“Very dull, to begin with. I have to ask for identification from everyone here.”
Martha stiffened momentarily and very carefully did not look at Mayland Long. Elen yawned and Pádraig began to haul his cheap cardboard suitcase out from under the table. Martha produced her purse from under the bed. “Driver’s license and major credit card?” she asked tightly.
“I can do without the credit card.” The inspector examined the license perfunctorily and then handed it on to his associate. “I see I have one year seniority on you, Mrs. Macnamara. I would have guessed ten or fifteen.”
She did not reply.
Long was standing behind her, and he held in his spidery hand a driver’s license and a blue American passport Martha had never seen before. Anderson took it.
“Born in Hong Kong,” he murmured.
“That was a long time ago. I have been in this country for some years.”
Anderson glanced up. With his cool gray eyes and high forehead he looked the picture of an academic. “I would have thought, to listen to you, that you had spent those years in England.”
“Hong Kong is a British colony,” answered Long evenly. Officer Scherer received the passport from his supervisor.
Elen Evans lay flat on the bed with her eyes closed. She threw the detective her wallet, and it hit his arm. Without rancor he leafed through it until he found the driver’s license in its cellophane sheath.
“You have until the end of the month to get this renewed, Miss Evans. In case you forgot.”
Elen gave a groan and did not open her eyes.
“Mr. O Súilleabháin?” This time Anderson got the vowel sound reasonably correct.
“A moment,” replied the young man, who was fishing under his underwear in the cardboard suitcase. His passport was in much worse shape than Long’s, and to Martha’s great amazement, it was also American. She scratched her nose and looked at Anderson.
He examined the thing. “You also I would have guessed to be younger.”
“I’m not a child.” The reply was surly.
“That’s not what I meant at all. So your mother was born in the States? That’s double citizenship, isn’t it?”
Pádraig nodded and let his hands dangle between his splayed knees. Martha, who knew Pádraig’s mother, scratched her nose harder.
Anderson seemed impervious to the young man’s rudeness. “Well, lucky for you. I’ve often envied people of double culture. I imagine it’s a source of strength.”
Pádraig let his unhappy eyes settle on Teddy, who had not moved from his position by the bureau. “I already showed them,” said the guitarist, though no one had asked. “At the station.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll have to keep these things for a little while. I know it’s inconvenient, but life without a car is quite workable in Santa Cruz, and we’d prefer that none of you left the city today. At least.”
A glance of shared misery passed from Pádraig to Martha to Teddy. Elen seemed nearly asleep.
“Okay.” The detective settled back in the chair that had belonged to Long. “I’d like to know when was the last time everyone here saw George St. Ives?” Anderson pronounced the name in perfect French, which drew a slight smile on Martha’s face. “The uh… Québecois was a few generations back in his line, I think,” she whispered to Anderson. “I never heard him called anything but Saint Aiives.”
“And I try so hard,” said Anderson, with a sigh.
“Elen and I last saw him at about two, in the rehearsal room—the dressing room, really—of the Hall. He and Teddy were branching out into new-age sound. That’s two P.M., I mean.”
“That goes for me too,” added Elen, “I was with Martha.”
Anderson had a spiral notebook, into which he wrote with a gold ball pen.
“And me,” added Pádraig. “I was there, too, at the same time. I did not see him later than that.”
Long felt Anderson’s gaze, but waited to be asked. “For me it was a bit later, Sergeant. I last saw him walking down the hall toward the front door of the motel, at approximately three-ten yesterday afternoon.”
“Approximately three-ten,” murmured Anderson, his gray eyes reflective. “That’s very close for an approximation.”
Long smiled with his mouth closed. “There is a clock in the hall.”
“Still, most people would not think to look at it, or would not remember.”
“Most people,” said Long dryly, “are not as literal-minded as I am. It is my handicap.”
Teddy did not wait to be asked. “I saw him last. At five or five-thirty. Out front by the flower boxes. I tried to drag him to Right Livelihood for some soup, ’cause he didn’t look good. He wouldn’t go.”
