Complicating the whole thing, of course, was the fact that both Alison and I knew the victim, the fact that we had all been seen in the lounge just prior to the murder, and—of course—the fact that the corpse was in our room.
The evidence indicated, however, that the shooting had occurred elsewhere and the body dumped in our room. He'd been shot once with a powerful steel-jacketed bullet that had passed through and exited at the rear of the skull. It was a contact wound, meaning that the barrel of the weapon was pressing against the base of his nose when the shot was fired. A careful search of the room did not produce the lethal bullet.
So the logic seemed to suggest that we had nothing to do with the murder. Surely we would not have shot him, then brought him to our room to report the event. But the L.A. cops are very thorough—and, after all, this is the land of make-believe with tons of creative imagination in the atmosphere. So I had to go through the Q&A routines, account for every minute of my evening, over and over it. I held back nothing except the occult stuff; also, I just gave a general description of the woman who met Jim in the lounge. The rest I told pretty much like it was, including the fact that I had been working with Jim on the Jane Doe case.
Alison, on the other hand, having no experience in these matters and cautious as hell about being a possible suspect in a murder case, refused to give them anything but her name, rank, and serial number without a lawyer present. While this did not necessarily prejudice her standing with the investigating officers, it would most certainly have insured her a free ride to the police station had it not been for the arrival on the scene of Captain Valdiva some fifty minutes following the first response.
Valdiva and I were not on a first-name basis, but we were not strangers, either. He knew of my past work with the department, and he knew that Jim and I were friends. He also had rank enough to disregard some of the standard procedures of a murder investigation. I took him aside and explained that Alison was distraught over Jim's death; even though she had known him only slightly and professionally, that she had been to Jim's home with me earlier in the day, had met his wife and kids; that she was having a hard time handling the shock of walking into her motel room to find Jim seated in a chair with a bullet hole between the eyes.
Valdiva is an intelligent guy. He also knew that Alison and I were registered together at the motel, so he was probably reading some female sensitivity over that situation. I told him about the "mix-up" at the morgue and the strain of searching for the Jane Doe corpse, about our decision to drive up to Ojai on a possible lead toward Jane Doe's identity, the subsequent decision to check in at Sportsman's to give Alison a needed break, the coincidental spotting of Cochran while we were in the lounge.
Other officers had collected statements from the employees; the bartender, a cocktail waitress, and the entertainers confirmed my statement.
Valdiva thanked me for alerting him directly and told me that his own wife was with Georgia and the kids. The police community tends to come together at a time like this, as well they should; they are all in the same boat; whenever it is one of their number, it could as well have been any of their number.
So he was kindly predisposed toward me at the moment, anyway. We talked a bit about the mystery vis-á-vis Jim's corpse in my motel room; I could offer no sane clue about that. There was nothing from the coroner's man, at that point, to state conclusively that the victim could not have deposited himself in that room before dying, but considering the nature of the wound, it hardly seemed possible. There seemed to be no way to account for the fact that the killer, whoever, could have known that Alison and I were occupying that particular room in that particular motel—not unless someone had us under surveillance—or why the killer would choose to dispose of the corpse in that manner.
In this-world logic, none of it made much sense. But Valdiva did not hold that against me. He politely asked Alison to come to the station within twenty-four hours to give her statement. She sweetly assured him that she and her lawyer would do so.
It was about midnight when we were dismissed. We could not go back to our room—did not wish to do so—could not even collect the few personal items we'd left there. The only thing I really needed, anyway, was the pair of wet shorts I'd left to dry in the bathroom. The management offered us another room; we declined; the desk clerk tore up my credit card slip and we beat it.
I asked Alison, as we headed for the Maserati, "So what do you want to do now?"
She replied, "I want to do whatever you're going to do."
I told her, "I'm going to Ojai."
She said, "Okay. So am I."
I said, "Sure you don't want to talk to your lawyer first?"
"Why is that such an unpopular position?" she replied a bit testily. "Everything I've ever heard says that you should always have a lawyer present when you talk to the police."
