by Iona Whishaw
“Well, here goes nothin’,” Meg said.
God, Lane thought, I hope not nothin’.
Chapter Twenty-Six
It was the hair. It was something to do with the hair. Ames paced his office. A curly blond woman bought the clothes; she was the hitchhiker picked up by the Armstrongs. A blonde in her late twenties or early thirties. A blonde who was not Tina Van Eyck. But it was Tina whom Mr. Van Eyck wanted to protect. Why?
With a bound he was out of his office and down the stairs to the main office where Marcus Van Eyck still sat glumly, waiting to sign his statement.
“Mr. Van Eyck, do you mind? I have a couple more questions.” He waved his hand toward the interview room. On their way past Terrell’s desk, he mimed writing on a pad and signalled Terrell to follow them.
Once they were settled, Ames put his hands in front of him on the table and looked at Van Eyck, who was sitting back in his chair, as if unconsciously trying to pull as far away as possible from whatever was coming. “Now then, I think you’d better tell us why you think Tina killed Barney Watts.”
Van Eyck’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly. He shook his head. “I don’t think that. I don’t think that because I did it, I told you. I want my statement, and I want whatever is supposed to happen next to happen. I won’t sign anything except what I said.”
“Listen, I appreciate a father wanting to protect his daughter. But lying isn’t going to get us any closer to who is actually responsible.”
There was a silence while Van Eyck, with a puzzled expression looked from one policeman to the other. “I don’t understand,” he said finally.
“If I’m honest, neither do I. But I know one thing: you didn’t do it. You don’t even know how he died, though you have the details of the car right. I’m guessing you did see the scene, maybe, and found something that made you think Tina was involved. How’s my guess?”
Crossing his arms, Van Eyck looked away from Ames.
“Look, Mr. Van Eyck, this isn’t going to get us anywhere. We both know it wasn’t you, and if it’s any help, we don’t think it was Tina. The question is why you think it was. And before you continue down this road, lying about what you’ve seen obstructs our ability to solve this case, and that is a crime. If you’re so anxious to spend time in a cell, we may yet be able to arrange it.”
Van Eyck looked back at Ames, a glimmer of something like hope in his eyes. “Then why was this officer out to the garage to talk to her all those times?” He indicated Terrell with a lift of his chin.
Terrell made a small movement, but Ames lifted his hand slightly. “Let’s start again, shall we? How about we go over the whole thing again, and this time you tell us the truth.”
August 1936
Barney Watts leaned over and kissed Amy. They were parked near the beach. A string of lights along the pier reflected on the nearly still surface of the water. They had parked under the trees, which blocked out the light from the town behind.
“You’re sweeter than all them other girls,” he said, running his mouth across her forehead and then back to her lips.
Slapping him lightly on the leg, Amy smiled in the darkness and then whispered, “What other girls? I thought I was your girl.” She ran her hand along his leg, causing him to take a sharp intake of breath. He put his hand on hers and pressed it into his thigh. “You tell me. You seem to know everything.”
She pulled her hand away abruptly and sat back on the seat. “You were seen last summer with that Tina and who knows how many others. You got a reputation.”
Barney frowned in the darkness, feeling a flutter of alarm at her tone, but said lightly, “Like you said, last summer. Why you bringing her up? Wouldn’t I be with her if I wanted her? She’s cold. I’m with you.” He tried to pull her back to him, but she resisted.
“I just gotta check. She’s stuck up and she’s been acting weird. She knows about us, I just know it, the way she looked at me when I saw her in town. She’s disgusting, working in a garage like that! I don’t even know what you see in her.”
He grabbed the top of her arm suddenly and swung her so she faced him. “I don’t ‘see’ anything in her. Did she say anything to you?”
“You’re hurting me! No, she didn’t. She’s too stuck up to talk to anyone. People just know stuff.”
“What do you mean? What have you been telling people?” Anger competed with fear in his voice.
“What do you think I am? I haven’t been telling anyone anything. But it’s all gonna have to come out. You’re going to marry me.”
He let go of her arm and reached into his shirt pocket for a cigarette and lit it with his lighter, illuminating his face for a moment. He pushed the lighter into his trouser pocket and leaned out the window, blowing smoke into the night air. He didn’t offer Amy one.
“You can ignore me all you want. We’re getting married. You have to marry me.”
There was such a steel tone in this statement that Barney turned to stare at her. She was sitting with her arms crossed looking out the front window, her mouth set.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’m expecting, and it’s yours. Obviously. Did you knock her up as well?”
“Would you shut up about her?” Barney threw the cigarette out the window and put the car into gear, but it was only relief he felt. They’d been talking at crossed purposes. “I’m dropping you off.”
“You’re not dropping me anywhere. I’m staying right here till you marry me. If you don’t, everyone in this whole town, including your boss, is gonna know what you’ve been up to, going after all those girls in school.” This was a sore point with Amy. It wasn’t just Tina; she knew of several other girls, one as young as fourteen. But there was something special about Tina, she was sure of it, and she hated her for it. She had the upper hand now, though, and Tina was going to know it.