“He didn’t look good?” Anderson’s voice expressed only polite interest.
Teddy sat down on the corner of the mattress, by Martha. The bed bounced. “Well, yeah. I’d been worried about him. He’d been a bit run down.”
No one said anything to this, although Elen glanced at Martha and Martha glanced at the rug.
“Which is St. Ives’s room?” Anderson asked Martha.
She squirmed as she replied that she did not know. “He never stayed with the rest of us,” she added.
He stared at her in clear disbelief, even when the others in the room corroborated her statement. “Well, we’ll find out,” he said shortly.
The sergeant was quiet for a moment, while all glanced from one to another. Then he asked, “And where did we all go last night, after the concert?”
The air in the room stretched tight.
“Out looking for George,” said Elen. “Every mother’s child of us.”
“Except me.” Martha spoke up. “I stayed here.”
The sergeant’s expression was neutral, almost dull. “Did you go out in groups?”
Long’s grunt turned into a series of coughs. “No, Sergeant, we did not. Foolish of us…”
Anderson bit on the end of his metal pen and did not look up. “Unfortunate for me. And no one found him?”
“I did not.”
Pádraig shook his head. “I really wasn’t looking very hard. I was drinking beer.”
Anderson glanced up, cheered by this news. “Where was that?”
“At a bar on the pier. White and green and blue.”
“The Riva, Sergeant,” explained Long.
Anderson nodded and wrote. He cleared his throat. “Now. St. Ives hadn’t looked well, Mr. Poznan says? Did anyone else notice that?”
“Oh, yes,” Martha replied. “He never looked healthy. He drank too much, and did—did not take care of himself.”
“He had a liver problem, I think,” offered Long. “His skin was quite yellow.”
Martha let out a rough laugh. “Is that a joke, dear?”
“Of course not,” replied Long, in confusion.
“Drink will destroy a man,” said Pádraig, rubbing his red eyes with his many-scarred knuckles.
Anderson made a noncommittal grunt and kept writing. “What about you, Miss Evans? Did St. Ives look ill to you?”
Elen put two fingers to her mouth and spent a few seconds that way, silently. “It was more the way he acted. Irritable and depressed. A bear, in fact.” She tilted her head and met the detective’s eyes. “It’s no secret that he wasn’t getting along with us. Any of us, except possibly Teddy.”
“Depressed.” Anderson repeated that word heavily. “Do you all agree that Mr. St. Ives had been off-color and depressed in the last few days?”
Martha nodded. Long said, “Quite.” Teddy shook his head, in pity, not negation, and Elen sat without moving. Pádraig alone spoke up.
“I don’t know why you say that. Myself, I think he was happy making other people feel bad. And didn’t he walk around with a smile on his face yesterday?”
“George was drunk yesterday,” whispered Martha.
“I don’t like George. I think he’s nasty!” Marty came up from under the bed. Her purple crayon was covered with dust an
d the sun had bent it into a half-circle. Anderson’s eyebrows went up to their full extension and his moustache stood out sideways.
“There’s a child in here? Good grief, I didn’t know. I am sorry,” he said earnestly to Martha. “I would not have blurted all this out, had I known a child was present.”
Marty stared at this outburst and Martha gave another snort of weary laughter. “Marty? It would take more than a policeman’s interrogation to scare her.”
“I don’t like George!” repeated Marty stubbornly, knowing she wasn’t supposed to say that in public. “He isn’t nice to anyone. He made Pádraig cry!”
“He did not!” said Ó Súilleabháin hotly. “What a thing to say!”
Marty stared at her friend, deflated. “Well then, he made Elen cry!”
“Wrong again, little peeper,” drawled Elen Evans. She leaned forward and pulled Marty up on the bed beside her. “Maybe it was actually Martha Frisch-Macnamara who cried?”
Anderson looked from the child to Martha. “Your daughter?”
