Doors flanked the shelves behind the desk. He opened one. Toilet, basin, shower. Blinding white. He shut the door and tried the other. Sand-color police uniforms on hangers. Also civilian suits, a brown tweed, a blue pinstripe. Rack of ties on the door. Badge-mounted caps on the shelf. On the floor, shoes, two pair brown, one black. He groped in corners. No vacuum cleaner. He crouched. What was that behind the shoes? Clothing. Not bundled, not even loosely—just thrown. He dragged out worn Levi’s, a ragged Army shirt, a greasy leather hat with floppy brim. Something rattled when he picked these up. He groped back again. A pair of warped sandals with something tangled in their clumsy buckles. A gray wig, curled like wood shavings.
He laid the stuff on the coffee table and sat on the couch. In the left front pocket of the Levi’s was a fold of money—a hundred dollars in tens, fives, ones. In the right rear pocket was a pouch of clear plastic. He didn’t touch it but he didn’t think what was in it was tobacco. He tucked the money back and picked up the shirt. A pair of mirror-finish Polaroid goggles was in one pocket. He kept his fingers off them. In the other pocket something crackled. A letter? He pinched an edge with his nails, drew it out, and unfolded it. Words clipped from magazines were pasted on it. He put on glasses, WE HAVE YOUR DAUGHTER, IF YOU WANT HER BACK SAFE THE PRICE IS $25,000. WE WILL PHONE YOU. He tucked the paper back carefully, put his glasses back into his pocket, gathered up everything and returned it to the closet. He used a handkerchief to wipe knobs, wood, leather where he’d touched them, and to draw shut the French doors.
He went over the wall again and, stooping, ran back through the chaparral. Getting down the slope to his car was clumsy. Dirt leaked into his shoes. But he had emptied them and climbed into the car and started it moving when a brown and white fourdoor with a buggywhip antenna waving at its back and the gold La Caleta police badge painted on its doors came around the foot of the bluff. It climbed straight at him. He slowed. It stopped with its bumper against his. A stocky, blond young man got out of it. He wore a uniform like those in the closet of Ben Orton’s den. He came to the window and looked at Dave.
“You the insurance investigator?”
“Brandstetter,” Dave said. “Medallion Life.” He reached a hand out the window. “And you’d be Jerry Orton.”
Orton didn’t take the hand. “My mother telephoned me. She says you’re asking a lot of questions.”
Dave drew the hand back. “I hardly got started.”
“You upset her very much. How could you do that? Don’t you know what she’s been through in the past few days? Haven’t you got any imagination?”
“I don’t like to use it,” Dave said.
Orton squinted. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I need facts, Sergeant. That’s why I ask questions.”
“The facts are in,” Orton said. “Clifford Thomas Kerlee killed my father.” He frowned at a steel-cased watch on a thick wrist where gold hairs glinted. “She phoned me fifteen minutes ago. Why are you still here?”
“I was watching the otters,” Dave said. “I live in L.A. I don’t get up this way often.”
“Watch them from someplace else,” Orton said. “This is private property.”
“Why did your father go out of town?”
“Jesus, you deaf or something?” Orton said. “Cliff Kerlee killed him, stood on the steps of the city hall and waved that stupid fag petition and yelled right into the cameras he was going to kill him and he killed him. Man—what are you trying to do—smear my father?”
“That wouldn’t accomplish anything,” Dave said.
Orton’s laugh was sharp and short. “You goddam right it wouldn’t He was one of the outstanding lawmen in this country. He was nominated to head the FBI when Hoover died. Hoover was a friend of his.”
“Where did he go when he left town?” Dave asked.
“Get out of that car,” Orton said. “Stand up when you talk to a police officer.”
Dave got out. The sunlight crashed and shattered on the waves beyond the cannery. Dave winced against the glare. “How far did he go? How long was he gone?”
“Last time he went anywhere for more than a day was Dallas last fall. American Association of Police Chiefs convention. He was a past president.”
“He didn’t stop into his office the day he was killed. Your mother doesn’t know where he was.”
“So?” Orton’s clean square hand rested on a holster at his hip. A big revolver hung there. “He was out. He came home. Kerlee was waiting for him on the patio.”
