slid back again.

"Who is that?" she said on a rising note.

"Archer."

"Go away."

"Should I go and get Captain Mackendrick?"

There was another silence, measured by the thumping, slumping footsteps of the sea. Then she unlocked the door and opened it.

There were no lights in the hallway or, so far as I could see, in the house. Against the interior darkness, her hair and her face were the same silvery color. She had on a high-necked dark dress, which suggested that she was a widow and made me wonder if she was.

"Come in if you must," she said in a small cold voice.

I followed her into the main room where her party had been held. She switched on a floor lamp above an armchair and stood beside it waiting. We faced each other in dead silence. Her party had left no echoes in the room.

Finally she said, "I know your type. You're one of these self-elected experts who can't keep his sharp little nose out of other people's business. You just can't bear to see them live their lives without your horning in, can you?"

She flushed, perhaps partly in anger. But what she was saying seemed to have other pressures behind it, too.

I said, "You call this a life that you're living? Covering up a murder for a man you haven't seen in twenty-five years. Sleeping with a boy-man like Rico to keep him quiet."

As if the lighting in the room had changed drastically, the color left her face and her eyes darkened.

"Nobody talks to me like that."

"You might as well get used to it. When the D.A.'s men make their case in Superior Court, they won't be mincing their words."

"The case will never get to court. There is no case." But her eyes were strained and questioning, trying to see over the sharp edge of the present.

"Come off it, Mrs. Chantry. Twenty-five years ago, a man was killed in this house. I don't know who he was but you probably do. Rico buried him in the greenhouse. Tonight, with some help from you, he dug up his bones and put them in a weighted sack. Unfortunately for both of you, I caught him before he threw them in the sea. Do you want to know where they are now?"

She turned her face away. She didn't want to know. Suddenly, as if her legs had collapsed, she sat down in the armchair. She covered her face with her hands and appeared to be trying to cry.

I stood and listened to her painful noises. Handsome as she was, and deep in trouble, I couldn't feel much sympathy for her. She had built her life on a dead man's bones, and death had taken partial possession of her.

As if our minds had been tracking each other, she said, "Where are the bones now?"

"Captain Mackendrick has them. He has your friend Rico, too. And Rico's been talking."

She sat and absorbed the knowledge. It seemed to make her physically smaller. But the hard intelligence in her eyes didn't fade.

"I think I can handle Mackendrick. He's ambitious. I'm not so sure about you. But you do work for money, don't you?"

"I have all the money I need."

She leaned forward, her ringed fists on her knees. "I'm thinking about quite a lot of money. More than you can ever accumulate in a lifetime. Enough to retire on."

"I like my work."

She made a bitter face, and succeeded in looking quite ugly. She struck her knees with her fists. "Don't play with me. I'm serious."

"So am I. I don't want your money. But you could try bribing me with information."

"Bribe you to do what, exactly?"

"Give you an even break if you've got one coming."

"All you want to do is play God, right?"

"Not exactly. I would like to understand why a woman like you, with everything going for her, would try to cover up a lousy murder."

"It wasn't a murder. It was an accident."

"Who committed the accident?"

"You don't believe me, do you?"

"You haven't given me anything to believe, or not to believe. All I know is that you and Rico dug up a dead man's bones; then you sent Rico to sink them in the sea. That was a foolish thing to do, Mrs. Chantry. You should have left them underground in the greenhouse."

"I don't think so. My mistake was getting Rico to handle it. I should have disposed of the body myself."

"Whose body was it, Mrs. Chantry?"

She shook her head as if the past were swarming like bees around her. "He was a stranger to me. He came to the house asking to see my husband. Richard shouldn't have seen him, and normally wouldn't have. But evidently the man's name meant something to him. He told Rico to send the man into his studio. And when I saw the man again, he was dead."

"What was the dead man's name?"

"I don't remember."

"Were you there when the dead man talked to Rico?"

"Yes, at least part of the time."

"And later when Rico buried the body?"

"I knew what was being done. I didn't participate in the burial."

"Rico said you ordered it."

"I suppose I did, in a sense. I was relaying my husband's wish."

"Where was your husband at the time of the burial?"

"He was in his studio, writing his farewell letter. It's a strange thing," she added after a moment. "He'd often spoken of taking off in that way. Dropping everything, starting a new, unencumbered life. And then the occasion came up, and he did just that."

"Do you know where he went?"

"No. I haven't heard from him since. Neither has anyone else, to my knowledge."

"Do you think he's dead?"

"I hope he isn't. He was-he is a great man, after all."

