Jessie pushed herself to her feet, shifted her hands down to rest them just above the wide belt and holster. “He’ll have to be missing forty-eight hours before it’s official. But I’d like to have a look around now if it’s all right with you, Velma.”
Velma uncrossed her thin ankles and rose to her full height, not much over five feet. Her dark eyes were reproachful. “I’d never have called you if I didn’t want you looking into this anyway you can. Go right ahead, look everywhere.”
Jessie radioed for a car to pick up Cowan, the deputy who had accompanied her; she wanted to be alone as she sifted through the possessions of Walter Kennon. She knew she might spot something odd, some little thing Cowan could miss.
After Cowan was gone, she sat in her Sheriff’s car trying to collect her thoughts and fight down an almost paralyzing foreboding. Not for a moment did she believe one detail of Velma Kennon’s story.
In two days of hearings before the seven Commissioners of Alta Vista County, Jessie had learned all she needed to know about the character of Walt Kennon. Ten years a retired Sheriff, he had challenged the Commissioners to ignore Jessie’s superior record, her solid years of experience in police work in both Los Angeles and Alta Vista County, her administrative ability, her leadership qualities. Jessie knew that she owed the position she had held for the past year-and-a-half entirely to Walt Kennon.
Groping for objectivity, she reviewed the facts she readily knew about him. He was sixty-four. He’d been released from Veterans’ Hospital in ’46, some months after the war. Had finished his education at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, then come back to Seacliff and taken up police work, rising to the position of Sheriff. But the shrapnel fragments still scattered throughout both his legs and the persistent severe pain had led to his early retirement twelve years later. Of his wartime experiences she remembered him saying only, “Duty. Loyalty. A man owes it.”
He had settled into the town of his birth just as Jessie had—like a thirsty plant sinking deep roots. And like Jessie, had grumbled at every evidence of the oceanside town’s growth. Walt’s only vacations had been to Los Angeles to visit a brother afflicted with emphysema, and he returned each time even more contemptuous of big city life. He was Jessie’s kind of person: quiet and leather-tough, his friendship a hard won prize, a man who kept to himself until some interior principle signaled him to speak—as he had for Jessie, as he had again just recently when a consortium of builders tried to force re-zoning of a section of mobile homes occupied by elderly residents.
Her mind dark with apprehension, Jessie climbed out of her car and went back into Walt Kennon’s house. In the bedroom she inspected Walt’s familiar plaid shirts and windbreakers, the baggy corduroys he usually wore around town and to her card games, his khaki gardening pants, the fleece-lined jacket for the few really chill days of winter, the well-worn cardigan sweaters, the one good blue suit with the white shirt protected by plastic. Like herself, Walt had few clothes; he preferred what was tried and true and comfortable. Jessie noted that the clothes Walt had worn last night—gray corduroys, a blue plaid Pendleton shirt, a black plastic raincoat—were not in the closet. Everything there seemed orderly, undisturbed.
As did Velma’s closet. The contents were modest: house-dresses and cotton robes, a few skirts and frilly blouses, three good woolen dresses. But inside several large zippered plastic bags were smartly styled suits and dinner dresses, high-heeled sandals and evening shoes stored in plastic compartments—all of these apparently relics from Velma’s past, and all of them useless in quiet, informal Seacliff.
Jessie was glad to move her scrutiny from the bedroom to an area less evocative of Velma and Walt Kennon’s marriage. In the living room, dozens of Field and Stream back issues on the inconspicuous bottom shelf of the small bookcase were the only concrete traces of Walt Kennon. In heterosexual marriage, Jessie mused as she browsed around the carefully appointed room, precious little of a house ever really belonged to the male; his part of the closets maybe, and the yard and garage. The living room always belonged to the woman. Yet there was no evidence of Velma in this room either, Jessie realized—or anywhere else. Odd that the house had changed so little during the entire year of Walt Kennon’s second marriage.
Remembering how swiftly she’d made her own quarters austere again after the three year disaster with Irene in Los Angeles, Jessie moved into the den adjoining the living room. She looked at a framed photo of Velma and Walt on the small, leather-topped desk, and admitted that she disliked Velma Kennon intensely.
