With an Extreme Burning

by Bill Pronzini

  No, you didn't. That's not what you thought at all. “And she said she was waiting for somebody.”

  “That's right.”

  “Did she say who?”

  “No.”

  “Or why?”

  “No.”

  “What else did she say?”

  “I told her she was on private property and she said she was sorry and she'd leave as soon as her friend showed up. I said all right. Seemed like a nice lady. Polite. None of my business, really.”

  “Did you pass anybody on the way down—the person she was meeting?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  “Where was it she was parked?”

  “Right up the road from where the accident happened. Patch of old oaks. Kids sometimes—” He bit off the rest of it, shifted his feet and tried to hide his discomfort by bending and picking up a pair of Channellocks. But Dix knew what he had been about to say.

  “I won't take up any more of your time, Mr. Zachary. Thanks for talking to me.”

  “Shouldn't have, maybe.”

  “No, I appreciate it. I needed to know.”

  He started away, and behind him Zachary said, “Mr. Mallory? Don't mean much, I guess, but … I'm sorry.”

  Dix nodded and went on without looking back. Hearing Harold Zachary's pity was hard enough; he did not want to see any more of it written on the rancher's face.

  He drove straight to the university, to keep his two o'clock appointment with Lawrence Hampton at Guiterrez Hall. He didn't relish the meeting; he wished as he walked across campus from the faculty parking lot that he hadn't agreed to it this morning when Hampton returned his call. But he'd felt that it was important to maintain a tight grip on the normal patterns of his life, and it had seemed best to get the meeting over and done with as quickly as possible.

  Hampton was a decent sort but inclined to be pedantic. He lectured his fellow professors as if they were his students; the joke in the department was that there were two ways to teach and interpret U.S. history, the accepted way and the Hampton way. In Lawrence's stuffy office—he considered air-conditioning to be unhealthy—Dix endured an hour-long discourse on Jacksonian democracy and economic sectionalism. Complete with graphs and charts and pages of detailed notes to support the not very original Hampton theories.

  On the way out of the building he passed Elliot Messner's office. Elliot wasn't there, which was a relief; he might have wanted to talk, ask if there had been any more phone calls. Dix wasn't up to that. He still regretted opening up to Elliot on Saturday. And after what he'd learned today, the suspicions that were building in him, the only person he could or would confide in now was Cecca—and her only up to a point because he didn't want to panic her. Until he had a better idea of what had happened on the night of August 6, and why, there was not even much point in relaying his suspicions to Lieutenant St. John. Or the highway patrol, or the county sheriffs department. Without some kind of evidence, he had no leverage to convince any of them to reopen an investigation into Katy's death.

  He drove straight home from the university. As soon as he walked into the kitchen he was aware of the message light flashing—twice—on the answering machine. The telephone company hadn't been able to get somebody out today; tomorrow morning between eight and noon, they'd told him. He stood watching the red light blink. One of the calls would have been from the tormentor; he had no doubt of that. And the message? Something about Katy's earrings, probably. Words he didn't want to hear.

  He ran the tape back to the beginning without listening to either message. And felt better for having won even a tiny victory in this ongoing war of nerves.

  NINE

  Bright Winds Gallery was on the second floor of the Mill, the riverfront complex that also housed Romeo's. The cavernous building had once been a feed mill, Kraft Bros. Feed & Grain, in the days when Los Alegres was an agricultural and poultry-producing center and goods were regularly shipped downriver by barge to San Francisco. When the town began to lose its agricultural identity in the sixties, the descendants of the Kraft brothers had gone bankrupt. A local developer had bought the old mill in the early seventies and converted it into a unique kind of shopping mall on two levels—boutiques, craft shops, galleries, eating and drinking establishments. To Cecca's surprise, Los Alegresans had taken to it as readily as tourists, mainly because the developer had been smart enough to preserve much of the original interior: exposed piping, pieces of milling equipment, the rough-wood and cement floors. He'd also added other historical artifacts and numerous old photos of the town dating back as far as 1870. With this kind of ambiance, the Mill had soon become the place to go with friends or to take out-of-town visitors.

