A Death in California

by Barthel, Joan;

Bill’s secretary, Helen Linley, said Bill wasn’t back from lunch. Hope had never met Helen Linley but they knew each other somewhat, since Hope and Bill talked on the phone so much. Helen Linley had a soft, motherly voice; she had worked at Dailey & Associates longer than anyone else there, and she had a grown son, Sgt. Frank Linley of the Los Angeles Police Department, Homicide Division.

  “He said something about doing an interview with somebody, but I can’t believe he’d be gone so long,” Hope told Mrs. Linley. “Do you know where he went?” Mrs. Linley said she didn’t know. “Well, I hope he can get away early,” Hope said, “because we’re going to the ranch.” Helen Linley said she thought he could, judging from the things she’d seen on his desk.

  Bill’s boss, Cliff Einstein, had been looking for Bill around the office too, starting around 1:30. Cliff wasn’t annoyed that Bill was taking a long lunch, only a little surprised, partly because Bill was so careful about telling people where he was and when he’d be back, partly because Cliff knew Bill shunned long, fattening lunches. Once in a while, if Cliff and Bill had something to discuss, they’d go to lunch together, usually at Ma Ma Lion’s on the corner of Western and Sixth or at Blarney’s Castle next door; if they wanted something fancier, they’d go to the Windsor on Seventh Street. Most of the time, though, Bill’s habit was to have just yogurt and cottage cheese either at his desk or at his apartment, or maybe skip lunch altogether. Obviously Bill’s regime paid off: most people thought Bill was younger than Cliff, though Cliff was just thirty-three, seven years younger. Cliff Einstein was the senior vice-president and creative director at Dailey & Associates, but he and Bill worked as equals. Cliff considered Bill Ashlock a very, very good copywriter, as good as any copywriter in Los Angeles, in fact, one of the best in advertising anywhere. Cliff liked Bill, too, though he wasn’t really close to him. He didn’t think anyone was really close to Bill, but sometimes, on a business trip, the two men would share a hotel room and talk.

  When Bill came back from lunch, a little before three o’clock, Cliff noticed he seemed excited, almost elated.

  “I have to tell you about something that’s happened to me,” Bill said to Cliff. “I’m being interviewed by a reporter from the Times for an article on the town’s most eligible bachelors.”

  Cliff was taken aback, because of Bill’s quiet style; he also wondered if Bill could be called eligible, since he wasn’t divorced yet. Cliff knew about Hope, too; he’d never met her, but Bill had shown him her picture soon after they met, and Cliff thought the life insurance ad with her picture was beautiful. He knew that if anyone asked Bill about his bachelorhood, in five seconds Bill would have been showing off Hope’s picture, in the black dress with the long-stemmed rose.

  “Tell me about it,” Cliff said. “How did they find you?”

  “Well, you won’t believe this,” Bill said, “but he called the girls over at J. Walter Thompson, because J. Walter Thompson has the best-looking girls, and he asked them to suggest somebody, and the girls said, ‘Call Bill Ashlock.’” He told Cliff that the reporter was very interesting, very nice, just back from Vietnam, and that he’d told Bill about another bachelor being interviewed for the article, a pilot for Air New Zealand.

  “Air New Zealand—one of our accounts,” Cliff said.

  “I know. It’s a coincidence,” Bill said. “I’ll get the agency some publicity, too.” He asked Cliff some questions about the agency’s size, its billings and growth, and Cliff told him to use anything he wanted to use in the interview.

  Once or twice that afternoon, Cliff teased Bill a little about being a famous guy, but he continued to be a little puzzled about Bill’s being chosen and about Air New Zealand. He knew that Air New Zealand had only two or three planes, maybe half a dozen pilots, and he knew those pilots didn’t live in Los Angeles. They lived in Auckland. And another thing didn’t really puzzle Cliff, but it intrigued him: Bill had said the man didn’t take notes, that he could remember everything in his head.

  After Bill had talked with Cliff, he called Hope. “I just got back,” he told her. “I had a great free lunch at the Brown Derby.”

  “Well, I couldn’t imagine where you were so long,” Hope said. “How did it go?”

