The Blue Hammer

by Ross Macdonald

  "That's too bad."

  "I thought so. But she didn't."

  Mrs. Brighton became absorbed in her macaroni and cheese. Then she added milk and sugar to her tea. She stirred it and raised it to her lips.

  "Have you known Betty long?"

  "I met her at a party the night before last. She was covering it for the paper."

  "She was supposed to be. But if you're talking about the Chantry party she never did submit any usable copy. She got wound up in a murder case, and she hasn't thought about anything else in two days. She's a terribly ambitious young woman, you know."

  Mrs. Brighton gave me one of her large-eyed impervious looks. I wondered if she was offering me a warning or simply making conversation with a stranger.

  "Are you involved in that murder case?" she said.

  "Yes. I'm a private detective."

  "May I ask who has employed you?"

  "You may ask. But I better not answer."

  "Come on." She gave me a roguish smile that wrinkled up her face yet somehow improved it. "I'm not a reporter any more. You're not talking for print."

  "Jack Biemeyer."

  Her penciled eyebrows rose. "Mr. Bigshot's involved with a murder?"

  "Not directly. He bought a picture which was later stolen. He hired me to get it back."

  "And did you?"

  "No. I'm working on it, though. This is the third day."

  "And no progress?"

  "Some progress. The case keeps growing. There's been a second murder-Jacob Whitmore."

  Mrs. Brighton leaned toward me suddenly. Her elbow spilled the rest of her tea. "Jake was drowned three days ago, accidentally drowned in the ocean."

  "He was drowned in fresh water," I said, "and put into the ocean afterwards."

  "But that's terrible. I knew Jake. I've known him since he was in high school. He was one of our delivery boys. He was the most harmless soul I ever knew."

  "It's often the harmless ones that get killed."

  As I said that, I thought of Betty. Her face was in my mind, and her firm harmless body. My chest felt hot and tight, and I took a deep breath and let it out, without intending to, in a barely audible sigh.

  "What's the matter?" Mrs. Brighton said.

  "I hate to see people die."

  "Then you picked a strange profession."

  "I know I did. But every now and then I have a chance to prevent a killing."

  And every now and then I precipitated one. I tried to keep that thought and the thought of Betty from coming together, but the two thoughts nudged each other like conspirators.

  "Eat your vegetables," Mrs. Brighton said. "A man needs all the vitamins he can get." She added in the same matter-of-fact tone: "You're worried about Betty Jo Siddon, aren't you?"

  "Yes, I am."

  "So am I. Particularly since you told me Jake Whitmore was murdered. Somebody I've known half my life-that's striking close to home. And if something happened to Betty-" Her voice broke off and started again in a lower register: "I'm fond of that girl, and if anything happened to her-well, there's nothing I wouldn't do."

  "What do you think happened?"

  She looked around the room as if for a portent or a prophet. There was no one there but a few old people eating.

  "Betty's hooked on the Chantry case," she said. "She hasn't been talking about it much lately but I know the signs. I had it myself at one time, over twenty years ago. I was going to track Chantry down and bring him back alive and become the foremost lady journalist of my time. I even wangled my way to Tahiti on a tip. Gauguin was one of Chantry's big influences, you know. But he wasn't in Tahiti. Neither was Gauguin."

  "But you think Chantry's alive?"

  "I did then. Now I don't know. It's funny how you change your views of things as you get older. You're old enough to know what I mean. When I was a young woman, I imagined that Chantry had done what I would have liked to do. He thumbed his nose at this poky little town and walked away from it. He was under thirty, you know, when he dropped out of sight. He had all the time in the world ahead of him-time for a second life. Now that my own time is running short, I don't know. I think it's possible that he was murdered all those years ago."

  "Who had reason to kill him?"

  "I don't know. His wife, perhaps. Wives often do have reason. Don't quote me, but I wouldn't put it past her."

  "Do you know her?"

  "I know her quite well, at least I did. She's very publicity-conscious. When I stopped being a reporter, she lost all interest in me."

