“The timing would have had to be very close,” Van Horn said. “Schneider, who was following her, said he had met no cars for an hour before he found the wreck; therefore she couldn’t have been taken south. If it happened that way, she must have been picked up by somebody driving north just ahead of him—and if they had an injured girl in the car, why didn’t they stop in either Goldfield or Tonopah? And she’s not out on the desert, or the planes would have spotted her by now. Well, I’ll wait for them to finish examining the wreck, and head on back.”
“Let me know when you’re ready, Mr. Van Horn, and I’ll drive you,” the sheriff said.
Half an hour later we were taking off again, west into the wind and the setting sun, from the airport that consisted mainly of a faded windsock on a weatherbeaten pole. The pilot circled and put us on course. The events of the day had left me behind. Part of me was still sitting in a house in Albuquerque holding a telephone. I seemed to have caught a cold somewhere along the line, and I had the thick, fuzzy-headed feeling that went with it.
“Do you want to hear about the wreck?” Van Horn asked, beside me.
“What about it?” We had to shout to make ourselves heard over the sound of the engine.
“It was a phony,” he said. “There were a good many indications of this, of course. Have you ever examined the scene of a real accident, Dr. Gregory? You mentioned that your wife was wearing loafer shoes, the kind that slip on without lacing. She had a purse with her; you didn’t mention this, but it’s in Schneider’s report. It’s highly improbable that she could have been flung clear of a car traveling at that rate of speed and still retain her shoes and purse; yet they were not found on the scene. And considering the fact that it was dark at the time, it seems unlikely that, stunned and bruised at the very least, she could have retrieved them by herself. Of course, this hypothetical good Samaritan might have picked them up for her, but even that doesn’t seem too plausible. But there are more definite indications that the accident was staged, Dr. Gregory. The car had a four-speed transmission, but the lever was in third gear—the passing or acceleration gear; not the fourth or cruising gear. And the throttle had been jammed wide open by an ingenious arrangement which I admit I’m not mechanically minded enough to describe to you since I don’t fully understand it myself. Nevertheless, we can take it as a fact. When I get the full, written report, I’ll let you look at it if you wish. I don’t want you to have any doubts in your mind about this.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re a valuable man, Dr. Gregory, and we don’t want you thinking that your wife was framed or treated unjustly in any way. The facts are, first, that her scarf was found by Dr. Bates’s body. Second, that upon being challenged with this, she packed her belongings into her car and drove away from home. Third, that after getting out onto the desert, away from any telephones from which Schneider might have called ahead to have her intercepted, she speeded up and left him behind. And, fourth, that at a certain point she found somebody waiting for her with another car, in which she drove off, after first wrecking her car to give the impression that she had met with an accident.”
“Not much of an impression,” I said. “A wreck without a driver is bound to cause comment.”
“Eventually,” Van Horn said. “But not immediately, before it has been determined that the driver hasn’t wandered off into the desert or been picked up by a passing tourist. If Schneider had simply come upon your wife’s car parked along the highway, he would have realized what must have happened; and he would have called from Goldfield and had the roads blocked ahead. There are very few roads across the desert, particularly in winter when the smaller ones are apt to be impassable. Your wife and her accomplices needed time to get clear. The wreck gave it to them.”
It was like talking over the plot of a movie or television show, a pastime that always bores hell out of me. We weren’t talking about a smallish girl of about twenty-three with big dark eyes and long dark hair; we were talking about a criminal and her accomplices.
I said, “Just what crimes is Natalie supposed to have committed—besides murder, of course?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“Not for you,” I said. “You’re a security officer, Van. You don’t care if half the population of the United States is massacred in bed, as long as they don’t tell any secrets while they’re dying.”
He said, “Fischer, you, Justin, Bates, and now Mrs. Gregory. All people connected with the Project. After a certain number of such incidents, even a security officer becomes interested, Dr. Gregory.”