  “Fine,” Bill said. “Great. He asked me a lot of questions, and I asked him a lot of questions, and we just talked. We talked about the advertising business and about England and all kinds of things. He’s a very pleasant guy. I told him about you, and about going up to the ranch. And Hopie”—Bill paused—“Hopie, he wants to come up to the ranch and take some pictures.”

  Hope groaned. “Oh, no.”

  “I tried to talk him out of it. I told him, ‘Look, I am a very dull person, I go with a girl who has three kids, and we take the kids around, we watch TV, and it’s just not that interesting, let’s forget it.’”

  “What did he say then?”

  “He said, ‘Oh, no, no, that’s what makes it interesting.’”

  Hope said nothing.

  “Well, what do you think, Hopie?” Bill asked, finally. “Is it all right with you if he comes? He said it would make a great photographic layout, and he really wants to come so much that I hate to say no, but if you say no, I’ll tell him no.”

  Hope sighed. “No, it’s okay. But I’ll have to ask my mother.”

  “Okay,” Bill said. “I told him I’d ask you, and he’s going to call me at five-thirty. I’ll be there by then. I’m leaving now.”

  Hope telephoned her mother.

  “As long as you don’t use the name of the ranch in the papers, I don’t see why there would be any problem,” Honey said. “It’s certainly all right with me if he just wants pictures of horses and trees or whatever.”

  “Okay,” Hope said. “I’ll tell him not to use the name of the ranch.”

  “And Hopie,” her mother continued, “I really don’t care for the idea of you being photographed with Bill when you’re up there with him for the weekend. With your divorce coming up, Hopie, that doesn’t look very good.”

  “Well, he wants to take pictures,” Hope said.

  “I don’t want him to make it look as though you’re doing anything wrong,” her mother said.

  “Okay,” Hope said. She knew if she said anything more, she and her mother would probably get into an argument, as they often did, about Hope’s relationships with men.

  “I haven’t been able to reach Jim Webb,” Honey said. “I tried on Wednesday and all day yesterday, and today, but no one answers.”

  “I’ll try him now,” Hope said. “See you next week.”

  Jim Webb, the caretaker at the ranch, lived in a small house near the main house with his wife Teresa and their children. Honey liked to let Jim Webb know when someone was coming up so he could turn on the lights and heat. But when Hope tried again, there was no answer.

  Hope felt tired and cross. The house would be cold and dark when she and Bill got there, whenever that was, with Bill running so late. The plans for this weekend had been arranged and rearranged so much that, for a moment, Hope thought about calling the whole thing off. Early in the week they’d planned to take all the children, Bill’s and hers, with Hope’s friend Evy going along to help with the kids and the cooking. Then Evy backed out so she could go to a party Friday night. Hope had lined up Licha, her weekend maid, but Licha had gotten a last-minute singing job Friday night. Meantime, Fran Ashlock was getting cross, too, not knowing if her girls would be going away for the weekend or not. Bill had kept saying he’d phone her when he knew, and later Hope had heard him telling one of the girls that she and her sister couldn’t go this time because Hope didn’t have help, but they could go another time. And now a total stranger was coming.

  When he heard the doorbell, K.C. ran to the door, with Hope right behind him. Bill picked up K.C. and reached around him to kiss Hope.

  “My mother says it’s okay,” Hope said, “as long as he doesn’t use the name of the ranch, and as long as he doesn’t make it look like we’re having
an affair.”

  “I know,” Bill said. “I called her too. And I got directions.”

  At exactly 5:30 the phone rang. Bill answered the phone on the dining table, with Hope standing alongside.

  “It’s all right if you come,” Bill said, “but we don’t want the name of the ranch used, and it—well, for Hopie and me, it should just look like a day’s outing at the ranch. I mean …” He stopped talking and listened for a moment.

  “Fine,” Bill said then. “Around one o’clock tomorrow. Now let me tell you how to get there.” Reading from his notes, Bill said to take the main highway north to Bakersfield, but from Springville to the ranch it began to get complicated, and Hope began to get impatient.

  “Just tell him to go to Springville,” she began saying to Bill, who nodded. “Just a minute,” he told the caller, then he turned and listened to Hope. “Just tell him to go to Springville and when he hits a gas station, to call us and we can direct him from there.” Bill repeated this into the phone and gave the ranch phone number. “Fine,” Bill said. “We’ll expect to hear from you around one.”

