I went over and sat at my desk. There was a piece of paper on the blotter with a name scrawled on it-Ruth something-and a telephone number. I held it up. “What’s this, Eb?”
“Oh, yeah, right. Woman called a little while ago, said she wanted to talk to you about Leonard Purcell.”
“What’s her last name? You write like a monkey on LSD.”
“Mitchell. Ruth Mitchell.”
“I don’t know any Ruth Mitchell.”
“She said she’s his ex-wife. Leonard’s.”
“She tell you why she wants to talk to me?”
“No. Just call her back.”
Well, she could wait; I had other calls to make. The first one was to Tom Washburn. I told him what I’d found out about Danny Martinez, and it got him excited and I had to calm him down. The information was positive, apparently corroborating his theory, but we were still a long way from any conclusive answers.
I asked him, “Does Martinez’s name mean anything to you?”
“No. This is the first I’ve heard it.”
“You’re sure Leonard never mentioned it?”
“Positive. I’d remember a name like that.”
“How about Richard or Richie Dessault? Did Leonard ever mention him?”
“I don’t think so. Who’s he?”
“The kid Melanie is living with. He calls himself a poet.”
“No, I’m sure he never said anything about a poet.”
“Are you up to going back to your house?”
“I… suppose so. Why?”
“You might check through Leonard’s papers, see if there’s anything on Martinez, Dessault, or Alex Ozimas.”
“All right. If you feel it’s a good idea.”
“Worth the effort, anyway. Call me if you find anything.”
We rang off, and I dialed the Hall of Justice. Klein was in. And not a little surprised at what I had to tell him. “I don’t know how you do it,” he said. “We didn’t even get a smell of this guy Martinez.”
“I get lucky sometimes. You’ll check him out, Ben?”
“Right away.”
“What have you got on Dessault?”
“Not much. He’s got a record, but it’s small-time stuff; I’ll dig deeper, see if I can turn up a link to Martinez.” He paused. “By the way, I ran Ozimas through the computers. Nothing on him state or local. I’m still waiting for the FBI report.”
“Thanks, Ben.”
“I’m the one who should be thanking you,” he said. “Maybe apologizing, too. If this Martinez angle pans out, you and Washburn were right and we just blew it.”
“It happens. No apologies necessary. I’ve blown a few in my time, too, God knows.”
When I cradled the receiver Eberhardt’s piece of paper caught my eye again; I picked it up and squinted at it again. “What’s the last digit of Ruth Mitchell’s number?” I asked him. “A two or a three? I can’t read that, either.”
He quit pecking at his old Smith-Corona, got up, and came over and looked at the paper. “That’s a three. Can’t you tell a three from a two?”
“Not the way you write it.”
I dialed the number. And a recorded voice came on and said it was sorry, that number was no longer in service. I disconnected and said to Eberhardt, who was back at his desk, “A three, huh? Damn number’s out of service, with a three.”
“So maybe it’s a two. Try it with a two.”
I said a couple of words under my breath and tried it with a two. This time the line buzzed emptily. I hung up on the tenth ring and got the directory out and looked up Ruth Mitchell. No listing. I said some more words under my breath and thought: The hell with it. Let her call me back, if it’s that important.
I opened the envelope from Joe DeFalco and read the Chronicle’s file on Margaret Prine. It told me nothing I didn’t already know, except that her husband, Leland Prine, had died of heart failure in 1974, that she was chairperson of a couple of local charity drives, and that she had been hit by a car and suffered a broken hip while crossing the street in front of her building in 1981. The only item of interest wasn’t part of the file at all; it was Mrs. Prine’s unlisted telephone number, which DeFalco had dug up somewhere. Newspaper people, for some reason, seem to have better resources than detectives when it comes to ferreting out unlisted numbers.
Mrs. Prine could wait a while longer, though. There was somebody else I wanted to see first-more specific information I needed. I put the file away, got on my feet, asked Eberhardt to take care of locking up, and left him smoking his pipe and looking thoughtful while he pecked out the Henderson report.
Barbara Jean, from Charleston, South Carolina. Well, shut my mouth. Y’all want some pecan pie, Ebbie, dahlin?
I couldn’t wait to see the expression on Kerry’s face when I told her.
It was twenty of five when I walked into the Summerhayes Gallery. There weren’t any customers today, either-just Elisabeth Summerhayes standing behind one of the display counters, using a soft cloth to polish one of the patterned glass paperweights. She did not look very pleased to see me. Her mouth turned down at the corners and her back got stiff; she put the cloth and the paperweight down carefully and folded her hands together at her waist as I approached.
“My husband is not here,” she said when I reached her.
“Do you expect him back?”
“No. I will be closing myself, very soon.”
“When can I see him?”
“On Monday, if he chooses to talk to you.”
“Meaning you think he won’t?”
“He does not like to be bothered by detectives.”
“I’ll bet he doesn’t. Is that how you feel, too?”
“Yes. Why don’t you leave us alone? We know nothing about what happened to Kenneth or Leonard Purcell.”
“I think you do,” I said. “For instance, when I was here yesterday why didn’t you or your husband mention the purchase of Kenneth’s collection?”
She blinked at me. “The… what?”
“Kenneth’s collection of antique tobacco art. Mrs. Purcell told me you and your husband are buying it.”
“But I don’t-” She broke off, and her downturned mouth got tight at the corners. Something hot showed in her eyes, something I took to be a combination of sudden understanding and sudden anger. “How much did Mrs. Purcell say we are paying for the collection?”
“Three hundred thousand.”
“How much?”
“Three hundred-”
“Yes, all right, I understand.”
I thought: So that’s the way it is. But I said, “This the first time you’ve heard about it, Mrs. Summerhayes? I’m surprised your husband didn’t tell you.”
She didn’t answer the question. “When are we to take possession, according to Mrs. Purcell?”
“As soon as Kenneth’s will clears probate. Not too much longer now.”
“And the money? Has any of it been paid as yet?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Why don’t you ask your husband?”
Silence. But she was thinking of a confrontation with him; you could see it in those angry eyes, in the hard set of her jaw and the stiffness of her body. She was a bundle of thinly contained rage. And of hurt, too, maybe; she struck me as the kind of woman who would hide her pain more deeply than any other emotion.
Just the same I thought: Go ahead, push her a little more. Be a bastard. That’s the kind of business you’re in,