“I see,” I said. “You smell a conspiracy?”
“Let’s say that I see the outlines of a pattern.”
“And the predominant color of that pattern,” I said, “would it be red?”
He said, “Who else but the communists would go to such lengths to interfere with our work? I have to tell you something else, Dr. Gregory. I’ve been watching your wife for quite a while, waiting for her to give herself away. For a little over three years, to be exact.”
I glanced at him. “Go on.”
He said, “As I’ve told you before, I don’t like coincidences. I have the theory that police work—and security is just an extension of police work into a special field, of course—I have a theory that police work is largely a matter of looking for coincidences; for the man who just happens to have a fancy alibi at the time another man is killed, for the woman who just happens to adjust her stockings so as to distract the sucker’s attention while his pocket is picked. And when a brilliant young scientist who has just made a discovery that promises to give us a new weapon with all the destructive force of the older nuclear bombs but with only a fraction of the radiation effect that makes these weapons potentially almost as dangerous for the user as the target—when, at just this point in his life, such a man suddenly just ‘happens’ to meet an enigmatic young lady from a different walk of life entirely, who in spite of the difference in their backgrounds and interests, just happens to fall madly in love with him—”
I said, “If you don’t watch it, Van, you’re going to lose track of that sentence. It’s a lulu already.”
He said, “I know. My sentences get very involved when I’m embarrassed, Dr. Gregory. And I don’t like to talk to a man about his wife.”
“Then don’t strain yourself,” I said. “You’ve made your point. I’ll keep it in mind. Now shut up and let me get some sleep.”
ELEVEN
THE FOLLOWING DAY, I was called to the Project and informed by the Director that, much as he regretted having to take this step, he was suspending me from my duties until further notice. My mind had been too busy with other problems to consider this possibility, so it came as something of a shock; although it was, of course, a perfectly logical development. Returning home, I decided to look at the matter from its brightest side, which was that I was no longer obliged to hang around here. The car was still packed from the other night. I got an extra duffel bag of clothing, my rifle and some ammunition, all the reasonably non-perishable groceries from the kitchen, and added them to the load. Then I locked up the house and headed north.
Driving up to Santa Fe, I knew that spring was here by the fact that the whole top layer of the country was moving eastward on a gusty forty-mile breeze. That’s just a zephyr in these parts; you could drop a couple of eastern hurricanes into New Mexico in the spring and nobody would notice the difference. There was dust and sand blowing hubcap-deep across the highway the whole sixty miles up U.S. 85; occasionally it would get thick enough to slow down traffic, and you could see headlights go on in the yellow murk. Then it would open up again to show you the sky clear and blue overhead, and the sun shining. The radio announced that U.S. 66 was closed for dust east of Grants. I took it easy because of the poor visibility, because I wasn’t feeling too strong yet, and because those damn big wrap-around windshields cost money and you can sandblast one into frosted glass in a couple of minutes if you drive too fast throug
h one of these disturbances.
As I approached Santa Fe, the snow-covered peaks of the Sangre de Cristos looked painfully white and clean in contrast with the dirt through which I had been driving. The wind was still blowing as I drove into town, but there wasn’t as much stuff flying around. I checked in at La Fonda, washed the sand off the body and brushed it out of the teeth, and went down to have dinner in the bar. It was a familiar place; Natalie and I always ate there when we were in Santa Fe. Eating alone, I got through the meal fast, went up to my room, did some research in the telephone book, went to bed, and slept all night.
In the morning I dressed myself conservatively in the light gabardine suit that’s practically the uniform of the country, although you can get by on tropical worsted, or even rayon cord, if you insist. I noticed by the pants that I had lost weight, which, if I had been a little healthier, would have been cause for rejoicing: I don’t like to go over two hundred. I had breakfast and spent a couple of hours driving aimlessly around town, just to see if I had company. I did. Van ought to try being followed some time, I reflected; he might understand how somebody could succumb to the temptation to stomp down on the accelerator and leave the nuisance behind.