  Rents there weren't cheap as a result. Cecca knew what Louise Kanvitz was paying per month for the small space that contained her gallery, and it was exorbitant. How Louise had managed to meet it continually for a dozen years was a mystery. She certainly didn't do a large volume of business; the three paintings she had sold for Katy last Christmas had been one of her larger transactions for the year, or so she'd told Katy. Cecca suspected she had silent backing, though who the backer might be was another mystery. Louise had never married (rumor had it that she was lesbian), lived alone, seemed to have few friends; and while she owned a small critical reputation in the Bay Area, her own paintings—odd, nonrepresentational water colors, mostly—were riot commercially successful. She didn't make much from her teaching either. Yet she drove a newish BMW, dressed well, and never seemed to lack for ready cash.

  She was with a customer when Cecca entered the gallery. Or at least she was answering questions from a matronly woman about a hideous free-form iron sculpture of an animal displayed on a cube pedestal. She glanced at Cecca but didn't acknowledge her, although they knew each other slightly. Waiting, Cecca wandered through the cramped space, looking at the paintings, sculptures, pottery urns and vases, Miwok beadwork, and other items for sale. As art, they struck her as eccentric and of no real distinction. But she was hardly a connoisseur, and her tastes ran along conventional lines.

  Two of Katy's abstracts were hung side by side on one wall. Minor pieces, not nearly as well done as “Blue Time” or the three that had sold at Christmas. Still, Cecca wasn't surprised when she saw the yellow and red Sold tags hanging from the frames of each; given the ghoulish nature of people and all the publicity surrounding the accident, somebody had been bound to want them. What did surprise her—and make her angry—was the new price stickers next to the tags. One thousand dollars apiece! Each had been marked at two hundred dollars while Katy was alive; Louise had jacked the prices up an outrageous five hundred percent. Exploitative commercialism at its nastiest. And who in God's name would pay one thousand dollars for inferior work by an unknown artist, even a recently deceased one?

  “Hello, Francesca. What brings you to Bright Winds?”

  Louise had come up beside her; Cecca realized that the matronly woman was gone. She made an effort to keep her anger in check as she faced the older woman. “My brother's birthday is coming up,” she said. “I thought I might get him a piece of local art this year.”

  “Did you have anything in particular in mind?”

  “Not really. A painting, perhaps.”

  “Both of those have been sold.”

  “So I see. A thousand dollars each—my, my. They were marked at two hundred last month.”

  Louise stood stiffly silent, the way a person does when making a careful choice of words. She was about fifty, small and thin and bony, hair and eyes the unappealing reddish-brown color of kidney beans. The eyes had a chilly quality, as if she were looking at you through a thin glaze of ice. It was a full fifteen seconds before she spoke again.

  “Katy Mallory was a talented abstractionist,” she said. “These are her last two major works. In my judgment, they're now worth more than the original asking price.”

  “Now that she's dead, you mean.”

  “Bluntly, yes.”

  Cecca curbed a sharp
response and said instead, “Your judgment must be right, since you've already sold them. Both to the same buyer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who would that be, if you don't mind my asking?”

  “But I do mind.”

  “Oh? Is it a secret?”

  “Hardly that. I make it a policy never to discuss my customers or my business transactions. You don't reveal who bought a particular piece of property and how much was paid, do you?”

  “Sometimes. If the person involved is a friend.”

  “I'd rather not make an exception.”

  “All right. Tell me, though—did whoever it was buy Katy's water-color, too? I don't see it here anywhere.”

  “Watercolor?”

  “The one she painted under your tutelage. She told me about it,” Cecca lied. “A representational landscape, wasn't it?”

  “You must be mistaken. As far as I know, Katy never painted any kind of watercolor.”

  “Then why would she tell me she had?”

  “I'm sure I don't know.”

