Miss Pink Investigates 3

by Gwen Moffat

  ‘Pretty good,’ said Carl, preening. ‘Any news?’

  ‘Not yet. I assume we’ll be told the results of the autopsy. Laddow doesn’t seem to be trying to conceal anything from us.’

  ‘What do they think happened?’

  ‘He used the same gun as the one that killed Gayleen.’

  ‘I don’t get you.’

  Small wonder; she had been deliberately ambiguous. She blinked at him.

  ‘You mean the same guy shot them both?’ he asked, puzzled. ‘Or – what do you mean?’

  She looked unhappy. ‘The theory – one theory is that he shot Gayleen and turned the gun on himself.’

  ‘No.’ He shifted the fish to his other hand, thinking, looking towards the village. ‘No, that guy never killed himself. Not out of remorse he didn’t.’ He shook his head. ‘Never. Andy Keller was a guy was torturing little animals soon’s he could run fast enough to catch ’em. He loved hurting people, thrived on it. Kill himself? Not him. I’ll tell you what though: someone coulda known he killed Gayleen and so they finished him off, stop him doing any more harm: like shooting a rabid dog.’

  ‘You mean someone with a rifle followed him into the forest and shot him as he was crossing the landslide?’

  ‘Why not? Shot with a rifle? You didn’t say that before.’

  ‘It’s a possibility.’ They started to move towards the village. ‘Mrs Linquist says he came from a ranch in the east,’ she said chattily. ‘He did well for himself.’

  Carl stopped. ‘You think so?’ The tone was sour. ‘Maybe. It didn’t rub off then. Got himself a rich lady and a beautiful home and all them Hollywood glamour jobs mixing with movie stars and like that but he was still poor white trash. Always was, always would be.’

  ‘You sound like a Southerner.’

  ‘Maybe so, but they got some good labels for folks down there, and I tell you another thing, ma’am’ – he was fierce, glaring at her – ‘they got class in the South, and trash knows their place. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not referring to the coloured people, but the poor whites. That’s all that boy was, and this village is well rid of him and his ways. Tell you another thing: ain’t no one gonna help the police find out the guy who shot him.’

  Miss Pink said in surprise, ‘I believe the police are assuming it was an accident; he could have slipped off the trail when it turned slick in the rain.’

  ‘Oh, so the rifle were your idea. That’s all right then.’ They resumed walking. ‘And no one’s got nothing to worry about.’

  Miss Pink, on her way to the Surfbird motel, thought she would avoid Fleur by creeping round the back of her cabin. Few people in Sundown fenced their properties and there were little paths everywhere. Unfortunately there was also a great deal of undergrowth and, seeking to keep a discreet distance from the house, she found herself confronted by a riot of brambles and poison oak. Forced to retreat and take a paved path under the cabin walls she came to an open window and saw movement inside. Opening her mouth to call a greeting and apologise she saw that the room – a bright bedroom in white and pastel shades – was unoccupied and on the bed under the window sheets of paper were lifting in the draught, anchored by a book. She glimpsed print on the loose sheets and black and white drawings. On the book jacket there was a drawing and the large capitals of title and author. The format was familiar and unmistakable.

  She went back to the beach, came to the access path and took the conventional way to the village. Passing the bookstore she saw that Jason had customers. A few yards further, Fleur was talking to some people in a Mercedes. As Miss Pink approached they drove away.

  ‘Hi!’ called Fleur. ‘Been hiking?’

  ‘Just along the shore.’ She glanced casually at the gallery. ‘Busy morning?’

  ‘It isn’t actually; things are winding down now, end of the season. How about you? I heard you were up at Lois’s last night.’

  ‘You did? Who told you?’

  ‘Sadie, of course. We’re all bursting to know what happened. Does one ask?’ Fleur studied her face. ‘Perhaps not.’

  ‘Why not? I hesitated because Chester and Lois recounted several of Laddow’s theories and he had to have been fishing, or perhaps talking just to get them talking.’

  ‘But – hell! When Lois heard only yesterday that Andy was dead! Why, Laddow probably brought her the news. Come inside’ – as Miss Pink glanced round – ‘we can’t talk here.’ Cars were parked between the highway and the gallery and people were moving about them.

