Nightshades (Nameless Detective)

by Bill Pronzini

  “He didn’t touch anything else?”

  “ No. ”

  “How did he get in?”

  “Through the back door, he broke the glass, what difference does it make? I’m not going to answer any more of your questions. I don’t have to talk to you, you’re nothing but a damned private snoop. Either you move your car or I’ll call the police.”

  “Look, Mrs. O’Daniel—”

  “You’re harassing me,” she said. “Move your fucking car or I’ll not only call the police, I’ll tell them you manhandled me. See if I won’t.”

  I was not going to get anything more out of the bereaved widow—except trouble. I got in and moved the car. She revved up the Porsche’s engine until the walls of the platform deck seemed to vibrate, backed out off the deck in a controlled skid, and shot past me burning rubber. I thought for a second she was going to miss the first turn down the road, but Porsches are built for cornering as well as speed; she zipped right around it and roared out of sight.

  I pulled out in her wake, driving slow, speculating. A prowler—now what did that mean? Maybe it meant nothing; maybe it was totally unrelated to Frank O‘Daniel’s death or to anything else in my investigation. But then why had only O’Daniel’s den been ransacked? I didn’t buy the theory that the prowler had been scared off; she hadn’t come home and surprised him or she’d have said so, and there wasn’t any dog or burglar alarm or neighbor close by.

  All right, then: somebody had been after something specific that belonged to O’Daniel. But what? And who? And why?

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I drove downtown again and went through the crowded and shady mall to Penny’s for Beauty. The only person in the waiting room was the blond receptionist, Miss Adley. La Belson must have told her I wasn’t a city cop; she was not intimidated today. She wasn’t even polite. “Miss Penny isn’t in and I don’t know when she’ll be back,” she said, and her eyes said: Drop dead, asshole.

  So I grinned at her and perched on one corner of her desk and said, “How about if I go back through that arch and tell your customers who I am and that Miss Penny is mixed up in a couple of ugly murders ? Can you imagine the gossip? Can you imagine what Miss Penny would say?”

  We looked at each other for about ten seconds. Then the blonde made an exasperated hissing sound between her teeth and threw words at me like spittle. “She’s at a restaurant down the way. Rive Gauche. Having her lunch.”

  “Maybe I’ll have lunch too,” I said, and got off her desk. “Have a nice day, now.”

  Miss Adley didn’t have anything more to say. Her eyes repeated their earlier message.

  Rive Gauche was a small, chic restaurant, very French, with colored prints of Montmartre and other Parisian scenes on the walls and waitresses who spoke with Gallic accents that may or may not have been genuine. It wasn’t very crowded, and I saw Penny Belson as soon as I came in: corner table, alone, a dish of steamed mussels and a small carafe of white wine in front of her.

  She was not any happier to see me than the receptionist had been. But she had more self-possession and this was a public place; when I sat down across from her she didn’t protest and she didn’t tell me to drop dead, either verbally or with her eyes.

  “I didn’t expect to see you again,” she said.

  “Meaning you hoped you wouldn’t. ”

  The delicate shrug. “More questions?”

  “Some. Go ahead and finish your lunch while we talk.”

  “I had every intention of doing that,” she said. She plucked a mussel out of its shell and washed it down with a sip of wine.

  “Well?”

  “Frank O’Daniel,” I said. “You heard about what happened to him, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, like you said the other day, a beauty salon is a good place to find out things. There’s been gossip about Mrs. O’Daniel; I thought there might have been some about her husband too.”

  She didn’t answer right away. One of the waitresses came over to the table, to find out if I wanted anything, but I gestured her away. At some other time, and with some other companion, I might have ordered a meal just so I could put it on my expense account and see what Barney Rivera would say. Not today. I kept my attention on Penny Belson’s face.

  “I don’t know what you’re after,” she said at length. “Frank O’Daniel and another woman—that sort of thing? I’ve heard nothing like that.”

  “What have you heard, then?”

