by Gwen Moffat
‘As I said: meaning you to warn Ada.’
‘Then why couldn’t he say so?’ She went back indoors and Miss Pink followed to change her clothes. In her bedroom she reflected that she’d automatically accepted that she should accompany Pearl to the Scott house, which was curious since she was only a visitor but then, she shrugged, maybe she was a supportive presence.
While she was sponging her face she heard a screen door slam and thought nothing of it. In five minutes she was ready but Pearl had gone, had left the house without another word to her. She stood in the living-room that was full of muted sunshine and stared through layers of net at the shadowed façade of Marge’s house. A supportive presence? She had been rejected.
Chapter 15
Miss Pink drove the Markows’ car to the ranch and walked back without seeing anyone. She was trying to interest herself in the local paper when a horse snorted and she looked up to see Michael Vosker lowering his binoculars. He peered into the willows at the creek’s edge, then straightened and came towards the veranda. ‘I thought it was a pygmy nuthatch,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t understand it; we’re too low for pygmies. It was a white-breasted, of course, an optical illusion on my part. Are you all alone? Shall I join you?’
‘Do. I was about to make coffee.’
He sat down, his expression that of an enthusiast about to indulge in shop-talk. There was silence as she busied herself in the kitchen, a pregnant silence. ‘I gather you haven’t heard the news,’ she said, emerging and handing him a mug. He regarded her with interest, as if she were a strange bird.
‘Marian did remark on an unusual amount of activity this morning. Did something happen – other than storm damage?’
‘A body’s been taken out of the river at San Juan. There’s a gunshot wound in the mouth.’
‘Oh yes.’ He looked wary. ‘Out here suicides prefer shooting to hanging, it’s more reliable. This – can’t have anything to do with Tammy.’
‘No, no. She’s on the way to Texas now with Thelma. It’s a man’s body, and Clayton Scott went down to his farm during the storm and he never came home. His pick-up’s there, outside the cabin but he’s not on the farm. We searched.’
‘Good Heavens! What does Casey have to say?’
‘He was in Palomares last night. When he came back this morning he found the pick-up. He alerted the family.’
He sipped his coffee. He seemed to have forgotten his companion. After a while she said, ‘You’re not unduly surprised.’
‘It’s a favoured method,’ he repeated.
‘He’s guilty?’ His head came round slowly, his eyes intent. ‘He feels guilty for Veronica’s death,’ she explained.
‘No doubt.’ He looked back at the patio and eased his legs.
‘And Tammy could have brought things to a head,’ she added.
‘In what way?’
‘As it turned out Tammy’s adventure was just a childish escapade, but until she was found everyone must have had the same thought, as the time passed and we became more frantic: that a man was involved. The sexual element must have reminded Scott of Veronica.’
‘It could have.’
‘He was very strict, particularly so for these days. He’d have been all right with sons; he couldn’t handle young girls.’
He looked at her again and now she realised that he was deeply shocked. He saw her surprise and he stiffened, spilling his coffee. ‘I have to tell Marian,’ he said. ‘She’ll want to go to Ada.’
‘Pearl’s down there. We don’t know that it’s Clayton.’
‘But that’s the implication.’
‘Someone in San Juan is said to have recognised the body. There’s been no confirmation.’
‘Unpleasant though.’ He smiled, more or less in control again, and stood up. ‘It’s been nice talking to you. We must go birding some time. I’ll look forward to it.’
Marge came over, clean and casual in apple green, her eyes flicking into corners as if Pearl’s veranda held secrets. ‘Such a coming and going,’ she breathed. ‘I called Marian Vosker and she’d noticed it too, it wasn’t my imagination. She said Michael was out birding but he wasn’t, was he? He was here.’
‘He had coffee with me.’
‘Well, that’s no sin, dear, no need to be on the defensive.’ She paused for protest but Miss Pink only smiled politely. ‘Where is everybody?’ Marge snapped.
‘They’ve all gone into huddles – like us; that’s my guess. A body’s been taken out of the river.’
Marge sat down carefully on the chair vacated by Vosker. ‘Who is it?’
‘Someone said it was Clayton Scott.’
‘Clayton.’ A pause. ‘How did it happen?’
‘There’s a gunshot wound in the mouth.’
