A Gambling Man
Page 21
“Yes, the same one you were asking me about yesterday.”
“How did she die?”
“My father didn’t say.”
“When was she killed?”
She spread her hands and shook her head.
“Who killed her?” he persisted.
“Apparently, no one knows.”
“Where exactly was she found?” Archer was asking all the questions he would have asked of someone else if he hadn’t known what had happened.
“I think in her room.”
“How come your father knows all those details?”
She gazed at his injuries. “Come on, Mr. Archer, don’t play me for a dope. You ran into my father there. And your face ran into the fists of two of his thugs.”
Archer rubbed his bruises. “And did he tell you why that happened?”
“He told you to stop bothering me.”
“Let’s hope he doesn’t walk in the door here, then. I might not get out alive.”
“Don’t make jokes like that.”
“Why? Does your old man have a habit of knocking people off?”
“I’m not going to dignify that with an answer.”
“I was surprised to learn he owned Midnight Moods.”
She gave him a hard look. “He owns most of the town, so stop being surprised.”
“Your husband is giving him a run for his money, though. A winery, the fancy-schmancy Mayport Hotel, a country club on the water. He runs a very efficient office. I met Wilma Darling. She could have been a ship’s captain two hundred years ago. There never would have been even a hint of a mutiny with her at the helm. I don’t know why he needs Sheen around with that gal on the job.”
“You know, I’ve wondered that myself.” She took a sip of her coffee and took out a fresh cigarette. Archer pulled out a match, struck it against the side of the table, and leaned over to light her smoke. She lightly cupped his hand while he did so.
They moved apart, their gazes averted after the intimacy of the subtle embrace. Archer dropped the spent match into the ashtray and waited.
“Where is Mr. Dash, by the way?”
“I hope asleep in bed. Why does your husband even want to be mayor?”
“Did you ask him?”
“I’m asking you.”
“Afraid I can’t help you there. I haven’t asked him, either.”
“Could it be your father’s doing?”
“In what way?”
“Get your husband into the mayor’s office. Help out his business interests.”
“I’m not sure my father needs help in that regard.”
“Did you know Benjamin Smalls?” Archer asked abruptly.
“Why do you ask?” she said warily.
“I saw his picture on the table in your library. It was signed, ‘To Beth, All my best wishes, Ben.’ It was right next to Jimmy Stewart’s mug.”
“I knew Ben, yes.”
“He died about a month ago?”
“That’s right. He drowned in his tub.”
“So everyone keeps saying.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that’s what everyone keeps saying.”
“You don’t believe it?”
“Well, I wasn’t there to see it for myself.”
“You don’t accept things as facts unless you see them? You’ve got a long road ahead of you.”
“How’d you know him?”
“Ben’s father, Andrew, was partners with my father. He’s dead now.”
“I thought the Armstrong family had plenty of dough to do what they wanted.”
“Andrew was a state senator and thus was very well connected in Sacramento.”
“But he’s dead?”
“He killed himself.”
“How?” asked a startled Archer.
“They found him hanging in his barn.”
She dipped her head and wouldn’t look at him. She drew down thoughtfully on her cigarette. “With Ruby Fraser dead, things get complicated for you, don’t they?”
Archer said, “I think they get complicated for a lot of people, you included.”
“Me? What makes you say that?”
“Your hubby was maybe having an affair with her. And maybe you knew about it. That’s what they call a prime motive. Have the cops been by to see you?”
“Maybe I have an alibi, or didn’t I tell you?”
“How can you have an alibi when no one knows when she was killed?”
“Apparently, the police have a time window. I was at a dinner party from five in the evening until after midnight. In fact, I left for it right after you and your colleague finished interrogating me.”
“Not right after, because you changed clothes. You had on a dress before, not pants.”
“I went to the party in my dress. You don’t wear an outfit like this to a dinner party. I changed into these clothes afterward.”
“Did your father tell you about the time window?”
“I don’t remember who did.”
“And if your father did know, how would he know?”
“He has a direct line to the chief of police. They’re old friends.”
“And what’s his name?”
“Carl Pickett.”
“If the dinner party ended at midnight, what did you do between leaving there and coming here?”
“I went to a place with the thought of going to bed and then decided I wanted to get out. I like the coffee here.”
“What place did you go to with the thought of going to bed?”
“It’s here in town. I’ve owned it since before I was married. It’s my little hidey-hole.”
“Over ninety-nine percent of all dirty laundry gets lost in them.”
She puffed on her cigarette. “What a wonderfully lurid imagination you have.”
“When you were deciding to go to bed were you alone?”
“Don’t get cute, it’s not a good look for you.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that line before.”
She stubbed out her smoke in the ashtray. “It really was quite masterful how you handled those men. Three against one.”
“I probably could have huffed and puffed and blew them all into the Pacific from here.” He tapped out his smoke, too. “Does your husband have an alibi for tonight?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.”