  "Did you know Chantry himself?"

  "I never did. He was a recluse, you know. He lived in this town for seven or eight years, and you could count on the fingers of one hand the number of people who knew him to speak to."

  "Can you name any of them?"

  "I can think of one," she said. "Jake Whitmore knew Chantry. He used to deliver their paper. I think it was knowing Chantry that made a painter of him."

  "I wonder if it was knowing Chantry that killed him."

  Mrs. Brighton took off her glasses and wiped them with a lace-edged handkerchief. She put them on again and studied me through them.

  "I'm not sure I follow you. Could you tell me just what you mean by that, in words of one syllable? I've had a long hard day."

  "I have a feeling that Chantry may be here in town. It's something more than a feeling. Jack Biemeyer's stolen painting was probably a Chantry. It passed through two pairs of hands on its way to Biemeyer-Jake Whitmore's and Paul Grimes's. Both Whitmore and Grimes are dead. I guess you know that."

  She bowed her gray head under the weight of the knowledge. "You think Betty's in real trouble, don't you?"

  "She may be."

  "Can I help? Do you want me to start phoning the nursing homes?"

  "Yes. But please be careful. Don't mention any names. You have an aged aunt who needs custodial care. Get them to describe the facilities. Listen for sounds of guilt or any sign of trouble."

  "I'm good at that," she said dryly. "I hear a lot of those kinds of sounds in the office. But I'm not sure that that's the best approach."

  "What do you suggest?"

  "I don't have anything specific in mind. It depends on what theory we're working on. Is it your idea that Betty located the nursing home where Mildred Mead is staying, was inveigled into going there, and got snatched? Isn't that a little melodramatic?"

  "Melodramatic things are happening all the time."

  She sighed. "I suppose you're right. I hear a lot of _them_ in the office, too. But isn't it just as likely that Betty simply took off on the track of something, and she'll be turning up again any time?"

  "It may be just as likely," I said. "But don't forget that Jake Whitmore turned up drowned. Paul Grimes turned up beaten to death."

  Her face absorbed the knowledge and grew heavy with it, like an old sponge absorbing water. "You're right, of course. We have to do what we can. But shouldn't we be going to the police?"

  "As soon as we have something definite to take to them. Mackendrick is hard to convince."

  "Is he not. Okay. I'll be in the office if you want me."

  She gave me the number, and I wrote it down. I asked her further to make me a list of the nursing homes and their numbers as she called them.

  XXIX

  I drove up the dark hill to Biemeyer's house feeling angry and powerless. The house was blazing with lights but entirely silent.

  Biemeyer answered the door with a drink held securely in his hand. He gave the impression that the drink was holding him up. Everything else about him, shoulders and knees and face, seemed to be sagging.

  "What in the hell do you want?" His voice was husky and frayed, as if he had been doing a lot of shouting.

  "I'd like to have a serious talk with you, Mr. Biemeyer."

  "I can translate that. You want more money."

  "Forget about the money for a change. I don't care about your money."

  His face lengthened. He had hoisted his money up
the mast, but I had failed to salute it. Slowly his face came together again, wrinkling around his dark hostile eyes.

  "Does that mean you won't be sending me a bill?"

  I was tempted to turn my back on him and leave, perhaps taking a swing at him first. But Biemeyer and his household possessed knowledge that I had to have. And working for them gave me standing with the police that I couldn't get in any other way.

  "Please take it easy," I said. "The money you've advanced will probably cover it. If it doesn't, I'll send you a bill. After all, I did recover your daughter."

  "But not the picture."

  "I'm working on the picture, getting closer to it. Is there some place we could have a private talk?"

  "No," he said. "There is not. All I'm asking you to do is to respect the sanctity of my home. If you won't do that, to hell with you."

  Now even the glass in his hand was no longer steady. He waved it in a declamatory gesture and sloshed some liquor on the polished floor. Mrs. Biemeyer appeared behind him, as if the spilling of liquor was an understood signal in the family. Much farther back, half hidden by the edge of a partition, Doris stood still and silent.