  She sighed. “I suppose the only way I’m going to have any peace is to be frank with you. All right. Evidently he was planning to divorce his wife, sell his house and his interest in Northern Development, and move away. ”

  “Who told you this?”

  “One of my customers.”

  “Which one?”

  “I won’t tell you that. She’s no one you know, no one connected with Northern Development. She is a good customer and I don’t want to lose her.”

  “Where was O’Daniel moving to?”

  “The Bay Area somewhere.”

  “Did he have a business opportunity down there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why was he selling out and moving, then?”

  “Why do you think? His company is in financial trouble and his wife is a bitch. Isn’t that enough reason?”

  “Is there anything else you can tell me, Miss Belson?”

  “Not about Frank O’Daniel.”

  “About Helen O’Daniel then. About any of her other affairs.”

  “She’s had several. Would you like a list of names?”

  “I was thinking about one in particular. An artist named Paul Robideaux.”

  It surprised her—genuinely so, I thought. She said, “Robideaux. That name is familiar . . .”

  I could have told her where Robideaux lived; she’d probably find it out anyway, soon enough. But I didn’t want to have to explain things, and I didn’t want to witness the catty pleasure it would give her. I said, “Thanks for your help, Miss Belson,” and got on my feet.

  “Wait,” she said. “This artist, this Paul Robideaux—”

  “Actually he’s a writer and his real name is Hasselblatt. Thanks again. ”

  I left her sitting there sipping wine and looking coldly thoughtful.

  The smells in Rive Gauche had made me hungry, so I stopped at a McDonald’s and had a Big Mac and some fries and a strawberry milkshake. Then I drove back to George Fulbright’s law offices.

  But Fulbright hadn’t known anything about Frank O‘Daniel’s intentions to sell out his interest in Northern Development and move to the Bay Area; he seemed amazed at the possibility. “I can’t understand how Mr. O’Daniel could have seriously considered such a move without consulting me,” he said.

  “Can you think of any reason why he wouldn’t have consulted you?”

  “No, none. ”

  “Did he have any business affiliations in the Bay Area?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. He knew people there, of course—business people. I know two or three myself that I could check with. . . .”

  “If you’d do that, Mr. Fulbright, I’d appreciate it.”

  I made the sheriffs department my next stop, to see if Jim Telford was in. He was. He’d just come back from Musket Creek, where he’d been all day and where he hadn’t found out much. He had nothing else encouraging to tell me, either. The police lab had been over the remains of the Kokanee, and a professional diver had swept the lake bottom, with the same results in both cases: no evidence to support the theory that the explosion and O’Daniel’s death had not been an accident.

  Telford hadn’t talked to Paul Robideaux because Robideaux hadn’t been home, and he was interested in what I had to tell him about my own meeting with the artist and Robideaux’s affair with Helen O‘Daniel. Still, there wasn’t anything conclusive in it. The prowler angle stumped him as much as it did me. And so did Frank O’Daniel’s somewhat odd behavior of late.

  Lots
of possibilities—lots of apparent dead ends.

  When I left Telford I drove over to the Redding Police Department and had another, brief talk with Hank Betters. The only thing he had to tell me was that Martin Treacle had been bugging him for police protection and the department, reluctantly, had obliged by assigning a “temporary bodyguard. ” A waste of the taxpayer’s money, Betters said, but it was better that than having Treacle go to the newspapers and build a flap about police indifference.

  It was four o’clock by the time I got into my car again. I was fresh out of leads, and I was also hot and tired and my face was hurting some; I headed for the Sportsman’s Rest. On the way I stopped to buy a couple of ice-cold cans of Lite beer. The stuff tasted like beer-flavored water, but you got used to it. And now that I was watching my weight, it was a hell of a lot better than no beer at all.

  Something had begun to rattle around in the trunk, and when I got to the motel I opened the lid to see what it was. The stone cup I’d found at the fire scene in Musket Creek. It had come loose from where I’d wedged it behind the spare tire. I’d forgotten about the thing—I should have given it to Telford long before this. I took it inside the room and put it on the dresser so I would remember to take it to the sheriff’s department later on.

