“Sunday is his only day off?”
“Yes. Cattle ranches can’t shut down on the weekends. Frank has a contract with us that provides substantial bonus pay for working a long week.”
“I see. So he’s off from…?”
“Saturday evening till Monday morning at eight. As I said, I don’t know what he does during that time.”
“Does Mr. Wilkonson live here on the ranch?”
“Yes, his place is over by the west gate-two miles south, on the other side of the highway.”
“Perhaps you could tell me something about Mr. Wilkonson.”
“Ms. ...I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name and I must have left your card upstairs.”
“Hernandez, Alissa Hernandez.”
“Ms. Hernandez, I don’t understand what your question has to do with an inquiry into an accident. Shouldn’t you just go to Frank Wilkonson and ask if he hit your policyholder’s car?”
“It would make my job much easier if I could. Unfortunately, there’s some uncertainty about the witness’s reliability, plus a bit of conflicting evidence. You see, your manager’s vehicle is registered as a green Ford Ranchero, but the paint scrapings on the policyholder’s car indicate the one that hit it was white. If I talk to Mr. Wilkonson and he thinks I’m making an accusation, it could leave my company open for all sorts of trouble. He might even sue-”
“But aren’t you putting your firm in the same kind of jeopardy by coming to his employer with basically the same kind of questions?”
I put on my most ingenuous smile and fluttered my hands helplessly, trying not to overdo it. “I suppose I am, Mr. Johnstone. And normally I wouldn’t have revealed so much, but you seemed so…well, I’m sorry to have overstepped….”
Watch it, McCone, I thought. You don’t look like a babbler, and if you go any farther, he’s smart enough to see through you. “Anyway,” I added in a businesslike tone, “if you can give me some background on Mr. Wilkonson, I’ll know how to approach him-or if it’s necessary to approach him at all.”
Johnstone nodded. “I understand. And I’d like to help Frank out, if I can. The man’s had enough trouble this week.”
“This trouble-”
“It’s got nothing to do with what you’re looking into. I’ll be glad to tell you anything about Frank that would appear in his personnel file, but at that point I’ll have to draw the line.”
“Fair enough. Suppose we start with how long he’s worked for you.”
“For my father, Harlan Johnstone. He owns the ranch; I just assist him. Wilkonson hired on”-he paused, calculating-“about three years ago. Before that he held a very responsible position at a big spread in Texas. Near Fort Worth? Yes. He came highly recommended, which is why Dad offered him a long-term contract with lots of perks.”
“What kind of employee has he been?”
“Excellent.” He said it so fast that it made me wonder if it were the truth. “Profits are up by twenty-nine percent, much of that because of pared-down expenses.”
“And you say Mr. Wilkonson lives on the ranch? Is housing one of the perks you mentioned?”
“It always is, for a ranch manager.”
“What about the other perks?”
“Sorry, the employment contract is confidential information.”
“Is Mr. Wilkonson married?”
“Yes. Wife’s name is Jane.”
“Children?”
“Six, one since he’s been here. I couldn’t begin to tell you any of their names.”
“I know what you mean. My sister also has six, and I can barely remember theirs. Tell me, do the Wilkonsons seem happy?”
“What does this have to do-”
“I’m trying to get a feel for the situation, in case I have to interview the wife.”
“Oh. Well, yes, I’d say so. As happy as you can be when the husband works dawn to dark six days a week, and the wife’s worn out chasing after those…” His voice trailed off, but I could have sworn he had been about to say “brats.”
“Do you know of any reason Mr. Wilkonson would have been in San Francisco last Sunday?”
He shook his head.
“Or any other Sunday?”
“No.”
“Did he arrive for work on time Monday morning?”
“As near as I know.” He thought for a moment. “I saw him in the ranch office about ten.”
Ten-shortly after Rudy Goldring had left his own office to meet with his killer. That let Wilkonson out for the murder, but I hadn’t really suspected him of it.
I said, “Will you describe Mr. Wilkonson-in terms of personality type?”