I shrugged and said, "It's your right. But it really only applies if you're being charged with a crime. These guys are just trying to do their job."
She told me, "Well, I was sure we were going to be charged. With murder, or accessory, or something. My God, this whole thing is blowing my mind. Ashton. You didn't tell anyone in the lounge that we were registered here, did you?"
I said, "I did not."
"Me, neither. So how did Jim end up in our room'"
I said, "Beats me, kid."
I opened the door, helped her into the car.
As I was settling into my side she said, "Did you tell him we were coming here?"
I told her, “Didn't know it myself until you started coming unglued. No, look, face it, there's no rational— We've got more of the same here, the same phenomena. We just have to...”
As I was starting the engine she told me, almost defiantly, "Well, see, I owe you—there's—I haven't been entirely truthful with you."
"About what?"
"Jim. We had an affair."
Okay. I wasn't exactly stunned by that, but... I asked her, "When?"
"About a month ago. Just lasted a week. Then I found out he was married. That ended that. Sorry. I should have told you. I mean, a while ago, in the lounge, when you asked me—but I figured it was nobody's business and especially not yours. It was, after all, just a—but I don't go out with married men. Your friend Jim was quite an operator."
That did surprise me. I'd always thought... I sighed and told her, "You're right, it's none of my business."
She said, "Well, that's why I did not want to talk to the police. I mean, how much more coincidence can this thing take? But I suppose I will have to tell them about it, won't I? It will probably all come out, anyhow. I guess it's better that I..."
Yes, I guessed that was true, and the sooner the better. But then it was not an especially comforting idea for me, either. The cops had themselves a ready-made triangle here. They loved this kind of stuff. Every cop I ever met is a soap writer at heart.
I said, "An operator, eh?"
She said, "I found out about his wife and kids from a nurse. Anything in a skirt was fair game for him, I guess. He hit on everybody."
I said, "Well, shit," and turned off the engine.
"What?"
"What" was the Walther PPK I keep stashed in a trick floorboard compartment. I have a license. But none of the cops had bothered to ask me about that. I hadn't volunteered it. I was deciding that I should have done that, that I wanted to do that, I wanted to do it right now. And I wanted to hand the damned thing over, right now, get it in the record and get it cleared.
I peeled back the carpet and sprang the lid on the compartment, telling Alison while I was doing that, "We're going back inside. You're giving your statement. And I'm handing over my—"
But then I changed my mind about all that.
The floorboard compartment was empty. The damned Walther was not there.
I kicked the engine again and got the hell away from there. Alison cried, "What's the matter?"
I shivered as I told her what was the matter.
Patsy? Pawn? Try sucker, and then watch this sucker try to wriggle off the hook. I still did not have the cause doped, but the goal of this conspiracy of insanity was becoming all too clear to my fevered mind.
Ojai, I figured, was about the only hope I had.
Chapter Nineteen: Oak People
It was a couple of hours up to Ojai. If you're not from California, you probably have trouble with that name. It is pronounced Oh-hi, emphasis on the oh. I took the back way, via several little two-lane state highways, through Moorpark and Santa Paula. Hardly any traffic at all that time of night. We stopped briefly at an all-night coffee shop in Santa Paula, needed caffeine before starting that wriggly climb along California 150, reached the sleeping village of Ojai at just shortly after two o'clock.
The Ojai Valley snuggles into a lovely little pocket of the southern edge of the Los Padres National Forest, a half-million-acre preserve in the coastal mountains. It's an area of campgrounds, natural hot springs, private resorts, scenic wonders—about fifteen miles from the ocean. Ojai itself is a teeming nucleus of artists and craftsmen, studios, shops, private schools, new-age centers, and what have you. If you've seen the original Hollywood production of Lost Horizon, the one starring Ronald Colman, then you've seen the Ojai Valley as Shangri-La.