‘Oh.’ She exhaled on a long sigh. ‘Suicide.’
‘What else could it be?’
The woman’s gaze shifted sideways to the kitchen, her body seeming to soften where it had been stiff. Again she took time to reply. ‘With anyone else,’ she said at length, ‘and a night like it was last night – drinking, working in an arroyo, it would have been an accident, like caught in a flash-flood. But Clayton didn’t drink – and then shooting: no accident there, it had to be deliberate; unless he leaned his rifle against a bank and it fell down and fired. It happens.’
‘It could have happened here.’
‘I doubt it.’ She considered this. Miss Pink had the impression of wheels turning. ‘He had more than his share of problems,’ Marge went on: ‘two wild daughters, one of them defective; an invalid wife who—’ She checked and pondered, ignoring Miss Pink. ‘Where is Pearl?’ she asked sweetly.
‘She went down to Ada.’
‘She would. Always the first to offer comfort. She’s got a lot to learn, we’re not quite so outgoing in these little communities as they are in a San Jose ghetto. Mind you, I don’t hold it against her for what she was: where there’s a demand there’s always someone around to supply it – just so long as she leaves it behind. There’s a time and a place for everything.’
‘I don’t see that a beauty salon could hurt Regis,’ Miss Pink murmured. ‘Might do some good.’
‘Oh, so she tried it on you too? Said she was a beautician. That’s a little wide of the mark. A massage parlour wouldn’t have her. Miss Pearl may know how to fix her face to hide the wrinkles but she never did an honest day’s work in her life.’
‘Oh, come on! She put enough by to purchase a nice old house and a few acres—’
‘Not as a beautician, dear.’ The tone was honeyed but the eyes glittered. ‘Pearl Slocum walked the streets, that’s how she made her money.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘And living right opposite’ – the tone was rising – ‘I couldn’t entertain; imagine: Marian Vosker or Ada or Thelma sitting at my table, seeing ’em going and coming. Why you looking at me like that? They was coming in off the interstate! Why, in no time at all we’d have had truck drivers here, parking overnight! You don’t believe me? I see you don’t. Wayne Spikol used to come, still does.’
‘Who else did?’
Marge stopped as if she’d been hit. Standing up, she smoothed her slacks and nodded. ‘I have to take Pedro for his walk now. I’ll see you later.’
Miss Pink poured herself a brandy. She needed it. A vehicle with a good engine went by but she couldn’t see what it was because the house blocked her view except for a section of the Las Mesas road. The car didn’t go to Las Mesas, but very shortly it returned. She assumed its destination had been the Markow ranch.
It was past noon when Pearl came home, full of information and apologies. ‘But I knew you weren’t on your own,’ she said. ‘Michael came down and told us he’d visited with you and I saw Marge cross the street while I was talking to Wayne. You should have come down – or maybe not, some of it was morbid. Did you eat? Good. I had a salad at Marian’s.’
‘I thought you were with Ada.’
‘Oh, backwards
and forwards, you know. Come out in the patio and I’ll tell you.’
‘It is Clayton,’ she said as they settled themselves under the walnut tree. ‘It’s his watch. Wayne brought it out on his way from San Juan to the morgue, and Ada and Kristen identified it. Ada’s gone to town to identify him formally. Michael went along for moral support and he’ll be bringing her home. Kristen’s gone to the Markows – oh, did you know Thelma and Tammy were back?’
‘I heard a car.’
‘They hired a cab from the airport. Thelma called Ira this morning and he said they weren’t to go all the way to Texas for a funeral – and Thelma flying this way only yesterday. Ask me, he won’t have his princess being exposed to all the horrors of a burial. Tammy had hysterics – just like yesterday again – refusing to come home; she said they’d have to rope her to get her here. She refused to leave the motel to go anywhere except to Texas. Then Kristen stepped in, talked to her on the phone and she agreed to come home.’
‘Just like that? How did Kristen manage to persuade her?’
‘I’ve no idea.’ Pearl was airy. ‘Kristen did agree to go and stay with her; she’s there now, at the Markow place.’
‘What about Scott? Do the police have a theory? Was it accident or suicide?’
‘Suicide, Wayne reckons.’
‘What about you?’
‘Yes, I would think it was suicide; it’s classic: gun in the mouth, hook the trigger with the toe.’