Tina looked up from where she was working, sweeping the inside of a truck being picked up later that day. It had been dry all summer, and a cloud of dust obscured the car coming down the road. She stood up, looking with growing fury and fear at the car. It was the cream-coloured ’33 Buick Barney Watts drove. She dropped the hand broom and sped toward the garage. She couldn’t see him. Her dad could deal with him. Just outside the bay door, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her handkerchief to put over her mouth. She felt like she might be sick. She rushed to the small toilet in the garage.
“Dad, get that!” she called desperately. She slammed the bathroom door shut and stood breathing heavily, trying to fight back the fear and nausea. Succeeding somehow, she leaned against the door. She heard her father come into the bay.
“Hey, Tina. It’s some friend of yours from school. She just wants to have a word.”
She? Tina opened the door, pulling out a bobby pin and pinning a lock of hair that had fallen forward. She strolled as nonchalantly as she could toward the car, parked right outside the door. Amy Donald was standing outside the car, one foot on the running board, gazing around at the property. She looked at Tina as she came through the door.
“Amy,” Tina said. Why was she driving Barney’s car? “You got a new car.”
“Very funny. You know perfectly well whose car this is. I just came to tell you I’m getting married. I thought you’d like to know.” She pulled a cigarette out of her purse and lit it, throwing the burning match into the grass.
Tina stomped on the match furiously. “You trying to set the whole place on fire? Why should I care you’re getting married? You never even finished school. I’m not surprised you’re getting married. What else can you do?”
“I won’t be going back because I’m having a baby.”
Her pride in this seemed nonsensical to Tina. “I gather it’s Barney’s work. I heard you were going out with him. He’s an ass. I wish you a long and happy life.”
Amy dropped th
e nonchalance. “I’m here to tell you to keep away from him. He’s mine now. You can’t pretend you don’t like him.”
Tina was knocked back by this speech and stared at Amy in genuine surprise. “I can’t pretend I do like him. I can’t pretend I do anything but hate him. You’re making a huge mistake. You have no idea what he’s really like!”
Amy turned and got into the car and revved the engine. She looked at Tina as she put it into gear. “Oh?” was all she said as she peeled into the turn that would take her back up to the road.
The evergreens were slightly smaller and more distantly spaced than the intensely packed forest cover Lane was used to around King’s Cove. The ground was relatively clear, and there was a thick soft carpet of dried pine needles that would hide their progress from anyone but a professional tracker. It initially made their descent easier despite the dark. Lane explained to Meg that she wanted them to move both down and westward, while putting as much distance between themselves and the cabin as possible. They were motivated to move quickly because of the cold, and Lane was impressed with what she thought of as Meg’s stoutheartedness. Seeing her at the hotel in those little suits and high heels, she would not have thought of her hiking competently in boots down a mountain at night.
The vegetation began to change, at first imperceptibly and then more obviously. The evergreens thinned out, with leafless deciduous trees in small patches, and farther down, as the grey light of the coming dawn spread across from the east, they could see the dim shapes of saguaros standing guard along the descending hills far below them.
Lane pulled to a stop. “Let’s just stop a second and get our bearings.” They’d been walking for over an hour, and she could hear Meg breathing hard. She had unclasped the fur jacket. “I realize the main road to the cabin turnoff is above us. I can’t really remember where it turned east because I was a bit stunned. Your friend hit me over the head and knocked me out.”
“See, that’s what I don’t understand. What the hell does Artie want with you? It makes no sense. Unless he thought you saw the shooting, then, okay. But if he thought that, he wouldn’t have dragged you up the mountain and made sure you had a sandwich. He would have driven you up the mountain and popped a bullet in you and left you.”
That was the second time Meg Holden had suggested that Artie—whoever he was—was responsible for the shooting. Why? “So, I’m confused. When you say Artie, who—”
“James Arthur Griffin. I never liked the name James. He’s my husband. Unfortunately.” She dragged out the last word in disgust.
Lane could see Meg clearly in the grey light. “I thought Rex was your husband.”
“Oh, honey, it’s way too complicated to get into now. The real question is why you’re here. Did you see who shot Renwick?”
“No, of course not. I’m as puzzled as you. Wait, didn’t you say that was Paul Galloway’s cabin?” Would the assistant chief of police be working hand in glove with the biggest crook in town?
“Yeah. We use it sometimes when he’s not here. He is never here at the same time, for obvious reasons, but he’s been pretty good. Artie’s managed to stay out of the slammer thanks to him. It’s not cheap, but it’s worth it.”
“What do you mean, ‘not cheap’? Does Griffin pay Galloway to keep him out of trouble?”
Suddenly cautious, Meg shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t get his business dealings. I just stay out of the way and try to look pretty. Should we keep going?”
Thus equipped with a multitude of things to think about, Lane followed Meg, wanting to have her set the pace. The way was more visible with the lighter sky, and not a moment too soon, the terrain had changed from soft forest floor to steep and rocky inclines. They followed a narrow descending vale, much slowed down by the precipitous and rugged terrain, often having to scramble over and down boulders. Unfortunately, it was pulling them due south, and Lane wanted to try to push west. The one comforting thing was that they could now see the very eastern edge of the city far below and across the plain. It gave Lane some hope. Perhaps at the end of this narrow cleft they could veer west again. In the meantime, her mind was humming.
