Young Harlan? Hal Johnstone?
“Yeah. Fancy education, fancy car and all, the boy knows ranching.”
Yes, Hal Johnstone.
“You wouldn’t have thought it, the way he went off to that college back east, rather than a good California ag school like Davis. But the boy’s holding his own, in spite of his father being so dog-shit drunk that he can’t tend to business.”
Then Harlan Johnstone, Sr., was the one who was “easing” his troubles with alcohol.
One of the men laughed, ruefully. “Something, isn’t it-what a woman can do to you?”
“Sure is. But this is a peculiar thing. You got to remember, Irene’s been gone for over two years. The divorce is final, for Christ’s sake. Irene was one hell of a woman: got out fair and clean. Waived any settlement or claims to his property. So why start with the drinking now?”
“You got to remember that Irene wasn’t Harlan’s first wife. When a man loses a young piece like that-”
“She wasn’t all that young.”
“Late thirties, I’d say, to his sixty-some.”
“Sixty-odd’s old enough to know better.”
Silence. A sigh. A sheepish, “When did any of us ever know better?”
More silence.
“None of us got the kind of ranch Harlan’s got there, though. Man’s got a lot to lose if the Burning O goes to hell.”
“But like you said, the boy’s doing okay. And they got a damned good manager in that Wilkonson-”
“Don’t mention that son of a bitch to me!”
I leaned further to my right, straining to shut out “The Ballad of Pancho and Lefty.”
“You got some beef with Wilkonson?”
Silence again.
“Well?”
“Let’s just say that I don’t like what he’s done at the Burning O. Leave it at that. And now I better haul my ass home. The missus promised me a couple of steaks to grill.”
The trio finished up their beers, paid their tabs, and left to a chorus of good-byes from their fellow patrons. As they went toward the door, I watched them, wishing I could place each man with each voice I’d heard. And wishing that the last speaker could have been persuaded to explain his dislike of Frank Wilkonson.
The men’s stools were quickly taken by a couple in jeans and western shirts. They began talking about the woman’s younger sister who was “running wild.” Apparently they’d already had a few drinks, because the man kept saying monotonously, “We got to do something about your sister, Patty. We got to do something.”
To my left, the fellow I’d started thinking of as “Ears” had had three beers in quick succession and now switched to bourbon. The cowgirls’ interested expressions looked as if they were molded in plaster of Paris. After a few more minutes they exchanged exasperated looks, signaled the bartender, and ordered baskets of chicken to be brought to a nearby table that had just been vacated. A man and woman promptly claimed their stools and leaned close together, exchanging the little pats and smiles that come with new love. Ears gave them a venomous, envying look that neither of them noticed.
The bartender stopped in front of me and looked questioningly at my empty beer bottle. I nodded yes, pondering the situation at the Burning Oak. It explained, perhaps, why Jane Wilkonson had called it “a sad place.”
Ears sighed deeply.
I ignored him, taking the bottle of Bud and pushing money across the aged patina of the bar.
Ears said, “Oh God, what am I gonna do without her?”
I thought, Oh God, leave me alone.
Ears said, “Excuse me, miss. Never seen you here before. You new in the area?
Now I sighed deeply and turned to look at him. Face on, he was even more jug eared; the damned things stuck out like Dumbo’s. But he had a sweet downcast mouth, slightly crossed eyes that gleamed wetly, and he looked as if he’d only begun shaving yesterday. I am a sucker for helpless young things that need me. And this one so obviously required attention.
I said, “Yes, I am. My name’s Alissa Hernandez.” For a moment I held a forlorn hope that he might have some prejudice against Hispanics.
No such luck. His eyes brightened and he said, “Join me in a basket of chicken?”
