The Blue Hammer

XXXV

The magnolia tree hung like a tethered cloud over the court to which it had given its name. There was light in only one of the small cottages, shining dimly through drawn blinds. I tapped on the screen door.

I heard a movement behind it, and then a breathing silence. A woman's voice finally said, "Who is that?"

"My name is Archer. I'm a private detective working for Jack Biemeyer."

"Then you can go plumb to hell," she said quietly. "But before you do you can go back and tell Jack Biemeyer to do the same."

"I'll be glad to, Miss Mead. I don't like that s.o.b. either." She opened the inner door, a small and dainty figure against the light. "What did you say your name was?"

"Lew Archer."

"Did Jack Biemeyer send you here?"

"Not exactly. He had a picture stolen-a painting of you. I thought you might be able to help me trace it."

"How did Jack know I was here? I haven't told a living soul."

"Paola Grimes sent me."

"I see. I should have known better than to let her into my house." Her body had stiffened as if she were getting ready to slam the door in my face. "She's a bad-luck member of a bad-luck family."

"I talked to her mother, Juanita, this morning in Copper City. She sent her best wishes to you."

"Did she? That's nice."

I had said the right thing. She moved to unlatch the outer door. Until then, she hadn't shown her age. She was lame, and her hips moved awkwardly. I was reminded of certain kinds of pelagic birds that move at ease in the air or on the ocean, but have a hard time walking.

Her white head was like a bird's. It was sparse and elegant, with hollow cheeks, a thin straight nose, eyes that still had distance and wildness. She caught me looking at her, and smiled. One of her front teeth was missing. It gave her a gamine touch.

"Do you like my looks? I can't say they've improved with age."

"That's true."

She went on smiling. "Who would want them to? My looks got me into more trouble. I don't mean to complain. A woman can't have everything in her life. I traveled a lot-first class a good deal of the time. I knew some talented and famous men."

"I met one of them in Tucson yesterday."

"Lashman?"

"Yes."

"How is he?"

"Getting old. But he's still painting. As a matter of fact, when I left him he was working on another portrait of you."

She was silent for a moment. Her head was poised and her eyes were empty. "The way I am now, or the way I was?"

"The way you were."

"Of course, it would have to be. He hasn't seen me since I got really old." She talked about herself as if she were an object of art that unfortunately hadn't been made to last-a Japanese flower arrangement or a song by a composer who didn't know musical notation. "But that's enough about me. Tell me about Juanita."

She sat in an armchair under a standing lamp, and I sat facing her. I gave her a brief report on Juanita Grimes, then on Juanita's ex-husband, Paul, and his death.

She seemed shocked by the knowledge. "I can't believe Paul Grimes is dead. He was here just the other day, with his daughter."

"So she told me. I understand he wanted you to authenticate a painting of you."

"That was the general idea. Unfortunately I couldn't place it. All he had was a small photograph of it, and I've been painted so many times I lost track long ago. As a matter of fact, I've got very bored with pictures, especially pictures of my own face. I haven't hung any pictures since I moved in, though I've got a ton of them in the back room." She waved her fingers at the bare walls. "It's no fun being reminded of what you've lost."

"I know that. But would you mind taking another look at a photograph of a picture?"

"A picture of me?"

"I think so. It's the same picture that Paul Grimes was interested in."

I got out my photograph of the painting and handed it to her. She held it up to the light and studied it. Then she let out a little wordless grunt of recognition.

"Have you seen it before, Miss Mead?"

"This is the third time I've seen it. The second time tonight. But I still can't say for sure who painted it, or when. It looks like a Chantry, all right, but I don't remember him painting it."

"It's been suggested that it was a memory picture, one you never sat for-maybe done quite recently."

"That's what the young woman was saying this evening."

"What young woman?"

"The girl from the local paper. I told her I don't give interviews. But she was very persistent and I finally let her come. I must admit she was nice enough. I wasn't much help to her, though."

"Was her name Betty Siddon?"

"That's it. Betty Siddon. Do you know her?"

"I've been trying to get in touch with her. Did she tell you where she was going from here?"

"She said something about a beach-Sycamore Beach?"

"Sycamore Point?"

"I guess that was it. Anyway, the man who sold the picture to Paul Grimes drowned in the ocean there the other day. What was his name?"

"Jake Whitmore. He didn't drown in the ocean, though. He was drowned in fresh water, probably in somebody's bathtub."

Without intending to, I had succeeded in shocking her. The life and color drained from her face. Its bones still made it handsome, though her eyes had gone as dead as any statue's.

Her pale mauve mouth said, "This Whitmore was murdered, too?"

"The police and the coroner think so."

"Jesus." She was breathing like a runner.

"Can I get you some water, Miss Mead?"

"Got something better than that." She pointed at a cabinet against the wall. "There's a fifth of Jack Daniel's in there. And glasses. Pour yourself one, too. I take mine straight. Double."

I got out the whisky and poured her a double shot and myself a single. She took hers in a single gulp. She asked for another double. I poured it, and she drank it. I watched the color rise in her face.

"Drink yours down," she said. "I hate to drink alone."

I wondered if she was an alcoholic, and decided she probably was.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she said. "Do I look funny? Do my eyes look funny?"

"No. They look fine."

"Then quit staring at me like that."

"I'm sorry. I have to leave, anyway."

"You're interested in that Siddon girl, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am. You're a mind reader."

"I know men," she said. "Isn't she a little young for you?"

"Maybe. How long ago was she here?"

"I didn't look at the time. It was early in the evening."

"How did she find you?"

