by Gwen Moffat
‘We’ll have to watch people. It’s a good time for poachers to take advantage.’
‘With the police here?’ Ingrid was sceptical.
‘Hunters aren’t bothered with police, and there’s going to be a lot of coming and going, possibly at night. How do we know, if we hear a truck or see lights in the distance, whether it’s hunters or just another police vehicle? I’ll have to speak to Tony and Hal, see that they’re on their toes.’
Emma asked coolly: ‘Are the police suggesting we don’t travel?’ They all looked at her. ‘When they do that,’ she explained, ‘you know you’re a suspect.’
Chadwick sighed, Nielsen was indulgent; Ingrid asked: ‘Has there been any hint that Stuart might want to interview us?’
Her husband blinked. ‘Why should he? He gets all he wants—and more—from Melinda and me. What could you tell him?’
‘Like Emma, I wondered when they were going to get around to suspecting us—overtly, I mean.’
He gaped, then turned to Miss Pink for assistance. She shook her head helplessly. ‘I’m going to Calcine,’ she said.
‘Like two days ago?’
‘Impossible. We know far too much.’
Far too much had happened. For one thing the police had been everywhere before her, or almost everywhere, and doing a better job insofar as they were technically better equipped. But she had no intention of duplicating their questions and their movements; what she had in mind was a tracing of Donna’s route last Monday evening.
With a population of around 5000 Calcine was a small place to be a county seat but then it was a desert county; you couldn’t expect a metropolis. She made a few purchases: tissues, a blue workman’s shirt which she considered dashing, newspapers: objects to be cast on the rear seat to substantiate a story of shopping in Calcine, if she were in need of a story. Newspapers made her think uneasily about reporters. They had seen none at Sweetwater but that was to be expected; the dead girls had no obvious links with Sweetwater.
There was no mention of Donna and Bunny in the big city papers; it was only when she came to the Hi-Desert Bulletin that she found considerable coverage devoted to the ‘accident’ on the pass. The Bulletin was a weekly paper, published two days ago, and the account seemed curiously out-dated—although this was what most people had concluded at the time: that the bodies in the wreck were those of two girls who had been staying at the El Dorado motel in Molten. ‘Nice girls,’ Muriel Webber was quoted as saying. ‘No trouble.’ No boy friends to her knowledge, no unexplained telephone calls. Mrs Webber had risen to the occasion.
Miss Pink drove out of town in the early afternoon and took the road to Molten, thus retracing her route of eight days ago. The first impression she had on leaving the mobile homes behind was not amazement at the drama that had erupted since she was last on this stretch of road but of how different her surroundings seemed today. A week ago she had regarded form, light and colour without comprehension. Now she looked and noted: the flick of wings that was a burrowing owl slipping through the creosote, the speck in the sky that could be a hawk and might well be an eagle, the vast expanse of desert with its low fringe of mountains: a strange desert but no longer an alien country.
There were quite a few cars on the road today, in both directions. She remembered that it was Saturday and guessed that Calcine people might be visiting their cabins at Molten. If the police were on their toes, they would have suggested such visits; it would ease their job of trying to determine if the places had been occupied recently by someone who had no right to be there. But it would be too simple, too pat, if it was discovered that both Janice and a psychopathic stranger had been occupying one of the more remote cabins.… However, there was something in this, thought Miss Pink, sitting in the shade of a tamarisk in the middle of the first desert and half a mile from the road, just to feel what another and unfamiliar desert was like. Those cabins were too handy: unvisited during the week, easily broken into, at night hiding a car if it were judiciously parked behind a rear wall. Without doubt Stuart would have thought of this, and his men would be there now, studying padlocks and door jambs.
She stopped on the pass where Donna’s car had left the road. The wreck was still there, some fifty feet below the highway, the verge above it a confusion of tracks and footprints. The forensic examination would have been conducted on the spot rather than undertaking the expensive business of raising what was left of the car and transporting it to Calcine.