It took the young man-who was rather ignominiously named Jim Smith-nearly three hours to pass out. After the bartender delivered our chicken and fries (surprisingly good, or I wouldn’t have eaten most of Jim’s, too), we moved to a table. There I listened with half an ear to the saga of how Sherri (“She spells it with an i at the end, and she always dots the i with a little heart”) had made him move out of their apartment in Hollister and was now seeing some “jerk” who worked at a gas station. The story was complicated by various rambling asides, and it took me a while to work the conversation around to the Burning Oak Ranch. When I did, Jim allowed as how it was a “hell of an impressive spread,” but said he didn’t know anything about it or anyone who worked there. He and Sherri, he explained, had only come down from Wyoming a few months ago.
“And now that we’re here, our marriage has gone bust,” he added. “Folks warned us about California.” Then he continued with his story. It didn’t matter that I was only half listening; by the end of the evening I knew his tale of woe well, because he told it three times-each at greater length, but with the consistency that comes from a great many rehearsals. I murmured and nodded at appropriate intervals, didn’t protest when he ordered us more drinks, and listened to the conversations eddying around us. About the only thing I heard concerning the Burning Oak Ranch was that Frank Wilkonson had had a “visit from the sheriff” earlier in the week, but that the problem had been “cleared up.” The group discussing him appeared to be ranch hands, and something about the way they spoke told me Wilkonson was the type of manager who didn’t mingle socially with the help. When the place began to clear out at around ten, Jim Smith leaned forward, put his head on his arms-as a schoolchild does during quiet time-and went to sleep.
I finished my beer, nodded at the bartender for another, and then patted Jim’s limp brown hair. The sad young man was curiously appealing; he reminded me of my neighbors’-the Curleys’-mongrel puppy. I hoped Sherri would come to her senses and break it off with the jerk at the gas station.
The bartender was about to bring the beer over, but I motioned for him to stay put and went back to the almost deserted bar. “Let me pay the tab for Jim and me,” I said.
He shook his bald head. He was portly, with lively brown eyes and healthy pink skin that pulled smooth over his layers of extra padding. “You don’t have to do that, miss. Jim’s in bad shape-but I guess you know that. I run a tab for him every night, and I’ll collect later.”
“Nice of you.” I looked around at the few remaining patrons. “They go home early around here.”
“They’re mostly ranch hands; get up early, too.”
“This seems to be a popular place with them. Who’s Walt?”
“Me.” He jerked a thumb at his chest. “Didn’t I see you drive by this afternoon in a red MG?”
“Right. I saw you, too. I stopped in because the place reminds me of a bar I go to at home.”
“Where’s that?”
“San Francisco.”
“You pick up strays there, too?” He motioned at the slumbering Jim Smith.
“Sometimes.”
“And eavesdrop on other people’s conversations?”
“I-what?”
“I’ve been watching you ever since you came in, lady. Made you the minute you sat down at the bar. You’re not a cop-you’re too subtle-but I’d wager you might be a PI.”
It bothered me that he’d pegged me so easily, but I had to smile. I said, “What are you-a former cop, or a former PI?”
“Cop. San Jose.” He grinned and extended a big hand across the bar. “Full name’s Walt Griscom.” When he released my hand, his smile faded. “I don’t like things going on in my bar that I don’t understand, so you’d better tell me why you’re her
e, what’s on your mind.”
I hesitated. A former cop in a little town would probably know a great deal about his friends and neighbors. He also might be intrigued enough with the matter that had brought me down here to want to help. But he would have a vested interest in this community and not want a member of it to be annoyed or suspected.
Walt Griscom watched my face, then went and got himself a beer. He came around the bar and sat down on the stool next to mine. “Look,” he said, “maybe I phrased that wrong. Let me tell you something about myself. This was my dad’s bar-bought it back in the Depression when nobody in his right mind was opening small-town taverns. Made a go of it by giving credit to down-and-out ranchers and their hands. When things got better, they repaid him in patronage. I thought that kind of life wasn’t good enough for me, so I moved to San Jose and became a cop. When the yuppies took over the department, I retired and came back home.”