At the moment I didn’t really care. I had no hope of keeping my activities secret anyway. I drove up the Acequia Madre toward Cristo Rey church. The Acequia Madre is the Mother Ditch; formerly, I have been told, the main water supply of the town. Although hemmed in by modern cement walls as a precaution against floods, it looks very much like a mountain creek that has lost its way and strayed into the big city. Near the center of Santa Fe it disappears underground in several places, but farther upstream it runs openly through a residential district that, like many such, is populated half by Spanish-Americans, and half by Anglos of artistic pretensions—Anglo, in case you didn’t know, is the local term for us foreigners who can’t speak Spanish.
Anyway, the ditch or stream is the Acequia Madre, and the road along it is also called Acequia Madre, and the address that interested me was a certain number along that road. It had a red door. I don’t know why, but a red front door seems to indicate an artistic female just as surely as a red light is supposed to advertise another type of female. All women of my acquaintance who learn the difference between a palette and a pincushion immediately march out and paint their front doors red. Ruth DeVry’s front door, for instance, is a deep, rich tone midway between scarlet and maroon.
Having the door spotted, I cruised around the neighborhood in a fashion I hoped looked casual, although it didn’t really matter. The Pontiac made the proper negligent attitude hard to achieve; if cars get much bigger, Santa Fe is going to have to close up shop. It’s an old city that likes its privacy, which means that every citizen surrounds his property with high adobe walls. These walls, being directly on the street, naturally limit the width of the thoroughfare. The wheelbase and overhang of my vehicle made some of the corners almost impossible to negotiate. I extricated myself from this rabbit-warren at last, and drove back to the hotel for lunch.
After lunch I went up to my room, refreshed my memory from the telephone book, and picked up the phone. The operator got the number for me right away. A girl’s voice answered.
“Miss Rasmussen?” I said. “Miss Rasmussen, this is Jim Gregory… Gregory. Yes, that’s right: Dr. Gregory, the guy you tried to shoot once. I know you don’t particularly want to see me,” I said, “but I wondered if you’d let me drop around, anyway… Yes, after dinner would be fine. Thank you, Miss Rasmussen.”
I hung up and looked at my face in the mirror. It was obviously the face of a man wondering what the hell he was letting himself in for…
Driving over after dinner, I had for a moment the free and light and somewhat guilty feeling of a kid playing hooky: I had no wife and no job and I was on my way to call on a pretty girl. It was an odd and somewhat disquieting illusion. I suppose every man every now and then wishes for a chance to start all over again; not so much that he’s dissatisfied with what he’s made of his life, as that he’s curious to see what else he might have done with it. I found a place a block off Acequia Madre where I could leave the overgrown coupe without obstructing traffic, and walked up to the door. Nina Rasmussen must have been waiting for me; she opened the door within a second or two of my knock.
Then we stood facing each other in the doorway, both remembering very clearly the circumstances of our first and only meeting. I saw that she was again wearing one of those wide, flounced, southwestern skirts. The one she had worn to the hospital to kill me had been yellow; this one was red and white, topped by a peasant blouse of white cotton with small round sleeves and a loose drawstring neck. Except for a big silver concha belt that must have set somebody back at least a hundred dollars, she was wearing no jewelry, which I liked. Too many women go hog-wild with that Indian silver. She was better-looking than I remembered; a healthy blonde girl in her middle twenties. She still wore her hair quite short; it was almost a boy’s haircut. It had grown out enough so I could not see where she had been hurt by Natalie’s pitcher of gladioli.
“Come in, Dr. Gregory,” she said. Her voice was different from what I remembered, low and pleasant, with no overtones of hatred or hysteria. “I think you’ve met my brother Tony,” she said.