  "I think you should talk to him, Jack," Ruth Biemeyer said. "We've been through quite a lot in the last couple of days. And thanks in good part to Mr. Archer, we've survived it."

  Her face was calm and smooth, and she was dressed for evening. Her voice was resigned. I guessed that she had made a bargain with whatever fates she recognized: bring Doris home and I'll put up with Jack. Well, Doris was there, standing like a Chirico figure in the receding distances of the house.

  Biemeyer failed to put up an argument. He didn't even acknowledge his wife's remarks. He simply turned on his heel and led me through the house to his study. Doris gave me a small propitiatory smile as we went by. Her eyes were bright and scared.

  Biemeyer sat down at his desk in front of the picture of his copper mine. He set down his drink and swiveled his chair toward me. "All right. What do you want from me now?"

  "I'm looking for a pair of women. I think they may be together. One of them is Betty-Betty Jo Siddon."

  Biemeyer leaned forward. "The society reporter? Don't tell me she's turned up missing."

  "Just tonight. But she may be in danger. You may be able to help me find her."

  "I don't see how. I haven't seen her in weeks. We don't go to many parties."

  "She didn't get lost at a party, Mr. Biemeyer. I'm not sure how it happened, but I think she went to a nursing home in town here and got waylaid. That's the theory I have to work on, anyway."

  "Where do I come in? I've never been in a nursing home in my life." He gave me a macho look and reached for his drink.

  "Miss Siddon was looking for Mildred Mead."

  His hand jerked and closed on his drink, spilling part of it on his trousers. "I never heard of her," he said without conviction.

  "She was the subject of the painting I've been looking for. You must have recognized her."

  "How?" he said. "I never met the woman in my life. What did you say her name was?"

  "Mildred Mead. You bought her a house in Chantry Canyon quite a few years ago. That was a generous gift to a woman you say you never met. Incidentally, your daughter, Doris, ended up in that house last night. It's been taken over by a commune. Mildred sold them the house a few months ago and moved here. Don't tell me this is news to you."

  "I'm not telling you anything."

  Biemeyer's face had turned fiery red. He got to his feet. I expected him to take a swing at me. Instead he rushed out of the room.

  I thought that was the end of our conversation. But he came back with a fresh drink and sat down opposite me again. His face had turned pale in blotches.

  "Have you been researching me?"

  "No."

  "I don't believe you. How did you find out about Mildred Mead?"

  "Her name came up in Arizona, together with yours."

  He sighed. "They hate me there. There were times when I had to close down the smelter and put half of Copper City out of work. I know how it feels-I'm a Copper City boy myself. Back before the war, my family didn't have two nickels to rub against each other. I worked my way through high school and played football to stay in college. But I suppose you know all that already?"

  I gave him a knowing look, which didn't come hard. I knew now.

  "Have you talked to Mildred?" he said.

  "No. I haven't seen her."

  "She's an old woman now. But she was something to see in the old days. A beautiful thing." He opened and closed his free hand and gulped part of his drink. "When I finally got hold of her, it made everything worthwhile-all the work and the goddam football games getting my bones beaten. But she's old now. She finally got old."

  "Is she here in town?"

  "You know she is, or you wouldn't ask me the question. Or she was." He reached out with his free hand and grasped my shoulder. "Just don't tell Ruth. She's insanely jealous. You know how women are."

  Just beyond the open door of the study the light stirred. Ruth Biemeyer moved into the doorway, trampling on the heels of her own shadow.

  She said, "It isn't true that I'm insanely jealous. I may have been jealous at times. But it gives you no right to speak like that."

  Biemeyer stood facing her, not quite as tall as she was on her heels. His face was set in creases of bitter loathing that gave it the character it had lacked.

  "You were eaten up with jealousy," he said. "You have been all your life. You wouldn't give me normal sex, but when I got it from another woman you couldn't stand it. You did your dirty damnedest to break it up. And when you couldn't, you ran her out of town."