Griscom paused to swig beer and accept money from a couple who were leaving. He pocketed the bills and continued. “What I’m telling you is that I’ve got a lot of respect for the people in this valley. I like living here, and I don’t want to see folks hassled. On the other hand, I’ve got a lot of respect for the law. I wouldn’t want to see anything illegal going on-or anything that would make me wish I hadn’t come back here. So if what you’re looking into is something I should know, I’d appreciate your telling me about it.
He was a wily old devil, but I liked him. So I told him-everything, including my real name. I was a risk, but again my instincts proved right. Because when I finished, he had quite a story to tell me.
TWELVE
As I sat in wait for Frank Wilkonson’s Ranchero to emerge from the west gate of the Burning Oak Ranch the next evening, I had plenty of time to think over what Walt Griscom had told me-as well as the information Rae had phoned in at eight-thirty that morning.
The phone had awakened me, and I’d spoken into it with a furred tongue-a consequence of brandies on top of more beers with the bar owner. Rae sounded peppy and cheerful, and for a moment I regretted having bolstered her confidence with the additional responsibilities; in my present condition, I would have liked her a lot better if she’d sounded downtrodden.
She said, “What’s wrong? You sound mean as a snake.”
I ignored the question. “What have you got for me?”
“Well, don’t bite my head off!”
“Sorry-I’m hung over.”
“Having a hot time in Hollister, huh? Well, I got hold of Alissa Hernandez, and she pulled the info on Frank Wilkonson.” Now Rae’s tone became crisp. “Policy’s his own, there’s no record of employee coverage for Burning Oak Ranch.”
Yet another strike against Wilkonson’s veracity.
“The guy’s a bad driver,” Rae went on. “Or maybe he just gets rattled in unfamiliar territory. Nothing too major, but some fender benders in the past two years, and they’re all in different locations.”
I sat up a grabbed the pen and memo pad from the nightstand, then propped up the pillow behind me. “Give them to me-location and date.”
She did. In August of the year before, there was one in Southern California-Orange County, specifically-and another in September. Later in September he’d had a minor accident in L.A. proper. In August of this year, he’d rear-ended another car on the Bayshore Freeway, some twenty miles south of San Francisco, and there was a more recent incident in the city itself.
I told Rae to hold on and went to get my checkbook from my purse. It had one of those calendars that cover a three-year period; I checked the dates against it. All the incidents had occurred on a Saturday or a Sunday.
I stared at the list, wondering if I should risk paying another call on Jane Wilkonson. I would like to ask her if she’d been with her husband on any of those dates. But I was willing to bet she hadn’t.
“Sharon?” Rae said.
“I’m here. Thanks for the information. Were you able to get hold of Jack?”
“Yes. He was taking off for Yosemite-more rock climbing-but he gave me a copy of the will.”
I smiled faintly. Rock climbing was what we at All Souls referred to as Jack’s “sublimation activity.” He wasn’t very good at it, but his near obsessive enthusiasm more than made up for his lack of skill. Fortunately, he never got up very high. We were all sure he’d abandon the pursuit once he’d put a certain amount of distance between himself and his divorce. “Give me a summary, would you.”
“It’s kind of complicated. Most of the bequests are to organizations benefiting the homeless. There are provisions for the sale of his business, and all sorts of trusts set up, along with the details of who’s to administrate them and how. And then there’s a small bequest to the guy who’s supposed to have killed Goldring-Bob Choteau.”
“How much?”
“Five thousand.”
Wait until Ben Gallagher gets hold of that information, I thought. It wasn’t much in terms of Rudy’s entire estate, but to someone who was homeless…
“Anything more on Choteau?” I asked.
“There wasn’t anything in the paper this morning.”
“Good…go on.”
“Why good?”
“I’ll explain some other time.”
There was a pause that told me Rae felt shut out, but she merely said, “Okay. The rest of the will is just two bequests, each in the amount of twenty-five thousand. One to an Irene Lasser, described as ‘friend,’ and the other to her daughter, Susan Lasser, to be placed in trust until she’s eighteen.”
