Deadfall nd-15

by Bill Pronzini

“Of course we’re convinced. We have told everything we know to the authorities-several times, I might add.”

  “I understand he wasn’t very well liked. Are you one of those who disliked him, Mr. Summerhayes?”

  He scowled at me. “I find that question impertinent.”

  Impertinent, yet. I said, “Were you a personal friend of his? Or was your relationship business-oriented?”

  “He was a very good customer of ours.”

  “Antique snuff containers?”

  “Among other items, yes.”

  “Did you sell him the one he was showing off at the party?”

  “The Hainelin? No.”

  “Do you know who did?”

  “No. He wouldn’t say.”

  “Did he say how much he paid for it?”

  “Twenty-five thousand,” Summerhayes said. His voice had a pinched quality to it that might have come from jealousy or resentment.

  “I’ve been told it was worth fifty thousand.”

  “Roughly, yes. If he actually paid twenty-five thousand, it was a bargain.”

  “You think he might have paid more?”

  “It’s possible. Kenneth was prone to exaggeration.”

  “Uh-huh. You said the box was a… what was it? Hainelin?”

  “That’s correct. From the early eighteen hundreds.”

  “Made out of gold?”

  “Yes. With a bas-relief of a Napoleonic battle scene on its hinged side. Napoleon at Toulon.”

  “Is that what made it so valuable?”

  “The fact that it was one of a kind, yes. Plus its age, its fine condition, and of course the fact that it was originated by Hainelin — a master craftsman of the period.”

  “Kenneth show it to you before that day?”

  “No,” he said. “I gathered he’d only received it that same afternoon.”

  I remembered what Melanie had told me about Alex Ozimas-that he’d just been leaving the Purcell house when she arrived between five and five-thirty. “Do you know a man named Ozimas, a business acquaintance of Kenneth’s?”

  “Ozimas? What nationality is that?”

  “Filipino.”

  “I’m not familiar with the name,” Summerhayes said. “I’m sure I never met a Filipino in connection with Kenneth.”

  There was something in his tone that made me doubt he was telling the truth. I glanced over at where Elizabeth Summerhayes was standing stiffly in front of the door. “Is the name familiar to you, Mrs. Summerhayes?”

  She blinked once, as if I’d startled her, glanced at her husband, and said, “No. No, it isn’t.”

  Summerhayes was frowning at me. I asked him, “You just deal in snuff containers? Or do you collect them, too?”

  “I sell them. Strictly.”

  “So the Hainelin box had no special appeal for you.”

  His frown got darker. “Just what do you mean to imply?”

  “What do you think I meant to imply?”

  He didn’t answer that. Just looked at me in the same dark and disapproving way.

  I said, “The two other collectors at the party-George Collins and Margaret Prine. What can you tell me about them?”

  “Collins owns several businesses in the South Bay-restaurant supplies and catering services. He has been a serious collector of Oriental and European miniatures for several years.”

  “One of your customers?”

  “Occasionally, yes.”

  “And the Prine woman?”

  “Yes, we’ve sold to her, too.”

  “I meant, who is she?”

  “Leland Prine’s widow,” Summerhayes said, as if I should know who Leland Prine had been. “He began collecting snuff containers while in the foreign service in Shanghai in the thirties; Margaret has carried on with the collection since his death. If anything, she is an even more avid enthusiast than he was.”

  “How avid was her interest in the Hainelin box?”

  “My God, man, do you suspect her of murdering Kenneth? The woman is seventy-one and frail. Don’t be absurd.”

  “Asking questions that seem absurd is part of my job.”

  “Yes, well, I’m sure. And I suppose you suspect me as well. Or Elisabeth.”

  “I don’t suspect anyone of anything. I’m just asking questions, like I said.”

  “If any of us wanted a Hainelin box, or any other rare and valuable miniature, we would not have to resort to murder to obtain it. We are all quite well-to-do, thank you.”

  “All right. So you agree that the Hainelin went into the sea with Kenneth?”

