Panting like a dog, I scraped away the dirt and wet leaves that had been loosely piled over the body. It was the body of a girl wearing a midnight-blue sweater and skirt. She was a blonde, about seventeen. The blood that congested her face made her look old and dark. The white rope with which she had been garrotted was sunk almost out of sight in the flesh of her neck. The rope was tied at the nape in what is called a granny’s knot, the kind of knot that any child can tie.
I left her where she lay and climbed back up to the road on trembling knees. The grass showed traces of the track her body had made where someone had dragged it down the bank. I looked for tire marks on the shoulder and in the rutted, impacted gravel of the road. If there had been any, the rain had washed them out.
I trudged up the road to the gatehouse and knocked on the door. It creaked inward under my hand. Inside there was nothing alive but the spiders that had webbed the low black beams. A dustless rectangle in front of the stone fireplace showed where a bedroll had lain. Several blackened tin cans had evidently been used as cooking utensils. Gray embers lay on the cavernous hearth. Suspended above it from a spike in the mantel was a pair of white cotton work socks. The socks were wet. Their owner had left in a hurry.
It wasn’t my job to hunt him. I drove down the canyon to the highway and along it for a few miles to the outskirts of the nearest town. There a drab green box of a building with a flag in front of it housed the Highway Patrol. Across the highway was a lumberyard, deserted on Sunday.
“Too bad about Ginnie,” the dispatcher said when she had radioed the local sheriff. She was a thirtyish brunette with fine black eyes and dirty fingernails. She had on a plain white blouse, which was full of her.
“Did you know Ginnie?”
“My young sister knows her. They go—they went to high school together. It’s an awful thing when it happens to a young person like that. I knew she was missing—I got the report when I came on at eight—but I kept hoping that she was just off on a lost weekend, like. Now there’s nothing to hope for, is there?” Her eyes were liquid with feeling. “Poor Ginnie. And poor Mr. Green.”
“Her father?”
“That’s right. He was in here with her high school counselor not more than an hour ago. I hope he doesn’t come back right away. I don’t want to be the one that has to tell him.”
“How long has the girl been missing?”
“Just since last night. We got the report here about 3 a.m., I think. Apparently she wandered away from a party at Cavern Beach. Down the pike a ways.” She pointed south toward the mouth of the canyon.
“What kind of a party was it?”
“Some of the kids from the Union High School—they took some wienies down and had a fire. The party was part of graduation week. I happen to know about it because my young sister Alice went. I didn’t want her to go, even if it was supervised. That can be a dangerous beach at night. All sorts of bums and scroungers hang out in the caves. Why, one night when I was a kid I saw a naked man down there in the moonlight. He didn’t have a woman with him either.”
She caught the drift of her words, did a slow blush, and checked her loquacity. I leaned on the plywood counter between us.
“What sort of girl was Ginnie Green?”
“I wouldn’t know. I never really knew her.”
“Your sister does.”
“I don’t let my sister run around with girls like Ginnie Green. Does that answer your question?”
“Not in any detail.”
“It seems to me you ask a lot of questions.”
“I’m naturally interested, since I found her. Also, I happen to be a private detective.”
“Looking for a job?”
“I can always use a job.”
“So can I, and I’ve got one and I don’t intend to lose it.” She softened the words with a smile. “Excuse me; I have work to do.”
She turned to her short-wave and sent out a message to the patrol cars that Virginia Green had been found. Virginia Green’s father heard it as he came in the door. He was a puffy gray-faced man with red-rimmed eyes. Striped pajama bottoms showed below the cuffs of his trousers. His shoes were muddy, and he walked as if he had been walking all night.
He supported himself on the edge of the counter, opening and shutting his mouth like a beached fish. Words came out, half strangled by shock.
“I heard you say she was dead, Anita.”
The woman raised her eyes to his. “Yes. I’m awfully sorry, Mr. Green.”