Archaeologists date the earliest habitation of the area with the so-called Oak Grove People at about 8000 B.C., replaced around 1000 B.C. by the Chumash Indians, some of whom are still around. Modem settlement began in the region during the late 1800s. Ojai now regards itself as an art and music center with emphasis on tourism, but it is also an area rich in citrus and avocado farming. It has also become a kind of Mecca in the new-age, awareness-raising milieu. Krishnamurti and the theosophists were probably the first, arriving in the 1920s. There are now a dozen or more active and flourishing organizations in the area.
My problem at two o'clock on that Thursday morning was to find a bed. The historic Oaks Hotel is now a health and fitness spa, renowned in the California southland as a "fat farm." The half dozen or so motels were all full. That left only the landmark Ojai Valley Inn and Country Club, a plush resort-style hostelry with riding stables and the works at the edge of town. I gave it a what-the-hell try and came up with a choice room overlooking the golf course. Guess I caught a crease in time there; had to sign an agreement to surrender the room on Friday morning. Which was plenty okay with me; I doubted that I had that much time, anyway. It seemed likely that my Walther PPK would turn up somewhere at Sportsman's within the next few hours, that it would prove to be the murder weapon and Valdiva would be hunting my head by at least Thursday afternoon, which was now just a few hours off.
So we checked in and went straight to bed—separate beds, that is. Neither of us had a lot of energy for carnal pursuits, certainly not the turn of mind for it. I left a request for an eight o'clock wake-up. But then I had a hell of a time getting to sleep, tired as I was. Too many things crowding the mind, too much perplexity, too much regret. Couldn't get Georgia and those kids out of my synapses for more than a few seconds at a time, and when they were not crowding them, all the rest of the stuff was. I felt bad about Jim, and bad about Alison's disclosure about the womanizing, bad about a lot of things.
Guess I finally dropped off into troubled sleep with all of that swirling through because the dreams were terrible. Think I woke up during every REM period, looked to see if Alison was okay. She was sleeping like a baby—every time I checked her, anyway. I may have had an out-of-body, somewhere in there, because I...well, I'll talk about that later.
I came crashing out of a dumb dream at seven-thirty and decided to call it quits, canceled the eight-o'clock wake up, quietly dressed and went over to the lobby area to pick up some toiletries, picked up also some complimentary coffee, and took it back to the room.
Alison was sitting up bug-eyed in the bed when I returned, trying to figure out where she was and what was happening. I sat on the edge of the bed and we drank the coffee while I gentled her fully awake with quiet talk about the beauty of the area. I handed her the sack of toiletries and gave her first crack at the bathroom while I stepped outside and finished my coffee on the veranda. She needed to call the hospital, too, let them know she was not coming in. I cautioned her to not mention Ojai, although I had told Valdiva myself that we were headed that way.
We were having breakfast on the patio by nine o'clock, got into town before ten, bought a change of clothing—a tennis outfit for each of us, 'cause it was hot, and also 'cause we wanted to look like vacationers—then dropped into the Chamber of Commerce for a packet of printed leaflets describing the attractions and general information on the area.
I did not know exactly what I was going for there. It's a small town, yeah, but hell, the only "clue" we had was a highway sign, and even that was more guess than fact. According to the Chamber of Commerce handout, the Ojai Valley itself covered some ninety square miles. They described it as "a deep coastal valley extending from the six-thousand-foot Topa Topa Mountains in Los Padres National Forest to the ocean." Highway 150 skirts the upper edge, running for thirty miles or so from inland Santa Paula to the ocean just south of Santa Barbara. Just about the entire route is through rural countryside, so Ojai seemed the logical place to start.
My normal approach for a search in such an area would be toward service facilities, since these are limited. I was reaching for an identification of "Jane Doe," remember, an adult female, possibly a onetime resident of the area. I would show her photo at service stations, since virtually every adult in Southern California drives a car; at supermarkets and fast-food restaurants, since we all have to eat; at churches, because many of us still pray; at all of these because in a town of seventy-five hundred there simply are not that many service facilities to canvass.