“Granddaughter, of course,” replied Martha, but the mistake didn’t seem to offend her. “Traveling with us for a week. George St. Ives didn’t have much of a way with children.”
The uniformed policeman pulled on the knees of his trousers an instant before Detective Anderson moved to stand up. This interested Martha, and she was on the brink of asking him what cues he had used, when the terrible intelligence the officers had brought into the room weighed down on her again and she said nothing. Anderson looked around him, catching each pair of eyes in the most casual fashion. He sat back down in a more central position.
“I’m sorry the poor man is dead,” he said. “And I’m glad that he wasn’t anyone’s son. Or lover, here. That it doesn’t mean the end of the world to one of you people.
“But his death was an awkward one, and so it’s my business, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to become a bit of a bother to each of you.
“It’s my private opinion that no one ought to be allowed to run around by himself, ever. It makes my job so much harder. Just think how much smoother things would be if you all had done your searching by the buddy system. Now I’m going to have to get statements from each of you as to where you went and what you did, and you will become very confused and so will I. Also, none of the people you met will remember seeing you when my colleagues check them out. As they must do. It will all be strenuous and very depressing. Let’s start now.”
The statement-taking took thirty-five minutes and was, in fact, quite wearing on all. Pádraig was worst, for be had no notion what time be had gotten to the bar nor what time he left. Afterward he walked around the streets for some measureless interval and noticed neither direction nor living soul. He’d gotten lost.
Elen had some sense of order. She had walked the pier, and been to a few bars, not including the Riva. She had borrowed the van (she carried the spare keys) and driven out along the ocean, where she had had engine trouble for a little while. She had returned by four-thirty and was therefore very tired, and she had no corroboration for her story at all.
Long knew exactly where he had been, and when. He had started along the boardwalk and spoken to the clerk who was closing up the last souvenir shop. He had described St. Ives to her. By one A. M. he had been up and down the pier and had met Pádraig in the Riva.
Pádraig stared at Long, astounded. “Right enough! You were there. I thought it was my imagination. Was I drunk?”
Long looked tolerant and did not answer.
Finding no sign of St. Ives by the ocean, he had walked north and prowled the night places of the mail. He would give Detective Anderson a list of places that might remember him. He had gotten as far as the Ocean Street bars before giving up. He’d come home at four.
Anderson looked as tired as any of them. He cleared his throat. “Thank you, people. It sounds like a miserable night for all concerned. Except, perhaps, for Mr. Súilleabháin.”
“It is the morning that is miserable,” said Pádraig. Anderson smiled.
“Well, there has been no medical report on the body yet; we’d like to find next of kin first. But after the report does come in, the chances are good we will need to speak with each of you again. So, though I hate to have to repeat myself—”
“We can’t leave,” Elen broke in.
Martha thought of the calls—the explanations—she would have to make. She felt sick and knew that would only get worse.
Anderson’s mouth opened, as though he were about to say something to mitigate those three uncomfortable words, but he took a slow breath before adding, “Only for a short while, I hope.”
As the officials stepped toward the door of the room, Martha stood, and on impulse she said, “May I see him, Sergeant Anderson? May I see George?”
Anderson gave her a surprised glance.
So did Long. “I don’t think there is any need for that, Martha,” he said.
“My need.”
Anderson nodded slowly. “Certainly, ma’am. A second identification would be very helpful. When did you have in mind?”
“Now.” Martha spoke the word with such firmness the sergeant blinked. She led him out of the motel.
Teddy, Pádraig, and Elen were left in the room, standing, sitting, or sprawled over the beds: all alone together. Long was left holding the baby.
Anderson walked slowly beside Martha. The trees above their heads sagged with the weight of fluffy red flowers. Somewhere on the mall a jazz band was playing, heavy with brass. Martha kept darting glances over her shoulder.
Twice along the length of Laurel Street Anderson apologized for not having brought a car. “I find I move quicker in the central town without it,” he said. “But I can call for one….”