And yet she’d accepted her at first, and willingly. Walt had been five years alone with his grief, and it was good to see him happy. And Velma was a pretty woman, and vivacious. But the buoyancy had soon left Walt’s step. And Velma’s prettiness and high energy seemed to fade with each succeeding month of her marriage to Walt. Only once in the past year had Walt invited the Friday night poker group to his house—when Velma was away visiting her parents in Garden Grove. Walt and Velma seemed to be two people who had leeched the vitality from each other.
Jessie could easily account for Walt’s faithfulness to this joyless marriage—the same reason he had never questioned his wartime obligation: Duty. Loyalty. A man owes it. As for Velma’s reason, it appeared to be the classic one: she had no means of support other than Walt Kennon.
Jessie opened the top drawer of the desk. She found a twenty-five thousand dollar insurance policy, Velma Kennon beneficiary; a copy of a deed to property in Santa Barbara which had been signed over to Bergan Construction Company on January ninth—only two months ago; and a bank book. She opened the bank book. It showed a ten thousand dollar withdrawal made this past Friday and a current balance of two hundred and eighty-six thousand dollars; two hundred and fifty thousand of that amount had been deposited on January nineteenth.
Jessie gaped at the numbers for only an instant. She knew all the surface details of Walt’s life, he’d willingly shared them, but never had she heard him speak specifically of his finances. No more than he had ever shared his grief and loneliness for Alice, or talked of how his legs had been shot from under him during the assault on Guadalcanal. He’d muttered about the cost of living—had grumbled at the card game about expensive repairs to his Toyota—but she knew he contributed to the support of his chronically ill brother, and he always seemed to have sufficient money. She had assumed that he lived in relative comfort on a combination of military and police pensions and social security.
“Velma,” Jessie called, “could you please come in here a minute?”
Velma glanced blandly at the bank book. “It’s Walter’s money. His savings, and proceeds from selling a house in Santa Barbara that belonged to his first wife.” Her voice took on bitterness. “When my first husband died I didn’t have two thin dimes left after probate.”
Jessie tapped the bank book with a fingernail. “Says here it’s your money as well, Velma. As joint tenant.” Then she added reflectively, “I remember about that Santa Barbara house—Alice wouldn’t sell it. Amazing it was worth so much money.”
“The land it’s on was re-zoned commercial years ago. She never did one thing with that place for years,” Velma said harshly. “Never even raised the rent of the people living there. Him either, after she died.”
“Alice liked the tenants,” Jessie said mildly, picking up the executed deed, turning it over in her hands, her mind lighted with the image of Alice Kennon. Genial, comfortable Alice, with mink brown hair that had suddenly gone gray and then whitened over the years, and hazel eyes always radiating humor and spirit, conveying that everything about Jessie—everything—was just fine with her. She had given Walt Kennon a glow of quiet contentment for twenty-six years, until the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Just a scant six weeks after that, Jessie Graham had borne one of the heaviest burdens of her life—the casket of Alice Kennon to her gravesite in Rolling Hills Cemetery.
Replacing the documents, Jessie brushed a finger along the lock mechanism on the drawer. She be
nt down to examine it. “Walt mentioned a couple of weeks ago he’d made out a will, to make sure his brother was taken care of. One of those handwritten wills. Holographic, they call them.”
Velma looked startled. “I don’t know about any will.” She added with belligerence, “I never saw it.”
“Drawer’s been forced open,” Jessie stated, watching her. “You know why that’d be?”
Two thin furrows formed between the penciled brows. “The drawer’s never once been locked so far as I know. I don’t know what anybody’d take.”
Maybe that will.
The yard was neat, well tended, the grass wet and spongy under Jessie’s feet. The pain in Walt’s legs had limited how much he could do but he loved gardening, and well-cultivated flower beds bordered the front of the house and the side hedge. Last night’s heavy rain had separated and caked the dirt around the bushes.
