Death in Donegal Bay (12 page)

“Nothing,” Rubio repeated. “Which means we are nowhere.”

The Judge sighed. “You and your quick and easy solutions. We are closer than we were.”

I
STOPPED IN AT
the station, but Bernie was out of his office. I was walking across the station parking lot to my car when this gleaming new Rolls Royce, still carrying the dealer’s temporary plate, pulled into the space next to mine.

It was Joe Farini. He looked at me without interest when he stepped from his car, two hundred and fifty pounds of expensive attorney disdain.

“Classy wheels!” I told him. “You have proved it, Joe. Crime does pay.”

“Some people inherit,” he said coolly. “Some people have to earn their own way. I would suggest you save your scorn for the inheritance parasites.”

“Your point, fairly scored,” I admitted. “Is it true that the San Fernando flash has deserted you?”

“If you are speaking of Mr. Kronen, shamus, he had to go back to be with his sick wife. She is in a Los Angeles hospital.”

I smiled. “He conned you, Joe. He switched sides. Max doesn’t have a wife.” I climbed into my car.

“Brock, wait a minute—” he called.

I waved at him and drove off the lot. Keep your opponent off balance; I had learned that in my first year of high-school football.

Had Max switched sides before we had discovered it? He had been up in Donegal Bay, checking on Mike, before that. He could have learned from Farini that Allingham’s counterthreat involved Mike and then gone to Donegal Bay to confirm it, or even to alert Mike.

Now that he was working the other side of the street, he would be working to get confirmation for Allingham. Allingham must have been armed with nothing but a rumor. A rumor is not enough ammunition against a client of Joe Farini. Joe would have the heavy ammunition—the facts—before he sat down at the bargaining table.

Max had told us last night that he’d discovered nothing about Mike he could prove. It could have been a lie, but the truth seemed more likely. He was staying there overnight, still on the case. For all I knew, of course, he could be planning a triple-cross by inviting himself into Mike’s scam.

Cyrus Allingham had assured me that if he needed my help he would call on me. His daughter had told me that she would phone when Lucy was ready to be questioned. But neither of them had given me their unlisted telephone number. What they had told me, in effect, was “Don’t call me; I’ll call you.”

I had a greedy acquaintance at the telephone company who’d supplied me with unlisted numbers before. I phoned the company and asked for him. He was, a brusque voice at the other end of the line informed me, no longer with the company. I didn’t ask why.

I told Mrs. Casey I wouldn’t be home for lunch and headed for Veronica Village. Lucy Barnum could be the key to this case.

In the stone outpost that served as a telephone booth, I was informed by Joan that neither her father nor Lucy was at home, but she would like to talk with me.

In the high-ceilinged living room, she opened with a question: “What is going on, Mr. Callahan?”

“Could you be more specific?” I said.

“This man, this Mr. Kronen. First he comes up here as a representative for that lawyer, Farini, and now I have reason to believe he is working for my father.”

“Max Kronen,” I told her, “is an investigator who almost lost his license three years ago. He has a reputation in the profession as a man who puts his own self-interest above loyalty to a client. With Max, self-interest translates into money.”

“Oh, yes!” she said. “Self-interest, that’s the dominant theory today. And my father, who spends thousands and thousands of dollars trying to instill some of our fundamental values back into this sick society—he is maligned as some kind of tyrant.”

“Not by everybody,” I soothed her, “not by a long shot. There aren’t that many Alan Bakers in the world.”

“Do you have any idea,” she asked, “what Alan has learned that he thinks might damage my father’s reputation?”

I shook my head. “Possibly some complicated financial deal. Hasn’t he told you
anything
about it?”

“Nothing,” she said. “But I suppose the newspapers will have a field day with it, no matter how little substance it has. You don’t think it has anything to do with Lucy’s uncle, do you?”

“That’s what I came up to find out. Will Lucy be home sometime today?”

“Not for two weeks,” she told me. “Father thought she needed some relief from the turmoil of the last few days. So he treated her to a long-overdue vacation, two weeks in Hawaii.”

“Would it be possible for me to phone her at her hotel there?”

“I doubt it. Father thinks she should not be disturbed. The poor girl was close to hysteria when she left. But he’ll be home sometime tomorrow. If he feels it won’t distress Lucy, I’ll have him phone you.”

