“The doors were never locked. You could have walked out.”
“Oh sure, I could have. But I didn’t. I always had hopes that you and I would be free, that she would—”
“Would what?”
“Die.”
Willett stared at her. “You wanted that for a long time. You willed it.”
“Maybe.”
“Sometimes I think you’re a bad woman.”
“Sometimes I think so, too,” Ethel said, quite mildly. “Maybe prison’s just the place for me.”
“Stop this talk about prison, do you hear me? We may be ruined financially, morally, but they can’t send us to prison. We still have the letter. Haven’t we?”
“I guess so.”
“You guess so! I told you to put it away in a safe place.”
“Well, I did. Behind that fruit picture in my room.”
“Go and get it.”
“Why? It’s safe there. No one would think of looking behind a picture.”
“That’s the first place they’ll look.”
“Who will?”
“The F.B.I.,” Willett said.
“Why should they search my room? I haven’t—”
“Go and get that letter.”
“Well, all right.” She went to the door, hesitated, and swung around again with a swish of silk. “Willett?”
“Yes.”
“If they’re really going to search my room, I think I’ll tidy up my drawers a bit. I wouldn’t want them to think I’m a creature of messy habits.”
“You haven’t time.”
“Oh. Well, then, I’ll just explain to them that my mother-in-law has been ill and my maid disappeared, so naturally my drawers aren’t quite—”
“Ethel.”
“Well, all right,” Ethel said with dignity. “I was just leaving.”
The letter was where she had put it two weeks ago, behind an oil painting of a bunch of grapes and two dusty-looking tangerines. Across the front of the unsealed envelope were the words, To Whom it May Concern, in Mrs. Goodfield’s handwriting. Ethel knew it was Mrs. Goodfield’s handwriting because she had been there, in the old lady’s bedroom, when the letter was written:
“Sit down, Ethel. And stop fidgeting.”
“Sorry.”
“This blasted pen. Haven’t we a decent pen in the house?”
“It works if you use it sideways.”
“If you use it sideways. That’s typical. That’s absolutely typical of what happens when I’m not up and around to manage things. Nothing works unless you use it sideways.”
“Sorry.”
“To whom it may concern,” the old lady wrote, sideways. “In the event that my son, Willett Peter Goodfield, is implicated in any way with my death, I wish to make the following statement to clarify the facts.”
Downstairs the front door chime sounded with raucous shrillness, not like a bell announcing the arrival of guests, but like a burglar alarm arousing the household against intruders.
Ethel folded the envelope and tucked it in the front of her dress. It was the one place in the house where she was reasonably sure that the F.B.I. wouldn’t search.
19
News of the kidnapping spread quickly across the town and by noon it had reached the corner of Fifth and Anacapa and an obscure druggist by the name of Lopat. Leaving his wife, brother-in-law and two cousins in charge of the drugstore, Lopat set out on foot for the police station four blocks south. He had visited the station several times before, usually to explain certain lapses in his narcotics records, but this time his conscience was clear and his step blithe.
Lopat was nobody’s fool and he knew perfectly well that most people didn’t use ether for dry-cleaning anymore, especially people with class like Mrs. Willett Goodfield.
He greeted Greer with a broad and virtuous smile. “Afternoon, Captain.”
“Hello, Lopat. What’s on your mind except larceny?”
“My, my, you’re quite a kidder, Captain. Ha, ha.”
“Ha, ha. Let’s have it. Got your license back yet, Lopat?”
“Naturally.”
“Better watch that brother-in-law of yours if you want to keep it.”
“Manny? Oh, Manny’s changed, he’s off the stuff, never touches it.”
“That isn’t how I heard it.”
“You guys are prejudiced. Manny’s a good boy, maybe a little loose in his ways, but a good boy.”
“If he gets any looser he’ll fall apart.”
“Now, now, Captain. Here I come to do you a favor and right away you start making wise. I’m hurt.”
“What’s the favor?”
Lopat leaned across the desk, confidentially. “I heard an old lady was snatched.”
“You did, eh?”
“You don’t have to admit anything, Captain. Let me do the talking.”
“Go ahead.”
“Last night around suppertime a lady comes into the shop and asks for some ether. For dry-cleaning a couple of dresses, she said. Well, that was legitimate. In this state you can’t buy ether to do away with a sick cat or anything, but you can buy it for dry-cleaning. You don’t even have to sign for it like in some states. So I sold it to her.”
“How much?”
“What she asked for, six ounces.”
“What was she, a midget or something?”
“That’s what I asked myself. She was small, all right, but she wasn’t a midget. And she wasn’t the type who’d do her own dry-cleaning either. She had class, real class.”
“What’s your idea of class, Lopat?”
“I don’t like how you say that, implying I’ve got no taste in women. You can’t judge my taste in women by my wife. I’ve got very good taste in women—the best—I’ve just never had a chance to indulge it, is all.”
“So?”
“So I’m telling you this girl had class. Classy name and address, too.”
“If she didn’t have to sign for the stuff, how come you know her name and address?”