Jessie walked up the driveway past the house and opened the garage. The gray Toyota was parked against one wall; garden utensils lined the opposite wall. A few woodworking tools lay on a scarred bench. She picked up a plastic hood and covered the circular saw that Walt used to cut his firewood. A movement caught her eyes; she glanced over to catch the flutter of curtain at the kitchen window.
So Velma was watching her. With heightened senses she examined the garage minutely, donning a pair of Walt’s work gloves to pick up and study each tool. She found nothing unusual until she came to a well-used but very clean shovel. At the kitchen window, Velma Kennon watched openly as Jessie studied it. She replaced the shovel and went into the house.
Velma stood at the kitchen counter slicing a tomato; its rich earthy odor reached Jessie. It occurred to her that she had always seen Velma Kennon in a colorless dress covered by a red-checked apron with big pockets.
Jessie said evenly, “That’s a mighty clean shovel out there in the garage.”
“Walter left it out in the rain last week,” Velma said, her eyes on the knife slicing through the ripe red tomato.
“Didn’t rain last week,” Jessie informed her.
“Well, whenever it last did,” Velma said in exasperation.
Jessie said, not bothering to soften her skepticism, “Being careless with one of his tools isn’t something Walt would do.”
Velma’s knife stilled. She stared at Jessie, then said with asperity, “It doesn’t sound like Walter to just go off and disappear without a trace, either.”
“Don’t think that’s what he did.”
She locked eyes with Velma Kennon. Velma’s unreadable dark stare did not waver. Finally Jessie said, “Could I trouble you for the keys to the Toyota?”
She followed Velma into the living room. Velma picked up her purse from the desk.
“Could I trouble you to look at the purse,” Jessie said. “Just routine.”
“Of course,” Velma said with distinct sarcasm, and thrust the leather bag at Jessie, her fingers rigid. “As I recall, I think I’ve got thirty-two dollars in bills, and a little change.”
Jessie did not reply. Of course Velma wouldn’t be stupid enough to carry any of that ten thousand dollars in her purse. Removing one object at a time, she carefully placed on the desk a comb, wallet, lipstick, compact, metal nail file, package of tissues, ballpoint pen, checkbook. The checkbook register showed ordinary transactions.
“The ten thousand,” Jessie said. “What denominations did the bank give you?” She examined the zippered pocket and lining of the black leather purse.
“Five hundred in twenties,” Velma muttered, her lips in a thin tight line, “the rest in fifties and hundreds.”
Jessie nodded. “That’s quite a wad of cash.” She handed the purse back to Velma. “I’ll let you put everything back the way you want. We have to look at everything, Velma. Just routine,” she added absently, thinking that Walt had bought chips at the poker game with two tens.
Jessie unlocked the car. The Toyota Celica showed the usual signs of five-year wear, and smelled of Walt’s pipe tobacco. She added the powerful beam of her flashlight to the morning sunlight and examined the interior. She’d impound the car; Elbert and Ron over at Martinsville would go over it thoroughly. But there were no visible stains. Of any kind.
Deep in thought, she walked slowly to her own car and replaced the flashlight in its sprocket. Money and property were the reasons for many marriages—and the motive for the vast majority of crime. Most people would say Velma was not the type to kill, but she knew anybody was the type. Knew it from those years of police work down in Los Angeles and fifty-two years of plain hard living. Only their Maker knew why people did the things they did.
Something had happened to Walt—and Velma had done it. Of that Jessie was certain. She shifted her gunbelt, adjusting the heavy holster, wishing she could do the same for her leaden heart. Velma had done something to him, and taken him somewhere to dispose of him.
But where? And how? It just wasn’t physically possible for a hundred and ten pound woman of nearly fifty to do much with a man Walt’s size, certainly not against his will, and not if he was dead weight, either. Walt had become heavier recently; he was a good hundred and seventy pounds, maybe more. He’d joked ruefully about it just last night as he helped himself to potato chips and dip at the poker game ...
Another memory of the poker game leaped into Jessie’s mind. She whirled and trotted back to the Toyota. Walt’s complaint about expensive repairs to the Toyota—he’d picked up the car on the way to the poker game, he’d had it in for a brake relining and carburetor work, plus routine maintenance ...