She walked up the road for a few hundred yards, stopped, and faced downhill. Below her now was the sharp bend where the car had left the road. She had changed direction. Until this moment she had been retracing a route that Donna took voluntarily on Monday night, not drunk but not sober either: heading for Molten with the idea of collecting Bunny and doing a moonlight flit while everyone was asleep. But as she stood above the bend, blinking at the stretch of tarmac that vanished suddenly and, in context, alarmingly, she remembered that, although she was still mentally retracing Donna’s route, the circumstances had changed. From Calcine to Molten Donna was driving; at this point, in the other direction, she was being driven, and she was dead. Who was the person who had looked down this stretch of tarmac that Monday night or early Tuesday morning? And when and where had Janice entered the picture? Was one killed because of the other? Because of the other’s death? A link. There had to be a link between the two girls: Donna and Janice.
Bertha Fraser regarded Miss Pink without hostility. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Karen knew those two girls. I stopped her working there. She was getting too friendly.’
‘She told me that.’
‘She’s too confiding.’
‘It served her in good stead this time. Once she’d confided in me I advised her to tell you what was on her mind.’
‘That did good?’ Bertha’s mouth stretched in a rictus.
Miss Pink said firmly: ‘It may have restored Karen’s balance: telling you and her father. I suspect she already had some idea what might have happened.’
Bertha considered this in silence, her eyes hooded, her face sullen, but her heavy features were the type that would always look sullen until she smiled, if she smiled.
They were in the store. There was no sign of Karen, but when she stopped her car on the forecourt, Miss Pink had caught sight of a movement in the back of the garage. There were several vehicles outside the motel. In the store she had made no attempt to buy anything but had gone straight to Bertha Fraser who was transferring tins of meat from a carton to the shelves. She had offered her condolences which had been accepted without expression
‘Where is Karen now?’ Miss Pink asked.
‘She’s in Salt Lake City.’ Miss Pink said nothing. ‘We sent her ahead,’ Bertha went on. ‘We’re leaving too. We got a buyer for everything.’
‘You’re going to Salt Lake City?’
‘That’s where I come from. It’s time we went back, all of us. Past time.’
Miss Pink gave a vague smile and walked through the store and by way of the connecting door to the garage. She did not close the door.
Orville Fraser stood in the middle of the garage, clutching a spanner, his eyes fixed on Miss Pink until they flickered, just momentarily, to the doorway behind her, and back.
‘What was your reaction when your wife sent them to Sweetwater?’ Miss Pink asked.
Now when his eyes moved they remained fixed on the doorway. Miss Pink did not turn round. ‘A man died,’ she said. ‘You carry your grudges to extremes in Molten.’
His free hand rose and wiped his mouth. Above it his eyes were naked. From the doorway Bertha said: ‘They deserve all they get.’
Still facing Fraser Miss Pink said: ‘Death? A slow death in the blizzard? They deserve that?’
‘No!’ Fraser exclaimed. ‘She didn’t mean that. She meant the Sweetwater people. They have everything and we got nothing; that’s what she meant.’
‘Oh, come.’ Miss Pink turned to include Bertha in this exchange. ‘You have
two businesses, a house, plenty to eat, and now you will no doubt get a reasonable price for your property.’
‘And one daughter left,’ Bertha reminded her.
‘The Nielsens have lost both their sons.’ Miss Pink happened to be looking at Fraser when she said this and she saw a look of astonishment on his face—but then grief, by its very nature, is self-centred.
‘Possessions aren’t no good to anyone when they’re gone,’ Bertha said, and there was no mistaking the desolation in her tone. ‘With all his land he’s just as poor as us. What’s it matter whether he’s got sons to leave it to, or a wife, or it goes to the state? I used to think it were wicked, him having all that: a millionaire, and us drinking bad water at Molten.’ She looked at her husband meaningly. ‘I guess we’re all as poor as each other now.’
‘Resentment of the Nielsens is reasonable,’ Miss Pink said, ‘particularly in view of the water, more so when one considers a radioactive dump; I can understand all that, but why pick on Emma Chadwick?’
Fraser looked at his feet. Bertha said: ‘I don’t understand you.’
‘Why did you send the mobsters to Emma?’
‘I didn’t know they were mobsters.’
‘Of course you did. Men wearing guns are either police or criminals.’