  As they stepped into the big room with its scintillating colour, Miss Pink asked, with a wary look at the doorway leading to the back quarters, ‘You’re alone?’

  ‘Of course.’ Fleur was puzzled. ‘I live alone, Melinda.’

  ‘I know you do. Just wanted to make sure; not at all nice: one or two things he hinted at – Laddow.’ Fleur was staring at her, but Miss Pink was accustomed to disguising pertinent questions with a mist of gabble. ‘Laddow is insinuating Lois is involved in Andy’s death,’ she said.

  Fleur showed no surprise. ‘That’s what I said: she was an innocent accessory.’

  ‘Yes, innocent. So you reckon Andy wouldn’t tell her he had killed Gayleen, just pretend they’d quarrelled, in which case why would he allow the girl to drive away in his wife’s car?’

  ‘I said, she drove off while he was – otherwise engaged.’

  ‘And you’re sticking to that.’

  ‘I have to. There can’t be any other explan— ’ She trailed off. ‘You said the police had several theories. There are other explanations? Do I want to hear this?’

  ‘There was a theory about blackmail: Gayleen having something on Andy and forcing him to try to get money out of Lois – ’

  ‘That’s possible. Andy was greedy as the devil, but for my money anyone trying to blackmail Andy is asking for trouble … I see, you’re saying he killed Gayleen because she was blackmailing him.’

  ‘It’s an idea.’

  ‘So Laddow thinks Lois is protecting Andy – that’s back to square one, except he says she’s involved. OK, so she’s involved, but innocently.’

  ‘I said “involved in Andy’s death”.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Laddow is talking about Andy, not Gayleen’s murder.’

  ‘Jesus Christ! You’re telling me Andy was murdered too? No, last night we agreed on suicide.’ They hadn’t, but Miss Pink didn’t interrupt. ‘When did the result of the autopsy come through?’

  ‘It hasn’t so far – ’

  Fleur wasn’t listening. ‘But Andy was dead before – the rain – stopped.’

  ‘The suggestion is that he was dead before it started.’

  There was a long silence. Fleur broke it. ‘So that was why you wanted to know – not what Andy looked like, but what the driver of the Chevy looked like.’

  ‘Could it have been someone else?’

  ‘Now you’ve got me confused. For God’s sake, who? I only saw shades and a Stetson. Could have been anyone.’

  Through the windows they saw people approaching the gallery. ‘Saturday afternoon,’ Miss Pink murmured. ‘I’ll leave you to it. How are the sales of the new book going?’

  ‘Fine.’ Fleur spoke absently. ‘I sold eight already.’

  ‘Good. When’s the next one due?’

  ‘How did you – who – ’ Her eyes were jittery. ‘I don’t work – I don’t know; we only just got this one from the distributors. For God’s sake, I’m only the agent here – nothing else.’ She was angry now and there was fear behind the anger.

  Miss Pink moved towards the door. ‘Boligard’s beavering away at his,’ she said casually, standing aside for the customers, smiling at everyone as she stepped out into the sunshine. So what was the book on Fleur’s bed, and the proof-sheets fluttering in the draught? Did she proof-read d’Eath’s books? If so, why get so angry about it?

  There were no police cars on the Surfbird’s court; in fact there were no cars at all and the only signs of life were a
n open door and the strains of Sinatra belting out his old black magic.

  ‘Hi, stranger,’ shouted Mabel Sykes as a shadow fell across the floor. She straightened a bed corner and switched off the radio. ‘What can we do for you? You’ve never come for a room!’

  ‘Not far out,’ Miss Pink said. ‘I want to extend my contract for another week.’

  ‘Why, of course; it’s lovely having you here. Boligard’s down in his den but I’ll tell him.’

  ‘Nice-size room.’ Miss Pink nodded her approval, glancing about her, allowing an inquisitive gleam to show.

  ‘This one’s the boss’s,’ Mabel said possessively, and they looked around with the conspiratorial air of women surveying a man’s quarters.

  Nothing is so impersonal as a motel room yet some people, and Miss Pink was one of them, can make a home out of one of these boxes within a few minutes of taking possession. Not Laddow. This space, like its tenant, was bland, the only personal objects being a pair of twill trousers in the alcove that served as a wardrobe, moccasins on the floor, a toothbrush and paste beside the wash-basin. Mabel had removed used tablets of soap and put new towels in the rack, emphasising the neutrality of the place.

