'At least you're admitting it now. You used to pretend that all the trouble originated with me. I was the King Kong of Copper City and you were the delicate maiden. You're not so bloody delicate, _or_ maidenly.'
'No,' she said. 'I've grown scar tissue. I've needed it.'
I was getting sick of them. I had gone through quarrels like theirs myself, when my own marriage was breaking up. Eventually the quarrels reached a point where nothing hopeful, and nothing entirely true, was being said.
I could smell the sour animal anger of their bodies, and hear them breathing quickly, out of phase. I stepped between them, facing Biemeyer.
'Where is Mildred? I want to talk to her,' I said.
'I don't know. Honestly.'
'He's lying,' the woman said. 'He brought her to town and set her up in an apartment on the beach. I have friends in this town, I know what's going on. They saw him beating a path to her door, visiting her every day.' She turned on her husband. 'What kind of a creep are you, anyway, sneaking away from your lawful home to make love to a crazy old woman?'
'I wasn't making love to her.'
'Then what were you doing?'
'Talking. We'd have a few drinks and some conversation. That's all it amounted to.'
'Just an innocent friendship, eh?'
'That's right.'
'And that's all it ever was,' she said sardonically. 'I don't claim that.'
'What do you claim?'
He pulled himself together and said, 'I loved her.'
She looked at him in a lost way. It made me wonder if he had ever told her that before. She burst into tears and sat down in his chair, bending her streaming face close to her v knees.
Biemeyer seemed upset, almost disoriented. I took him by the arm and led him to the far end of the room. 'Where is Mildred now?'
'I haven't seen her for weeks. I don't know where she went. We got into an argument about money. I was looking after her, of course, but she wanted more. She wanted me to set her up in a house with a staff of servants and a nurse to look after her. Mildred always did have big ideas.'
'And you didn't want to pay for them?'
'That's right. I was willing to pay my share. But she wasn't penniless. And she was getting old-she's in her seventies. I told her a woman has to adjust when she gets into her seventies. She can't expect to go on living like a queen.'
'Where did she go?'
'I can't tell you. She moved out several weeks ago without telling me anything. She said she was going someplace to move in with relatives.'
'In town here?'
'I don't know.'
'You didn't try to find her?'
'Why should I?' Biemeyer said. 'Why the hell should I? There wasn't anything going on between us any more. With the money from the house in Chantry Canyon, she had enough to live on for the rest of her life. I didn't owe her anything. Frankly, she was turning into a nuisance.'
So was Biemeyer, but I stayed with him. 'I need to get in touch with her, and you may be able to help me. Do you have any contacts at the Southwestern Savings branch in Copper City?'
'I know the resident manager. Delbert Knapp.'
'Can you find out from him where Mildred Mead has been cashing her mortgage checks?'
'I guess I can try.'
'You can do better than try, Mr. Biemeyer. I hate to press you, but this could be a matter of life or death.'
'Whose death? Mildred's?'
'Possibly. But I'm more immediately concerned with Betty Siddon. I'm trying to trace her through Mildred. Will you get in touch with Delbert Knapp?'
'I may not be able to do it tonight. He wouldn't have the information at home with him, anyway.'
'What about Mildred's local contacts? Can you help me with those?'
'I'll think about it. But you understand I don't want my name in the paper. I don't want my name mentioned at all in connection with Mildred. In fact, the more I think about it, the less I like the whole idea of getting involved.'
'A woman's life may be at stake.'
'People die every day,' he said.
I stood up and spoke down to him. 'I got your daughter back. Now I want some help from you. And if I don't get it, and something happens to Miss Siddon, I'll fix you.'
'That sounds like a threat.'
'It is. There's enough crap in your life to make you fixable.'
'But I'm your client.'
'Your wife is.'
My voice sounded calm in my ears, a little distant. But my eyes felt as if they had shrunk, and I was shaking.
'You must be crazy,' he said. 'I could buy and sell you.'
