The Blue Hammer

XXXVIII

I drove uptown to the newspaper office. Betty had not been heard from. Her friend Fay Brighton was red-eyed. She told me she had had one call that had made her suspicious, but the woman who called had left neither name nor number.

"Was it a threatening call?"

"I wouldn't say that exactly. The woman sounded worried. She wanted to know if Betty was all right. I asked her why she wanted to know, and she hung up on me."

"When did the call come in?"

"This morning about ten o'clock. I shouldn't have let the woman rattle me. If I'd handled her with more tact, she might have told me more."

"Did you get the impression she knew something?"

She thought about the question. "Yes, I did. She sounded scared-guilty, maybe."

"What kind of a woman was she?"

"I've been trying to figure that out. She talked intelligently, like a professional woman. But her voice was a little different." She hesitated, in a listening attitude. "She may have been a black woman, an educated black."

It took me a minute to remember the name of the black nurse at the La Paloma. Mrs. Holman. I borrowed Mrs. Brighton's phone directory and looked for the name Holman, but there was no listing under it.

I needed a black connection. The only one I could think of in the city was the proprietor of the liquor store where I had bought two half-pints of whisky for Jerry Johnson. I went there, and found him on duty behind the counter.

"Some Tennessee whisky?" he said.

"I can always use some."

"Two half-pints?" He smiled indulgently over my eccentricity.

"I'll try a whole pint this time."

While he was putting the bottle in a bag, I asked him if he knew a nurse named Mrs. Holman. He gave me an interested look that was careful not to stay on my face too long.

"I may have heard of her. I wouldn't say I know her. I know her husband."

"She's been looking after a friend of mine," I said. "At the La Paloma nursing home. I was thinking of giving her a little present."

"If you mean this"-he held the bottle up-"I can deliver it."

"I'd rather do that in person."

"Whatever you say. Mrs. Holman lives near the corner of Nopal and Martinez. Third house up from the corner-there's a big old pepper tree in front of it. That's five blocks south of here and one block over toward the ocean."

I thanked him and paid him for the whisky and drove south. The pepper tree was the only spot of green in a block of one-story frame houses. Under its lacy shadow, several small black children were playing in the wheelless body of a 1946 Chevrolet sedan.

Mrs. Holman was watching them from the porch. She started when she saw me and made an involuntary movement toward the door. Then she stood with her back to it and tried to smile at me, but her eyes were somber.

"Good morning," I said.

"Good morning."

"Are these your children?"

"One of them is." She didn't tell me which one. "What can I do for you, sir?"

"I'm still looking for Miss Siddon. I'm worried about her. I thought maybe you were, too."

"I don't know where you got that idea," she said blankly.

"Didn't you call the newspaper office this morning?"

She looked past me at the children. They were silent and still, as if the feathery shadow of the pepper tree had become oppressive.

"What if I did?" she said.

"If you can do that, you can talk to me. I'm not trying to pin anything on you. I'm trying to find Betty Siddon. I think she may be in danger, and you seem to think so, too."

"I didn't say that."

"You don't have to. Did you see Miss Siddon last night at the La Paloma?" She nodded slowly. "I saw her."

"When was that?"

"It was still the early part of the evening. She came to visit Mrs. Johnson, and the two of them went into a huddle in one of the empty rooms. I don't know what they were talking about, but it ended up with both of them walking out of there together. They drove off in Miss Siddon's car without a word to me."

"So Mrs. Johnson went home twice last night?"

"I guess she did."

"The police were at the La Paloma when Mrs. Johnson came back there. Isn't that right?"

"I guess they were."

"You know very well they were. And they must have told you what they were looking for."

"Maybe they did. I don't remember." Her voice was low. She was still, and very ill at ease.

"You must remember, Mrs. Holman. The cops were looking for Mildred Mead and Betty Siddon. They must have asked you about them."

"Maybe they did. I'm tired. I've got a lot on my mind and I had a rough night."

"You could have a rougher day."

She flared up. "Don't you dare threaten me."

The children in the Chevrolet were still and frightened. One of them, a little girl whom I guessed to be Mrs. Holman's, began to weep quietly into her hands.

I said to the little girl's mother, "Don't you dare lie to me. I've got nothing against you. I don't want to put you in the slammer. But that's where you'll end up if you don't tell the truth."

She looked past me at the weeping child. "Okay," she said, "okay. Mrs. Johnson asked me not to tell the police about either of them being there-Miss Mead _or_ Miss Siddon. I knew then there was trouble coming up. I might have known it would end up on my doorstep."

She brushed past me and climbed into the Chevrolet. I left her there with her daughter in her lap, and the other children silent around her.