The dark boy who had come to the hospital once was standing by the fireplace, which was one of those small, round, deep corner jobs that look like beehives. A couple of piñon logs were burning inside, without benefit of andirons. The rest of the room was in keeping with the native fireplace, low and dark, with the ceiling supported by the round log rafters that are called vigas and add a couple of thousand dollars to the value of any New Mexico residence. Back east, there’s prestige in an old Connecticut farmhouse. Here, the snob appeal is in a real adobe house with genuine vigas. Tony looked around and gave me a brief nod without taking his hands out of his pockets.
The girl said, “I’ll get my coat, Dr. Gregory. I won’t be a minute.”
Nothing had been said about going out, but I saw no reason to object. The boy had turned back to contemplate the fire. His uncompromising back said that I had interrupted an argument of which I had probably been the subject. I wandered around the room. There were the usual local relics scattered around: a couple of beat-up kachina dolls of more authentic origin than you would find in the ordinary souvenir shops, an old wooden image of a saint set in a wall niche made for the purpose, some silver and copper, a nice bowl of the black pottery that comes, I think, from San Ildefonso, and a couple of the gaudy Jemez pieces that you’re supposed to consider vulgar if you’re any kind of an expert—and we’re all experts here—but which I always like, in small doses. There was a lever-action Winchester over the fireplace. There were two large paintings on the walls, original oils, signed F. Wild.
I approached the paintings cautiously, only because the boy was still giving me his back and there was nothing left to look at except some magazines I had already read. Actually the only safe attitude to take toward home-grown art is one of complete disinterest. If they see you looking, they’ll almost inevitably ask for your opinion.
“My stepmother,” the girl said, coming up behind me. “Frances Wild. She and Dad were killed in an auto accident four years ago. She was supposed to be quite good. That’s the pueblo of Taos.” I looked respectfully at the stylized design of white cubes piled one on top of the other. Nina Rasmussen indicated the other paintings. “That one is Monument Valley.” It was an orange-red pattern of jagged lines. “Well, let’s go,” the girl said. “We’ll be home early, Tony.”
Outside it was still, dark, and quite cold. “Drive or walk?” I asked. “My car’s just down the street.”
“Walk,” she said. “That is, if you—”
“I’ll make it,” I said.
“I just didn’t know if you were completely recovered.”
“Completely enough,” I said. “Tell me, who painted the door red?”
“The door… Oh.” She laughed. “W
hy, Frances did, originally. Why do you ask?”
“Just curious.”
“I… I never liked her very much. So of course I couldn’t paint it a different color afterwards. It would have seemed as if I was trying to wipe out…” She stopped. “You’re a sinister person, Dr. Gregory. Already you have me telling you all about myself.”
“That’s what I came for,” I said. “You and your brother don’t look very much alike, except around the mouth and eyes.”
“He takes after Mother. She was pure Spanish, a Trujillo.” If you’ve ever been bored by old Virginia families, stay out of New Mexico. They’ve got it twice as bad. Nina Rasmussen said, “She died when Tony was born. I was six years old.”
I said, “Your luck hasn’t been very good, has it? People keep dying on you.”
She said, “That wasn’t a very tactful remark, Dr. Gregory. From you.”
I said, “I didn’t come here to be tactful. You don’t really expect me to be tactful. What does Tony do?”
“He goes to the University. He’s just up for the weekend.”
“Does he usually come home for the weekend?”
“Not ‘usually,’ but every now and then.”
“Any particular reason this weekend?”
“No,” she said. “Why do you ask?”
“Did he let you know he was coming?”
“No,” she said. “Dr. Gregory—”
“He came up to tell you not to have anything to do with me, didn’t he?” I said. “I kind of expected that he might. I kind of stalled around to give him time to get here.”
She said stiffly, “Dr. Gregory, I don’t know what you’re driving at, but I don’t think I’ll answer any more questions. You can take me home now.”
I said, “You don’t look like a fool, Spanish. Don’t act like one.”
She stopped, and turned to face me in the darkness. “I don’t think I like—”
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