Undercurrent

Fifteen

Dawn had begun to streak the eastern sky by the time we got out to Spanish Bay, on the northwestern shore of the Monterey Peninsula. In the cold gray light the panoramic landscape of cypress and windswept, bone-white sand dunes had a hushed and primitive look, like a tiny portion of nature that had long ago been suspended in time. The sea beyond provided the only motion; it was a rippling gray-green, the combers high and capped with garlands of white froth as they crested and rolled downward in long, graceful sweeps to the beach.

Just after we began to skirt the boundary of the Asilomar Beach State Park, the small cluster of cars appeared among all that quiet beauty like a giant's thoughtlessly discarded litter. They were drawn close together near a low fan of cypress, two-thirds of the way along an unpaved lane that led toward the symmetrically spaced dunes and the splendor of the Pacific. Favor cut off the siren we had used to make time from Cypress Bay and took us down the lane. As we approached the cluster, I could distinguish five vehicles: a State Highway Patrol unit, an unmarked sedan, a Pacific Grove Police Department tow truck, a county ambulance, and Brad Winestock's faded-blue Studebaker. Both doors on the driver's side of the Studebaker were standing open, and several men were grouped in a tight knot nearby, talking among themselves and watching our arrival.

Favor pulled up behind the sedan, and the three of us got out into a wind that was chill and yet tinged with the spring warmth that would come with the rising sun. Four of the seven men on the scene were official: a local patrol investigator named Daviault, two patrol officers in uniform, and an assistant county coroner. The other three were a pair of ambulance attendants and the driver of the wrecker, who would tow Winestock's car into Pacific Grove or Monterey for the crime-lab technicians. Quartermain introduced me briefly to Daviault, and he accepted my presence without question.

He led us to the Studebaker, and we looked inside. Winestock was in the back, sprawled across the seat face up; his eyes were protuberant, with much of the whites showing-as if the impact of the bullets or the intensity of his dying had been enough to half pop them from their sockets. There was coagulated blood on the front of his windbreaker, and some on the seat beneath him-but altogether, very little. That, and the fact that both wounds were visibly centered on the upper part of his chest, said that he had died swiftly.

I turned away, dry-mouthed, and Quartermain asked the two uniformed patrolmen, "Were you the ones who found him?"

"Yes, sir," one of them said. "We were cruising Sunset Drive and we spotted the car down here; at first we thought it might be kids parked for the night, and we came down to chase them off. When we got close enough, we saw that it was the Studebaker on our pickup sheet. We found him inside there, just the way you see him."

"How long ago was that?"

"A little more than an hour."

"Did you check the hood then for engine heat?"

"Yes, sir. It was cold."

"Do you patrol this area regularly?"

"Once or twice a night."

"Had you been along here earlier?"

"No, sir. This was our first swing through."

Quartermain said to Daviault, "What about the gun?"

"No sign of it."

"Anything in the car?"

"Nothing unusual. Same for the trunk."

"Outside it?"

"No," Daviault said. "The road surface won't sustain tire impressions, as you can see."

"No leads at all then."

"Nothing we've been able to turn up so far."

Quartermain looked at the assistant coroner. "Can you make a preliminary guess as to how long he's been dead?"

"A rough guess, if that's what you want."

"I'll take it for now."

"From the temperature and condition of the body, I'd say no more than six hours, no less than three."

"Do you think he was killed in the car or somewhere else?"

"Difficult to tell. There are no exit wounds, so he's still carrying the two bullets inside him; no powder burns, so he was apparently shot at a distance. That might be significant, considering the close confines of the car. Then again, there's a little blood on the seat and he didn't bleed much after he was shot; death was likely instantaneous, or very close to it."

I moved away from the group and stood looking out to sea; I had heard all there was to hear for now, even though they were still talking it through. Some distance offshore, on a group of tiny rock islands, the dark shapes of cormorants and loons moved and fluttered and sat in sentinel-like motionlessness-and nearby a sleek black or brown sea lion came up out of the water like an iridescent phantom. The peach color of dawn had spread and modulated into soft gold, consuming the gray, and it would not be long before sunrise. It was going to be another fine spring day.

But the climate, as they say, was one of violence.

And pain, I thought. And grief. First Judith Paige-the rape of innocence. And now Beverly Winestock-the bitter fruits of too much family loyalty, and another kick in the groin for a woman who seemed to have been kicked too many times already. How many more were going to suffer? Yeah, how many more? Because it wasn't over yet, and two men were dead already, and Dancer was still missing, and murder and violence invariably beget murder and violence. The tremors beneath the surface of it all had gathered strength now, had become more volatile, had begun to foment further destruction, and you knew with a kind of fatalistic insight just what to expect before it was finally ended…

After a time Quartermain came over and said, "We'll be going now; there's nothing more for us here. We've got other things to do."

"All right," I said. I did not ask him what it was we had to do, because the answer was obvious. And it was nothing I cared to put into words just then; the contemplation of it was bitterly cheerless enough.