‘Was he barefooted when he was found?’
‘Of course. He couldn’t put his boot back on afterwards, could he?’ Pearl laughed angrily. ‘Sorry, it’s not funny. Graveyard humour. Anyway, one boot’s missing, and his rifle. They’ll have gone over the edge with him and been swept down by the river.’
‘What was his man doing in Palomares?’
‘Casey? Drinking. I didn’t know he drank, and Ada says Clayton wouldn’t have employed him if he’d known. She’s not bothered about it; she’s keeping him on for the present.’
‘How is Ada?’
‘Shocked of course, but she says she shouldn’t be surprised; he’s never been the same since Veronica died and – you see – he chose the same way to go.’
‘He didn’t.’
‘Well, the river. The water must have been hypnotic for him, but it’s more in character for a man to stand on the edge and shoot himself than to walk out into the stream like Veronica.’
‘Is that what she did?’
‘Either that or threw herself in from the same spot – Heavens’ sakes, what are we talking about? Tell me about your visitors. What did Marge have to say?’
Miss Pink, who had been about to ask after Kristen, was taken aback by this sudden change of direction, and Pearl’s eyes sharpened. ‘Marge has a theory?’
‘I don’t think she’s interested in Scott’s death but she’s certainly got her knife into you. There’s something very wrong there, Pearl; she couldn’t have been more spiteful.’
‘What was it this time?’
‘The same, only worse. Sexually orientated, of course; she’s bothered about truck drivers coming in from the interstate and parking overnight.’
‘Well, I guess that’s her fantasy: truck drivers. Poor old Marge. I suppose she said I’d laid every man in the village.’
‘I think that was the implication.’
‘Did she mention Sam? Her husband?’
‘No, she didn’t mention him.’
Pearl smiled wryly. ‘That fits. He was a very macho guy: loved the outdoors, hunting, his little mine – I told you. We used to meet up there, on the mesas. I know that cabin in Slickrock like I know this patio. I think Sam was a little in love with me. I didn’t encourage that, it could be disruptive; all right to meet up there’ – she glanced at the skyline – ‘keep it discreet, but not down here.’ She grinned. ‘I never had Sam in my bedroom except the once and I wouldn’t have had him then but she’d stopped him going up on the mesas and he came over and told me he didn’t care to go on living if all he could do was sit in the patio all day and look at the cliffs. That’s why he was drinking heavily. So he spent a while with me here’ – she gestured at the house – ‘and went home and dropped dead. She’ll never forgive me.’
‘She knew about it?’
‘We didn’t think so. I like Marge and I’d never have let on I was a comfort to her old man. She must have found out somehow. Maybe she knew all the time.’
‘So now she’s having her revenge by accusing you of – loose morals.’
‘She’ll have picked up some gossip. Someone could have seen me in Santa Fe and recognised me. I ran a house in San Jose, that’s how I made my money, such as it is.’ She grinned. ‘I was what you’d call a madame. Are you shocked?’
‘No. I think you must have made a good one.’
Pearl stared, then laughed. ‘You mean it as a compliment! You’re something else, you know that?’
‘We’re getting a long way from Scott’s suicide.’
‘Why not? It’s over, we don’t want to stay with it. You got reservations? I can see it in your face.’
‘I’m bothered about Marge: so vindictive.’
‘That’ll blow over. You can’t afford to be on bad terms with your neighbours in a place as small as this.’ She stood up and stretched. ‘You should go out this afternoon, it isn’t too hot to take a horse, the storm cleared the air. Why don’t you take the trail to Massacre Canyon, out beyond Las Mesas? Call on Avril as you go by.’
‘For the funeral,’ Avril said, tossing a sheet of macaroons on a cake rack. ‘And how’s everyone bearing up in the great metropolis?’
‘As you might expect.’ Miss Pink was vague, thinking of Marge’s outburst. ‘When did you hear?’
‘After the police came and showed Ada his watch. She said she hadn’t called me until she knew for sure. Terrible thing to happen.’ She tested the oven with her hand and opened the chimney damper. ‘Coffee?’ she asked without enthusiasm.
‘No, thank you. I’ve had so many visitors, I’ve been drinking coffee all day.’ Avril licked her lips. ‘A troubled man,’ Miss Pink observed. ‘It was to be expected.’