Don’t call me; I’ll call you.
I didn’t ask for their phone number. I stood up and told her, “I have to leave. I’m due in Donegal Bay in twenty minutes.”

There was a sudden interest in her eyes and in her voice. “Donegal Bay? Father planned to build there before he found this property. Do you have friends there?”

“One friend,” I said, “a former boxer named Mike Anthony. It’s possible your father knows him, if he is also a boxing fan. Thanks for talking with me. I hope it hasn’t been too much of an intrusion.”

“Not in this house. You will always be welcome here, Mr. Callahan. As I told you on your last visit, my father will be so sorry that he missed you.”

And so surprised,
I thought,
when you tell him Mike Anthony is a friend of mine.
That ought to keep him off balance, and me off his mailing lists.

I hadn’t planned to stop at Donegal Bay on the way home. But with Lucy Barnum in Hawaii, the search for Luther’s killer was temporarily at a halt. And the day was young.

It was warm and sunny at the freeway end of Ranch Road. The mist began to drift in from the ocean and the temperature to drop at the crest of the first rise. It grew cooler, and the fog became thicker on the long climb to the bluff. Driving down that narrow, steep, curving road to the beach would be hazardous today.

Forge on, self-anointed knight in tarnished armor. …I switched on the fog lights, put the car into low gear, and kept my foot on the brake pedal. I kept the speed constant at five miles an hour.

The door to Duane’s office was not locked, but he wasn’t there. Through the thin wall that separated it from the bait store, I heard the sound of angry voices. One of them was Duane’s.

I went out to the covered porch that served both places and through the open door of the store.

Duane was standing in front of the counter, facing an obviously discomfitted nephew. At the far end of the counter, Laura was stacking reels in a glass display case, probably to steer clear of the argument.

Jeff looked up and saw me, and there was relief on his face. “Good morning, Mr. Callahan,” he said. “You just walked in on a family feud.”

Duane turned around. “Hi,” he said. “Trouble?”

I shook my head. “Should I wait outside? I don’t want to interrupt your discussion.”

“You’re not. I’ve said all I have to say—for the moment. Let’s go to my office.”

In his office, I said, “I could hear you through the wall. It sounded to me as though you were playing the heavy uncle.”

“Kids!” he said. “You know what those two did? They hit Felicia for fifty thousand dollars! And I’ll give you track odds that that damned Mike is mixed up in it.”

“Fifty thousand? For what?”

“For a boat, a charter fishing boat. I don’t know what they cost. A friend of mine told me he’s sure that Mike put some money in it, too.”

“Alan Baker let Felicia do that?”

“He’s got nothing to say about it. Felicia’s money is her own. She had two short-term rich husbands before Alan. That dopey Felicia never said one word about it to me. How can those kids hope to pay her back with charter-boat rentals?”

“Maybe it isn’t a loan. Maybe she’ll be a partner and share in the profits.”

“She couldn’t live long enough to get that kind of money back. What burns me is that those kids would sucker a friend of mine into that kind of deal. And I learn about it
after
the fact. They probably explained to her that I wouldn’t stand still for a deal that risky.”

“Are you going to question Mike about it?”

“We’re not talking to each other,” he said. “Not anymore. I’ve overlooked a lot of his shortcomings over the years. This time he went too far.”

He sat in his chair behind the desk. “Damn it, my doctor told me my heart couldn’t take much agitation. Sit down, Brock, and I’ll try to relax.”

I sat in his customer’s chair. I said soothingly, “It’s Felicia’s money. Let her worry about it.”

“I know,” he admitted wearily. “But she is my friend and they took advantage of that. Wouldn’t that burn you?”

“It would.”

“What are you doing in town?” he asked.

“I decided to stop here on my way home from Veronica Village.” I told him about my visit to the castle and what I had learned there. “Lucy,” I explained, “was my last best hope on the Barnum murder. I sure as hell can’t phone every hotel in the islands to find out if she’s registered.”

“I have friends on Oahu who could,” he told me,
“real
friends. They run a chain of hotels over there and can phone the others. I’ll find out for you and let you know.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m going home for lunch. Why don’t you eat with us?”