“Oh? Why the patio?”
“No trouble to get in. Dad didn’t worry about security. Figured his reputation would keep prowlers off. There’s a lot of overgrown plants there. He could hide easy. Somebody was there. Water from the fountain was splashed around.”
“No empty flowerpots?” Dave asked.
“He wouldn’t need one. He brought a whole truckload. Patio French doors were open. Patio gate. Door to the inside of the house was locked. My father wouldn’t do that. Lock any of us out. He wasn’t like that. No secrets.”
Dave let his face show small surprise. “He wouldn’t work a case alone?”
Orton snorted. “What for? He had twenty men.”
“Not even a big case? Try to crack it by himself? Somebody bringing in marijuana by ship?”
Orton half turned his head, looked from the corners of his eyes. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Just wondering where he went that day. Your mother said the department was his life. I thought he might have been on police business. You don’t know where he was?”
“I know where you’re going to be. Locked up. For trespassing.” Orton jerked his chin. “Get away from here. And stay away.”
Dave shrugged, pulled open the door, sat back of the wheel. “I go where the job takes me.” He shut the door.
Orton’s voice came dim through the glass. “Your only job around here is to get my mother the insurance check that’s coming to her.” He turned on his heel and started back to the brown and white car.
Dave touched a switch. The window beside him rolled down. He called, “Your father didn’t leave her anything?”
Orton stopped, turned. “His pension. No savings.” He lifted a hand toward the town that couldn’t be seen from here. “He didn’t have to hang on in La Caleta and take their nickels and dimes. He had offers, big offers. But he said he didn’t want paperwork, he wanted police work.” Orton lifted blond eyebrows. “Ah, what the hell. La Caleta’s a good town—or was, right up to lately.”
“And what went wrong with it lately?”
“Garbage from L.A., from Haight-Ashbury. Hippies, druggies, smutty books, dirty movies, lousy underground newspaper. You know. Pretty little town. What else have they got to do but filthy it up? But”—he blew out a grim sigh—“at least he could control it here. You get up to Frisco or down to L.A. or someplace, a cop doesn’t stand a chance. They’ve got crime up the ass but whose fault is it? The chief of police. Naw—Dad was right. He was always right.”
“But it didn’t pay,” Dave said.
“Get lost,” Orton said. His shoes swished in the dry roadside weeds. He got into the police car and slammed the door, and the worn-out engine thrashed in the sun-bright stillness. He backed the car. The transmission was noisy. He jerked the lever to low and crawled past Dave. Dave shouted above the racket of loose valves:
“Where is your sister, Sergeant?”
Orton braked. His face twisted. “What? Why?”
“I just wondered if you knew.”
“Hell, yes, I know. What’s it to you?”
“Your mother seems worried about her.”
“You’re out of your mind.” Orton’s car jerked and stalled. He started it again angrily. “She’s at school. College. Sangre de Cristo State.” He roared off. The smoke of his going hung sullen in the motionless air.
3
SOUTH FROM LA CALETA, Highway 1 cuts inland. He drove between hills parched after
a short winter of scant rain. Whiteface cattle browsed the tawny grass, made lazy paths up the rutted sides of barrancas, drank at wooden tanks. There were clumps of green, live-oaks. In their shadows, horses stood nooning, neck over neck. A leggy colt raced beside a barbwire fence. Ranch buildings nestled at the foot of a towering rock outcrop. In the yard a tiny figure pushed bales off a red pickup truck. Beside the road someone had painted JESUS on a rock. Motels began to advertise. When he reached the metal tree of welcomes to Sangre de Cristo from Kiwanis, Elks, Rotary, he checked his watch. Not quite eleven. It wasn’t all that far.
The town baked in a surround of brown hills. He drove sleepy streets with no sidewalks, where frame houses with slim windows and jigsaw-work porches stood up straight under old trees. He came to a street of cinderblock warehouses. Then there was the railroad station—arches, red tile roof, boxcars waiting on sidings. He jounced across four sets of tracks, and the road went steeply up. Ahead of him, the double rear tires of a bus stirred yellow dust from the road shoulder. The bus halted at a break in a plastered adobe wall that shut off a yard dark with eucalyptus. At the top of an arch, a green bronze bell hung above heavy plank gates. Out of the bus clambered middle-aged women in flowered dresses and sunglasses. Carrying cameras and guidebooks, they clustered around a signboard lettered with the history of Sangre de Cristo mission. He drove around the bus.