Bertha shrugged. ‘So I knew. It was time Sweetwater had trouble. All we got here is trouble.’
‘But why send them to Mrs Chadwick?’
‘Mrs Chadwick?’ There was wonder in her tone as she rolled the name round her tongue. ‘They were asking for the two hookers, the dead ones, so I sent them to—Mrs Chadwick.’
Miss Pink said patiently: ‘Meaning you thought she knew the dead girls? Or was that the first name that came to mind? Why didn’t you say Mrs Nielsen, why didn’t you tell them to ask for Ingrid, that she might tell them what had happened to the two girls?’
‘Mrs Nielsen wouldn’t have known them,’ Bertha said thoughtfully, ‘but Mrs Chadwick had to: I mean, you got a whore at Sweetwater, two of ’em up here, there’d have to be contact, wouldn’t there? Anyways—’ she smiled, and the smile was quite engaging, but the eyes were flooded with pain, ‘—it was worth a try. Just call it devilment if you like; there was nothing personal, you understand. She can do what she likes at Sweetwater: with Sweetwater men, white and red; what I was doing was just getting rid of some varmints. ’Course I knew they were mobsters; I sent ’em where one person would give ’em a welcome, sure enough.’
The return to Sweetwater was without incident. There was no sign of Hammer as she passed his road-end, and she met no one travelling east—for which she was devoutly grateful. She arrived at the ranch in good time for dinner. The contrast of today’s journey compared with the events of the previous two days was marked, and surprising. But the day had not been uneventful for everyone.
When she had bathed and changed and descended to the terrace to drink sherry, determined to enjoy the sunset whatever might be happening elsewhere, she was diverted by the behaviour of Simon Chadwick.
His hands were shaking so much when he handed her a drink that the sherry slopped on her thigh. ‘Oh, my God!’ he gasped, and blundered into the house.
She looked at the dark patch on brown linen and shrugged; it would scarcely mark, someone could wash it tomorrow, there was no call for drastic measures, certainly not for drama. But Chadwick had not rushed away for water and cloths; after five minutes it was obvious that he was not coming back.
Chapter 13
Ingrid stepped out on the stone flags and glanced around as she greeted Miss Pink. ‘Where’s Simon?’
‘He was here a moment ago.’
‘Never mind. I’ll get my own drink. May I freshen yours?’
Miss Pink declined. Ingrid went into the dining room and returned with a large gin.
‘Has anything happened today?’ Miss Pink asked.
‘Not to my knowledge. Why?’
‘Simply that a quiet day seems unnatural, considering. One might wonder: the calm before the storm?’
‘What else could happen now? The police are tying loose ends, so Jack says. He’s keeping in touch now that he’s friendly with Stuart again—or at least not actively hostile despite the business with Bunny Kraus. There was an autopsy on the dead gangster: he died of hypothermia; Jack says because his friend stole his clothes. However. They came from St Louis, by the way, and Snyder gave you their correct names, although he’d know that once they were in police hands, they’d be traced by their finger prints. Both the men had records as long as your arm, mostly armed robbery as I remember, but Snyder is reputed to be a hit man.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me.’
‘Nor Jack. That poor girl: if she’d escaped one killer, the next one would have got her. What ghastly lives they lead.’ For a moment Ingrid looked drawn then she went on: ‘All the rest is routine. They’re trying to trace the girls’ customers. Can you imagine? Truckers, salesmen, miners, all the people who knew them in St Louis—or the ones who knew Donna Aragon. And now it appears she should be Sharleen Mullins. What bizarre names they dream up—although Mullins smacks of authenticity. Bog Irish?’
‘Originally perhaps. She had that exquisite beauty that you sometimes see in a Dublin girl and you think she must be from the country.’
There was a pause until Ingrid asked brightly: ‘What did you do today?’
‘I did some shopping. And stopped in Molten to ask Bertha Fraser why she sent Snyder and Moss to Emma. “Why Emma?” I asked. “Why not Ingrid?” ’
Ingrid was intrigued. ‘What did she say to that?’
‘She said you wouldn’t have known prostitutes.’
‘The inference being that Emma did. The impertinence of it! Jack, did you hear what Melinda just said?’