She let herself cry a little. She seemed to be trying to regain lost emotional ground, rebuilding the Chantry myth with the materials that came to hand, partly old and partly new.

"Why did he kill the man in the brown suit?"

"I don't know that he did. It may have been an accident."

"Did your husband claim it was an accident?"

"I don't know. We didn't talk about it. He wrote his letter and went."

"You have no idea how or why the man was killed?"

"None whatever."

"Your husband gave you no explanation at all?"

"No. Richard left in such a hurry there was no time for explanations."

"That isn't the way I heard it, Mrs. Chantry. According to Rico, you and your husband and the man in the brown suit did some talking in the studio. What were you talking about?"

"I don't remember that," she said.

"Rico does."

"He's a liar."

"Most men are, when they get into real trouble. So are most women."

She was losing her self-assurance, and anger seemed to be taking its place again. "Could you possibly spare me your generalizations? I've been through quite a lot in the last twenty-four hours and I don't have the strength to listen to a cheap private detective mouthing moral maxims."

Her voice was high, and she looked tormented.

I said, "You've been through quite a lot in the last twenty-five years. It'll go on and get worse unless you do something to end it."

She sat in silence for a while, her gaze turned inward on the unburied past. "End it how?" she said finally.

"Tell me what actually happened, and why."

"I have been."

"Not really, Mrs. Chantry. You've left out some of the most important things. Who the man in the brown suit was, and why he came here. The fact that he came here twice, and when he came here the second time-the time that he was killed-he had a woman and a small boy with him. The fact that you told Rico the man had a stroke and died more or less by accident."

She sat and absorbed this, too, like someone undergoing a rapid aging process. She didn't try to evade it or push it away. In a sense, it appeared to be what she had been waiting for.

"So Rico did a lot of talking," she said.

"All he had time for. You picked a lousy co-conspirator."

"I didn't pick him. He simply happened to be here." She looked me over carefully, as if perhaps I might be used to take Rico's place in her life. "I had no choice."

"People always have some kind of choice."

She hung her pretty head and brushed it with her hand in a desolate twisting gesture. "That's easy to say. Not so easy to act on."

"You have a choice to make now," I said. "You can cooperate with me-"

"I thought I had been."

"Some. But you're holding back. You can help me to sort out this case. And if you do, I'll make it as easy for you as I can."

"Don't do me any favors." But she was studying my face for the exact meaning of what I had said.

"You wouldn't be well advised," I said, "to go on trying to cover up for your husband. You could end up with your own share of a murder rap."

"It wasn't a murder. It was an accident. The man was in poor shape. My husband may have struck or pushed him. He had no intention of killing him."

"How do you know?"

"He told me. He wasn't lying."

"Did he tell you who the man was?"

"Yes."

"What was his name?"

She shook her head in a quick distracted movement. "I don't remember. He was simply a man my husband had known in the army. The man had been wounded in the Pacific, and spent some years in a veterans' hospital. When they finally released him, he came here to see my husband. Apparently he'd heard of Richards' success as a painter and came here to bask in reflected glory."

"Who were the woman and the little boy?"

"They were the man's wife and son. The second time he came, he brought them to meet my husband."

"Were they aware that your husband killed the man?"

"I don't know. I'm not even certain that that's what happened."

"But you assumed it."

"Yes. I had to. I kept waiting to hear from the woman. I hardly slept for weeks. But I never did hear from her. Sometimes I wonder if I imagined the whole thing."

"The bones Rico dug up aren't imaginary."

"I know that. I meant the woman and the little boy."

"What happened to them?"

"They simply went away-I don't know where. And I went on with my life as best I could."

There was self-pity in her voice, but she was watching me in cold surmise. The contours of her body appeared to be aware of me, more in resignation than anything else.

Below the house, the sea thumped and fumbled and slid like a dead man trying clumsily to climb back into life. I shivered. She touched my knee with her tapered fingers.

"Are you cold?"

"I suppose I am."

"I suppose I could turn on the heat." The smile that went with the offer lent it a double meaning, but it was forced.

"I won't be staying, Mrs. Chantry."

"I'll be all alone here."

She uttered a mock sigh, which ended on a note of genuine desolation. She seemed to be realizing how completely alone she was.

"You'll be having visitors before long."

Her hands came together and clenched. "You mean the police, don't you?"

"You can probably expect Mackendrick in the morning, if not before."

"I thought you were going to help me," she said in a small voice.

"I will if you let me. You haven't told me enough. And some of the things you've told me aren't true."

She gave me an angry look, but it was calculated and controlled. "I haven't been lying."

