'I guess he did.' But her voice was uncertain, full of pain and doubt.
'Was the Biemeyers' painting genuine?'
'I don't know. _He_ thought it was, and he was the expert.'
'How do you know that?'
'He talked to me about it the day he bought it on the beach. He said it had to be a Chantry, nobody else could have painted it. He said it was the greatest find he ever made in his life.'
'Did he say this to you?'
'Yes. Why would he lie to me? He had no reason.' But she was watching my face as if my reaction might resolve the question of her father's honesty.
She was frightened, and I was tired. I sat down on one of the padded chairs and let my mind fray out for a couple of minutes. Paola went to the door but she didn't go out. She leaned on the doorframe, watching me as if I might steal her purse, or already had.
'I'm not your enemy,' I said.
'Then don't press me so hard. I've had a rough night.' She averted her face, as if she were ashamed of what she was about to say. 'I liked my father. When I saw him dead, it was a terrible thing for me.'
'I'm sorry, Paola. I hope tomorrow will be better.'
'I hope so,' she said.
'I understand your father had a photograph of the painting.'
'That's right. The coroner has it.'
'Henry Purvis?'
'Is that his name? Anyway, he has it.'
'How do you know?'
'He showed it to me. He said he found it in my father's clothes, and he wanted to know if I recognized the woman. I told him I didn't.'
'You recognized the painting?'
'Yes.'
'It was the painting your father sold to the Biemeyers?'
'Yes, it was.'
'How much did they pay him for it?'
'My father never told me. I think he needed the money to pay off a debt, and he didn't want me to know. I can tell you something that he did say, though. He knew the woman in the painting, and that was how he authenticated it as a Chantry.'
'It is an authentic Chantry, then?'
'Yes. My father said it was.'
'Did he tell you the woman's name?'
'It was Mildred. She was a model in Tucson when he was young-a beautiful woman. He said it must be a memory painting, because she's an old woman now, if she's alive at all.'
'Do you remember her last name?'
'No. I think she took the names of the men she lived with.'
I left Paola in the chapel and went back to the cold room. Purvis was in the anteroom, but he no longer had the photograph of the painting. He told me that he had given it to Betty Jo Siddon.
'What for?'
'She wanted to take it down to the newspaper building and have it photographed.'
'Mackendrick will like that, Henry.'
'Hell, it was Mackendrick who told me to let her have it. The chief of police is retiring this year, and it's made Captain Mackendrick publicity-conscious.'
I started out of the hospital. A sense of unfinished business brought me to a full stop before I left the building. When Paul Grimes fell and died in my path, I had been on my way to talk to Fred's mother, Mrs. Johnson.
XII
I went to the nurses' station at the front and asked where I could find Mrs. Johnson. The nurse in charge was a middle-aged woman with a sallow bony face and an impatient manner.
'We have several Mrs. Johnsons working in the hospital. Is her Christian name Sarah?'
'Yes. Her husband's name is Jerry or Gerard.'
'Why didn't you say so in the first place? I'm afraid Mrs. Gerard Johnson is no longer employed in this hospital.' She spoke with deliberate formal emphasis, like a court official pronouncing sentence on Mrs. Johnson.
'She told me that she worked here.'
'Then she lied to you.' The woman overheard the harshness of her words, and softened them: 'Or it's possible you misunderstood her. She _is_ presently employed at a convalescent home down by the highway.'
'Do you know the name of it?'
'It's called the La Paloma,' she said with distaste.
'Thank you. Why was she fired here?'
'I didn't say she was fired. She was allowed to leave. But I'm not authorized to discuss it.' At the same time, she seemed unwilling to let me go. 'Are you from the police?'
'I'm a private detective cooperating with the police.'
I got out my wallet and showed her my license photostat.
She smiled into it as though it were a mirror. 'She's in trouble again, is she?'
'I hope not.'
'Stealing drugs again?'
'Let's just say I'm investigating Mrs. Johnson. How long ago did she leave her employment here?'
'It happened last week. The administration let her go without a black mark on her record. But they gave her no choice about leaving. It was an open-and-shut case. She had some of the pills in her pocket-and I was there when they searched her. You should have heard the language she used to the superintendent.'
'What language did she use?'
'Oh, I couldn't repeat it.'
Her wan face flamed red, as if I had made an indecent proposal to her. She looked at me with sudden dislike, perhaps embarrassed by her own excitement. Then she turned on her heel and walked away.
It was past midnight. I had been in the hospital so long that I was beginning to feel like a patient. I left by a route different from the one I had come in by. I didn't want to see Captain Mackendrick or Purvis or Paola or either of the dead men again.
I had noticed the La Paloma sign from the freeway and had some idea of where the convalescent home was. Driving toward it from the hospital, I passed a dark row of doctors' offices, a nurses' residence and several blocks of lower-middle-class houses, all one-storied and built before the war. Between the houses and the freeway was a narrow park studded with oak trees. In their shelter a few late lovers were parked with fog on their windshields.
The one-storied stucco complex of the La Paloma was almost as close to the freeway as a filling station. Once I had stepped inside and closed the heavy front door, the noises of late-night traffic dwindled to a far-off irregular sound like that of distant surf. I could hear the more immediate sounds of the place, snores and sighs and vague indecipherable demands.
A nurse's muted footsteps came up behind me. She was young and black and pretty.
'It's too late for visiting,' she said. 'We're all closed down for the night.'
'I want to see a member of the staff-Mrs. Johnson?'
'I'll see if I can find her. She's getting very sought after. You're the second visitor she's had tonight.'
'Who was the other one?'
She paused, then said, 'Would you be Mr. Johnson?'
'No. I'm just a friend.'
'Well, the other one was her son-dude with a red mustache. He stirred up quite a hassle before I got him out of here.' She gave me a hard but not unfriendly look. 'I hope you're not planning to stir up another hassle.'
'Nothing could be further from my thoughts. I want to stir one down.'
'All right, I'll get her. But keep it quiet, eh? People are sleeping.'
'Sure. What was the hassle about?'
'Money. Isn't it always?'
'Not always,' I said. 'Sometimes it's love.'
'That_ comes into it, too. He had a blonde in the car.'
'Not all of us are so lucky.'
She hardened her look a little in order to deflect a pass, if that was what I had offered her. 'I'll get Sarah.'
Mrs. Johnson came unwillingly. She had been crying, and her eyes were swollen.
'What do you want?' She made it sound as if she had very little left to give.
'I'd like to talk to you for a couple of minutes.'
'I'm behind in my work already. Are you trying to get me fired?'
'No. I do happen to be a private detective, though.'
Her gaze veered around the dark little anteroom and rested on the outside door. Her thick body tensed as if she were getting ready to run out onto the highway.