He put his face down on the counter and stayed there like a penitent, perfectly still. I could hear a clock somewhere, snipping off seconds, and in the back of the room the L.A. police signals like muttering voices coming in from another planet. Another planet very much like this one, where violence measured out the hours.
“It’s my fault,” Green said to the bare wood under his face. “I didn’t bring her up properly. I haven’t been a good father.”
The woman watched him with dark and glistening eyes ready to spill. She stretched out an unconscious hand to touch him, pulled her hand back in embarrassment when a second man came into the station. He was a young man with crewcut brown hair, tanned and fit-looking in a Hawaiian shirt. Fit-looking except for the glare of sleeplessness in his eyes and the anxious lines around them.
“What is it, Miss Brocco? What’s the word?”
“The word is bad.” She sounded angry. “Somebody murdered Ginnie Green. This man here is a detective and he just found her body up in Trumbull Canyon.”
The young man ran his fingers through his short hair and failed to get a grip on it, or on himself. “My God! That’s terrible!”
“Yes,” the woman said. “You were supposed to be looking after her, weren’t you?”
They glared at each other across the counter. The tips of her breasts pointed at him through her blouse like accusing fingers. The young man lost the glaring match. He turned to me with a wilted look.
“My name is Connor, Franklin Connor, and I’m afraid I’m very much to blame in this. I’m a counselor at the high school, and I was supposed to be looking after the party, as Miss Brocco said.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I didn’t realize. I mean, I thought they were all perfectly happy and safe. The boys and girls had pretty well paired off around the fire. Frankly, I felt rather out of place. They aren’t children, you know. They were all seniors, they had cars. So I said good night and walked home along the beach. As a matter of fact, I was hoping for a phone call from my wife.”
“What time did you leave the party?”
“It must have been nearly eleven. The ones who hadn’t paired off had already gone home.”
“Who did Ginnie pair off with?”
“I don’t know. I’m afraid I wasn’t paying too much attention to the kids. It’s graduation week, and I’ve had a lot of problems—”
The father, Green, had been listening with a changing face. In a sudden yammering rage his implosive grief and guilt exploded outward.
“It’s your business to know! By God, I’ll have your job for this. I’ll make it my business to run you out of town.”
Connor hung his head and looked at the stained tile floor. There was a thin spot in his short brown hair, and his scalp gleamed through it like bare white bone. It was turning into a bad day for everybody, and I felt the dull old nagging pull of other people’s trouble, like a toothache you can’t leave alone.
The sheriff arrived, flanked by several deputies and an HP sergeant. He wore a western hat and a rawhide tie and a blue gabardine business suit which together produced a kind of gun-smog effect. His name was Pearsall.
I rode back up the canyon in the right front seat of Pearsall’s black Buick, filling him in on the way. The deputies’ Ford and an HP car followed us, and Green’s new Oldsmobile convertible brought up the rear.
The sheriff said: “The old guy sounds like a looney to me.”
“He’s a loner, anyway.”
“Y
ou never can tell about them hoboes. That’s why I give my boys instructions to roust ’em. Well, it looks like an open-and-shut case.”
“Maybe. Let’s keep our minds open anyway, Sheriff.”
“Sure. Sure. But the old guy went on the run. That shows consciousness of guilt. Don’t worry, we’ll hunt him down. I got men that know these hills like you know your wife’s geography.”
“I’m not married.”
“Your girl friend, then.” He gave me a sideways leer that was no gift. “And if we can’t find him on foot, we’ll use the air squadron.”
“You have an air squadron?”
“Volunteer, mostly local ranchers. We’ll get him.” His tires squealed on a curve. “Was the girl raped?”
“I didn’t try to find out. I’m not a doctor. I left her as she was.”
The sheriff grunted. “You did the right thing at that.”
Nothing had changed in the high meadow. The girl lay waiting to have her picture taken. It was taken many times, from several angles. All the birds flew away. Her father leaned on a tree and watched them go. Later he was sitting on the ground.