  “She did study with you, didn't she? Monday and Friday afternoons, starting in May?”

  “Yes, she studied with me.”

  “Every week?”

  “Every week. Faithfully.”

  “But not watercolors.”

  “She wanted to branch out into other forms of expression. I encouraged her to concentrate on perfecting what she did best, to explore the subtleties of Abstract Expressionism.”

  “But she didn't paint any more abstracts,” Cecca said. “You said those two on the wall there were her last works.”

  “Her last finished works. She experimented with different canvases, different approaches. They didn't please either of us.”

  “Do you still have them?”

  “No. I destroyed them after her death.”

  “Because they weren't salable?”

  “Because they were unfinished and inferior.” Louise's eyes were colder now, darker. Glare ice, black ice. “Is there any particular type of painting your brother prefers? Abstracts, still-lifes, landscapes, seascapes?”

  “Something representational,” Cecca said, to prolong the conversation. “Watercolors, preferably.”

  “I have a good modern by a Bodega artist, Janet Rice. Reasonably priced. Over here …”

  Cecca followed her to another wall. The watercolor was a vineyard scene, pale and blurry at the edges. Vastly overpriced at $150. She pretended to study it.

  “I've had it for a while,” Louise said. “I don't think Ms. Rice would mind if I let you have it for one twenty-five.”

  “Let me think about it. Do you have any others?”

  “Watercolors? No, not right now.”

  Cecca straightened. “You know, it's odd, really.”

  “What is?”

  “That Katy told me she'd done a watercolor, when she hadn't. Why do you suppose she'd tell a fib like that?”

  “I've already told you, I don't know.”

  “You did say she studied with you every week for the three months before she died? Twice a week, never missed a day?”

  “Just what are you getting at, Francesca?”

  “I think Katy was having an affair,” Cecca said.

  She was looking for a reaction, and she got one, small but unmistakable: involuntary twitch in one cheek, slight sideshift in Louise's cold gaze before it steadied again. The older woman said flatly, “What makes you think that?”

  “I was Katy's closest friend. There were signs.”

  “Did she tell you she was having an affair?”

  “No, she didn't. Did she confide in you, by any chance?”

  “Hardly. Ours was a pupil-teacher relationship.”

  “So you wouldn't have lied for her.”

  “Lied?”

  “About her spending Monday and Friday afternoons with you.”

  “Are you accusing me of lying?”

  “I'm just wondering.”

  “Well, you can stop wondering. What business is it of yours, anyway, if Katy had a lover?”

  “Her husband is my friend, too, and I don't want to see him hurt. If I know the truth, I can talk to the man she was seeing, make sure he keeps quiet about it.”

  “You're the one who'll hurt Dix Mallory if you keep prying. Why don't you just mind your own business? Katy's gone, it doesn't matter any longer what she was or was not doing. Let her rest in peace. Let sleeping dogs lie.”

  Four clichés in a row, Cecca thought. Very good, Louise. Very earnest and sincere. So why don't I believe you? Why do I think you're covering up?

  “Are you interested in the Rice for your brother?” Louise asked. “Or was that just an excuse to come in and pump me about Katy?”

  “I don't like the Rice. In fact, I don't like much of anything you're trying to sell.”

  The words sounded lame and defensive to Cecca even as she spoke them. But when Louise, purse-mouthed, turned her back and walked away without responding, she had no choice but to let them stand as an exit line.

  On her way downstairs she worried that she'd mishandled the situation by making an enemy of the woman. Any other approach, though, would have netted her even less information. Katy had said she was studying watercolors with Louise as recently as a week or so before the accident; that made it definite Louise had lied. Why? Keeping a promise she'd made to Katy? Or did it have something to do with those last two marked-up abstracts, with the person who'd bought them?

  One other thing Cecca was certain of: Louise Kanvitz not only knew about the affair, she knew the identity of Katy's lover.

  When she got back to Better Lands she checked her voice-mail first thing. Still no word from the Agbergs. The only message was from Elliot Messner in Brookside Park, returning her call of this morning. She tapped out his number.