She opened the door and looked out at the three of us standing there under the bougainvilleaed arbor-and she knew. It was all there in our faces, unmistakable and irrefutable. Her right hand went out and clawed whitely at the doorjamb, supporting her weight there; her left hand came up to her throat, clutching at the neck of her quilted housecoat in that pathetic little gesture women involuntarily seem to make at such times. Her face was the color of winter slush and her eyes were sick little animals hiding in caves formed by ridges of bone and taut, purplish skin; she was no longer ethereal, no longer hauntingly beautiful, she was on old woman facing the loss of the only real loved one she had in the world. I could not look at her directly any longer. I turned my head away, with emptiness and helplessness heavy inside me; it was the way I had felt facing Judith Paige's grief and the way I would feel facing any grief at all. And I wondered why I had come, knowing what it would be like-why I had not stayed in the car, why I had not asked them to let me off at City Hall, why I did not get out of it and go the hell home.

Quartermain said gently, "May we come in, Miss Winestock?"

She just stood there, motionless, a chunk of gray stone wrapped in bright-colored quilt. Then her mouth and her throat worked, and she got the words free. She said, "It's Brad, isn't it? He's dead, isn't he?"

Hesitation. You never know what to say, or how to say it. So you pause-and when the pause becomes awkward you say it as Quartermain said it; you say, softly "I'm sorry."

"Oh God," she said. "Oh my God." She was still standing absolutely still: no hysterics, no tears. Just "Oh God, oh my God." And somehow, there in the cold dawn, it was worse than if she had fainted or cried or broken down completely.

There was more heavy silence, and then Quartermain said again, "May we come in, Miss Winestock? It would be better than trying to talk out here."

In mute answer she pushed herself away from the door-jamb and moved stiff-legged down the hall-an animated figurine, brittle and graceless. Favor, Quartermain, and I followed her through the archway and into the parlor. It was dark in there, with the curtains closed, and I touched the wall switch to chase away some of the shadows with suffused light from an overhead fixture. Beverly sat down on one of the chairs, her arms flat on the chair arms; her eyes seemed to be seeing inward instead of outward, glistening like rain puddles under a streetlamp.

We took seats here and there, and the silence grew and became awkward again. Quartermain cleared his throat, and she said "How did it happen?" in a flat, dull voice.

Quartermain answered simply, "He was shot."

The eyes closed, briefly. "Murdered, you mean?"

"Yes."

"Who did it? This bald man you keep asking about?"

"We don't know yet, Miss Winestock."

"But you think it might have been that man."

"There's a good chance of it, yes."

"Where did you find him-Brad?"

"Spanish Bay. In his car."

"I see. And you say he was shot?"

"Yes."

"Did he seem to have had much pain, can you tell me that?"

"No, I don't think he did. No."

"That's good," she said. "That's something anyway."

"Miss Winestock…"

"Can I see him? I'd like to see him."

"I'll have a car take you to Monterey. But there are some questions first. Do you feel up to answering a few questions?"

"Yes. All right"

"Were you telling the truth last night-that you didn't know where your brother had gone?"

"Yes."

"And about the bald man?"

"I don't know who he is. I'd tell you if I had any idea."

"Before he left, did your brother make any phone calls?"

She nodded. "One. Just after you'd gone."

"Did you hear any of the conversation?"

"No. I was out of the room and he spoke too softly."

"Then you don't know who he called, or what number?"

"No."

"He said nothing to you before he went out?"

"I asked him where he was going, I begged him to stay home. He wouldn't talk to me."

"Did he talk to you when he came home yesterday afternoon?"

"No. He was very nervous-afraid. He told me to leave him alone and then he started drinking, just sitting in here drinking by himself."

"Was he mixed up in the killing of Walter Paige?"

"I… I'm not sure. He didn't kill Walt, he wasn't capable of killing anyone. And he was home on Saturday; he told you that. I overheard part of your conversation with him."

"Do you think he knew who did kill Paige?"

"He might have. He was very afraid."

"He was involved in something, wasn't he? Something to do with Paige."

"Yes. Yes."

"What?"

"I don't know."

"You're holding something back," he said. "You've been holding something back all along. I think you'd better tell what it is, Miss Winestock."

She exhaled tremulously, and there were deep, shadowed hollows in her cheeks and her eyes seemed ringed in black in the room's pale light; she was a century old, sitting there, and aging more rapidly with each passing minute. "There's no point in not telling you now. It's too late now, isn't it?" She sighed again. "Brad let himself get talked into some kind of scheme of Walt Paige's; he was like a little boy, you could talk him into anything once you got him to listen to you. Walt called him on the phone several weeks ago-out of the blue, after six years-and Brad met him somewhere later on. I think he saw him on other occasions after that."

"Here in Cypress Bay?"

"Yes, as far as I know."

"Then you knew Paige had come back to the area, that he had been here off and on for several weeks."

"I suspected it."

"But you never saw Paige yourself?"

"No."

"Did you ask your brother what Paige wanted, why he had called after all those years?"