I volunteered to drive him home. It wasn’t pure altruism. I’m incapable of it. I said when I had turned his Oldsmobile:
“Why did you say it was your fault, Mr. Green?”
He wasn’t listening. Below the road four uniformed men were wrestling a heavy covered aluminum stretcher up the steep bank. Green watched them as he had watched the departing birds, until they were out of sight around a curve.
“She was so young,” he said to the back seat.
I waited, and tried again. “Why did you blame yourself for her death?”
He roused himself from his daze. “Did I say that?”
“In the Highway Patrol office you said something of the sort.”
He touched my arm. “I didn’t mean I killed her.”
“I didn’t think you meant that. I’m interested in finding out who did.”
“Are you a cop—a policeman?”
“I have been.”
“You’re not with the locals.”
“No. I happen to be a private detective from Los Angeles. The name is Archer.”
He sat and pondered this information. Below and ahead the summer sea brimmed up in the mouth of the canyon.
“You don’t think the old tramp did her in?” Green said.
“It’s hard to figure out how he could have. He’s a strong-looking old buzzard, but he couldn’t have carried her all the way up from the beach. And she wouldn’t have come along with him of her own accord.”
It was a question, in a way.
“I don’t know,” her father said. “Ginnie was a little wild. She’d do a thing because it was wrong, because it was dangerous. She hated to turn down a dare, especially from a man.”
“There were men in her life?”
“She was attractive to men. You saw her, even as she is.” He gulped. “Don’t get me wrong. Ginnie was never a bad girl. She was a little headstrong, and I made mistakes. That’s why I blame myself.”
“What sort of mistakes, Mr. Green?”
“All the usual ones, and some I made up on my own.” His voice was bitter. “Ginnie didn’t have a mother, you see. Her mother left me years ago, and it was as much my fault as hers. I tried to bring her up myself. I didn’t give her proper supervision. I run a restaurant in town, and I don’t get home nights till after midnight. Ginnie was pretty much on her own since she was in grade school. We got along fine when I was there, but I usually wasn’t there.
“The worst mistake I made was letting her work in the restaurant over the weekends. That started about a year ago. She wanted the money for clothes, and I thought the discipline would be good for her. I thought I could keep an eye on her, you know. But it didn’t work out. She grew up too fast, and the night work played hell with her studies. I finally got the word from the school authorities. I fired her a couple of months ago, but I guess it was too late. We haven’t been getting along too well since then. Mr. Connor said she resented my indecision, that I gave her too much responsibility and then took it away again.”
“You’ve talked her over with Connor?”
“More than once, including last night. He was her academic counselor, and he was concerned about her grades. We both were. Ginnie finally pulled through, after all, thanks to him. She was going to graduate. Not that it matters now, of course.”
Green was silent for a time. The sea expanded below us like a second blue dawn. I could hear the roar of the highway. Green touched my elbow again, as if he needed human contact.
“I oughtn’t to’ve blown my top at Connor. He’s a decent boy, he means well. He gave my daughter hours of free tuition this last month. And he’s got troubles of his own, like he said.”
“What troubles?”
“I happen to know his wife left him, same as mine. I shouldn’t have borne down so hard on him. I have a lousy temper, always have had.” He hesitated, then blurted out as if he had found a confessor: “I said a terrible thing to Ginnie at supper last night. She always has supper with me at the restaurant. I said if she wasn’t home when I got home last night that I’d wring her neck.”
“And she wasn’t home,” I said. And somebody wrung her neck, I didn’t say.
—
The light at the highway was red. I glanced at Green. Tear tracks glistened like snail tracks on his face.
“Tell me what happened last night.”
“There isn’t anything much to tell,” he said. “I got to the house about twelve-thirty, and, like you said, she wasn’t home. So I called Al Brocco’s house. He’s my night cook, and I knew his youngest daughter Alice was at the moonlight party on the beach. Alice was home all right.”