  “Elliot, it's Francesca Bellini.”

  “Francesca, hello. Don't tell me you've found a buyer for this pile of mine?”

  “I wish I had. No, that's not why I called earlier.”

  “Oh? Change your mind about my invitation to dinner?”

  “Not that either, I'm afraid.”

  He sighed elaborately. “If you have any more bad news,” he said, “don't tell me. I've been in a wrist-slitting mood all day.”

  “It may be good news, actually. I have a new listing that you might be interested in. A small farm in Hamlin Valley—eighteen acres, house, barn, chicken coop and run. The buildings need repair work, quite a bit in the case of the barn, but I think they're all structurally sound. And you won't find a more attractive setting anywhere in the area.”

  “What's the asking price?”

  “Three twenty-five.”

  “Firm?”

  “It is now, but it's a brand-new listing.”

  “So you think it might be on the market for a while?”

  “There's no predicting that. This is a depressed market, though.”

  “Don't I know it,” Elliot said. “Realistically I won't get more than two fifty for this place, right?”

  “Honest answer? Probably not.”

  “I don't want to have to finance much on whatever I buy—if anything at all. Even if this Hamlin Valley place is what I'm looking for and I could get it for under three hundred … I don't know. Maybe it's too soon.”

  “If you think so,” Cecca said. “On the other hand, it couldn't hurt to take a look at it. See if it is the sort of property you're looking for and what you can expect within your price range.”

  “That makes sense. All right, when can I have a squint?”

  “Anytime you like.”

  “Not today. And I'm tied up on university business in the morning. … How about three tomorrow afternoon?”

  “Fine. I'll swing by and pick you up.”

  “I look forward to it,” he said, and paused and then said, “Have you ever had the Thirty-five-cent Peasant Pot Roast?”

  “The … what?”

  “Thirty-five-cent Peasant Pot Roast. Otherwise
known as the Best Thirty-five-cent Meal in North Beach.”

  “Elliot, I don't know what you—”

  “There used to be a restaurant in San Francisco, in the gaslight era, called Brenti's La Gianduja. End of Stockton Street at Washington Square in North Beach. One of the city's best turn-of-the-century eateries. Their customers' favorite entree was the Peasant Pot Roast.”

  Uh-huh, she thought, now I get it. “And you happen to have the recipe.”

  “I not only have it, I make it splendidly, if I do say so myself. I also have some homemade grappa to go with it. Brenti's always served their pot roast with grappa, you see.”

  Cecca was silent.

  “Francesca? What do you say? The Best Thirty-five-cent Meal in North Beach, tomorrow night after we look at the Hamlin Valley farm?”

  “I'm busy tomorrow night,” she lied.

  “I have an open calendar ahead.”

  “I don't think so, Elliot. I appreciate the offer, but … I'm just not in the market right now. For pot roast or anything else. Can you accept that?”

  “Oh, sure,” he said cheerfully. “But you really don't know what you're missing.”

  Meaning him as well as the pot roast, of course. “Well,” she said. “Tomorrow at three, then.”

  “Tomorrow at three. And don't blame me for trying, okay? Consider it a compliment.”

  There was a sigh in her as she put the receiver down. And a groan, and a shriek. Why did every other man she knew or met, unmarried and married, keep trying to hit on her? She was available, yes, and reasonably attractive, but good Lord! Owen, Jerry, Leo Franklin at the bank, Harvey Samuels at the tennis club, Fred Alt at Garstein Electric, now Elliot Messner … none of them interesting to her, particularly, and all of them sniffing after her like dogs in heat.

  She thought cynically: Maybe it's because I'm a bitch. Look who does interest me, the only one. Look who I'm sniffing after.

  Jerry said, “I'm worried about Dix.”

  “Why? What makes you say that?”

  “Well, I went to see him yesterday. Figured enough time had passed. I tried to get him down to the club for a round of golf. He wouldn't budge.”