“She told me, right off the bat. You know how some of these society dames are—they walk into a store and even if they’re just going to buy two noodles they’ve got to announce themselves. Well, that’s what she did. I am Mrs. Willett Goodfield, she says, of 2201 Ventura Boulevard.”
Greer attempted to conceal his surprise, but he wasn’t quick enough to fool Lopat.
Lopat grinned slyly. “A friend of yours, Captain?”
“I’ve heard the name.”
“Has she got class, like I said, or hasn’t she?”
“She’s loaded.”
“There, you see? Maybe my taste in women isn’t so bad after all, eh?”
“Change the record, will you, Lopat?”
“I didn’t put it on. You did. You implied that my taste in—”
“Forget about women and go on with your story,” Greer said, “or next year you might not even get a dog license.”
“You don’t have to talk so tough. After all, I came here of my own free will to do my duty as a citizen. Just because my brother-in-law, Manny, gets in a little scrape now and then is no reflection on me. Is it okay if I smoke in here, Captain?”
“As long as you don’t smoke the same brand as Manny.”
“Aw, the hell with Manny. So he’s a bum. So that doesn’t make me a bum, does it?”
“No.”
“That’s better. I like to be appreciated.” Lopat lit a cigarette, scraping the match against his thumbnail. “I keep my ear to the ground, and that way I catch a lot of dirt. Like about this snatch. How I heard it, the names got a little mixed up—Goodyear instead of Goodfield—but I added two and two and here I am.”
“Think you can identify this Mrs. Willett Goodfield?”
“Su
re I could.”
“Good.” Greer flipped the switch of the com box on his desk. “Daley? Get me a copy of that picture just going out on an APB.”
“An APB,” Lopat repeated. “She’s really flown the coop, eh?”
“You figure it out.”
“I’m trying.”
“Don’t strain yourself. At your age it shows.”
The picture was brought in, a small, candid shot of a young woman in profile looking into the window of a store.
Lopat gazed at it a long time with the air of a connoisseur. “She’s not dolled up the way I saw her last night, but that’s Mrs. Goodfield for sure. Not a very good likeness of her, though.”
Greer agreed. The picture had been taken by Ortega without the knowledge of the subject; and it wasn’t a very good likeness of Ethel Goodfield because the young woman looking into the store window was Ada Murphy. Ortega had lent Greer the picture earlier in the day, handing it over with pained reluctance as if he realized that all he’d ever have of Murphy was a creased snapshot and a few fading memories.
Lopat passed the picture back across the desk and Greer looked at it again, for the twentieth time that day. The features were clearly Murphy’s, the posture and the haughty tilt of the head unmistakable.
“She’s a nice-looking girl,” Lopat said. “Funny she’d do a thing like that.”
“Yes.”
“What gets into some women, I wonder? They got everything, looks, class, money, only nothing’s ever enough.” Lopat broke off with an embarrassed little laugh. “Didn’t know I went in for philosophy, did you, Captain?”
“No. It’s quite a shock.”
“Well, I do. I’m what you might call a real philosopher, a guy who figures out what’s the matter with the world and then doesn’t do a damn thing about it.”
“What is the matter with the world, Lopat?”
“People, Captain. Just people.”
Greer rose, heavily. Some days he felt his weight, some days he did not. This afternoon he felt massive and inert, like a stone imbedded in mud at the bottom of a river. “Daley will take your statement in the next office and you can sign it.”
“All right.”
“Thanks for coming in, Lopat.”
“Don’t mention it, Captain. On the other hand, don’t forget it either. The next time you send a couple of your boys to pick up Manny, see that he gets roughed up a little. Nothing that’ll show—the wife would blame me, always does. Just see the kid gets a lesson, understand?”
“I think so.”
“And if any reward is offered for this old lady that disappeared—well, you know how tough it is these days to operate a small business like mine.”
“See that it stays small, Lopat. Go reaching out too far and somebody’ll slap your wrist.”
“I’m not reaching. A little reward money, that’s different. A soft buck is a soft buck. Just don’t forget me, is all I ask.”
“I won’t.”
“Well, so long, Captain. Don’t think it ain’t been charming.”
“I’ll try not to.” He flipped on the com box again. “Daley? Vince Lopat wants to make a statement. Four carbons, and send one of them right out to Barrett. I think he’s still at the Goodfield house.”
“He’s still there,” Daley said. “He phoned in a few minutes ago. One of his boys found some new evidence he wants you to look at.”
“Okay. Make up Lopat’s statement and I’ll take a copy of it down with me.”
“Don’t I get any lunch?”
“Chew a couple of paper clips.”
“Oh, for—”
“And cheer up, Daley. Another nineteen years and you can retire on a pension and have lunch every hour on the hour.”
“By that time they’ll be feeding me through a tube. Malted milks and raw eggs.”
“By that time nobody’ll be able to afford steaks anyway.”
“Captain—”
“You have your orders.”
“Yes sir.”
Greer reached for his hat.
Barrett let him in at the front door of the Goodfield house. “You got here fast, Captain.”
“It’s not far. What’s the news?”