“Does he have a hidey-hole in town, too?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
He cocked his head as he peered at her. “Why do you put up with it? They have divorce in California, I take it.”
“It’s not as easy as you might imagine.”
“If you can prove he two-timed you, Mrs. Kemper, you can get a divorce.”
“Maybe I like my life how it is. He goes his way and I go mine. How would divorce change that?”
“If you’re okay with it, who am I to judge?”
“But you will anyway.”
“Nah, I’m too busy. Besides, he must have some feelings for you.”
“What makes you say that?” she said quickly. Her features tightened, and the look on her face was, at least to Archer’s mind, caught between hopeful and hopeless.
“I saw a bottle of his wine. The BK. Stands for ‘Beth Kemper,’ right?”
Her features relaxed and all the light went out of her eyes. “Wrong, it stands for ‘Best Kemper.’”
He studied her closely before saying, “Sorry. My mistake.”
“Yes, it is.” She rose and looked down at him. “Do you need a lift back to where you’re staying on dear old Porter Street?”
“Your Triumph’s not very big, Mrs. Kemper. Things might get pretty tight in there.”
“Make it Beth. And don’t you know? Wonderful things come in small packages.”
Chapter 37
HAVE YOU ALWAYS LIVED IN BAY TOWN?” asked Archer as Beth Kemper started the Triumph and pulled out from the curb. He had helped her put the top down because it was such a fine night.
“Yes. My father was born here. His family’s been here for generations.”
“Willie Dash mentioned something about the cattle business from a long time ago.”
“My grandfather, Atticus, raised and sold cattle, as did his father before him and so on and so on. Then he started investing in real estate, among other things. My father took over the family business when Atticus died. This was a long time ago. My grandfather died before I was even born. That’s when my father and Andrew Smalls started working together. My mother, Eleanor, was born and raised in Seattle, but her family moved here when she was a teenager. She and my father met here and got married.”
“I understand she died in a plane crash. Was it a passenger airliner?”
In a somber tone, Kemper said, “No, it was her plane. She was a licensed pilot.”
“Female pilot? That’s pretty nifty.”
Kemper smiled sadly. “I used to go up with her all the time. My father was quite a bit older than she was. She had me when she was twenty-one. I couldn’t imagine having a baby of my own at that age. She volunteered to fly during World War II, but they said she was too old. She was really upset about that. She used to be a barnstormer and trick pilot in the 1920s. She was really amazing.”
“So what happened?”
“We don’t know. It was a terrible accident. She was flying in her plane, a Stearman 75. It was a military trainer plane, but after the war they were sold to civilians and my mother bought one. She named it…she named it Elizabeth, after me, her only child.”
“She must have loved you very much,” observed Archer quietly.
She shot him a glance as though to check whether he was being sincere or not. “No more than I did her. Anyway, it was a two-seater single prop biplane. She could make it do anything she wanted. I was supposed to go up with her that day. It was beautifully clear, but Douglas had arranged a luncheon with some important clients and insisted that I be there. So, my mother went up…all alone.”
She slowed the Triumph and put a trembling hand to her face. “It’s been two years. You’d think I would have gotten past this.”
“It’s okay,” said Archer. “I don’t think you ever get past it.” He pulled out his flask and handed it to her. “Rye whiskey always works for me.”
She took a sip and let it go down very slow. She handed back the flask. “Thank you. That does do the trick.”
The smell of the ocean hit them as they rounded a curve and the Pacific came into view. The breakers were rolling in hard and grinding the sand into even smaller particles.
“Did you learn how to fly?” he asked.
“No, I don’t like to fly, really. In fact, I only flew with her.”
“What about your husband? You said he was a pilot.”
“After the war, he said he never wanted to get in another airplane. He was shot down, landed in the Pacific, and floated in a raft for two weeks before being rescued.”
“I had some ‘plane’ trouble in the war, too.”
“But with my mother in the cockpit I was never worried or anxious. She would do barrel rolls and loop-the-loops and dives, and I would be screaming and laughing at the same time. It was the most exhilarating…the most…” She stopped and looked at Archer, her cheeks flushed. “I don’t usually go on and on like that with someone I barely know.”
“Yeah, I saw that personality trait the first time we met. But this is the second time, so there’s that.”
She smiled. “Are you going to make me change my opinion of you, Archer?”
“Oh, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
She laughed.
“But not being a pilot, there was nothing you could have done to save your mother that day, if that’s what’s hanging around your neck. You both would have died.”
Her laugh died in her throat and her face flamed. She snapped, “You don’t know that. You have no way of knowing that. You couldn’t—”
He interjected. “I spent three years in Europe playing the what-if game. If I had only heard the sound a second later, or aimed a little less sharply, or turned left instead of right, I’d be dead instead of the other guy. It can eat you up, if you let it. So don’t let it eat you up. From what you’ve said about your mother, she wouldn’t have wanted that for you.”