  ‘Not even a hair brush,’ observed Miss Pink.

  ‘He keeps that in a drawer. But no pyjamas.’ Mabel grinned, her eyes dancing. ‘Isn’t that exciting: at his age, sleeps in the raw?’

  ‘He’s not that old … but this man is secretive.’ Miss Pink seemed to be talking to herself. ‘Perhaps in the circumstances he has to be. He’s a policeman. And he doesn’t trust a soul.’

  Mabel’s grin had faded but as Miss Pink stopped speaking and eyed her with what might be taken for polite inquiry, an invitation to confirm or deny Laddow’s lack of trust, she smiled broadly. ‘Well, he certainly don’t trust me,’ she agreed in her fruity voice, brimming with confidence. ‘And nor does that Hammett. I gotta clear up after him every day like I was his mother: clothes dropped all over, towel in the tub, wringing wet, everything filthy, but not one personal thing around, if you take my meaning, nothing to show what kind of guy he is at bottom, except untidy – and gets himself into some very dirty places.’

  ‘He couldn’t help that; it’s hot weather – when it’s not foggy.’

  ‘Yeah. Can you smell it in here?’ Mabel was concerned. ‘I got all the windows open for a through draught and I’ll leave them that way.’

  ‘Perhaps I’m imagining an odour. It could be me. Although Lois said Laddow smelled but she didn’t tell me I did.’

  ‘Poor Lois.’ Mabel picked up her vacuum cleaner and moved towards the door, shaking her head. ‘It’s a terrible thing to happen in Sundown. I knew that girl was trouble soon as I set eyes on her; you shoulda seen that dress, it ended here’ – she indicated her crotch – ‘lovely legs though, if I say it myself; it’s all they want, isn’t it: men? That Andy Keller: it was obvious all along he’d come to a bad end.’

  ‘Oh?’ Miss Pink stood in the doorway looking very English and a bit silly. ‘What was obvious?’

  Mabel decided it was time someone broadened this old lady’s perspective. ‘That guy,’ she said seriously, ‘should never have gotten married; he was after all the young girls – and this place, in the height of summer, is like a honey pot and him the bee. Walking around with no clothes on, or almost: the poor guy was looking every which way. Is there a word for a man who’s a nymphomaniac?’

  ‘But he was married.’

  ‘You think that stops ’em? You think married men don’t play around? Not my old man,’ she added quickly. ‘Not that Boligard’s without those kinda feelings but with an author it all goes into the books, like that guy d’Eath: Jason says as d’Eath is probably as laid back as Chester Hoyle on the surface, then he has to put all the sex into his books, like sub – sub-something.’

  ‘Sublimation?’

  ‘Yeah, how d’you know?’

  ‘I know the theoretical side, the labels. I’ve been to lectures.’

  ‘You have? So what would you say was the intellectual label for Andy Keller: a guy looks at every female like a bull at a heifer? You’re not going to believe this’ – as Miss Pink hesitated – ‘he’d try it on me, and I’m no spring chicken, although, like he said: large ladies are comfortable, and comforting.’ Her smile was smug and reminiscent as she pulled her lacy jumper over her plumpness. ‘What would you call a man like that?’

  Miss Pink shrugged. ‘The Greeks had a word for it – ’

  ‘What? Oh, I see: a joke.’ Mabel’s smile was uncertain. She changed course. ‘So, they figure it was an accident,’ she observed carelessly and then, with a sly grin, ‘They don’t make their private calls from here.’

  ‘Accident is possible: falling off the trail when it turned slick.’

  ‘I heard suicide was one idea. He killed Gayleen and then himself. They often do.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘Murderers. I mean, a guy like Andy Keller: he’s not going to spend the rest of his life in a cage, is he? No women.’

  ‘There’s a lot of homosexuality in prison.’

  ‘Tcha!’ It was like a reaction to a blow in the solar plexus.

  ‘It could be suicide,’ Miss Pink admitted. ‘They’re looking for the weapon in the landslide.’

  ‘Good.’ Mabel seemed to think that more was demanded of her. ‘All that kind of information goes over the public phone,’ she emphasised. ‘The one outside the bar.’