“He’s…well, on the surface I guess you could compare him with most of the cowboys we hire, only brighter. Slow talking, easygoing. But underneath it, he’s extremely intelligent. He relates well to the help because he doesn’t talk down to them.”
“A calm individual, then?”
“…Usually.”
“And when he’s not?”
Johnstone’s face clouded, as it had when I’d asked if his father was all right. The fingertips of his right hand whitened against the wooden arm of his chair.
“Mr. Johnstone? Does Frank Wilkonson have a tendency to become violent?”
“Why do you ask that?” But he didn’t appear at all surprised.
“Because the witness to the accident at Fisherman’s wharf described a violent outburst of temper on Wilkonson’s part that caused the collision.”
Johnstone considered that. Finally he said, “It’s possible, I suppose. No, it’s probable. I don’t think Frank’s basically a violent man-I know he’s not-but lately he’s been prone to fly off the handle.”
“In what circumstances?”
Johnstone was silent.
“Why, do you suppose?”
“Look, Ms. Hernandez, Frank’s only an employee here. I work closely with him, since I’ve more or less stepped in for my father in the past several months, but I don’t really know him, not personally.”
“So the trouble’s personal, you think?”
He shrugged.
I waited and, when he didn’t speak, said, “Is there anything else you think I should know before I talk with Mr. Wilkonson?”
Again he looked torn.
“Mr. Johnstone?”
“All right, just this: be careful when you talk with him. As I said before, he’s had a bad week. I wouldn’t like to see him fly off the handle with you.”
TEN
Jane Wilkonson was a tall, heavy, frizzy-haired woman of about thirty who would have made a great drill sergeant. When I arrived at her rambling white frame house, she was in the sun-baked side lot ordering a ragtag army of nine kids out of a Doughboy swimming pool. I could hear her southern-accented voice from where I’d parked behind an old Honda station wagon in the driveway, nearly half a city block away. The gist of what she was shouting had to do with somebody peeing in the pool, and I was just as glad I couldn’t make out any more than that.
As I approached them, one of the older boys pointed at me and said, “Shit, Ma, don’t be yelling at us when there’s company.”
“Don’t you ‘shit’ me, you little-“She clapped her hand over her mouth and whirled to face me, her plump cheeks staining red.
At a signal from the boy who had spoken, the troops scattered and ran shrieking for the house.
Mrs. Wilkonson rolled her eyes, still obviously embarrassed. “Dammit,” she said, “I try to be tough, but they’ve all got my number. Clever little bastards.”
“They certainly seem to be-clever, I mean.”
“I’m just hoping one of them is clever enough to get rich-and loving enough to support me in my old age.” She wiped her hands on the ample seat of her red shorts, then stuck out the right one. “I’m Jane Wilkonson. Are you looking for me or Frank?”
“Both of you, actually.” I shook her hand and jerked my chin at the house. “Are they all yours?”
“No, thank God. Only five o
f them-plus the little one that’s asleep on the porch. Or was, before they all went tromping up there. The other four are hellion friends from school, and if their parents don’t come to claim them soon, there’ll be the devil to pay.” She smiled as she said it, but I sensed the pent-up frustration of a mother after a long, trying day.
I took out one of Alissa’s cards and handed it to her. “I wonder if I might ask you a few questions.”
She studied it, her lips pulling down and puckering like one of the children’s might. “Allstate? We’ve got Allstate, I think. Is it more trouble because of Frank’s trip to San Francisco last Sunday?”
“I wouldn’t call it trouble, at least not yet. It may be something we can clear up quite quickly. Is there someplace where we can talk?”
“You mean where they can’t bother us?” She motioned toward the house.
“Well, yes.”
“You’re looking at a woman who knows how to escape anyone under the age of twenty-one. Follow me.”
Her refuge turned out to be a grape arbor on a rise at the back of the lot. The vines were ancient and gnarled, so intertwined with the latticework that they and the structure had become a single entity. Leaves and stunted bunches of raisinlike grapes hung down, practically obscuring the plank seat behind them. Jane Wilkonson ducked under them and plunked herself down, sighing and pulling a pack of Camels from her shirt pocket. I sat next to her and, when she offered me a cigarette, shook my head. She lit one, inhaled deeply, and let out the smoke in a long, luxurious breath.