"Maybe not consciously. When you live a phony life for twenty-five years, it's possible to get a bit out of touch."

"Are you telling me I'm out of my mind?"

"More likely you're simply lying, to yourself as well as me."

"What did I say that wasn't true?"

"You said the dead man was an old army friend of your husband's. I happen to know that Chantry was never in the army. That one discrepancy casts doubt on your whole story."

She flushed and bit her lower lip and looked at me like a thief. "I was just talking loosely. I meant that the dead man had been in the army at the time they met. But of course Richard wasn't."

"Do you want to make some other corrections in your account?"

"If you'll tell me where I went wrong."

A spurt of anger went through me. "It isn't so funny, Mrs. Chantry. Several people have been killed. Others are in danger."

"Not from me. I've never injured anyone in my life."

"You've stood by and let it happen."

"Not by choice." She tried to project a look of candor, which failed to come off. "I don't know what happened between Richard and the dead man. I have no idea what their relationship actually was."

"I've been told your husband was bisexual."

"Really? This is the first I've heard of ft."

"Are you telling me he wasn't?"

"The question never came up. Why is it so important to you?"

"It may be an essential part of the case."

"I doubt it. Richard wasn't a very sexual man at all. He was more excited by his work than he ever was by me."

She made a doleful mouth and looked at me to measure its effect. For some reason, it made me angrier. I had had enough of the woman and her lies, enough of her truth as well. While I sat trading words with her, a woman I cared about was lost in the dangerous night.

"Do you know where Betty Siddon is?"

She shook her silver head. "I'm afraid I don't. Has something happened to Betty Jo?"

"She went looking for Mildred Mead and got lost herself. Do you know where I can find Mildred Mead?"

"No. I don't. She phoned me a few months ago, when she'd just come to town. But I didn't want to see her. I didn't want to stir up all the old memories."

"Then you should never have dug up those bones," I said.

She swore at me violently, damning me to hell. But the wish rebounded, almost as if she'd meant it for herself in the first place. A gray look of self-loathing dropped like a veil across her face. She covered it with her hands.

"Why did you dig them up?" I said.

She was silent for a while. Then she said behind her hands, "I simply panicked."

"Why?"

"I was afraid the place would be searched, and I would be blamed for the man's death."

She was watching me between her fingers, like a woman behind bars.

"Did somebody threaten you with exposure?"

She didn't answer. I took this to mean yes. "Who was it, Mrs. Chantry?"

"I'm not sure. She didn't come here. She phoned me last night and threatened to go to the police with what she knew. I think it was the woman who came here with the little boy the day the man was killed."

"What did she want from you?"

"Money." She dropped her hands: her mouth was twisted and her eyes were hard.

"How much?"

"She didn't specify. A large amount, I gather."

"When does she want it?"

"Tomorrow. She said she'd call me again tomorrow, and meanwhile I should raise all the money I could."

"Do you plan to do that?"

"I had planned to. But there's no point in it now, is there? Unless you and I can come to some arrangement."

She thrust her hands into her hair and held her head between them, chin high, like a work of art that she was offering for lease or outright sale.

I said, "I'll do what I can. But you can't keep Mackendrick out of this. If you can help him to close the case, he'll be grateful. I think you should get in touch with him right away."

"No. I need time to think. Will you give me until morning?"

"I will on one condition. Don't do anything rash."

"Like run away, you mean?"

"Like kill yourself."

She shook her head in a short angry movement. "I'm going to stay here and fight. I hope you'll be on my side."

I didn't commit myself. As I got up to leave, the eyes of Chantry's portraits seemed to be watching me from the shadowed walls.

Mrs. Chantry followed me to the door. "Please don't judge me harshly. I know I appear to be a wicked person. But I've really had very little choice about the things I've done, or left undone. My life wasn't easy even before my husband took off. And since then it's been a kind of shabby hell."

"With Rico."

"Yes. With Rico. I said I had no real choice."

She was standing close to me, her eyes hooded and calculating, as if she might be getting ready to make another unfortunate choice.

I said, "A young soldier named William Mead was murdered in Arizona over thirty years ago. He was the illegitimate son of Felix Chantry by Mildred Mead-your husband's half brother."

She reacted as though I had struck her and she was about to cry out. Her eyebrows rose and her lower lip dropped. For a moment, her face was open. But she didn't make a sound.

"Your husband left Arizona immediately afterwards, and there was some suspicion that he had killed William Mead. Did he?"

"Certainly not. What reason would he have?"

"I was hoping you could tell me. Weren't you quite close to William at one time?"

"No. Of course not."

But there was no conviction in her denial.