  “Of course I agree. It wasn’t found on his body or anywhere in the house or on the grounds; there is no other possible explanation.”

  There were at least two other possible explanations, but I saw no point in mentioning them. Summerhayes would only have scoffed. He was an ace scoffer, Eldon was.

  He said, “A tragedy, a genuine tragedy. A great loss.”

  “You mean the box?”

  “I do. It was an irreplaceable work of art…” He shook his head. “A great loss,” he said again.

  He was something, this bird. He didn’t much give a damn that two men were dead, but he got all sad-eyed and mournful over an antique snuff box.

  “Let’s talk about Leonard Purcell,” I said. “How well did you know him?”

  “Hardly at all.”

  I looked over at the wife. “Mrs. Summerhayes?”

  Before she could answer he said testily, “I spoke for Elisabeth as well. How could she possibly have known Leonard any better than I?”

  I kept my eyes on her, but she wasn’t having any; she shifted position and did some concentrated staring at the open-toed sandals she was wearing. He had her buffaloed good. Or did he? There was something about her, a suggestion of strength and will held in check, that made me wonder if he really dominated her or if she only let him think he did.

  “The night of the party,” I said, “what was Leonard’s mood?”

  “Festive,” he said. “It was a festive occasion. At least it was supposed to be.”

  “Lots of liquor?”

  “Champagne, mostly.”

  “Did anybody get drunk?”

  “Only Kenneth. The rest of us are civilized people.”

  “Meaning Kenneth wasn’t?”

  “At times he could be. At other times… no.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  “Shortly before nine-thirty.”

  “What was he doing?”

  “Showing off his collection to Margaret Prine.”

  “Mrs. Summerhayes? When did you last see him?”

  “At the same time,” she said. “My husband and I were together.”

  “The entire evening,” he added pointedly. “We weren’t out of each other’s sight.”

  I felt like asking him if they’d gone potty together, too. Instead, still looking at her, I said, “Was there trouble of any kind before Kenneth disappeared?”

  Summerhayes answered for her again. “Trouble? What do you mean by that?”

  “Harsh words, arguments, shoving matches, fistfights. Trouble, Mr. Summerhayes.”

  “No. I told you-”

  “Yes, right, all the guests are civilized people. Were you one of the search party that found Kenneth’s body?”

  “No. Neither of us was.”

  “Was Leonard?”

  “I don’t recall. Possibly. I do remember that he was beside himself afterward. Half hysterical.”

  “That’s understandable, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose so,” Summerhayes said. But there was a hint of distaste in his voice, as if he considered males becoming half hysterical under any circumstances an unmanly thing to do. “He and Kenneth were close.”

  I nodded. “Did you or your wife have any contact with Leonard after that night?”

  “No. We hardly move in the same circles.”

  “Who do you think shot him?”

  “I’m sure I have no idea. A burglar, I sup
pose. Or someone in the gay community. God knows, those people can be violent sometimes. Look what they did to City Hall after the Dan White trial.”

  “Look what Dan White did to the mayor and Harvey Milk. Look what the jury did for Dan White.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  I said, “What can you tell me about Kenneth’s daughter?”

  “Tell you about her? Why?”

  “I’d like your opinion.”

  “Very well. Melanie is irresponsible, not terribly bright, and a drug freak. She’ll waste away her entire inheritance in a few years.”

  “The kid she’s living with, Richard Dessault-you know him?”

  “No. And I wouldn’t want to.”

  “Alicia Purcell?”

  The scowl again. “What about her?”

  “What’s your opinion of her?”

  “She’s a fine woman. Elisabeth and I have always thought so, haven’t we, Elisabeth?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  Summerhayes made an impatient gesture and a show of looking at his watch. “We’ve answered enough of your questions, I think — let you take up enough of our time. We have business to attend to.”

  “I’m sure you do,” I said. “Lots of customers lined up out there, clamoring for attention.”

  He curled his lip to let me know what he thought of my sarcasm. “Please leave,” he said.

