Too Sweet to Die (12 page)

The vehicle went weaving on across the gray asphalt, nicking at bumpers until it slammed into the hurricane fence at the lot end. It hopped, coughed off and fell over on its side.

“I’m losing my faith in the Japanese,” said Hagopian as Easy helped him off the ground. “Those things never stop.”

“Maybe you’ve got the kamikaze model,” said Easy. “Whose bike is it?”

“Bim’s.” Hagopian brushed sooty dust off his trouser knees. “I don’t think you know her. I met Bim last week while you were up north.”

“Bim,” said Easy. He trotted down to the fallen motor scooter, clicked off the ignition and uprighted the machine. “Is she the one who holds séances?”

Rings jingled under Hagopian’s eyes. “John, this is a whacky town, right? I’ve given up trying to find a girl who isn’t some degree whacky. I could do worse than a girl who thinks she has to have a séance once in a while. And you should see Bim. She’s in cheesecake.”

“Girlie magazines?”

“No, cheesecake like you eat. She hands out samples of frozen blueberry cheesecake in supermarkets. I met her in a market over in the valley,” explained Hagopian. “Actually, I nudged into her with my pushcart and took some skin off her knee. A lovely girl, with breasts like … like casabas.”

“You’ve already had a girl with casabas for breasts.” Easy started for the rear door of his office.

“When you get older,” said the thirty-nine-year-old Hagopian, “you start repeating yourself.” He stopped still. “Hey, I came by to see your new car. Where is it?”

“Right over there.”

Hagopian squinted, lines rippling across his high dark forehead. “Where? The red Renault?”

“No, the black Volkswagen.”

More rings circled Hagopian’s dark eyes. “John, that’s an old dusty VW exactly like the one you owned before.”

“No,” corrected Easy, “it’s two years newer.”

Shaking his head, Hagopian said, “All my hopes are dashed.” Easy went up and opened the door leading to his private office. “How’s your Jaguar?”

“It has a bad aura,” said Hagopian, coming in and dropping on the couch. “Or so Bim tells me. From being parked in front of the mortuary in Oxnard and then used to haul a deceased monkey to its last resting place. Apparently even fumigation doesn’t get out a bad aura.”

“So where’s the car?”

“Bim is driving it someplace.”

Easy sat behind his metal desk, reached a big hand into his I
N
box. He grinned.

Hagopian said, “I hear Jill Jeffers is back.”

“Returned yesterday,” said Easy. “Because of all the extenuating circumstances Marco Killespie persuaded his client to allow him more time to finish his root-beer commercial. I think he’s going to start shooting again, with Jill, tomorrow.”

“Does he still have a gorilla?”

“Norhadian the gorilla man decided not to take that other job, since they wouldn’t give him a piece of the series.”

Hagopian touched his finger to his right eye. “You can’t beat Armenians for shrewdness,” he said. “How is Jill, is she all right?”

“I guess so,” said Easy.

“Hasn’t she communicated with you?”

“Not since I got home last Friday,” said Easy. “Killespie is the one who told me she was back and going to work for him. He sent me a bonus, too.” Easy pointed at the cardboard carton sitting beneath the air conditioner.

“Oh, good, a case of root beer.” Hagopian locked his hands behind his curly head. “So where does everything else stand? The LA
Times
hasn’t been too lavish with details.”

“People in Carmel, especially the Nordlin attorneys, have used some influence,” said Easy. “To keep things quiet.”

“There was quite a bunch of crimes centered around Jill,” said Hagopian. “Murder, kidnaping, rape.”

Easy shook his head. “There may not be any murder.”

“I thought you said that’s what precipitated this whole business,” said Hagopian. “Jill remembering finally about the murder of her mother.”

Easy rocked back in his swivel chair. “Sure,” he said. “Senator Nordlin strangled his wife and then he and Cullen Montez faked up a Carmel suicide. A coroner and a few cops looked the other way.”

“That’s not a crime?”

“Five years ago it was,” replied Easy. “Now there’s not much left of Mrs. Nordlin, though maybe enough to establish what really happened to her. But Nordlin is dead. So even if you proved he murdered his wife, you’d have nobody to hang it on.”

“What about this Montez guy? He was sure in on it.”

Easy said, “From what I heard when I dropped Jill off in Carmel, the family attorneys are going to try to convince her to let the murder lie. She told the whole story to the Sonoma County sheriff’s office. They’ve kept it out of the papers so far.”

New zigzags formed on Hagopian’s forehead. “You believe her, don’t you, John? There really was a murder.”

“Yes,” said Easy. “There really was a murder.”

“This whole state is getting as whacky as LA,” said Hagopian. “You mean they won’t do anything to Cullen Montez at all?”

“He’s lost his job,” said Easy. “As for his shooting up the Nordlin lodge, Montez claims he was defending his late employer’s property against marauders. In fact, he says I’m lucky he doesn’t smack me with an assault charge for knocking him down and locking him in a car.”

“Christ almighty,” said Hagopian. “Okay, what about Dr. Ingraham. Don’t tell me he’s going to walk away clean, too?”

