Death in Donegal Bay (18 page)

I nodded. “We may be citizens, Duane, but we’re not saints. You didn’t even remember most of it until right now, when you phoned your attorney.”

“Okay,” he said. He reached over to the bedside table and picked up the phone.

I went downstairs. Daphne was waiting there. She asked, “Did he admit it?”

“He did. He’s phoning his attorney. Did you know?”

“Not last night,” she told me. “Not until ten minutes ago, when I took the garbage out—and saw the letter opener in the garbage can. Has he got a case, Brock?”

“I think so. Self-defense. Mike attacked him with two lethal weapons, according to California law—his fists.”

“Will you stay around for a while?”

“Of course,” I said.

His attorney came with a plainclothes officer about forty-five minutes later. The officer was probably a deputy. They went upstairs. Daphne and I sat in the living room, drinking coffee and thinking our separate thoughts.

About half an hour later, they came down the stairs again. The detective left; the attorney came into the living room. He was classy, a tall, English-type guy, wearing a virgin-wool suit in some rough textured weave. I’ve forgotten his name.

“It looks promising,” he told Daphne. “The federal narcotics officers are willing to testify that Duane was working with them. And the sheriff told me, off the record, that this Anthony person has had several assault charges filed against him.”

When he left, Daphne said, “Promising, but not certain.”

“To doctors and lawyers,” I explained, “promising means certain. But if they said certain, they couldn’t charge as much.”

“I hope you’re right.” She stared at the floor. “It’s a terrible thing to say, but I can’t feel sad because Mike’s dead.”

“It’s a feeling we share,” I said. “Go up and solace your husband. I’m going home.”

She kissed me on the cheek. “Thanks for everything, Brock.”

Corey’s job was finished, and Kronen had gone home. My quest had been interrupted; it might never be successful. Mr. Ultimate Morality of Veronica Village had been stymied by Mike’s death; his war with Alan Baker was temporarily at a halt. And Alan would no longer have cause to worry about Mike and Felicia. He had benefited the most from the whole sordid affair, almost as if he had engineered it.

What in hell was any of it to me? Baker had come out on top and Duane might be headed for the slammer. Fine work, peeper!

It was noon, but I wasn’t hungry. This might be one of the days when Bernie ate lunch in his office. I drove to the station.

He was there, eating a sandwich. “Pastrami and cheddar cheese,” he told me. “Want one?”

“No, thanks. I came for soul food.”

“You’ll have to go further down Main Street to find that. What’s bugging you now?”

I sat in the chair next to his desk. “Mike Anthony was killed last night.”

“I know. So?”

“I knew who did it. I convinced him to confess, which he did. It was self-defense, so he might get off, but what if he doesn’t? A creep is killed, and a citizen might go to the can for it.”

“And you feel guilty about that? It is illegal for goys to feel guilty. That’s restricted to my tribe.” He smiled at me. “Brock, don’t think too much. It discombobulates you. Instinct, that’s your strength. Go with your strength!”

“I guess you’re right. I have a feeling I know who killed Luther Barnum, but I can’t prove it. When the showdown comes, I might need you to go along.”

He smiled again. “I’ll be ready. That’s what friends are for.”

“Thanks for the soul food,” I said.

B
ERNIE WAS AN ALLY
. Bernie was a comfort. Though we squabbled with each other like victims of an unfortunate marriage, when push came to shove, as it had in the past, Bernie was there to support me.

He didn’t often approve of my investigative techniques, and I often grew impatient with his rigid bureaucratic code. I had to remind myself that he was
the law;
his code of conduct was determined by that.

And I had to admit that he was more perceptive than I, more careful to avoid rash judgments and emotional decisions. As I have said too often before, we yo-yos have to follow our instincts.

From his office, I drove down to Rubio’s. The Judge was back on his bench.

“Are you feeling better?” I asked him.

“Much better, thank you. Are you buying?”

“Be my guest.”

“A bottle of Beck’s,” he said to Rubio.

Rubio looked at me. “A double bourbon,” I said, “with a dash of water. And whatever you want, on me.”

He served us and poured himself a cup of coffee. He asked, “Have you learned anything new on what happened to Luther?”

