Knudson’s heavy feet came down the hall, his sloping shoulders filled the doorway. “I finally routed sheriff out of bed. He’ll meet us at the Notch.”
“You,” I said, “not me. Mrs. Slocum has just been kind enough to offer me another drink, and I need it. I’ll give the sheriff a statement in the morning. Take the kid along. His name is Musselman and he’s in my car, probably sleeping by now.—You should get some good tread-marks where the truck pulled onto the shoulder to turn around.”
“Thank you very much for the masterly suggestion.” His tone was ironic, but he seemed to be relieved that I wasn’t going along. He and the sheriff could putter around the scene of the crime, gather up the remains and drive them back to town. Nothing was going to be done.
“See that the kid has a decent place to sleep, will you? And give him this for me, I owe it to him.” I handed him a ten-dollar bill.
“Whatever you say. Goodnight, Mrs. Slocum. I appreciate your co-operation.”
“It was a pleasure.”
Old lovers, I thought again, playing with double entendres. Knudson went out. My initial liking for him had changed to something quite different. Still, he was a man, and a policeman. He wouldn’t push his way to what he wanted over an old lady’s dead body. He’d choose a harder way.
Maude Slocum rose and took my empty glass. “Do you really want a drink?”
“A short one, please, with water.”
“I think I’ll join you.”
She poured me two fingers of whisky from the decanter, four fingers for herself. She took it at a gulp.
I sipped at mine. “What I really want is the dope on Kilbourne. I’ll take that straight.”
“God-damned truthoholic,” she said surprisingly. The idea of the whisky had hit her before it had time to work. She sat down beside me heavily and loosely. “I don’t know anything about Walter Kilbourne, nothing against him I mean.”
“That makes you unique, I guess. Where did you see him tonight?”
“At the Boardwalk restaurant in Quinto. I thought Cathy deserved a change after the dreary day she’d had with the police and—her father. Anyway, I drove her over to Quinto to have dinner, and I saw Walter Kilbourne in the restaurant. He was with a blonde young creature, a really lovely girl.”
“His wife. Did you have any conversation with him?”
“No. He didn’t recognize me, and I’d never particularly liked him. I did ask the headwaiter what he was doing here. Apparently his yacht is in the harbor.”
It was what I needed. Tiredness had drained my body of energy and begun to attack my will. I’d been chinning myself on the present moment, too exhausted to see beyond it. Now I could see myself crossing the pass to Quinto.
But there were more questions to ask. “How did you happen to know him in the first place?”
“He was here a couple of years ago. He made a business arrangement with my mother-in-law, to test for oil on her ranch. This was when they’d made a big strike on the other side of the valley, before they’d touched this side. A crew of men came out with Kilbourne and spent several weeks on our property, drilling holes and setting off explosive charges—I forget the technical name for it.”
“Seismographing?”
“Seismographing. They found the oil all right, but nothing came of it. Mother”—her lips moved round the word as if it tasted strange—“Mother decided that oil derricks would obstruct her precious view, and broke off relations with Kilbourne. There was more to it that that, of course: she didn’t like the man, and I don’t think she trusted him. So we’ve continued to live in genteel poverty.”
“Weren’t other companies interested? Oil’s getting pretty scarce in this part of the world.”
“She didn’t really want to lease to anyone. Besides, there was something in the original contract for the exploration; it gave Kilbourne’s company first refusal.”
“Naturally, it would.”
Her erratic hand reached blindly for a cigarette. I took one out of the box, put it between her fingers, lit it for her. She sucked on it uncontrolledly like a child. The whisky had combined with her fatigue and given her nervous system a hard one-two. Her face, her muscles, her voice, were rapidly going to pieces.
So I asked her the question that would hurt, and carefully watched her face for its effect: “You won’t be living in genteel poverty much longer, will you? I suppose that you and your husband will be getting in touch with Kilbourne. Or is that why he’s up here tonight?”
“It hadn’t occurred to me,” she said. “I imagine, though, that that’s just what we’ll do. I must talk to James about it.”
She closed her eyes. From the places where it was pinned to the durable bone, the flesh of her face fell in thin slack folds. The folds made dark lines slanting downward from the corners of her closed eyes, the wings of her nose, the edges of her jaw, deep charcoal shadows cartooning dissolution.
I said goodnight and left her.
Chapter 18
There was only one light in the lower part of the house, a shaded wall-lamp in the hall midway between the front door and the kitchen. It cast a brownish glow into the alcove under the stairs where the telephone was. A copy of the Quinto-Nopal Valley telephone directory lay on the low table beside the telephone. I flipped through it to the F’s. Only one Franks was listed, a Simeon J. residing at 467 Tanner Terrace. I called his number and listened to half-a-dozen rings at the other end. Then a voice answered, harsh and surly:
“Franks speaking. That the station?”
I had opinions to express, but I kept them to myself.
“Hello,” he said, “this is Franks.”
I hung up. And heard the soft susurrus of feet descending the stairs above my head, a whispering amplified by the sounding-board of the stairs and my keyed-up senses. A face like a pale moon against a cloud of hair leaned over the banister.
“Who is it?” the girl said.
“Archer.” I moved out into the hall where she could see me plainly. “Aren’t you in bed yet, Cathy?”
“I daren’t close my eyes. I keep seeing Grandma’s face.” Both of her hands clung to the oaken rail, as if she needed a grip on solid reality. “What are
“Telephoning. I’m finished now.”
“I heard Mr. Knudson telephoning before. Is it true that Pat is dead?”
“Yes. You liked him?”
“Sometimes, when he was nice. He was a lot of fun. He taught me how to dance, but don’t tell father. He didn’t really kill Grandma, did he?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Neither do I.” She glanced furtively down the hall, which was choked with shadows. “Where are the others?”
“Knudson has gone. Your mother’s in the sitting-room. I think she’s asleep.”
She drew her hand back further into the soft folds of her robe. “I’m glad that
“I have to go now, too. Will you be all right?”
“Yes, I’ll be all right.” She came down the rest of the way, her forearm sliding on the banister. “I’d better wake mother up and send her to bed.”
“Maybe you’d better.”
She followed me to the door. “Goodnight, Mr. Archer. I’m sorry I was rude to you last night. I must have felt that something was going to happen. I’m very sensitive, you know, at least that’s what people tell me. I’m like a dog that howls at the moon when there’s trouble in the air.”
“But you didn’t see Reavis last night.”