“I know they’re bad for you,” she said. “Lord knows I hear that enough from Frank-he hates for me to smoke. But a woman’s got to have some pleasure in life.”
I glanced down at the hard-packed earth in front of the bench; it was littered with cigarette butts. Jane Wilkonson apparently escaped to this arbor frequently-and alone, since her husband disapproved of her smoking.
She saw where I was looking and added, “Can’t drink-I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the kids if I did. Don’t gamble or overeat-in spite of my figure. And now, what with Frank…What’s this about the insurance anyway? You’re a claims investigator?”
I wondered what she’d been about to say about her husband. Was sex another of her lost pleasures? “Yes,” I replied, “I’m looking into a hit-and-run collision.” Then I told her the same story I’d told Hal Johnstone.
As I spoke, the lines bracketing her mouth deepened. She stubbed out her cigarette in the dirt, looked longingly at the pack on the bench between us, then laced her fingers together. “Chickens to roost,” she said bitterly.
“I’m sorry?”
“Oh, nothing. Just some nonsense that occurred to me. So your witness thinks this person who hit the car was my husband?”
“His account isn’t quite that clear. It’s your husband’s license plate number, but the witness describes a truck, not a Ranchero. And the paint scrapings on the other car are white, not green.”
“I see.” She looked at the pack of cigarettes again, then reached for it and lit one almost defiantly.
“Was your husband in San Francisco on Sunday, Mrs. Wilkonson?”
She shrugged irritably. “Seems that way, doesn’t it? You couldn’t prove it by me. I don’t know where he goes on his day off. It’s his only day, and a man’s got a right- Oh, hell.”
I waited. When she didn’t go on, I asked, “Does your husband always go away on his day off?”
“Lately he does. He finishes up at the ranch office about eight on Saturday night-needs to go over the week’s business with Mr. Johnstone. Then he puts the kids to bed and we have dinner. I try to make it special, and he always stays for dinner, I’ll give him that. It’s our only meal without the kids at the table, you see. Every week I think maybe he’ll change his mind and stay. But right afterwards he packs a small bag and just goes.”
“And you’ve never asked him where? Or why?”
She shook her head.
“Or if there’s another woman?”
Her lips twitched, and she drew on her cigarette-deliberately, allowing time to formulate her answer. “I wish it were only that. A woman learns how to ride those things out, how to handle them. But this…We don’t have the kind of marriage where we ask a lot of questions. Or at least I don’t ask them.”
Obviously not, I thought. I didn’t know a great many women who would have put up with a spouse’s repeated unexplained absences without asking-no, demanding-to know where he’d been. I myself believe in a certain amount of room for privacy in even the closest of relationships, but had I been in Jane Wilkonson’s place, I would have hounded Frank mercilessly until he told all. I asked, “What time does he usually come back?”
“In time for work on Monday. He’s never late, and he never acts like he’s been drinking or…anything.”
“How long has he been going away like this?”
“Not long. Last Sunday was only the fifth time. I know because we went to Monterey to the aquarium-just the two of us, for my birthday-on Sunday six weeks ago. That was really the last good time we had together.” She looked me full in the face, her brown eyes terribly earnest. “Five weeks isn’t long at all. That’s why I’ve decided just to wait it out, see what happens.”
“Do you think perhaps something’s bothering him that he needs to get away and think about?”
She shook her head, not in denial, but in discouragement. “Must be, but he’s not talking to me about it. Like I said, we don’t talk easily about the things that matter. But he got that way last year, about the same time….” And then she became very still, as if she’d realized something she should have known before.
“About the time of your birthday?”
“No,” she said, more to herself than me. “Can’t be.” She continued to sit, turned in upon herself, then shook her head, as if to wake up.
“What were you about to say, Mrs. Wilkonson?”