“Nothing certain. But I have a hunch. That’s mostly what I work on. You must have noticed that I am not an intellectual.”

Rubio shook his head. “I never noticed that.”

The Judge said, “You graduated from Stanford. That is quite possibly the finest university west of Massachusetts. What you mean is that you are not one of those pretentious men who has been educated beyond the limit of his intelligence.”

“This hunch you got,” Rubio asked. “Do you want to name a name?

“Not yet. I could be wrong.”

The Judge said, “I would be willing to wager eight to your three that you are right. Is it connected with what happened in Donegal Bay last night?”

“Peripherally,” I said.

Rubio frowned. “What does ‘peripherally’ mean?”

“It means ‘kind of’ to you,” The Judge informed him. “In this instance it means ‘away from the center.’ Brock, you stick with this. The police don’t give a damn about anything that happens to any of us down here. Unless they think they can jail some black for it.”

“It wasn’t a black,” I said.

“Then you’re going it alone. You’re all we have. Stay with it.”

I stopped at the Bakers’ on the way home. Alan knew more than he had told me at the house; he had admitted it. I hoped to convince him to share his ammunition with me.

The Bakers, the maid informed me at the door, had gone up to San Francisco late that morning for rest and relaxation. The man who had been killed the night before, she explained to me, had been Mrs. Baker’s dearest friend.

“She must have got the name wrong,” I said. “It was Mike Anthony who was killed.”

“That’s the man. I don’t understand what you mean, sir.”

“Work on it,” I told her. “I’ll bet she’ll miss his funeral.”

She was still standing in the open doorway when I got into my car. What an ass I was, taking out my frustration on a non-combatant.

Mrs. Casey was in her room when I came home, watching her second favorite soap opera. Even kooky Karl Marx had not anticipated that his opiates for the masses would ever sink to that level.

I went out in back and tried to nap. But the blind eyes of Mike Anthony intruded on my reverie, and the soiled blue flannel robe of Luther Barnum.

There were a number of fingers pointing in the same direction: the cognac, the guarded back door at the Travis Hotel, the scandal-sheet reporter, the nonprofessional print on the bottle, and the lies I had uncovered.

They all pointed at my choice for the killer. But juries demand more than clues, except in TV mysteries. Real-life juries demand solid evidence.

I was dozing when the phone rang. It was Joe Farini. “I realize,” he said, “knowing your opinion of me, that I might be making a futile phone call. But Alan Baker told me you were trying to find Lucy Barnum and I wondered if you’d had any success.”

“Any enemy of Cyrus Allingham can’t be all bad,” I assured him. “I haven’t had much success so far, but a former associate of mine in Santa Monica has located a close friend of hers down there. He’s checking it out now.”

“If you learn anything, Brock, I would appreciate a call.”

“You’ll get it. I want to help Alan build up his stockpile of ammunition so that we can destroy that bigoted bastard.”

“Don’t we all?” he said. “Thanks, Brock.”

Alan was worried that I might find Lucy and take the powder out of his ammo. Secrecy was all he had to sell. Either he or Farini had probably phoned Delilah Kent in Florian and discovered she wasn’t there. I had told Alan that Lucy wasn’t there. If I could reveal his secret, he would have nothing to bargain with. He wouldn’t be the only winner in this war.

When Jan came home, I told her the story of my night in Donegal Bay.

“If Duane’s in trouble,” she said, “I had better phone Daphne. I was supposed to go up there tomorrow, but it might be an intrusion, under the circumstances.”

When she came back from her phone call, she told me, “Duane isn’t being held. He was released on his own recognizance, whatever that means.”

“It means that Duane is saving bail money. It probably means that the DA up there has realized he doesn’t have a strong case. And I’m sure that Mike Anthony was not one of the area’s most admired citizens.”

“Mike is dead,” she said, “and Duane won’t be tried. Corey’s job is finished. Mr. Kronen has gone home. And what about you?”

“I haven’t quit. I want to know who killed Luther. The police will drop the investigation the minute they learn they can’t tie the murder to Farini.”

“Are you saying that the police don’t care but you do?”

I nodded. “Shouldn’t I care?”

“I don’t know if you should or you shouldn’t,” she answered. “But I am glad that you do.”