“Did you talk to Alice?”
“She was in bed asleep. Al woke her up, but I didn’t talk to her. She told him she didn’t know where Ginnie was. I went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. Finally I got up and called Mr. Connor. That was about one-thirty. I thought I should get in touch with the authorities, but he said no, Ginnie had enough black marks against her already. He came over to the house and we waited for a while and then we went down to Cavern Beach. There was no trace of her. I said it was time to call in the authorities, and he agreed. We went to his beach house, because it was nearer, and called the sheriff’s office from there. We went back to the beach with a couple of flashlights and went through the caves. He stayed with me all night. I give him that.”
“Where are these caves?”
“We’ll pass them in a minute. I’ll show you if you want. But there’s nothing in any of the three of them.”
Nothing but shadows and empty beer cans, discarded contraceptives, the odor of rotting kelp. I got sand in my shoes and sweat under my collar. The sun dazzled my eyes when I half walked, half crawled, from the last of the caves.
Green was waiting beside a heap of ashes.
“This is where they had the wienie roast,” he said.
I kicked the ashes. A half-burned sausage rolled along the sand. Sand fleas hopped in the sun like fat on a griddle. Green and I faced each other over the dead fire. He looked out to sea. A seal’s face floated like a small black nose cone beyond the breakers. Farther out a water skier slid between unfolding wings of spray.
Away up the beach two people were walking toward us. They were small and lonely and distinct as Chirico figures in the long white distance.
Green squinted against the sun. Red-rimmed or not, his eyes were good. “I believe that’s Mr. Connor. I wonder who the woman is with him.”
They were walking as close as lovers, just above the white margin of the surf. They pulled apart when they noticed us, but they were still holding hands as they approached.
“It’s Mrs. Connor,” Green said in a low voice.
“I thought you said she left him.”
“That’s what he told me last night. She took off on him a couple of weeks ago, couldn’t stand a high school teache
r’s hours. She must have changed her mind.”
She looked as though she had a mind to change. She was a hardfaced blonde who walked like a man. A certain amount of style took the curse off her stiff angularity. She had on a madras shirt, mannishly cut, and a pair of black Capri pants that hugged her long, slim legs. She had good legs.
Connor looked at us in complex embarrassment. “I thought it was you from a distance, Mr. Green. I don’t believe you know my wife.”
“I’ve seen her in my place of business.” He explained to the woman: “I run the Highway Restaurant in town.”
“How do you do,” she said aloofly, then added in an entirely different voice: “You’re Virginia’s father, aren’t you? I’m so sorry.”
The words sounded queer. Perhaps it was the surroundings: the ashes on the beach, the entrances to the caves, the sea, and the empty sky which dwarfed us all. Green answered her solemnly.
“Thank you, ma’am. Mr. Connor was a strong right arm to me last night. I can tell you.” He was apologizing. And Connor responded:
“Why don’t you come to our place for a drink? It’s just down the beach. You look as if you could use one, Mr. Green. You, too,” he said to me. “I don’t believe I know your name.”
“Archer. Lew Archer.”
He gave me a hard hand. His wife interposed. “I’m sure Mr. Green and his friend won’t want to be bothered with us on a day like this. Besides, it isn’t even noon yet, Frank.”
She was the one who didn’t want to be bothered. We stood around for a minute, exchanging grim, nonsensical comments on the beauty of the day. Then she led Connor back in the direction they had come from. Private Property, her attitude seemed to say: Trespassers will be fresh-frozen.
I drove Green to the Highway Patrol station. He said that he was feeling better, and could make it home from there by himself. He thanked me profusely for being a friend in need to him, as he put it. He followed me to the door of the station, thanking me.
The dispatcher was cleaning her fingernails with an ivory-handled file. She glanced up eagerly.
“Did they catch him yet?”
“I was going to ask you the same question, Miss Brocco.”
The Archer Files Page 40