  "I was ashamed for you," she said with acid sweetness. "Chasing after that poor old woman, when she was so sick and tired she could hardly walk."

  "Mildred isn't so old. She's got more sex in her little finger than you ever had in your body."

  "What would you know about sex? You were looking for a mother, not a wife."

  "Wife?" He swept the room with an exaggerated glance. "I don't see any wife, I see a woman who cut me off when I was in my prime."

  "Because you chose that old hag."

  "Don't call her that!"

  Their quarrel had had from the start a self-conscious dramatic aspect. They looked sideways at me as they spoke, as if I were their judge or referee. I thought of their daughter, Doris, and wondered if she had been used in this way as the audience and fulcrum of their quarrels.

  I remembered Doris's memory of the scene when she had hidden in the clothes hamper in the bathroom, and I began to get angry again. This time I kept my anger hidden. Doris's parents were telling me some of the things I had to know. But both of them were looking at me now, perhaps wondering if they had lost their audience.

  I said to Ruth Biemeyer, "Why did you buy that picture of Mildred Mead and hang it on the wall?"

  "I didn't know it was Mildred Mead. It's an idealized portrait, and she's a wrinkled old crone by now. Why should I connect her with the picture?"

  "You did, though," Biemeyer said. "And she still was better-looking than you ever were on your best day. That was the thing you couldn't stand."

  "You were the thing I couldn't stand."

  "At least you're admitting it now. You used to pretend that all the trouble originated with me. I was the King Kong of Copper City and you were the delicate maiden. You're not so bloody delicate, _or_ maidenly."

  "No," she said. "I've grown scar tissue. I've needed it."

  I was getting sick of them. I had gone through quarrels like theirs myself, when my own marriage was breaking up. Eventually the quarrels reached a point where nothing hopeful, and nothing entirely true, was being said.

  I could smell the sour animal anger of their bodies, and hear them breathing quickly, out of phase. I stepped between them, facing Biemeyer.

  "Where is Mildred? I want to talk to her," I said.

  "I don't know. Honestly."

  "He's l
ying," the woman said. "He brought her to town and set her up in an apartment on the beach. I have friends in this town, I know what's going on. They saw him beating a path to her door, visiting her every day." She turned on her husband. "What kind of a creep are you, anyway, sneaking away from your lawful home to make love to a crazy old woman?"

  "I wasn't making love to her."

  "Then what were you doing?"

  "Talking. We'd have a few drinks and some conversation. That's all it amounted to."

  "Just an innocent friendship, eh?"

  "That's right."

  "And that's all it ever was," she said sardonically. "I don't claim that."

  "What do you claim?"

  He pulled himself together and said, "I loved her."

  She looked at him in a lost way. It made me wonder if he had ever told her that before. She burst into tears and sat down in his chair, bending her streaming face close to her v knees.

  Biemeyer seemed upset, almost disoriented. I took him by the arm and led him to the far end of the room. "Where is Mildred now?"

  "I haven't seen her for weeks. I don't know where she went. We got into an argument about money. I was looking after her, of course, but she wanted more. She wanted me to set her up in a house with a staff of servants and a nurse to look after her. Mildred always did have big ideas."

  "And you didn't want to pay for them?"

  "That's right. I was willing to pay my share. But she wasn't penniless. And she was getting old-she's in her seventies. I told her a woman has to adjust when she gets into her seventies. She can't expect to go on living like a queen."

  "Where did she go?"

  "I can't tell you. She moved out several weeks ago without telling me anything. She said she was going someplace to move in with relatives."

  "In town here?"

  "I don't know."

  "You didn't try to find her?"

  "Why should I?" Biemeyer said. "Why the hell should I? There wasn't anything going on between us any more. With the money from the house in Chantry Canyon, she had enough to live on for the rest of her life. I didn't owe her anything. Frankly, she was turning into a nuisance."

  So was Biemeyer, but I stayed with him. "I need to get in touch with her, and you may be able to help me. Do you have any contacts at the Southwestern Savings branch in Copper City?"