It would be easy to rationalize my quest for the killer as concern for the underprivileged. That could make a man feel noble. But the truth was that if Luther had been as rich and vindictive as Cyrus Allingham, I would stay on the hunt. My motive was primitive;
nobody
should get away with murder.

Driving to Florian on Friday morning, I dreamed up and discarded a number of approaches that might influence Lucy Barnum to confide in me. The truth seemed to be the best approach; I was investigating the death of her cousin. If she wanted to know why, a half truth would serve; I was working with the San Valdesto Police Department.

It was ten-thirty when I rang the doorbell at the home of Delilah Kent. There was no response. I went next-door to see if her neighbor was home. She came to the door in a different pair of tight shorts, but the same bulging halter.

She smiled at me. “I remember you. The book salesman.”

I smiled back at her. “I lied to you, ma’am. I’m working with the San Valdesto Police Department on the murder of Luther Barnum. It was Miss Kent’s houseguest I came to see. I don’t normally lie, but I thought the truth might be dangerous for Lucy Barnum. And also, possibly, Miss Kent.”

She studied me for a moment. Then, “Come in. It’s too hot to stand out there. I’ve just made a pitcher of lemonade. Would you like some?”

“I’d love some. If you want to check my credentials, you could phone Lieutenant Bernard Vogel at—”

“No need,” she interrupted. “I can tell an honest face when I see one.”

The living room she led me into was smaller and less southern than Marilyn’s up in Donegal Bay. But the motif was similar—hooked rugs and maple furniture with Norman Rockwell prints on the walls. “New England provincial” would best describe it.

I was sitting in a maple chair when she brought me a tall glass of lemonade from the kitchen. She handed it to me and sat with her own glass in a matching chair.

“Luther grew up here, too,” she told me, “though, of course, he was a lot older than Lucy. He had a hardware store in town. But then his wife died and he took to drink. He lost everything, the house and the store. They didn’t have any kids of their own. Lucy was very close to him, more like a daughter.”

“That’s the picture I got,” I said. “She sent him money, and paid for his membership in a funeral society. I suppose you know that Lucy works for Cyrus Allingham.”

She nodded. “Is he involved in Luther’s murder?”

“He could be. He’s a strange man. Luther might have known something about him that …” I paused.

“That Luther could blackmail him about?” she asked.

“Possibly.”

“Not the Luther I knew,” she said. “But once a man has taken to drink, who knows? Do you think Mr. Allingham fired Lucy because of that? Is that why she’s here with Delilah?”

“I didn’t know she was fired. The story I got in Veronica Village from Joan Allingham is that her father sent Lucy to Hawaii for a vacation. That turned out not to be true.”

She said acidly. “Her father probably lied to her. The lies that man prints in his sickening publications! They’re worse than those scandal magazines they sell in supermarkets.”

I told her, “There was a reporter from one of those magazines who came to see Luther a short time before he died.”

“Maybe Mr. Allingham sent him.”

“No. I think he wanted to learn what Luther knew. Evidently, he never learned it. Was Delilah Lucy’s best friend in high school?”

“Maybe her only friend. Lucy was not an outgoing girl in high school, and neither was Delilah. Then Delilah went on to college, and Lucy’s family couldn’t afford to send her. She went into domestic work.”

“I wonder when they’ll be home,” I said.

“It should be soon. I got a card from Delilah. They planned to be home before noon. You can wait here, if you want. It’s too hot outside. Another glass of lemonade?”

I had that while I waited, plus the story of her life. She had buried a husband in Vermont and had come to California for a change of scene—and possibly luck. But she had put on weight in this lush land, so it now seemed that a second marital alliance was unlikely.

“I always liked a man around the house,” she said, “but to tell you the truth, they can be a nuisance, too. I’m beginning to enjoy my freedom.”

“That’s my wife’s view of it,” I said. “That’s why we both decided to go back to work. Couldn’t you find a part-time job in town, just for the variety?”

“I have one,” she told me. “I help Delilah out at the library.” She looked past me, out the window. “Oh, there they are now. Good luck, Mr. Callahan.”

I thanked her for the lemonade and her hospitality and went out to my car. I sat in there until they had unloaded their sleeping bags and camping paraphernalia from the Chevette hatchback before I went up to ring the doorbell.