‘Who’ve you been talking to?’
Miss Pink shifted her feet. ‘Sit down,’ Avril muttered, but it was a reflex, not a courtesy.
Miss Pink pulled out a chair and seated herself at the table with a sigh. ‘People talk to strangers,’ she said apologetically. ‘The assumption is that they’ll never see you again; they unburden themselves and – could it be that there’s some feeling that, with someone else to share it, the other person has lifted some of the burden? A trouble shared is a trouble halved?’ Her eyes were childlike behind her thick lenses.
‘All they got to do in a place like this is gossip,’ Avril said contemptuously.
‘I know. I live in a village myself.’
‘England was never like this. You don’t know the half of it.’
‘People are happy to inform me though.’
‘Not me; don’t you go classing me with them.’
‘No, you brought your English reticence with you. It must have been a shock when you realised that people gossip even more in rural America.’
‘If you been listening to that Ada Scott you need your head—’ Avril stopped, her mouth slack, then started again. ‘Not just Ada,’ she said shakily. ‘All – several of those women: they gossip like old hens. A younger person, a widow, on her own up here with an unmarried hand.’ She shrugged. ‘They can think what they like, see if I care.’
‘Ada doesn’t gossip.’
‘You picked up some tittle-tattle from someplace.’
‘You found your ring.’
‘My—’ Avril sat down suddenly, her face blank then, as a thought struck her, she flushed and her eyes went to the door. ‘That Fletcher Lloyd,’ she grated. ‘The ungrateful sod! Where’d he get work if I didn’t employ him?’
‘It wasn’t him,’ Miss Pink said, stretching the truth.
‘Then who? Pearl. He’d tell her anything.’
‘Women are careless with their jewellery. If Gregorio hadn’t been missing at the same time you’d have searched until you found it, but as it was, you jumped to conclusions.’
‘I did nothing of the sort! It was Clayton Scott who asked me was I missing anything and when I told him, it was him said Greg stole the ring, not me.’
‘He would, wouldn’t he?’
‘I don’t know what you mean. It is Ada Scott, isn’t it?’ Avril spoke slowly, watching Miss Pink’s eyes. ‘He talked it over with his wife. He was a worse gossip than any woman, and yet, you know’ – she looked puzzled – ‘I wouldn’t have thought Ada would believe him.’
‘She’d never have stood for blackmail.’
‘It wasn’t blackmail!’ Avril gave an angry snort of laughter. ‘What use would that be? He knew Herb never had any cash in the bank, all he left me was land. Scott just made accusations, is all, and not even that but inno – inn – what’s it called?’
‘Innuendoes.’
Avril nodded morosely, then glanced up and flinched, recognising compassion when she saw it. ‘It’s just the kind of thing a creep like that would think of,’ she said fiercely. ‘No one had any idea what he was like – ’cept Ada, she had to know, living with him all them years. My mother was the same as Ada: strong but not strong enough. He had a filthy soul, that man.’
‘You weren’t the only person to suffer.’
‘No, everyone as came into contact with him.’ She fingered a piece of dough on the table, rolling and stretching it. ‘I was fond of Herb – and I nursed Mrs Beck right up until the end, and it wasn’t easy, I can tell you; cancer of the bowel it was, and she was in terrible pain. Had a spell in hospital but they brought her home to die and then she lingered on. Herb – that was when he had to drink – he couldn’t stand to see her like that. No more could I sometimes. I tell you, it would have been a favour if I’d – if I done what that bugger said I done. And then what was more natural than Herb should marry me? Not immediately, we waited six months; it wouldn’t have been right, marry right away so soon after Mrs Beck was buried. But Herb couldn’t stop drinking; he was a born boozer, his liver musta been all rotted to bits, the doctor said. He died of a heart attack. She died of cancer, him of heart failure; it says so on the death certificates. Listen, I worked hard to get where I am now and look at me: I got a cattle ranch and I own my own house but what life is there here for a woman my age? I’m not old, I’m only forty-two! Would I have poisoned two people just so I could spend the rest of my life out here in the boondocks? I’d have been better off married to a trucker with a nice home in Santa Fe, and I could have done, I tell you now.’