In this particular case, though, I was operating on a hunch or intuition or however you choose to characterize an extrasensory quiver, and my interest was centered on the private institutions in the educational and/or consciousness (new-age) fields. The visitor's guide listed nine private schools or academies, a few of which appeared to be religiously or philosophically (new-age) oriented, and though no metaphysical groups were listed as such, a quick scan of paid ads among the handouts provided direction to that front. Some of these were in town and could be coveted on foot. Others were widely scattered around the outskirting countryside.
Due to the time pressure we carved up the territories between us. I gave Alison the walk-arounds—and not just because I did not want her driving the Maserati but chiefly because I did not want to send her nosing into isolated areas alone.
I tested the mobile phone in the car, was surprised to find good linkage. Alison noted the number, I gave her one of the Polaroid snapshots of Jane I'd taken in my office that first night, and we went our separate ways.
I had covered the Krishnamurti Foundation and the theosophy school, Krotona Institute, and was headed toward something called Meditation Mount when Alison buzzed. Sounded as though she'd scored a direct hit on her second stop. Her voice was shaking with excitement as she told me, "Pick me up quick. Corner of Ojai Avenue and Ventura, by the Oaks."
That was only a block or two from where we'd separated. I was then about two miles east of there. A quick and risky U-turn in the middle of a hairpin curve sent me cruising sedately back toward downtown in a long line of traffic; took me about five minutes to reach the pickup point. I pulled into the curb and punched the door; Alison bounded inside with an excited sparkle in her eyes, told me, "I'm going to knock your socks off."
She sent me along a side street and directed me down a drive through a grove of trees, through an arched gateway. A rather modest white frame house sat at the end of that drive. There was a graveled parking area to accommodate eight or ten cars.
Aside from the directions, Alison had given me not a word. I parked beside a beat-up van camper and asked her, "What is this place?"
"That's right," she said, nurturing her delicious secret with a mysterious smil
e.
I asked, "What is right?"
"That's what it's called: The Place in the Oaks."
We got out and I cased the joint from ground level. Very pretty. Nicely manicured lawn, bunch of oaks, some fruit trees, flower beds scattered about, couple of flowing fountains. A guy ambling across the far side of the lawn looked like an Indian to me. An Indian brave. Wore something that looked like a loincloth, not another damned thing.
I said, "Okay."
Alison took me by the arm and walked me to the house. The front door was standing open. She rapped on the screen door.
This Indian maiden appeared immediately, materializing from the gloom inside to smile at Alison from behind the screen. "Oh, good," she said in a throaty, seductive voice, "you've come back."
Someone had "come back" for damned sure.
I felt that I had been there myself. I mentioned earlier the feeling that I had been out-of-body during the night. My hackles were raised now with that eerie feeling that it had all happened before. Minnehaha wore a buckskin miniskirt and vest. The vest was laced up the front with about a three-inch gap along the center, revealing shiny mounds in peek-a-boo relief and just the hint of areola to either side. Only one thing marred that lovely display: a ring of little circular tattoo marks barely visible along the breastline.
Whatever, however, whoever; one thing was unmistakably clear.
Except for the long black braided hair and sexy voice, this fetching "Indian maiden" was our Jane Doe.
Chapter Twenty: So-Hay Oh-Hi
She told us that her name was Oom-ray-key-too. That's a phonetic spelling, accent on the second syllable. I made a point to ask her how it is spelled, and she replied that it is "written as it is heard," so you've got it as I got it.
The Chamber of Commerce literature mentioned the Chumash Indians as ancient settlers, circa 1000 b.c., and went on to say that they "still exist in mixed blood to the present, some within the Ojai." But Oom-ray-key-too did not claim descent from the Chumash. She went a bit beyond that, claiming that her people had been "on the land" since "the raising of the sacred mountains." I'm no geologist, but I'd been under the impression that all the mountains of California had "raised" in some geological era predating the first men, so I decided not to take her literally in the matter, assuming that she spoke metaphorically.
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