Nielsen had come quietly along the terrace. He sat down and looked about him. ‘No.’ Evening, Melinda. Had a good day? Where’s Simon? What’s that, my dear?’
‘The woman at the gas station told those mobsters to ask for Emma because she said Emma would have known the girls they were looking for. She told Melinda that.’
‘Damned impertinence!’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘Where’s Simon?’
‘I don’t know. Let me get your drink.’
He watched her impatiently. ‘And where’s Emma?’ he grumbled. ‘Everyone’s missing tonight.’ Miss Pink sipped her sherry and regarded the sunset. He continued as if he were comforting himself: ‘I don’t think the Indians are coming in for more attention than anyone else.’
‘That will be a relief for you. So Stuart puts no special significance on the Molten Indians disappearing?’
‘No; they drift away like animals when conditions become uncongenial.’ Ingrid returned with his whisky. ‘He’s not seriously considering any Indian,’ he went on, addressing his wife. ‘Would Indians go to white hookers? Surely not.’
‘My God, now you think I’m an authority on prostitution?’
‘Don’t be obtuse. I’m asking for your opinion of the hands.’
‘Heavens, you’ll have to go to Miss Ginny. Stop worrying about the Indians; anyone would think they were an endangered species. The police are after a white man. You tell him, Melinda.’
‘I only know what I’m hearing from you,’ Miss Pink protested. ‘I came through Molten, spoke to the Frasers, saw a number of cars outside the motel and Vi’s store: that’s the sum of my contacts with the outside world today. I don’t even know who the cars belonged to.’
‘Police and reporters,’ Nielsen said. ‘Stuart was going over the girls’ rooms again today, and the immediate vicinity. By the way, they’re looking for Bunny Kraus! Small hope they have of finding her, eh? He’s taken your suggestion seriously: about someone being outside the room while Donna was packing, coming in and killing her there. Until today they were looking only for prints of her customers; now they’re looking for evidence of murder. Ah, there you are, man! What kept you?’
Chadwick ca
me along the terrace. He was pale but, with an obvious effort, he managed a weak smile. ‘I do apologize to everyone. And Melinda: flooding her with sherry. I rushed away for a cloth and was suddenly overtaken, you know? I’ve not been myself all day; Montezuma’s Revenge, I believe it’s referred to in vulgar circles. May I make amends? Melinda: more sherry? Ingrid? Jack?’
Ingrid was concerned. ‘You look pale, Simon. Why don’t—’
‘All over,’ he interrupted quickly. ‘Don’t fuss. I will have a small brandy—’
‘You do that.’ Nielsen peered up at him. ‘You do look off-colour. Go and get yourself a double.’
Behind his retreating back Ingrid raised her eyebrows at Miss Pink. ‘Where is Emma?’ she mouthed. Nielsen glowered at them but said nothing until Chadwick returned when he took up the conversation where he’d left it, addressing Miss Pink: ‘I don’t think they’ve the slightest idea what they’re doing. What’s your opinion?’
‘I’m quite in the dark. Have they been searching the cabins on the Calcine road?’
‘Stuart said something about it. The subject seemed to embarrass him so I gathered they’d found nothing. Nothing of any use to them, that is.’
‘It’s become extraordinarily ramified. Those cabins, all the girls’ contacts—and the police can never know if they’ve traced all of them. Of course, they can’t. There will be—no! I was thinking that there would be fingerprints all over the two rooms at the motel, but Muriel Webber cleaned them the morning after the murder.’ She gave them a small smile. ‘So they may take fingerprints from all of us but they won’t be able to match them with anything in the rooms or on the wrecked car.’ She was looking through Chadwick rather than at him but he returned her stare as if hypnotized. She shook her head and appeared amused. ‘No. Not Webber and Hammer.’
‘Why not?’ Ingrid asked, as if the question were academic.
‘Because they stood to lose; they had a small but steady income: Webber as what amounted to a brothel keeper, Hammer as a pimp. They wouldn’t have killed the laying goose any more than Vi would have done—and she was by way of being a procuress. She would have got a lot of customers through CB radio, others by the telephone. The girls had neither.’