"Yes. Brad wouldn't tell me. But he talked about going away, about having enough money to buy a boat down in Florida and go island-hopping. That was always his dream, to have a boat of his own in the Florida Keys." She laughed emptily. "I think he got the idea from reading Hemingway."

"That's all he would tell you?"

"Yes. He seemed constantly excited, constantly on edge. It worried me. Brad was never… well, never too bright in addition to being easily swayed. I was afraid for him, knowing Walt Paige as I did."

"How do you mean that?"

"The kind of man Walt was-using people, not caring if they got hurt or not. And I always felt there was something a little… shady about him. He always had money and he didn't have a job." She seemed to remember that I was in the room, and turned her head slightly to glance at me. "When you told me yesterday that Walt had been in prison for four years, I was even more frightened for Brad. I thought it must have been some kind of crime or something that Walt had talked him into. That's why I didn't say anything about Brad's involvement. I wanted to protect him. I…"

She broke off, closing her eyes, and you could see her blaming herself-hating herself-for not having made some sort of saving decision in her brother's behalf. It was obvious that she had been protecting him for years in her own way, and now she had failed him and he was dead, he was gone forever. It was false logic, and maybe she would realize that later on, when some of the shock wore off; maybe she would fashion another thick layer of skin, as she seemed to have fashioned one on top of the other at past injustices, and go on spitting in life's eye. Maybe she would.

Quartermain was saying, "Did your brother ever mention Russell Dancer's book The Dead and the Dying?"

"No," Beverly said. "I'd never even heard of it until yesterday morning. Could it… is it really important somehow?"

"It's important, but we don't know how just yet," Quartermain told her. He paused. "Would you mind if we looked around the house-in your brother's room?"

"No, I don't mind," dully. "But there's nothing for you to find. Brad has some books in his room, but they're mostly westerns-and Hemingway. He loved Hemingway, even though I'm sure he never really understood any of the writing. Isn't that strange?"

Quartermain said softly, "Would you show Lieutenant Favor the location of your brother's room?"

"Yes, all right."

Favor helped her up, steadying her with his arms, looking as if he wished to God he was a long, long way from this room and this house; I knew exactly how he felt. They went out through the archway, with Beverly still moving in that brittle, graceless way. Momentarily I could hear them climbing stairs to the second floor.

Quartermain and I began to prowl the parlor, the hall, the kitchen, a dining room, a small sitting room; no copies of Dancer's book-no books at all-and nothing pointing to the balding man or Paige or anyone else connected with the case. We came back into the parlor, and Quartermain said, "Well, what do you think?"

"About her story? I think it's the truth, Ned. She's too grief-stricken to be an effective liar, and to hold anything else back. But she hasn't given us a great deal except confirmation of her brother's involvement with Paige and of a scheme between the two of them, and we both pretty much suspected that. The bald guy's mixed up in the scheme, too, and so is the book."

"Some kind of crime, she said. That could be what this whole thing is about-a felony of one type or another, with profit as the motive."

"It's beginning to look that way," I agreed. "But it could be just about any kind of felony. The book's back cover blurb didn't mention any specific crime except murder-and there was nothing in those first five pages I read."

He went over to one of the wall murals and brooded at it until, finally, Favor and Beverly came down the stairs and entered the parlor again. She had put on a dark skirt and blouse and thrown a coat over her shoulders. She had not bothered with her hair-it was still piled loosely on top of her head-and there was still no make-up on her wide mouth; you do not think about personal appearance at a time like this.

Favor came over to where Quartermain and I were standing. "I went through his room and hers, too, after she'd finished dressing. No sign of Dancer's book; two westerns by him, recent issue, but that's all."

"What about an address book-like that?"

Favor shook his head. "If he had anything that might lead to the bald man, he didn't keep it in his room."

"Or anywhere else in the house."

Beverly said, "I'd like to see Brad now, please." The sorrow in her face was stark and piteous. "There's nothing else I can tell you, there's nothing else that I know."

"All right, Miss Winestock."

He used her phone to call Donovan and request a patrol unit to escort her to Peninsula Community Hospital in Monterey, where Winestock's body had been taken. We waited for the car in silence, and it came in ten long minutes, and the four of us went out and down the steps into the bright morning with Beverly trying to hide her trembling hands in the pockets of her coat. At the patrol car Favor said, "It might be a good idea if I went along, Ned," and looked meaningly at Quartermain.

"So it might," he agreed, thinking-as Favor was, as I was too-that it would be easier on her if she had a little more authority at her side to get her in and out of the hospital morgue as quickly as possible. Favor was some cop, and some man; as much as he hated confronting Beverly's grief, he was willing to face it for another hour or two to help ease some of her pain.

He helped her into the patrol car, and it pulled away, and a few moments later Quartermain and I were on our way back to City Hall. The image of Beverly's tragic face was still with me, and I felt a sudden wish that there had been something meaningful for each of us at our first meeting yesterday-some kind of attraction, some kind of magic. But then I thought about Cheryl Rosmond and her brother and how it had been for us afterward, and I knew it was far, far better that there had been nothing after all.