“Nothing that makes any sense.” But sense or no sense, whatever she had thought of badly disturbed her. She threw her cigarette to the ground and crushed it angrily with the toe of her sneaker.
I tried another tack. “Has your husband been in a bad temper lately? Does he get unusually angry with you or the kids?”
“He’s never hurt any of us.”
Which meant yes. But now she must have reminded herself I was there in a quasi-official capacity, because she hardened her voice and said, “What does all this have to do with the accident he’s supposed to have had, anyway?”
I explained about the violent outburst the “witness” had observed near Cost Plus. It made me feel a little better because it was the truth, and something she ought to be aware of.
Jane Wilkonson studied the ground for a moment, then sighed. “It doesn’t surprise me.”
“Have there been other incidents like that?”
“Not with the car, no.”
“With what, then?”
She hesitated. Obviously she needed to talk with someone-and preferably another woman-or she wouldn’t have told me as much as she had. In the silence, I envisioned her life here: isolated from even small towns by miles and miles of cattle graze; a cut above the wives of the men who worked for her husband; a step below the Johnstone women-if there were any. And she had a husband who couldn’t talk about the “things that matter,” was surrounded by children too young to understand why Mom was upset.
She said, “With who is more like it. Frank quarreled with Mr. Johnstone-Hal Johnstone-a couple of times recently. Pretty violently, to hear tell.”
That explained Johnstone cautioning me to be careful when I talked with Wilkonson-and perhaps his reluctance to discuss the ranch manager’s violent temper. “Over what?”
“Do you think I’d know? The ranch hands and their wives, they made sure I heard about it, but they were mighty careful what they said.” Her mouth twisted and she glared angrily at the pack of cigarettes, as if they and not the conversation had left a bad taste in her mouth.
“Nobody here ever tells me anything,” she said. “Plain Jane-that’s what they think of me. The brood mare who only cares about her kids. I’m Frank’s wife, and Randy’s mother, and so on and so on. But take Frank and Randy and the rest of them away, and I’m nobody at all. So nobody ever tells me anything.”
After that bitter recital, I didn’t have the stomach to go on questioning her. I said-fully meaning it-“Mrs. Wilkonson, I’m sorry if I’ve upset you or made you sad.”
She shook her head and briskly rubbed her hands on her big bare thighs. “Not your fault. If it’s anyone’s, it’s mine. Actually, the talk did me good.” Then she picked up the pack of Camels, stood, and stepped out of the arbor.
I ducked under the low-hanging vines. Jane Wilkonson was standing still, gazing out over the valley. From the rise that the arbor stood on you could see across acres of sunburned cattle graze, the road a grayish ribbon curling through them. The tile roof of the Johnstone house was visible, and the funeral trees surrounding it.
Jane turned to me, her face concerned, as if she’d upset me, rather than the other way round. “You didn’t make me sad,” she said. “Not really.” Then her eyes moved back to the distant ranchhouse, and an emotion that I couldn’t quite interpret crept across her features.
“It’s a sad place here, that’s all,” she added.
Before I left her, Jane gave me directions to the offices where I could find her husband. They were several miles back the way I’d come, toward Paicines and Tres Pinos, just inside the ranch’s north gate. A pair of blue and white mobile homes stood in the middle of a graveled lot, surrounded by cars and pickups. Wilkonson’s Ranchero was parked close to the first trailer, and I left the MG beside it and climbed the steps to the trailer door.
I knocked on the door’s closed louvers, and a female voice called for me to come in. inside the temperature was chill; an air-conditioning unit hummed noisily. A young woman sat behind an L-shaped desk that held stacks of files and a word processor. The trailer was one large room, with three other desks, file cabinets, and a Xerox machine. A map of the ranch with varicolored pins stuck in it took up one whole wall. Two of the desks were unoccupied, but Frank Wilkonson sat at the third, directly under the map. He was talking on the phone, his booted feet propped on the desk’s edge, his swivel chair tilted back. He glanced at me, but there was no recognition in his eyes.
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