  I didn’t argue with him. I nodded and said that I appreciated his help, even though I didn’t, and put my back to him and went out. I made a point of looking at Mrs. Summerhayes as I passed her, but she still wasn’t having any. Even with her eyes averted, though, I saw enough of her face to read its expression: she was worried about something. I wondered what it was.

  I wondered, too, why her husband had cut me off short when I asked him about Alicia Purcell. And why Elisabeth’s voice had been so cold and flat when she agreed that the widow was a fine woman.

  Chapter Eight

  Outside the gallery I took another look at the guest list. George Collins lived in Atherton, an affluent community down near Palo Alto, so seeing him would have to wait for another day. Margaret Prine, however, lived on top of Nob Hill-not far away at all. I walked back to Powell and down to the St. Francis Hotel, and went in there to consult one of their public telephone directories. No listing for Margaret Prine. I decided to go ahead and make the short trip anyway, take a chance on her being home. Maybe she could tell me some enlightening things about Eldon and Elisabeth Summerhayes, if nothing else.

  I caught a cable car out front, the first time I’d been on one in a couple of years. It was overflowing with tourists, as usual-the main reason why San Franciscans don’t ride the cable cars much any more-and I had to hang on outside with what Kerry calls my “ample duff” exposed to pedestrians and passing traffic. I got off at California Street and panted my way uphill past the Stanford Court and the Mark Hopkins and the Fairmont, three of the city’s posher hotels, and then over past the Pacific Union Club and Huntington Park to a fancy old apartment building on Sacramento.

  There were a couple of doormen in full livery, a species you seldom see anywhere in San Francisco these days except on Nob Hill; one of them took my card and the message that I was here about Kenneth and Leonard Purcell, and said he would see if Mrs. Prine was in. He used a house phone ten feet away, keeping an eye on me all the while. She was home, all right, because he was on there a good minute and a half, but when he hung up and came back to where I was he said, “Mrs. Prine isn’t available, sir.”

  “I saw you talking to her.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. She doesn’t wish to see you.”

  “Did she say why?”

  “No, sir. I’ll have to ask you to leave, please.”

  I was getting tired of people asking me to leave places. But it wasn’t his fault-he was only doing his job-so I didn’t pick on him about it. I left with something else to wonder about now: Why had Margaret Prine refused to see me?

  I hoofed it all the way back to Union Square, not bothering with a cable car because there wasn’t one in sight when I got to California and Powell and because it was an easy walk downhill from there. I ransomed the car, drove over to the Civic Center, and stopped in at the main library, where I checked out a couple of books on the history of snuff and snuff containers. I knew next to nothing about the subject and I figured it would be a good idea if I boned up a little. The more you know about something, the better off you are-in my business especially.

  When I got back to the office it was locked up tight. But there was a note on my desk from Eberhardt, typed because his handwriting is so bad you needed a cryptographer to decipher it. The note said:

  3:15 P.M.

  Ed Berg called. He got the dope on the Church of the Holy Mission and the Moral Crusade. Too involved to put down here, I’ll tell you when I see you. Back around five.

  Thanks a lot, Eb, I thought. I crumpled the note, threw it into the wastebasket, and checked the answering machine. Two calls, one for Eberhardt, one for me that didn’t require immediate attention. So I dragged the reverse city directory out of my file cabinet and found an A. Ozimas in the index. He was a resident of one of those big, new high-rise apartment buildings in Pacific Heights. I knew the building-Pacific Heights is my neighborhood; my flat, in fact, was only a few blocks away, on the other side of the hill — and if Ozimas lived there, he was even wealthier than Melanie Purcell had led me to believe. All of the units were condos, and the cheapest would go for something around $250,000.

  I considered driving over there, but it was after four and Eberhardt was due back pretty soon. I stayed put and rang up the Hall of Justice. Ben Klein and his partner, Walt Tucker, were still out; the cop I talked to didn’t know when they would be back. I would have to wait until tomorrow to find out what, if anything, the police knew about Alex Ozimas.