Jessie yanked open the car door, knelt to scan the Union Oil sticker on the door frame, then compared the mileage figure written there by the service station to the mileage on the speedometer, jotting the numbers in her note pad. Velma Kennon watched from the kitchen window.
From the time Walt had picked up the car it had been driven two miles and whatever number of tenths that were unaccounted for. Gil’s Union Oil Station was around the corner from the Kennon house; Walt had driven from there to Jessie’s house for poker. Based on the time Velma had given as Walt’s arrival home, he’d come directly here from the poker game. By marking off those distances in her own car she could tell if Walt’s car had been driven after he’d arrived at his house. One thing she knew for sure: If this car had been driven, it hadn’t been driven far.
Concealing her excitement, Jessie clumped back into the house. “Velma,” she asked, “you drive that car after Walt got home last night?”
“Why ... no. Of course not.”
“I’m sealing it off, impounding it for the time being. I’ll say goodbye to you for now.”
Velma wiped her hands on her checked apron. “Something bad’s happened to him,” she said. “I know it.”
I’ll bet you do.
“I guarantee,” Jessie said, her tone heavy and ominous, “I’ll find out. One way or the other, I’ll find out.”
She had turned then and stalked out to her police car.
II
Jessie had taken Kate to an early dinner at the Sandpiper, a weathered clapboard restaurant on a steep hillside overlooking Seacliff and the Pacific. She restrained herself from supplying more details of Walt Kennon’s disappearance while Kate gazed at a bank of fog drifting its way in over the horizon, over white-capped swells of gray-blue ocean.
“As good a career as you had in L.A.,” Kate said musingly, “I can see what compelled you to come back here.”
Jessie smiled, and realized that she had not smiled in the past three days. “Much as I don’t understand it, Kate, I see that you belong where you are, too. They need the best cops they can find down there in that nether side of hell.”
Smiling, Kate picked up her scotch. “You don’t get lonely up here, Jess, away from any sort of ... activity?”
“Gay women, you mean.” Jessie refrained from pointing out that Kate herself was on vacation alone. “We do have gay people here—hell, we’re everywhere. Seacliff has fourteen thousand p
opulation now, it’s a fair-sized place. A few folks know about me ... some of them have long memories. I was chasing after girls in this town from the time I was six.”
She chuckled along with Kate. “I’m private about myself just naturally. But I can’t say I’m all that careful, even though some people here would jump at any reason to see me gone. They can’t abide the idea of a woman sheriff, let alone—”
Jessie broke off to Kate’s raised hand. Their first course, clam chowder, had arrived. Intoxicated by the aroma, Jessie dipped her spoon eagerly into the rich meaty creaminess, realizing that she had scarcely eaten since Saturday. As the waitress moved away Jessie continued, wolfing down the chowder as she spoke, “I’ll tell you the truth. My time with Irene told me one thing plain as day—I’m cut out to be a bachelor. I’m still your perfectly normal queer,” she added with an embarrassed grin, “I do love women, I drive up to San Francisco now and again and get in some girl chasing. But this town is my family, I’ve got roots here, and responsibility, good friends—” She broke off and put down her soup spoon. Walt’s disappearance was again like an iron weight in her stomach, displacing further desire for food.
“Tell me about the Kennon car.” Kate’s voice was dry, business-like. “I assume it checked out clean?”
Jessie’s smile was inward. Kate had not changed much; when her mind was locked into the details of a case, she spared limited attention for even such distractions as spectacular views of the Pacific or general conversation.
“No traces of blood,” Jessie answered, “not in the car or on any of the tools. And Velma was made joint tenant on the savings account the week after Walt married her. Walt’s the kind to do something like that.”
Kate finished the last spoonful of her chowder, pushed the bowl away. She steepled her fingers and contemplated Jessie over them. “That’s a point, Jess. If you’re right about your gut feeling, then the motive here figures to be money, pure and simple. Since she’s joint tenant, why would she do anything to Walt? Why wouldn’t she just clean out that account and take off?”
Dreams and Swords Page 2