'I'm not for sale. Anyway, that's just talk. You may have money, but you're too tight to use it. The other day you were bellyaching about five hundred measly bucks to get your daughter back. Half the time you're the king of the world, and the other half you talk like poor white trash.'
He stood up. 'I'm going to report you to Sacramento for threatening to blackmail me. You're going to regret this for the rest of your life.'
I was already regretting it. But I was too angry to try to conciliate him. I walked out of the study and headed for the front door.
Mrs. Biemeyer caught me before I reached it. 'You shouldn't have said what you did.'
'I know that. I'm sorry. May I use your phone, Mrs. Biemeyer?'
'Don't call the police, will you? I don't want them here.'
'No. I'm just calling a friend.'
She led me into the huge bricked kitchen, seated me at a table by the window, and brought me a telephone on a long cord. The window overlooked the distant harbor. Closer, near the foot of the hill, the Chantry house had lights on in it. While I was dialing the number Fay Brighton had given me, I took a second, longer look and saw that some of the lights were in the greenhouse.
I got a busy signal, and dialed again.
This time Mrs. Brighton answered on the first ring: 'Hello?'
'This is Archer speaking. Have you had any luck?'
'Yes, sir, but all of it was bad. The trouble is that a whole lot of the people sound suspicious. It may be something in _my_ voice that does it to them. I'm sort of scared sitting here by myself, you know. And I don't seem to be accomplishing anything.'
'How far down the list are you?'
'Maybe halfway. But I feel that I'm not accomplishing anything. Is it all right with you if I quit for the night?'
I didn't answer her right away. Before I did, she let out an apologetic snuffling sob and hung up.
XXX
I switched off the kitchen lights and took another look at the Chantry place. There were definitely movements in the greenhouse. But I couldn't make out their significance.
I went out to the car for my binoculars, and ran into Ruth Biemeyer for the second time.
'Have you seen Doris?' she said. 'I'm getting a little concerned about her.'
She was more than a little concerned. Her voice was thin. Her eyes were dark and craterous in the brilliant outside lights. I said, 'Has Doris left the house?'
'I'm afraid she has, unless she's hiding somewhere. She may have run away with Fred Johnson.'
'How could she? Fred's in jail.'
'He was,' she said. 'But my lawyer got him out today. I'm afraid I made a mistake. Please don't tell Jack about it, will you? He'd never let me forget it.'
She was a woman in trouble, sinking still deeper into trouble. She had lost her poise and started to lose her hope.
'I'll tell your husband what I have to-no more. Where is Fred? I want to talk to him.'
'We dropped him off at his parents' home. I'm afraid it wasn't a good idea, was it?'
'It isn't a good idea,' I said, 'for you and me to be standing here with all the outside lights on. There's something funny going on at the Chantry place.'
'I know there is. It's been going on a good part of the day. Today they were cutting down weeds in there. Tonight they've been digging a hole.'
'What kind of a hole?'
'Go and look for yourself. They're still at it.'
I went down the driveway to the edge of the slope, where the wire fence stopped me. The lights went out behind me. I leaned on the fence and focused my binoculars on the greenhouse. A dark man and a woman with shining gray hair-Rico and Mrs. Chantry-were working inside the building. They seemed to be filling in a hole with shovels, using a pile of dirt that stood between them.
Rico slid down into the half-filled hole and jumped up and down, packing the loose dirt. He appeared to be sinking upright into the earth, like a damned soul sinking into hell by his own volition. Mrs. Chantry stood and watched him.
I caught her face in my binoculars. She looked rosy and rough and dangerous. There was dirt on her face, and her hair curved like glistening gray hawk wings over her temples.
She reached a hand down to Rico and helped him out of the hole. They teetered together on its edge and then returned to their task of filling it in. The earth fell soundlessly from their spades.
A black thought bit at the edge of my mind and gradually eclipsed it. The people in the greenhouse had dug a grave and now they were filling it in. It didn't seem quite possible. But if it was, then it was possible that Betty Siddon's body was under the dirt.
I went back to the car for my gun and had it in my hand when Ruth Biemeyer said behind me, 'What are you planning to do with that?'