  He hung up and turned to Hope. “Let’s go,” he said. “All ready?”

  “No,” Hope said. “You were late, so we’re running late. What did he say about the pictures?”

  “It’s okay,” Bill said. “He said he won’t use the name of the ranch and he’ll certainly make sure nothing looks improper.” He leered at her and twirled the ends of his mustache, and even though she was feeling tense and uptight about the way things were turning out, Hope had to laugh. She started down the hall to the bedroom to pick up her things, then she stopped and turned back toward Bill.

  “I don’t even know this guy’s name.”

  “Taylor Wright,” Bill said.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Martha carried the luggage and groceries to the car while Hope and Bill said good-bye to the children, all of them clustered in the doorway. Bill swung K.C. up into his arms one more time as Hope repeated the instructions to Martha, reminding her that K.C.’s father would pick him up on Saturday morning, and that Martha was not to leave until Licha came to take over Saturday evening. She made sure Martha had the ranch phone number, then she slid into the front seat of the Vega, beside Bill, leaned back, and closed her eyes.

  “We’re going,” Hope sighed, as Bill turned up the Drive, then headed down the mountainside. “I can’t believe we’re finally going.” She felt as though she could fall asleep right there in the car. But by the time they were out of the city, heading north on the freeway, she felt fresher, and she sat up straight. The traffic was thick but moving well along the divided highway, four lanes in each direction. Bill turned slightly toward her and smiled. “Feeling better?”

  “Lots,” Hope said, digging in her bag for her comb. She turned toward Bill and tucked her knees under her, curled up on the seat. “I’m so glad we’re not going to a party tonight. I’m so glad we’re together. Just us.”

  “Me too,” Bill said. Then Hope frowned a little. “Well, it’s not really just us. Bill, why is this guy coming all this way just to take pictures? We could have put on some jeans and stood by a tree back in L.A.”

  “Oh, Hopie,” Bill said, “you’re always worried about everybody else. If the guy wants to make the drive, let him do it.”

  “Well, I still wish he wasn’t coming,” Hope said. “And with him coming all this way, we’re going to at least have to take him to lunch or something.”

  “I liked him a lot,” Bill said, “and I think you will, too. He’s very entertaining. We had a good time at lunch.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Oh, we talked about our war experiences, and about Vietnam. He told me he just got back from three years in Vietnam and he’s just kind of filling up time now before he gets another assignment.”

  “Well, I hope he enjoys this assignment,” Hope said. “Did you tell him that one of his ten most eligible bachelors ate warmed-over meatloaf last night and then watched TV?”

  Bill laughed. “Speaking of meatloaf, are you hungry?”

  “Yes,” Hope said. “I just remembered I didn’t eat anything today. But let’s go a little farther before we stop.”

  Below Bakersfield, Bill left the freeway and drove north on Highway 99, straight up through the vast San Joaquin Valley, the center of California farming, with its flat fields of cotton and potatoes, not far from the town of Delano where, only a few years before, Cesar Chavez and his farmworkers had caught national attention. Oranges and almonds, grapes and olives poured abundantly from these irrigated fields, onto the piggyback trucks that thundered along Highway 99 all night long, on their way to morning markets. Past a restaurant with a big, lighted parking lot—The Ranch House—Hope saw a flashing neon sign that said EAT. “I know that place,” she told Bill. “Let’s stop there.” The diner was plain, but the food was good. Hope had a hamburger and two cups of coffee and felt better than she had all day.

  The highway narrowed to three lanes, with oleander bushes running down the center strip. They passed the Golden Hills Trailer Park, with a few lights on in some of the trailers. “I wonder how anybody can live there,” Hope said.

  “You mean you don’t want to live in a trailer?” Bill teased. “Funny, I had you figured for the kind of girl who would want to live in a trailer someday.”

  “Oh, Bill,” Hope said, “won’t it be wonderful when we can get a place somewhere out in the country? You could work there and only go into the city two or three times a week. And the kids would love it.”

  “We’ll do it, Hopie,” Bill said, instantly serious. “We’re going to do it.”