Martha waved this aside. “I have a van parked behind the motel, if I’d wanted to take it. I suppose that would be okay, since you’re holding my license. Foolish thing to do, though, in Santa Cruz. And I’m not in geriatric care yet. She looked again over her right shoulder, at the uniformed policeman, who followed two steps behind.
Anderson mumbled that geriatric care had never entered his mind, but Martha interrupted him, stopping dead on the street. “Does he have to walk behind us? Because you’re of higher rank? Or is it to prevent my running away?”
Officer Scherer, brought up suddenly, showed the whites of his eyes like a startled horse. Detective Anderson tightened his lips to control his expression. “I really don’t know, ma’am. Why are you walking behind us, Dan?”
Scherer shrugged. “The sidewalk is narrow.”
Martha considered this. “Oh,” she said at last and. continued walking.
“It was he who found the body?” asked Martha.
“Yes, at about six this morning,” Anderson replied, gesturing over his shoulder. Martha turned around again, and her face was drawn with concern.
“That must have been terrible for you!”
Scherer brought himself up to his full height, and he was about to deny any such thing, but instead he found himself saying, “Yeah. It was pretty bad.”
Martha turned her china-blue eyes on Anderson. “Do you really expect him to do a day’s work after a shock like that? I’d think he’d be allowed to go home.”
“I don’t want to go home!” Scherer sought his superior’s eyes, in outrage.
“Dan Scherer’s a tough cookie,” the detective said dryly.
Detective Anderson might have considered Martha Macnamara a dingy sort of woman, for she said the strangest things. So very distractible (or else operating out of a very different logic). Had she not played the fiddle the way she did… Had she not stood there in the motel room and said the single word “now” with that peculiar power, like the sound of an explosion far off… But for these things, her other unconventionalities might have put Anderson off.
He certainly might have found some quicker way to get this viewing over with. She was who she was, however, and he walked contentedly beside her and let her set t
he pace. Anderson liked to think and walk together, and he had a lot to think about.
As a younger man, he had been often afraid of his own reactions toward the people that made up the cases he investigated. He had kept a certain inviolate distance. But years had taught him that godlike objectivity, even if possible, was far too much trouble.
Especially when he wasn’t sure any crime had been committed at all. Walking beside Martha, be found it difficult to believe there had been a crime. Musicians were not stable people, he was well aware, and the dead man had been depressed.
He wasn’t at all sure it hadn’t been murder, either. He remembered Theodore Poznan’s attitude at the police station: self-righteous, martyred, more than a little hostile. And yet he’d come on his own. That indicated either innocence or intelligence.
“My own rope,” Sullivan had said, belligerently. And he hadn’t even tried for the appearance of being sorry. He was quite willing to admit his dislike for the victim (the deceased, Anderson’s mind censored for him). Anderson suspected that the boy might have said more, had wiser heads not surrounded him. Well, there’d be time for that, should circumstances warrant it.
He remembered how Elen Evans threw her billfold at him. He hadn’t liked it at all.
He did, however, like Martha: her face and coloring and the way she dressed. He also felt he could get along with the Chinese—Long—if the fellow ever loosened up. He wondered what the guy had against him that made him so clearly regard Anderson as the enemy. Of course, if he had put that cruel and fragile rope around St. Ives’s neck, that would be enough reason to resent the police.
“I suppose this caught you in the middle of a dozen other things,” Martha said, somewhat apologetically.
Anderson grunted, and then, feeling he had been too brusque, added, “A dozen little things like purse snatching, maybe. Two auto thefts today. Not things that interest the detective force a lot. One missing child.”
“Oh, dear!” Martha’s eyes went round and then narrowed. “Do they think it’s… was it…?”
“Molested? No, we don’t think so. It was a retarded kid. From an institution.” Seeing her face, he felt compelled to add, “We suspect a custody sort of thing, and the boy’s all right. He’s been getting visitors lately, and… well, I wouldn’t worry.”
Twisting the Rope Page 12