So, Galloway was collecting money to protect the criminal, the apparently murderous criminal, James Griffin. Artie. That established a link between Galloway and Griffin, a link she had not even been considering. She’d been wondering about a link between Griffin and Renwick. It didn’t surprise her. It was abundantly evident now that Galloway had engineered her kidnapping in retaliation, she was now absolutely certain, for helping Priscilla. The question was, what was he planning to do with her? With a shudder, she guessed: try to find out where his wife was—by fair means or foul.
She was about to ask Meg about what connection there might be between Griffin and Renwick when a chill gripped her heart. Even now, far down there somewhere in the city, Darling had gone to the police, to Martinez, maybe even to Galloway, to ask for his help in finding her.
For reasons he could not readily pinpoint, Ames was becoming anxious. A sense of impending doom was not something he was used to, being of a primarily sunny disposition, but he was afraid, and he could not pull the threads together in his mind to identify exactly what he feared.
“Look, Mr. Van Eyck, you’re going to have to stop this. Something is very wrong here, and we’re wasting time with you instead of trying to find the real killer. For the last time, why in God’s name did you think it was Tina?” Ames sensed, rather than saw, Terrell look up at his growing impatient tone.
“Okay. Some of what I said before is true. I did want to kill him. I couldn’t believe he’d have the temerity to come back to our garage after what he’d done. I could hear Tina yelling at him, and I came in and saw the smirk on his face, which only disappeared after she waved a wrench at him. He backed his car up and turned around, and Tina threw the wrench in the corner and stormed out. She likes to go sit on a picnic table near the lakeshore when she’s upset. I decided that was the last straw. I was going to have it out with him. I’d go the next day so she wouldn’t suspect anything. If she knew, she’d only tell me to leave it. Good riddance to bad rubbish, she’d say. But I couldn’t. When we woke up and saw that terrible word written all over our garage, I just had to try to keep calm, pretend I didn’t know who’d done it. I saw her talking to you up by the car.
“I called the train station and was told Watts was on the afternoon shift that day, and later I tried to find Tina to tell her that I was going into town for supplies. This was all after you came around that morning. When I couldn’t find her, I went and parked at the bottom of the road that goes up to his place. I honestly don’t know what I thought I was going to do. I just waited. I figured I could follow him to work and then confront him. Only when the car came down it turned away from town. I waited and followed at a distance and saw the car turn toward the Harrop ferry. That’s when I saw her. She’d been in the back, hiding, I guess. Her head popped up right behind Watts so he wouldn’t have seen, and then went down again. I stopped there and then off the side of the main road, trying to think what to do. Why was he going to Harrop? What was she doing with him? Trees were blocking my view, so I couldn’t see, but I knew if I saw cars coming onto the road, it would mean the ferry was on this side. After some time, I don’t know how long, when I didn’t see any traffic coming out onto the road from Harrop, I drove slowly forward, and I saw the car off the side of the road, and he was in it. The rain was pelting down. I parked behind his car and went and knocked on the window. I thought he was asleep, but then I understood. He looked dead.” Van Eyck stopped, as though he had not breathed properly during his whole narrative. “I couldn’t see her anywhere. I called her, but it was like she had vanished.”
Terrell scribbled feverishly. “Something about what you saw made you think it was Tina who killed him,” Ames prompted.
Van Eyck nodded. “She was in the back of the car. I saw her. And that wasn’t all. Later, w
hen I was looking in the window at him, I caught sight of this little change purse Tina used to have back when she was in school. It was lying just out of sight on the driver’s side. Her grandmother gave it to her when she was a child. A little pink thing with her name embroidered on it. As soon as I saw it, I knew. I grabbed it and drove off in a hurry. First I was going to go farther up the lake and throw it in the water and see if I could catch up to Tina. But I didn’t see her, and I just drove home and hid the purse and waited for Tina. I just couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t see how she’d pulled it off, but somehow she had. And that’s it. That’s all I can tell you.”
“Where is the purse now?” Ames asked.
“I have a barrel where I burn garbage around the back. I buried it there, knowing it would go up in the next burning.”
Terrell suddenly leaned forward. “You seem very sure it was Tina in the car with Watts.”
Van Eyck frowned. “The hair. I mean it was just a flash. I couldn’t sort in my head how she would have got in without him knowing. I think at one point I wondered if she’d hidden in the back of the car, or if they’d agreed to meet along the way, and he stopped and picked her up and I just missed it. I wasn’t following him really closely because there wasn’t much traffic, and I thought he’d see me. And the rain was heavy, so I might not even have seen if he stopped.”
“So, no sign of Tina. And the ferry hadn’t come over yet, so you knew she couldn’t have gone over to the other side of the lake. Did you think she might have hidden in the forest?”
Van Eyck shook his head, his expression puzzled. “I did call and search, but it was like she had vanished. Part of me couldn’t believe it would be her, but when I saw the purse, I panicked.”
They’d sent Van Eyck home, giving him strict instructions to recover the purse and bring it back to them forthwith, and now Ames and Terrell sat musing in Ames’s office.