  “I just can’t have my mother involved,” Hope said. “I don’t want her to be making house payments for us because then she feels she can run our lives. I’ve been through that with my mother before, and it’s a real hassle.”

  “We’ll do it ourselves,” Bill said. “When I get this deal going with Checkmate, it’ll help a lot.” Checkmate was the name of a partnership Bill had formed with a filmmaker named Richard Miller. Bill had shown Hope the business cards he and Miller had had done up, all hand-lettering, and he had shown her one of their short films, a scenic mix of sunset and camels, the Sphinx and desert sands, with the caption: A New Person Is Born Every Day. It Could Be You.

  “Well, I hope it gets going soon,” Hope said briskly. “Meantime, Bill, what about using the children in some commercials? I mean, something that wouldn’t be emotionally disturbing to them, something fun, like going on rides at an amusement park or something.”

  “Maybe,” Bill said. “But first I’m really going to push on this ad for Occidental and try to get them to use your picture. They’re coming in next week to see it.”

  “Good,” Hope said. “And I wish you could see this.” She gestured toward the window, at the darkness. “It’s really too bad we’re coming up at night, on your first trip. These mountains are covered with wild-flowers.”

  “I’ll see them tomorrow,” Bill said. “I’m so glad to be here, I don’t care how dark it is, or how late.”

  The ranch was a three-hour drive from Los Angeles, about midway between Bakersfield and Fresno but off the highway in a picture-book world of its own. Past Porterville, the nearest town of any size, with a Wells Fargo Bank, an Elks club, a courthouse, and a jail, they headed east into the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, past the black depths of Lake Success, onto a two-lane road. The town of Springville lay ahead, a hamlet with the bare necessities for mountain-country living: a small grocery, a hardware store and gas station, a bar or two, a store that sold ice and beer and bait and tackle. “Go slow on this road,” Hope told Bill. “If we get into Springville, we’ve gone too far. It’s easy to miss the turnoff, even in the daytime.”

  There were no other cars on the road, no lights anywhere. The dark shape of the mountain above them blended into the blackness. Hope peered out her window, searching for the road. “Here it is. Turn right.”

  Bi
ll turned onto the dirt road. In the glare of the headlights, he could see that the gate, part way up the bumpy road, around the curve, was open, so he drove a little faster, past a big white frame house with a porch. “Make a left,” Hope directed, “and park here, alongside the house.”

  Bill turned and parked in the open space between the house and the orange grove. The foreman’s house beyond the trees was dark. “I guess the Webbs are gone, because the gate was open,” Hope said. “Or maybe they’re in bed. But if they’re in bed they should have closed the gate.” She fished out a flashlight from the glove compartment and swung the light around as she got out of the car. “At least I hope my mother called them and had them turn the heat on.”

  But the house was chilly when she opened the side door into the little storage and entrance room that opened into the kitchen. She switched on the lights and walked through the kitchen into the living room, where she flicked on the thermostat. When she turned on the lamp on the table between two rocking chairs, the room was suddenly welcoming and mellow. Bill came in and stood in the middle of the room, looking around. “I love it,” he said. “It’s just the way I thought it would be.”

  It was a comfortable room, pleasant and unpretentious, like a room in a midwestern farmhouse. Indeed, in the Midwest the whole place would have been called a farm, rather than a ranch, though it probably fit somewhere in between. Jim Webb’s title of “foreman” was largely honorary—he had no ranch hands to boss; he worked a regular job at the state hospital in Porterville. But he kept some cattle on the property, looked after a handful of horses, and watered the orange trees, so it qualified as a ranch or, at least, a spread, more than five hundred mountainous acres, with two deep lakes and a rushing river. Hope’s mother had paid seventy thousand dollars for her quarter interest.

  It was a good hideaway for a man and woman in love. Bill sat at the end of the sofa, near the fireplace, taking it all in. A long coffee table separated the sofa from two big rocking chairs, with brass lamps on tables at each end of the sofa. Behind the sofa was a large dining area, with an oval table that could seat eight people. Above the sideboard along the far wall were two carved wooden mallard ducks. On a knickknack shelf on the living room wall was a china cup with a painted caption: Your Father’s Mustache, and, below that shelf, a row of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books. Two hurricane lamps stood at either end of the mantel over the fireplace.