"She called the-" The old woman's mouth clamped shut. After a short period of strained silence, she said, "I have no idea."

"You were going to say she called somewhere."

"Was I? Then you know more than I do. I must have been thinking about something else. Don't let me keep you-you say you have to go. Just leave that bottle where I can reach it, will you?"

She touched the table beside her chair with one of her wrinkled white hands. I said, "I'm not leaving yet."

"I wish you would. I'm very tired. Anyway, I've told you all I know."

"I seriously doubt that, Miss Mead. When I was in Arizona, I stumbled into some very interesting facts. Back in the early forties, your natural son William was killed by someone and buried in the desert."

Her face grew paler and longer. "Juanita Grimes always did talk a lot."

"She wasn't my main source. Your son's murder was and is public knowledge. I talked to the man who discovered his body and investigated his death. Sheriff Brotherton."

"So?"

"Aren't you interested in who killed your son?"

"It doesn't matter now," she said. "What difference can it possibly make? He's dead. He's been dead for over thirty-two years."

"But I think the man who killed him is still alive."

"How can you know that?*"

"I feel it in my bones. Not that there isn't plenty of evidence. There have been other deaths. Paul Grimes, Jacob Whitmore. And the man whose remains were dug up tonight in Richard Chantry's greenhouse."

She tried to speak, and succeeded on her second attempt. "What man?"

"He hasn't been identified yet, but he will be. He came to Chantry's house about twenty-five years ago with a woman and a little boy. There was an argument, and a fight between him and Chantry. According to the account I heard, the man fell down and hit his head and died. The Chantrys buried him."

"Did Mrs. Chantry tell you this?" she said.

"Some of it."

Her eyes widened while the rest of her face had tightened and thinned. She looked like a kestrel or some other small bird of prey.

"What else did Mrs. Chantry tell you?"

"That was the gist of it. What else was there to tell?"

"I'm asking you," she said.

"But I think you're the one who knows the answer. Why did Jack Biemeyer buy you the house in Chantry Canyon?"

"Because I asked him to."

"Jack Biemeyer isn't that generous."

"He was to me, in those days." A little color came into her face and gathered on her cheekbones. "I admit he hasn't improved with age. But then neither have I."

"I suggest that Biemeyer bought you that house on behalf of the Chantry family. Or possibly they gave it to you, by way of him, for nothing."

"What reason would they have to do that?"

"To keep you quiet about your son William's murder."

"William's death was public knowledge. What was there to be quiet about?"

"Who killed him. I think it was Richard Chantry. He left Arizona for California right after the murder and never went back. The case against him was quashed, or never developed. If you had any suspicions, you kept them to yourself."

She shook her head. "You don't know me. I loved my son. When they showed me William's body, I almost died myself. And don't forget he was a Chantry, too. Felix Chantry was his natural father. And there was no bad blood between William and Richard."

"Then why did Richard leave Arizona immediately after William's death?"

"I don't know. Perhaps he was afraid of being murdered, too."

"Did he say that?"

"I never discussed it with him. As a matter of fact, I haven't seen Richard since then."

"Since William's death?"

"That's right. I haven't seen Richard once in thirty-two years. Nobody's seen him in the last twenty-five years. And I didn't find out why until tonight, from you." She moved restlessly, and looked at the bottle beside her. "If you're planning to stay around for a while, you might as well pour me another. And yourself, too."

"No, thanks. I have a few more questions, and that should do it. I understand that when your son William was killed he left behind a wife and a small son."

Her eyes changed as if she were looking inward and downward into the past. "I believe he did."

"You mean you don't know?"

"I've been told about them. I've never seen them."

"Why not?"

"It wasn't through any wish of mine. They simply dropped out of sight. I did hear a rumor that the woman, William's widow, married another man and changed the boy's name to his."

"Do you know the name?"

"I'm afraid I don't. They never contacted me."

"Do you think they contacted Richard Chantry?"

She looked away. "I wouldn't know about that."

"The woman and the little boy who came to Chantry's house twenty-five years ago-could they have been William's widow and son?"

"I don't know. It seems to me you're really reaching."

"I have to. It's all a long way back in the past. Do you have any idea who the man was-the man who got himself killed and buried in the greenhouse?"

"I haven't the slightest."

"Could it have been your son William?"

"You must be crazy. William was killed in Arizona in 1943-seven years before that."

"Did you see his body?"

"Yes."

"I understand it was pretty chewed up. Were you able to make a positive identification?"

"Yes. I was. My son William died thirty-two years ago."

"What happened to his body after you identified it?"

"I don't know exactly."

"That's surprising."

"Is it? He had a wife in California, you know. She wanted his body shipped back here for final burial. And I had no objections. Once a man is dead, he's dead. It doesn't matter where he's finally planted."

Her voice was rough and careless, and I got the impression that she was deliberately violating her own feelings.

As if she realized this, she added, "I want my own body cremated-it won't be long now-and the ashes scattered on the desert near Tucson."

"Near Lashman's?"

She looked at me with irritation, and renewed interest. "You know too damn much."

"You tell me too damn little, Mildred. Where _was_ your son William buried?"

"Someplace in California, I was told."

"Did you ever visit his grave?"

"No. I don't know where it is."

"Do you know where his widow lives now?"

"No. I never was much interested in family. I left my own family in Denver when I was fourteen years old, and never went back. I never looked back, either."

But her eyes were in long focus now, looking back over the continent of her life. She may have been feeling what I felt, the subterranean jolt as the case moved once again, with enough force to throw a dead man out of his grave.