“About the old lady, none. No trace of her. But certain other things have come up. A couple of maps.”
“What kind of maps?”
“Ordinary kind they give away at service stations. Road maps. Come on upstairs and I’ll show you.”
Barrett led the way up the wide staircase and down the hall to Mrs. Goodfield’s bedroom. He was a small man with an oversized head that gave him a faint resemblance to a cartoonist’s version of a man from Mars. Barrett had started out as a doctor, switched to medical jurisprudence, and ended up with the F.B.I. as an expert on paper; paper of all kinds, from its origin in the forests of Quebec, North Carolina, Oregon, to its final form, a dollar bill, a newspaper, a child’s toy, a will, a crumpled wad in a garbage can or a bit of ash in an incinerator.
The paper this time was in the form of two maps. One of them showed all forty-eight states and a fringe of Canada and Mexico; the other was a more detailed map of California with four inserts containing the street layouts of Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento and San Francisco.
“Carbonaro found them wedged between the headboard of the bed and the mattress,” Barrett said. “I can’t see that they have any connection with the kidnapping but I thought you might be interested.”
“I am.”
“Apparently the family traveled pretty extensively. Notice the routes and the stopovers are all marked in ink.”
Greer noticed more than that. In the left-hand margin of the California map were two penciled, vertical lists: American League—New York Yankees, Washington Senators, Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers, Philadelphia Athletics, St. Louis Browns, Boston Red Sox. The second column was headed National League, and underneath it were listed the Brooklyn Dodgers, Pittsburgh Pirates, Cincinnati Reds, Chicago Cubs, Boston Braves, Philadelphia Phils, St. Louis Cardinals, New York Giants.
The margins of the other map were also crammed with writing. They contained a variety of names and dates and comments: Phil, Sept. 27. Cleve, Oct. 8, Gary, Oct. 14, Paul and Minnie, Oct. 29. Pierre, Nov. 13, Billings, Nov. 20 (cold) S.L.C., Nov. 30, Vegas, Dec. 5, Tucson, Dec. 10 (Palace Hotel, Redlands Hospital), Col. Sprs., Feb. 19 (Westcott Clinic, Dr. George Sampson, diet, complain), L.A., May 2, Town House.
Greer folded the maps and put them in his pocket. There was no doubt at all that they were Rose’s maps, the same ones that Mrs. Cushman had seen in her room and that had disappeared after her death. A birthday memo, Mrs. Cushman had called the writing in the margin. It was a memo, not of birthdays but of cities. Greer still did not know what the writing meant or even if Rose herself had done it. But he was sure of one thing, that he now had conclusive proof that Rose had been involved with the Goodfields, had probably been a visitor in this very room.
She may have died here, Greer thought. They may both have died here, Rose and old Mrs. Goodfield.
Yet it was Mrs. Goodfield herself who had most vehemently denied knowing Rose, and denied that Willett knew her. “I’ve never allowed Willett to have any truck with actresses,” she had told Greer. “I explained all about actresses to him when he was eighteen.”
Maybe, Greer thought grimly, the explanation wasn’t good enough for Willett, and he had to find out for himself.
“Any ideas about the maps?” Barrett said.
“Quite a few. I’ll check first and tell you later.”
20
greer returned to the main floor. There was no sign of the Goodfields in any of the front rooms but from the back of the house came a sound that Greer couldn’t identify, a loud whirring accentuated by little periods of silence. Greer follow
ed the sound down the hall and through a swinging door into the kitchen.
Ethel was seated at a small built-in table that folded down out of a wall between two windows. On the table was a portable electric sewing machine and Ethel was bent over it with intense concentration.
The noise of the machine had covered Greer’s entrance, so he stood and watched her for a minute, surprised by her speed and efficiency. She had her long fair hair pinned back tightly out of the way, and in place of the trailing silk housecoat she’d had on in the morning, she wore a plain cotton dress with the sleeves rolled up. Greer had the impression that he was seeing Ethel for the first time without costume or disguise and without the mask of idiocy she assumed for self-protection.
“Mrs. Goodfield.”
She bent her head toward him with the alert inquisitiveness of a bird. “Oh, it’s you. Have those other men gone yet?”
“No.”
“I wish they’d go. They’re making Willett nervous. But then everything does, doesn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
She sighed. “I suppose you have to interrupt me?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been sewing. That, is, I haven’t been sewing anything in particular, just practicing up in case—well, you never know what will happen, do you. I think every wife should be prepared to go out and take a job.”
“Are you going to take a job, Mrs. Goodfield?”
“No, but it’s nice to be prepared in case worst comes to worst. So I thought I’d practice up on my sewing. I used to do a lot of sewing back home. I even made all my brother’s shirts. So I thought, if worst comes to worst—”
“Do you think it’s coming?”
She looked at him blandly, assuming the mask again. “One never knows.”
“Sometimes one has a rough idea.”
“I don’t follow you. I’m not a bit subtle. Ask Willett.”
“I intend to ask Willett quite a few things. And you, too.”
“I’ve answered a thousand questions already today. Who does everybody think I am, Einstein?”
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