  Kerry wasn’t there; still over at Whiskeytown or wherever in her rented Datsun. I opened a beer, drank some of it to cool off, and then went to the motel office to see if I’d had any messages. Two calls, both from Barney Rivera. Call back as soon as possible. Urgent.

  Trouble, I thought wearily.

  Back in the room, I sat on the bed with my beer and put in a call to Great Western Insurance in San Francisco. When Barney came on he said, “Anything to report? Christ, I hope so.” He sounded harried.

  Well, he wasn’t the only one. I said, “Nothing yet. I’m working on it, Barney. I told you I’d call when I had something to report.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m getting flack here. I’m going to have to bring somebody else in to give you a hand. That’s the directors’ idea, not mine.”

  “Terrific. Then we can stumble over each other like Abbott and Costello. ”

  “I’ve got to do it. The directors want results. They don’t want to pay double indemnity twice; that’s four hundred thousand bucks—big money.”

  “I know it’s big money,” I said. “And if they have to pay it I’ll get held responsible and you won’t throw me any more investigative bones. Right?”

  “Did I say that?”

  “You didn’t have to. Look, Barney, I’m doing the best I can. Give me another day or two.”

  “I don’t know if I can. . . .”

  “Come on. I may be getting close to some answers.”

  “Okay, okay—I guess I can hold off one more day, kid. Call me by close of business tomorrow, either way.”

  I sighed as I put the handset down. Getting close to some answers, I’d said. Bald-faced lie. Or was it? Maybe I was getting close. Christ knew, I had uncovered a mound of information; if I could only shift it around and make it mean something. . . .

  So I sat there for a time, shifting it around—but it was like shifting junk into little piles; none of them amounted to anything by itself. I said to hell with it for the time being. What I needed right now was to go soak my head. In the swimming pool, along with the rest of me.

  I stripped and put on my Hawaiian trunks with the hibiscus flowers on them. There was a full-length mirror on the wall in the bathroom alcove; I looked at myself in it and decided I cut a pretty dashing figure for a fifty-four-year-old former fat guy. Still part of a spare tire around my middle—love handles, Kerry called it—but not too much anymore. Slimming down made me look younger too. I didn’t look a day over fifty-three.

  With my second beer in hand, I walked out to the pool. And dunked myself and swam around trying to avoid a couple of small kids who kept yelling and splashing each other. While I was doing that Kerry came back. I climbed up on the ladder and waved to her, and she waved back and made gestures to indicate she was going in to change. She joined me a few minutes later.

  After she’d had her swim we sat in a couple of chaise lounges and she asked how my day had gone. I told her in some detail and with the appropriate profanity.

  She said, “A prowler at the O’Daniel house? That’s interesting.”

  “Sure. All I need to do now is figure out what he was after and who he is. Any ideas?”

  “Me? You’re the detective; I’m just along for the ride. Not too bright, but reasonably attractive and a pretty good lay.”

  “Pretty good,” I agreed. “How about me?”

  She batted her eyelashes at me. “Oh, baby,” she said, “you’re incredible. I see skyrockets every time.”

  Putting me on again. I sat there feeling wounded.

  Kerry fell silent too and stayed that way. Brooding about her whacky ex-husband again, I thought. I took another quick swim, and when I came out she was still brooding. I asked her if she wanted to go to the lounge next door for a drink; she said no, she just wanted to sit there for a while, maybe have another swim.

  I went to the room alone, and showered, and as I was getting dressed the stone cup caught my eye again. I could see the fossils on it where Treacle had rubbed off the soot the other night. For some reason the thing held my attention. I stopped fumbling with my pants and went over and picked it up.

  Those fossils . . . what was it Treacle had called them? Bryophytes, that was it. Bryophyte fossils, common to this area, etched in different kinds of rock . . .

  Rock, I thought.

  Rocks.