  My second call was to Tom Washburn at his friend’s place. When I got him on the line I asked if he’d ever heard Leonard speak of Ozimas. He said, “No, I don’t think so. Who’s he?”

  “Business acquaintance of Kenneth’s. The man you talked to on the phone-could his accent have been Filipino instead of Latin?”

  He thought about that. “I’m not sure,” he said at length. “I don’t know any Filipinos, I don’t know what their accent sounds like.”

  “Could sound Spanish, depending on the person speaking.”

  “Do you think this man Ozimas might be the caller?”

  “Not really. He seems to have quite a bit of money; he wouldn’t need to shake anybody down for a couple of thousand. But I don’t want to overlook any possibilities.”

  Washburn wanted to know what I’d found out so far; he sounded pretty low, so I told him in detail how the day had gone. It didn’t do much to cheer him up, but then I wasn’t trying to cheer him up. I’m a detective, not a professional candy-striper. I asked him some questions about the Summerhayeses, but he had never met either of them and couldn’t remember Leonard ever saying much about them. He didn’t know anything about George Collins or Margaret Prine, either.

  Directory Assistance gave me a telephone number for George Collins at the address I had in Atherton. I called the number, and a male voice informed me that Mr. Collins was out of town. I asked when he’d be back. The voice said it was not permitted to divulge that information. Thanks a lot, voice, I thought. I left my name and number and asked that Mr. Collins get in touch with me as soon as he returned.

  So much for the telephone. I leaned back, put my feet up, and opened one of the books I’d got from the library. After half an hour and some fairly thorough spot-reading, I knew more about snuff and snuff containers than I would ever need to know. Not that the subject matter was dull; it was pretty absorbing stuff, in fact, once you got into it. I knew, for instance, that it had been neither Caucasians nor Orientals who had discovered snuff, but New World Indians; and that tobacco in general had been unknown in Europe until Columbus made his second voyage to the Americas at the end of
the fifteenth century. I knew that by the last quarter of the sixteenth century tobacco was used in one form or another in all the countries of the world, and “snuffing” was so popular throughout Europe that two Popes found it necessary to ban the practice during church services. I also knew that, according to legend, the first time Sir Walter Raleigh’s manservant saw tobacco smoke pouring out of his master’s mouth and nostrils, he chucked a jug of beer into his face because he feared Raleigh’s brains were on fire.

  As for snuff bottles and boxes, I knew that they had been painstakingly handmade from any number of substances, the most popular of which were gold, silver, ivory, horn, wood, glass, and tortoise shell; that they were sometimes decorated with precious and semi-precious stones; that they came in myriad sizes and shapes (miniature caskets, for one shape; Napoleon’s hat, for another); that the most valuable ones from an artistic point of view, and therefore the most sought after by collectors, were those created by notable artists that had repousse or raised patterns engraved or incised on their surfaces, or which were festooned with intricate hand-enameled scenes, or which had been made of plane-tree wood in the Laurancekirk region of Scotland. I knew that the prize creations were bottles done in China by Yip Chung San, who had plied his craft during the Manchu dynasty and whose specialty involved painting scenes on the inside of the bottles, somewhat like mirror writing; and gold, silver, and ivory boxes by such European (and in particular, French) artists as Hainelin, Petitot, Watteau, Fragonard, and the von Blaren-berghes, father and son. And most interestingly of all, from my point of view, I knew that in 1904 a British collector, Sir Joseph Duveen, had paid the equivalent of thirty thousand dollars for what was said to be the rarest of all gold boxes by Hainelin, reputedly made as a special gift from Bonaparte to one of his lieutenants.

  I was just starting on the second library book, to see if it contained any information not covered in the first, when Eberhardt shouldered in. He saw me sitting there with my feet up, reading, and pulled a face. “Look at this,” he said. “I’m out all day busting my hump and here you are, sitting on yours reading a book.”

  “I’m working, Eb.”

  “Yeah. Sure you are.” He sailed his hat on top of one of the hideous mustard-yellow file cabinets and sat down at his desk.