Sangre de Cristo State College took up a lot of good grazing land above town so it could space its buildings far apart. They were poured concrete, rock conglomerate, and smoky glass. They looked lonely in the sun. No one was in the parking-lot gatehouse. A guitar hung there. A textbook lay face down on a stool. But no one appeared. Maybe because the parking lot was full. After he’d cruised every rank he left and tried another driveway farther on. FACULTY ONLY. Here flowering succulents struggled in planter strips between the rows of cars. He found a slot whose curb was stenciled MR. ROWBOTHAM and left the Electra in it. He hoped it was Rowbotham’s day off.
The campus walks were glaring white and straight and very long. Sprinkler systems made rainbows between them but the lawns played dead. The sun struck down. He had buttoned his shirt collar and fixed his tie and put on his jacket. Now he took off the jacket again. A thin girl with long pale hair rode a bicycle past him, books balanced on the handlebars. When he asked her, she pointed out the administration building without stopping. It was a long way off. He loosened tie and collar again. Sweat trickled down his ribs. Sweat trickled out of his hair into his eyes. No wonder so few students were around.
In neat concrete boxes Brazilian pepper trees grew at the foot of long, broad, white terraces that led up to the administration building. The trees looked new, like everything else here. Except himself. Seen in the wavy dark glass of the doors, he looked ragged. The air conditioning was icy inside. The woman behind the information counter wore wool, a yellow pants suit. Her glasses were very large, very round, with yellow frames. Quite a while ago a surgeon had yanked the sag out of her face, but it was back. Expression wasn’t, but maybe there’d never been any. He gave her a smile and showed her the identification in his wallet. Tucking the wallet back into the jacket over his arm, he lied:
“I need to see Anita Orton, please. It’s about her father’s life-insurance policy. Her late father.”
“Is she registered here?”
“No, she’s registered in Florida but this is closer.”
The eyes behind the saucer lenses were baleful but only a twitch of her mouth answered. She went into an office where a long-haired boy sat pushing typewriter keys with one hand while he drank from a Coke can in the other. Dave heard file drawers slam. The woman in yellow came back with an index card. “She has no classes today. You’d have to look for her at home.”
“You don’t mean in La Caleta?” Dave asked.
She meant rooms above the stables of a hulking old mansion with verandas and turrets and stained glass on a deep corner lot near the mission. The trees were gloomy acacias and magnolias. On the patchy grass under them lay bicycles. The oak front door stood open and rock music drifted out on the hot air. A girl in half a bikini lay asleep facedown on the green composition shingles of a side porch. Her skin was rich gold and glossy with suntan oil. Dave swung the Electra up the drive. New small cars, large old cars, motorcycles, motor scooters crowded the stable yard in back. The stable building itself was sided in scalloped shingles. Its paint, like the paint of the house, was yellowing. He climbed an outside staircase. When he rapped a screen door at the top a little dog yapped.
“Frodo!” a girl’s voice called. “Knock it off.” The girl came to the door, wrapping long dark hair in a towel. She wore bib overalls. The little dog jumped at the screen like a fur yo-yo. “Who are you?”
He told her. “I’m looking for Anita Orton.”
“She’s not here—sorry.”
“Can you tell me where to find her?”
“You look beat.” She pushed open the door. The dog growled around Dave’s shoes. “Frodo, no,” the girl said, and to Dave, “Come in. I’ve made shrub.” She went away down a long room bright with strewn record albums and paperback books and green with potted plants hung from the ceiling by frizzy ropes in fancy colors, fancy knots and tassels. “You’ll like it. It’s not sweet.” Glass and ice cubes rattled afar. Dave sat on denim cushions on the floor. They were big cushions and crazily embroidered. She came back with the towel made into a turban and handed him a glass of murky brown liquid. “Try it. Don’t be afraid.”