  Things began to stir inside my head. Then they began to run around, tumbling together like little rocks in a landslide. Things I should have added up before. Things that got me a little excited because maybe, just maybe, they were some of the answers I had been looking for.

  I finished dressing in a hurry and hustled out to where Kerry sat by the pool. “I’ve got to go to Musket Creek,” I said.

  She squinted up at me. “Again? What for?”

  “There’s something I want to check on.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll tell you when I get back.”

  “Great,” she said. “Secrets, now. I suppose that means I can’t come along?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t. I’ll be back by eight or so.”

  “So go,” she said, and shrugged. “I’ll find something to do.”

  I went.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  It was a quarter to seven when I came down between the cliffs and back into Musket Creek. The sun had dropped behind the wooden slopes to the west; evening shadows lay across the valley, giving it a soft, peaceful look. Even the ghosts along the creek seemed less decayed, less forlorn than they had during yesterday’s thunderstorm. Funny how light and weather conditions changed the atmosphere of the place. I wondered if the people who lived here noticed it too, or if they only saw it one way, in one light.

  The car rattled along the road toward the Musket Creek Mercantile. When I got close enough I could see two men standing on the apron near the single gas pump; they were looking in my direction. I could also see that half a dozen cars were parked near the frame cottage in back, among them Paul Robideaux’s jeep. The way it looked, the residents were having some kind of town meeting.

  The two men on the apron were both Coleclaws—Jack and his son. Gary must have recognized my car, and the imparted knowledge seemed to flare up an argument between them: Gary pointed, jumping around a little in an excited way, and his father made an angry shooing gesture toward the store. When I was maybe twenty yards away Coleclaw shoved the kid, hard enough to stagger him, and then wheeled around and waved a beckoning arm to me. For some reason he wanted me to swing in there—he wanted to talk.

  I hesitated, touching the brake. Then I thought: All right, see what he wants—and I cut the wheel sharply and brought the car around to a stop near where Coleclaw was standing. Gary had gone inside the mercantile, but
as I got out I could see him behind the screen, watching.

  Coleclaw said, “What’re you doing back here?” But there was no heat in his voice or in his eyes. If anything, he sounded even more worried than he had the last time I’d seen him, outside the sheriffs department.

  “I’ve got business here,” I said.

  “What kind of business?”

  “You know what kind, Mr. Coleclaw. Besides, I don’t like to be threatened. Or didn’t Gary tell you about the little meeting he arranged yesterday?”

  “He told me,” Coleclaw said. “Listen, he’s slow, he don’t know what he’s doing sometimes. He didn’t mean anything bad. He wouldn’t hurt anybody, not on purpose.”

  “He had a gun,” I said.

  “That old Colt? It don’t shoot; firing pin’s rusted and the cylinder won’t revolve.”

  “I didn’t know that at the time. And I still don’t like to be threatened.”

  “You want me to, I’ll get him out here and have him apologize . . . ”

  “No, there’s no point in that.”

  “You got to understand,” he said, “feelings been running high around here. The fight with those developers, Randall getting killed, now O’Daniel dead too, and county deputies all over the place asking questions . . . we’re all stirred up.”

  “Is that the reason for the summit meeting?”

  “The what?”

  “It looks like you’re entertaining everybody in town tonight,” I said. “Or do you all get together regularly for coffee and cake?”

  “What we do of an evening is our business,” he said. Something had changed in his manner, and not so subtly; he sounded both secretive and defensive now.

  “Okay,” I said, “feelings are running high and you’re all stirred up. Why not cooperate with me and with the authorities? Why not get to the bottom of what’s been going on?”

  “All we want is to be left alone, mister.”

  “Sure. That’s what I’m saying to you. Cooperate, get to the bottom of things, and you’ll be left alone. Northern Development’s just about finished, now that Randall and O’Daniel are dead. Unless somebody with the same ideas buys them out, the plan to develop this area is dead too. It’s in your own best interests to help put an end to all the trouble.”