'It would be a hell of a thing if they put Tom back in San Quentin for the rest of his life, or gassed him.'
'It certainly would. But I suspect you're trying to enlist me in your cause, rather than Tom's.'
'We could certainly use you.'
'Who are 'we'?'
'McGee's daughter Dolly and her husband Alex Kincaid, Jerry Marks and me.'
'And what _is_ your cause?'
'The solution of those three murders.'
'You make it sound very simple and neat,' he said. 'Life never is. Life always has loose ends, and it's sometimes best to let them ravel out.'
'Is that what Mrs. Deloney wants?'
'I wasn't speaking on behalf of Mrs. Deloney. I don't expect to.' He worked a speck of tobacco onto the tip of his tongue, and spat it out.
'Did she come to you for information about the McGee case?'
'No comment.'
'That probably means yes. It's a further indication that the McGee case and the Deloney killing are connected.'
'We won't discuss it,' he said shortly. 'As for your suggestion that I join forces with you, Jerry Marks had the same idea this morning. As I told him, I'll think about it. In the meantime I want you and Jerry to think about something. Tom McGee and his daughter may be on opposite sides of this issue. They certainly were ten years ago.'
'She was a child then, manipulated by adults.'
'I know that.' He rose, bulking huge in his light tweed suit. 'It's been interesting talking to you but I'm overdue for a luncheon meeting.' He moved past me to the door, gesturing with his cigar. 'Come along.'
chapter 26
I walked down the main street to the Pacific Hotel and asked for Mrs. Hoffman. She had just checked out, leaving no forwarding address. The bellhop who handled her bag said she had ridden away in a taxi with another old lady wearing a green coat. I gave him five dollars and my motel address, and told him it would be worth another five to find out where they'd gone.
It was past two o'clock, and my instinct told me this was the crucial day. I felt cut off from what was happening in the private offices of the courthouse, in the shooting gallery and laboratory where the ballistics tests were being conducted, behind the locked door of the nursing home. Time was slipping away, flowing past me like Heraclitus' river, while I was checking up on the vagaries of old ladies.
I went back to the telephone booths behind the hotel lobby and called Godwin's office. The doctor was with a patient, and wouldn't be available until ten minutes to three. I tried Jerry Marks. His secretary told me he was still out.
I made a collect call to the Walters agency in Reno. Arnie answered the phone:
'Nice timing, Lew. I just got the word on your boy.'
'Which one? Bradshaw or Foley?'
'Both of them in a way. You wanted to know why Foley lost his job at the Solitaire Club. The answer is he used his position in the cashier's cage to find out how much Bradshaw was worth.'
'How did he do that?'
'You know how the clubs check up on their customers when they open an account. They put in a query to the customer's bank, get an approximate figure on his bank balance, and set a limit to his credit accordingly. 'Low three' means a threefigure bank balance on the low side, and maybe a limit of a couple of hundred. A 'high four' might be seven or eight thousand, and a 'low five' maybe twenty or thirty thousand. Which incidentally is Bradshaw's bracket.'
'Is he a gambler?'
'He isn't. That's the point. He never opened an account at the Solitaire, or anywhere else that I know of, but Foley put in a query on him anyway. The club caught it, did a double check on Foley, and got him out of there fast.'
'It smells like possible blackmail, Arnie.'
'More than possible,' he said. 'Foley admits to a bit of a record in that line.'
'What else does he admit?'
'Nothing else yet. He claims he got the information for a friend.'
'Helen Haggerty?'
'Foley isn't saying. He's holding back in the hope of making a deal.'
'Go ahead and deal with him. He got hurt worse than I did. I'm willing to drop charges.'
'It may not be necessary, Lew.'
'Deal with him. Assuming blackmail, which I do, the question is what makes Bradshaw blackmailable.'
'Could be his divorce,' Arnie said smoothly. 'You were interested in what Bradshaw was doing in Reno between the middle of July and the end of August. The answer is on the court record. He was establishing residence for a divorce from a woman named Letitia 0. Macready.'
'Letitia who?'
'Macready.' He spelled it out. 'I haven't been able to get any further information on the woman. According to the lawyer who handled the divorce, Bradshaw didn't know where she lived. Her last known address was in Boston. The official notice of the proceedings came back from there with a 'Gone-- No Order' stamp.'
'Is Bradshaw still at Tahoe?'
'He and his new wife checked out this morning. They were on their way back to Pacific Point. That makes him your baby.'
'Baby isn't quite the word for Bradshaw. I wonder if his mother knows about the first marriage.'
'You could always ask her.'
I decided to try and talk to Bradshaw first. I got my car out of the courthouse lot and drove out to the college. The students on the mall and in the corridors, particularly the girls, wore subdued expressions. The threat of death and judgment had invaded the campus. I felt a little like its representative.
The blonde secretary in the Dean's outer office looked tense, as if only her will was holding her, and the whole institution, together.
'Dean Bradshaw isn't in.'
'Not back from the weekend yet?'
'Of course he's back.' She added in a defensive tone: 'Dean Bradshaw was here this morning for over an hour.'
'Where is he now?'
'I don't know. I guess he went home.'
'You sound kind of worried about him.'
She answered me with a machine-gun burst from her typewriter. I retreated, across the hall to Laura Sutherland's office. Her secretary told me she hadn't come in today. She'd phoned in the middle of the morning that she was afraid she was coming down with something. I hoped it wasn't something serious, like death and judgment.
I drove back to Foothill and along it to the Bradshaw house. Wind rustled in the trees. The fog had been completely dissipated, and the afternoon sky was a brilliant aching blue. The mountains rising into it were distinct in every scarred and wrinkled detail.
I was more aware than usual of these things, but I felt cut off from them. I must have had some empathy for Roy Bradshaw and his new wife and was afraid of being hurt in my empathy. I drove past his gate without seeing it and had to turn in the next driveway and come back to the Bradshaw house. I was somewhat relieved to be told by the Spanish woman, Maria, that Bradshaw wasn't there and hadn't been all day.