He tried it. It wasn’t sweet.
“Herbs.” She sat cross-legged in front of him on the stitched-together squares of grass matting that covered the floor. “Anita got a phone call.” She waved at a gold and ivory instrument out of a Mae West boudoir. “Gee—it’s been ten days or something. In the morning. She threw stuff in a bag and left. It was some dude.”
“Maybe it was her father,” Dave said.
She had a mouthful of shrub. She gave a quick swallow, shook her head. “No. He was here. A couple of days later. Like you.” She tried to make her young voice gruff. “‘I’m looking for Anita Orton.’ Only not like you. You’re pretty.”
“Wearing Levi’s, an old Army shirt, shades?”
Her eyes opened wide. “You’re kidding.” She stuck out her chest and saluted. “Uniform. Badge. Big gun. A gun is a substitute penis. Did you know that?”
“I didn’t go to college,” Dave said. “The voice on the telephone?”
“Black,” she said. “I didn’t think about it till he asked me—the Big Chief, I mean. He said, ‘Did it sound like a Negro?’ I said, ‘Yeah, maybe.’ But it did. I’m sure of it now.”
“She didn’t tell you his name or where she was going?”
The girl frowned and poked at the ice cubes in her glass. “And he was dead only two days later. You wouldn’t think it could happen to somebody like that. I mean, he looked like he was made out of iron or something.” She twitched Dave a skeptical smile. “Oh, I know it’s role playing and all that.” Her naked shoulders moved under the overall straps. “But you believe, you know? They say, ‘I am the chief,’ you know? And you say, ‘Yup, yessir, you de chief’—right?” She laughed, set the glass down, jumped up and vanished again among the hanging plants. She called, “They have a sweet sound, you know? When they’re trying not to sound sleepy-time down south?” A refrigerator door clapped on its rubber stripping. “Sweet and elegant and a little faggoty?”
“Police chiefs?” Dave called.
“Blacks, you nut.” She came back carrying wooden bowls of salad, bounced down in her lotus position again, and handed one of the bowls to Dave. The dog scratched at the screen. “Lunch,” she said. “All organic. The kids in agro grow it. Bug pickers. They really get sunburned. I think there’ll be a new generation of insecticide fans.” She dug into the salad. But with a forkful of alfalfa sprouts halfway to her mouth she stopped moving and her eyes opened wide again. “It was a faggot who killed him, wasn’t it?”
&n
bsp; “So they say,” Dave said. “But not black.” The bowl had been chilling. He liked that idea and tried the salad. It was crisp and bland. “How did she react to the phone call? Did it frighten her?”
“Frighten? Oh, no. It was like light bulbs went on inside her.” The little dog whined at the screen. “Cool it, Frodo.” She chewed reflectively. “Come to think of it, that was the first time I ever saw her really happy.”
“It wasn’t some boyfriend you’d met?” Dave asked.
“She didn’t have boyfriends. She just studied and sulked. Like she was waiting for something. Ages.”
“Did she write letters?” Dave asked.
“Mmm.” The girl nodded with her mouth full. She washed down the salad with a long swallow of shrub, then went to let in the dog. Claws rattly on the grass mats, he followed her to the kitchen. The bowl knocked wooden on the floor. A vegetarian dog? “She wrote a letter almost every day.”
“To whom?” Dave called.
The girl came halfway back and stood looking at him from between the plants. “It was a big secret. If you came in and she was typing, she covered up the paper.” The little dog yapped and jumped around her legs. She worked an opener on a can labeled FRISKIES. Not a vegetarian dog. “I mean, how sexist can you get? Who cared who she was writing to? I mean, it’s such a stereotype, you know?” She went back into the kitchen. “The curious female? Eve? Pandora? Bluebeard’s wife? What kind of mind thinks like that anymore?” The dog stopped barking.
“What about answers?” Dave called.
“From Soledad.” The girl came back, wiping her hands on the overall bib. “A post-office box number. If the mail was late, I’d bring it up. Out of the mailbox at the foot of the stairs. But only if she was at school. Ninety percent of the time, she was down there waiting for it.”
The Man Everybody Was Afraid Of Page 2