“Not today, thanks. But let me follow your taillights up the road. It scared me plenty, coming down.”

“Me, too,” he admitted. “I hope Mike tries it—and goes over the edge.”

“We’ll let Cyrus Allingham take care of Mike,” I said. “Horses for courses, Duane. Dirty men for dirty jobs.”

“Right,” he agreed. “You stick with that end of this mess. I’ll keep an eye on this end. I’ll phone my friends in Hawaii today and report to you as soon as I learn anything.”

I followed the glowing taillights of the Datsun up the shrouded road and came out to clearer air at the top. I waved good-bye to Duane and headed for home.

Fifty thousand dollars for a boat? I had no idea what a charter fishing boat would cost, but that seemed high. The only time I had priced boats, they had cost about a thousand dollars a lineal foot.

I knew even less about how much income a charter boat could clear in a day. That would depend, of course, on how many anglers it could hold, how many signed up, and how much each was charged for the trip.

Mike was a wanderer, fretting to leave his isolated home. It didn’t seem likely to me that he would stay around long enough to help payoff a fifty-thousand-dollar loan. Most of the people in this area had their own boats, for fishing and pleasure.

I was back on the freeway when I saw a car that looked like Corey’s heading the other way. I recognized him when he came abreast on the other side of the divider. My first thought was that he was following Felicia again. But the only vehicles within his range of vision were two campers, a truck, and four cars too old and cheap to be carrying Mrs. Alan Baker.

If he was heading for Donegal Bay, it was possible that Alan Baker may have learned about Felicia’s extravagance and sent Corey up to check it out.

I didn’t want Corey to go up against Mike Anthony; the urge to follow him was strong. But the next exit was two miles down the road. And, as Corey had told me, he was a big boy now.

M
RS. CASEY INSISTED ON
being told whenever I wasn’t planning to come home for lunch, and resented my coming when I wasn’t expected. I stopped at Hannah’s Hamburger Heaven for a cheeseburger and a milkshake.

One bite of the cheeseburger was all I could handle. My stomach was growling, my ulcer burning. I drank the shake slowly. Frustration gnawed at me. All of that mileage behind me and what had I accomplished?

Allingham had his double-walled fortress—one wall of stone, one of money. And why should it matter to me who won this blackmail showdown? They were both enemy camps to me. The innocents, if any, in this mélange of characters were the late Luther Barnum and his cousin. One was dead, the other out of reach.

What about Felicia Baker? “Innocent” might be a misuse of the word, applied to her. But judging by her charity to Mike and now to Duane’s nephew, neither could she be considered larcenous.

From the wall phone at Hannah’s, I phoned the Baker house and she answered. So Corey couldn’t have been following her. I asked, “Would it be possible for me to speak with you alone?”

“Why alone? Is it something about Alan?”

“It might be something you don’t want him to know about. I’ve just come from a visit with Duane and he is really steaming. He learned about the money you loaned his nephew.”

“That’s none of his damned business,” she told me. “It’s my money and I love those kids. Duane is a good friend of mine, but he’s turning into a miser. I liked him better when he was a horse player.”

“Okay,” I said. “I just thought I’d let you know.”

“Wait,” she said. “There’s more, isn’t there? There are things bothering you besides that, aren’t there?”

“There are. But they involve Alan, and I’m sure you know him a lot better than I do.”

“Not as well as I should, the way it’s beginning to look. And I didn’t tell him about the money I loaned Jeff and Laura. Could we meet somewhere?”

“We could meet at my house,” I suggested. “We’ll be chaperoned. The housekeeper will be there.”

She laughed. “Couldn’t you send her to the store or something?”

“I could try,” I promised, “but she’s a stubborn woman.” I gave her the address.

She was closer to our house than I was. She was waiting in front of it in a yellow Citroën when I pulled into the driveway. She walked across the lawn and met me at the front door.

She was smiling, her green eyes glinting impishly. “I rang your bell. Nobody answered. How much time do we have?”

“I am a faithful husband,” I said sadly, “and this is the first time I’ve ever had reason to regret it.”

She sighed. “It’s not a total loss. I will see the inside of a Jan Bonnet house. Daphne told me Jan is redoing hers.”