“No,” said Easy. “Nobody’s pulling strings for Ingraham any more. They’ll be hitting him with a kidnaping charge, because of his hauling Jill up to Sonoma County. And his creditors are attaching his assets. The Ingraham Sanitarium and Howl Therapy are no more.”

“I should have stayed in Fresno,” said Hagopian. “All I’d have to worry over is agricultural problems. How about the stolen money of Senator Nordlin’s?”

“Not stolen,” said Easy. “Nobody is admitting where all that cash came from. At the moment, it’s part of the Nordlin estate.”

“And this guy who ambushed you and your old Volkswagen?” asked Hagopian. “I supposed they’ve elected him Archbishop of San Francisco.”

“The police are still looking for Neil,” said Easy. “After he took off for the woods the other night nobody’s seen him.”

Hagopian steepled his fingers over his hawk nose. “A lot of loose ends, a lot of loose ends still dangling, John.”

“Everything doesn’t always come out even at the end.”

“The fellows who raped Jill, are they in jail?”

“Not yet,” said Easy. “Poncho, the head goon, is also among the missing. The SF cops promised he’d be brought in within forty-eight hours. That was ninety-six hours ago.”

Hagopian stretched out on the couch, again locking his hands behind his head. “You know, John, it’s possible the whole round world is whacky,” he said. “I may be one of the last little islands of sanity left in a sea of wackiness. It’s quite an obligation.”

Square-shouldered Nan Alonzo appeared in the doorway. “There’s a girl out here asking for you, John,” she said. “Hello, Hagopian. Did anything materialize at the séance?”

“Only an Indian,” said Hagopian, sitting up.

“Who’s the girl?” asked Easy.

“Jill Jeffers,” said Nan.

Behind his secretary, Jill, in a short-skirted dark suit, smiled. “Is this a bad time to stop in?” she asked.

“No,” Easy told her.

I
T WAS NOON AND
they were at the edge of the Pacific Ocean. The curving windows of the hillside restaurant were faintly tinted and everything outside had a gentle blue cast. The sand and the rocks, the skimming gulls, the foam of the surf.

“You’re sure you aren’t needed at the office?” Jill said.

Easy was watching a single gull plummeting toward the quiet water. He turned and grinned at the slim blonde girl. “I’m between cases.”

“And you won’t accept some kind of additional fee from me?” Jill asked, sipping at her Manhattan. “Not even a bonus for getting me back from Dr. Ingraham?”

“Marco Killespie already sent me a bonus.” Easy picked up his glass of dark ale. He went back to watching the ocean. A substantial white yacht was passing by, aimed south.

Laughing, the pretty girl said, “He told me about the case of root beer. I was talking about money.”

“I know,” said Easy, “but the case is finished and I’ve been paid. You don’t owe me anything.”

“Well, let’s say not money anyway,” said Jill. “I even inherited one of those it seems.”

“A yacht?”

“Yes, my father had one. I suppose it will turn out he had one of everything.”

Easy faced the pretty girl again. “How was Carmel?”

“Foggy at night,” she said. She plucked the bright red cherry from her drink and dropped it into the fish-shaped ashtray. “I want to tell you what I’ve decided. Don’t be afraid I’m turning you into a mentor, or a magic uncle. I just want to tell you.”

“Go ahead,” he said.

“I’m going to let my mother stay dead.”

Easy continued to watch the girl’s face. She still looked tired and sad. He didn’t say anything.

“Not because of what any of my father’s lawyers and old cronies want,” Jill continued. “At first I was certain I wanted it all out in the open, to make things up to her. I felt everyone had to know they were wrong about her. That Helen Malcolm Nordlin hadn’t killed herself … Did you know her first name was Helen?”

“No.”

“You seldom get to call your parents by their real names,” said Jill. She took a deep breath. “I think now, though, that so long as I know what happened, it’s enough. I went back to Carmel that Sunday. It was only a week ago, wasn’t it? I went right to my father and told him I remembered. I remembered everything they’d tried so hard to make me forget and I wanted it all out in the open.” She stopped, folded her hands on the glass table top and watched them. “I suppose that’s what killed him.”

“Your father’s life is what killed him,” said Easy. “The way he lived and the things he did. Not you.”

“Maybe eventually I’ll believe that,” said the girl. “Anyway, I’m going to forget about my mother and what happened. What my father did to her, and to me. Forget in my own way and at my own pace. Do you think that’s okay?”

“What do you think?”

“I think yes.”

“Then it is,” Easy told her.

Jill glanced toward the sea. She smiled. “I understand Cullen’s been offered a job in Sacramento. Something in government.”

“He’ll fit right in.”

“I thought I wanted revenge on him, too,” Jill said. “But I’ve been thinking. He’s sort of walking wounded already, isn’t he?” She picked up her drink. “Do you want to talk about our case any more?”

“Nope,” replied Easy.

“Then let’s talk about something else entirely,” the pretty girl suggested.

Easy told her about Hagopian’s motor scooter.

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copyright © 1972 by Ron Goulart

Cover design by Erin Fitzsimmons

978-1-4532-5722-7

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