She slowed the car again and looked at him. And this time it seemed to Archer that Beth Kemper was actually seeing him for the very first time. “I…I didn’t expect such nuance from you, Archer.”
“I almost never expect it from myself. Sometimes it just pops out all by its lonesome.”
She smiled and dabbed at her eye with her knuckle. She glanced to her left, toward the ocean. “She crashed about two miles off the coast. They found the wreckage the next day. People saw the plane just go into a dive. She never parachuted out. I guess she didn’t have time. She wasn’t flying that high.”
“I’m really sorry, Beth.”
“The news reached me when we got home from the luncheon. I…I couldn’t believe it, not at first. They never did find her body. The water is very deep out there. And undercurrents are very fast.” She hit the gas and they sped up. “And from that moment on my marriage seemed more a burden than a blessing.”
“I doubt your husband wanted anything to happen to your mother.”
“They got along all right, actually. More than Douglas and my father do.”
“But your husband must owe a lot to your father. I mean, it must have helped his business prospects to have Sawyer Armstrong as his father-in-law.”
“I believe Douglas thinks he’s paid back any debt in spades. And maybe he has.”
“How long have you two been married?”
“Nearly eight years. I met Douglas while I was in college. It seemed like a perfect match. We married after I graduated.”
“Any kids running around?”
“No, Douglas…No. We don’t plan to have a family.”
“You’re still young if you change your mind.”
“That won’t be happening.”
She said nothing else, and Archer could think of nothing else to say, so they rode the rest of the way with only the Triumph’s engine noise in their ears. When they reached Porter Street and the boardinghouse, Archer climbed out and tipped his hat.
“Thanks for the ride.”
“I don’t make it to this side of Sawyer Ave much. It’s nice.”
“You don’t have to say that to make me feel better. I don’t have a horse in that race.”
“What will you do now?”
“Sleep. Then I’ll hook up with Willie Dash and see where we go from there. He might not know about Ruby Fraser.”
“This blackmail scheme. Was she involved in it?”
“She said not, but who knows?”
“But with her dead, does that mean the blackmail plan will fall apart?”
“You would think so, but honestly, my gut tells me no.”
“You follow your gut?”
“It usually points me in the right direction. And I haven’t found anything better, yet.”
“Well, maybe I should follow my gut more. Good night, Archer.”
“Good night, Beth.”
She pulled off and he watched the little Triumph spurt along, and her long hair trailing out with the car’s wake, until it turned at an intersection and she disappeared. Maybe back safely on the other side of Sawyer Avenue to her hidey-hole, where she would go to bed alone or with someone else. Or maybe the lady was going to go all the way back up the mountain and lose herself in her gated estate built by Daddy with the letter A all over the place to remind her—and, maybe more important, her hubby—that it wasn’t really theirs.
Archer went to his room and wrote everything down he could remember about their conversation. Then he quickly undressed and got into bed in his skivvies and with his soc
ks still on. He slept like a dead man for more than eight hours and awoke with bright afternoon sunlight dipping its toe into his room.
Shit.
He jumped out of bed, put on his robe, and headed to the communal bath at the end of the hall with his soap, scrubber, and shave kit. The water was lukewarm, and by the smell of it he wasn’t sure it wasn’t being piped in directly from the ocean. He dried off, combed his wet hair, and shaved in the humidity of the tiny room, where he had to keep rubbing the fog off the round mirror. Finished, he put his robe back on, and opened the door to find Callahan standing there in a sheer black number and white fluffy slippers and holding a shower cap and a scrub brush, along with a small leather toiletry kit.
“Wow, you’re up bright and early, Archer,” she said sarcastically.
“Look who’s talking.”
She rubbed his jaw with her hand. “You’re all nice and clean and shaved.”
“And a little salty, yeah.”
“Where were you last night?”
“In bed.”
She lightly slapped that shaved jaw. “Don’t lie to me. You went out.”
“How do you know that?”
“I got eyes and ears. And I saw you come back with the little dish in the convertible in the middle of the night like Cinderella getting dumped from the pumpkin.”
“That little dish is Beth Kemper, the wife of my client.”
“So why are you out with her in the middle of the night and not your client?”
“It’s a long story.”
“You couldn’t sleep?”
“Not after what happened, no. But I understood you were sleeping like a baby.”
“I was, until I wasn’t. Are you sleeping with her, Archer?”
“I don’t sleep with married women, even unhappily married ones.”
“Says you, chump. And as a reminder, I’m not married and I’m happy as a clam.”
She used her hip to bump him out of the doorway and she closed the door in his face.
He walked back to his room and dressed meticulously, down to his pocket square. He put his PI license in his jacket pocket, clipped the .38 to his belt, and drove out to the same diner near the wharf where they served breakfast all day. He ordered coffee and two over-easy eggs with crispy bacon, toast, and orange juice, which he knew they made in California in abundance.