Well, I thought, there’s the connection.
I hadn’t known her birth name, which was what the Lasser must be, but the first name Irene was not all that common. It had figured prominently, however, in the story that Walt Griscom had told me the night before.
Funny, though: he hadn’t known about the daughter, Susan.
What Walt had told me explained Jane Wilkonson’s statement that the Burning Oak Ranch was a sad place.
Seven years before, Harlan Johnstone’s wife of thirty-one years had died after a long illness. Within months Johnstone had remarried, to a woman named Irene, who was a professor of horticulture at San Jose State. Just how Johnstone had met his much younger bride-she was thirty, he fifty-nine-wasn’t clear to Walt, but he said that many of the local people were suspicious of her motives and hostile because Harlan had married again so soon. The bad feelings went away, however, when the new Mrs. Johnstone set about beautifying the ranchhouse’s grounds with the elaborate terraced gardens I’d seen, as well as organizing classes for members of Hollister-area horticulture clubs. Her workshops for children were particularly effective, and Irene displayed a genuine affection for her young gardeners.
“She really seemed to love kids,” Walt told me. “Which was a shame in a way, because none of us could see Harlan starting a second family at that stage in his life.”
The first hint of trouble between the Johnstones came about two years later when Irene abruptly withdrew from her community activities. The excuse she gave was that she was needed at the ranch-and she had been known to help out in the office from time to time-but those who knew Harlan well felt that he had become jealous of her outside interests and had forced her to give them up. That viewpoint was reinforced by a marked deterioration in Irene herself: when she was seen around Tres Pinos or Hollister, she looked withdrawn and depressed, and she seemed to have lost more weight than was healthy. This went on for over two years, and then she snapped out of it, becoming the same attractive, vibrant woman whom Harlan had first brought to the Burning Oak.
“It was a real turnaround,” Walt said. “People kept commenting on it. I remember talking with Hal Johnstone, who had just come back here after working someplace on the East Coast for several years. He hadn’t seen her since his father’s wedding and couldn’t believe she’d ever been in such bad shape; he was impressed by his stepmother.”
“And what happened then?”
“About six months
later, she took off. Just up and left with no explanation, not even a note. Harlan was frantic; at first he thought maybe she’d been kidnapped-there’s a lot of money in that ranch, you know. Then he thought she’d run away with another man and he put detectives on her trail. They had no luck tracing her. Finally, a little more than a year ago, the divorce papers, along with a waiver of her rights to her share in the community property, came from an L.A.-area lawyer.”
After that, Harlan had given up. What he did was begin drinking-and he’d been drinking heavily ever since. In the past month or two, he’d refused to leave the ranchhouse, and his imbibing had reached monumental proportions. Hal, as the men I’d overheard at the bar had said, was holding things together at the ranch, but just barely. He’d been trained in veterinary science, not in the business end of cattle ranching, and even though Frank Wilkonson was a good manager, there were many things that required the attention of someone with Harlan’s skills-and weren’t getting it.
It explained a great deal, I thought, about Hal Johnstone’s behavior when I’d visited the ranch: his sudden concern when I said I’d been ringing the bell and getting no answer; his quick trip upstairs to check on his “ill” father. It also explained the dirty, rundown condition of the house.
“They’d better take that place in hand pretty soon,” I said. “The house is a disaster area, and it’ll only be a matter of time before the gardens start showing neglect.”
“Jane Wilkonson tries, bless her soul, but it’s too much of a job for just one woman.”
“You mean she cleans that big house?”
“Tries to. She’s the only one Harlan will let inside. It isn’t easy for Jane to find the time, what with all her kids. But she cared for Irene, and she knows how she would feel about the place going to hell.”
I wanted to say that if Irene had been so concerned with the ranchhouse and its gardens, she should have stayed there and looked after them. But that wasn’t fair; I had no idea what pressures had been operating on the woman.
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