  ‘Yes, Jason mentioned it.’

  Something flickered in Mabel’s eyes. ‘You reminded me.’ Flustered, she stooped again to her vacuum. ‘I gotta get the dinner on. We’re having a beef borsch tonight. Will you join us?’

  Miss Pink declined, saying she was entertaining Sadie and Leo, and took her leave, reflecting that early afternoon was an odd time to be starting preparations for dinner, thinking that, once you started to probe in this village, to penetrate behind the façade, you realised that the friendliness and the good humour were just that: a façade. The villagers were like Laddow and Hammett whose mobile features and steel-rimmed spectacles masked observation platforms and intricate thinking machines, impersonal as a motel room. But there was a basic difference: the police were without emotion; the residents of Sundown were all emotion.

  Chapter 13

  It was a beautiful afternoon: warm and bright, the air smelling of salt and pine resin. Miss Pink, dawdling along the loop road, entering Miriam’s drive, binoculars round her neck, thought, like Laddow, that the place had magic even outside the forest: a different kind of magic.

  Miriam’s front door was closed and there was no response to her knock. She followed an old brick path round the side of the house and as she edged past the ferny pool (no naked cement for Miriam) the schnauzer rushed yapping round a corner.

  ‘Down, Oscar!’ The terrier stopped and glared. Willard Smith stood up from among the ferns and touched his faded ball cap politely.

  ‘Good afternoon.’ She was affable. ‘Is Mrs Ramet at home?’

  ‘They went to Salmon. They’ll be back this evening.’

  ‘I’ll call her.’ About to turn away, she checked. ‘What fine blooms! Agopanthus, surely?’

  ‘That’s right, ma’am. They does well here. There’s one there though, in back, is looking sick. I’ll have him out come fall.’

  ‘It’s not noticeable among all the others. These petunias make a good show. How do you do it?’

  ‘I feeds ’em well. ‘Course, this is the best part of the garden: round the pool and along the front of the house. I tries to keep it looking nice.’

  ‘It does you credit. A garden this size is a full-time occupation.’

  ‘You gotta garden? Where?’

  ‘In England: damp, a short growing season but warm: warm for England, that is. The soil’s very acid. Azaleas mostly; we’re proud of our azaleas.’

  ‘Come and see ours.’

  She followed him eagerly. A person shown azaleas in September is accepted as a kindred spiri
t. Who but a gardener appreciates plants when their flowering time is over?

  As Willard Smith showed her round Miriam’s property which, like all good gardeners, he considered his own because he had the cherishing of it, she was not hearing the words but observing the man. His looks were not all that remarkable of themselves: regular features, a smooth tanned face, blue eyes, white hair; the remarkable thing was that it was a boy’s face: that of a fourteen-year-old lad. Yet the hair, the slight stoop to the shoulders, and something indefinable: deference, good manners, the affinity with plants, all these indicated age. She thought he wouldn’t see sixty again.

  Where gardens were concerned he was as knowledgeable as herself although their experience was different, living on different oceans, at different latitudes. They found this diversity absorbing and half an hour passed before they reached a small cabin masked by rhododendrons behind the house. He asked shyly if he could offer her a beer: a mark of respect; had he considered her a lady he wouldn’t have offered anything, but she was a gardener and sexless so he offered beer.

  They sat on rockers on his tiny deck and studied a hedge of pyracantha. ‘That’ll be full of waxwings shortly,’ he told her. ‘Soon’s the berries is ripe.’

  ‘We grow stuff specially too. The finches love giant hogweed: greenfinches, goldfinches and such.’

  ‘What’s hogweed?’

  She told him and went on to tell him about greenfinches, and how European goldfinches differed from the American species, to confide how she gloried in the variety of the West, in its extremes: the great horned owl larger than an osprey, elf owls like sparrows, a pileated woodpecker the size of a crow.

  ‘Where d’you see him?’ Willard cut in.

  ‘Above the landslide in Porcupine Gulch.’

  ‘When were you up there?’

  ‘The day after I arrived. A tree came down at the same time. Does that happen often: a tree fall on its own?’

  ‘It happens. You see all those old logs everywhere; no one dropped ’em, been there hundreds of years some of ’em; it can take five hundred years to rot one of the big ones, you know that?’