“He’d seemed so restless the last few days—no, longer than that. The last week or so. He had seemed on the verge of some decision or of some breaking point. Oh, I can’t express what I mean …” Her face crumpled for a moment; she wiped away sudden new tears. “Anyway, the police asked me to meet them here, and that’s what I’m doing, waiting for the police.”
“Did they explain anything about his death?”
“No, I’m completely in the dark.”
“He was found up in the hills. Do you know where Borrego Reservoir is?”
“Yes.”
“His car was parked nearby. That’s all we know so far.”
“I didn’t know even that much. Had Mr. Chenoweth committed suicide?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
She sat biting her lower lip, her restless hands toying with a paperweight on the desk.
Uncle Chuck asked, “Did you think that this restlessness you mentioned had something to do with business affairs? Or with his personal life?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “No, wait, I am sure that he was quite satisfied with the way things were going here at the office. We’ve been doing quite well. So the restlessness, if there really was any, if I didn’t just imagine it, must have concerned his personal affairs.” She smiled fleetingly. “I don’t know anything about that side of his life. I met Mrs. Chenoweth, of course, and she seemed like a charming person. But Mr. Chenoweth and I kept our relations purely business. We never discussed private affairs. When I first came, I sensed that he wished it to be that way, and I respected his wishes.”
“Very tactful of you.”
“Thank you. It was my own preference as well.”
Uncle Chuck shifted on the chair in order to look at Sargent’s desk. “Is this desk locked?”
“Why … uh …” For a moment she seemed at a loss and then worried.
“I’m trying to locate some papers for my niece, insurance policies and personal records that seem to have disappeared from a lockbox at home.”
“I … I really don’t know what to say. From the way the police talked, over the phone, I got the impression I was to come here and wait and not to disturb anything until they got here. I think they said something about insurance too. But of course I wouldn’t know anything about it anyway. That would come under Mr. Chenoweth’s personal affairs.”
“I see. I guess they wouldn’t appreciate my prying around at that. But then—as long as you’re here to see that I don’t remove anything—”
She nodded. “If you want to look into the desk, go ahead. You’re representing Mrs. Chenoweth, and she certainly has the right to know what’s in there. Or at least, I should think so.”
Uncle Chuck got up and moved around to Sargent’s big chair, sat down, slid open the wide drawer at the top of the desk. At the front was a tray with a litter of odds and ends, paper clips and erasers and a stapler and other small articles. Toward the back were two flat manila cases, tied with cord. Uncle Chuck pulled them out, laid one on the desk, and began to untie the cord that bound the other.
“I think I can tell you what’s in there,” Sharon Baxter said with a hint of nervousness.
Uncle Chuck paused with his fingers on the string. “Yes?”
“Mr. Chenoweth had … uh … a rather odd hobby, or habit, of clipping things from the newspapers, items that concerned clients of his.”
“And clients of yours as well?”
She frowned. “I’m not sure. I don’t see why he would want to do this with my people.”
Uncle Chuck went on picking at the string, got the manila case open, tipped its contents out upon the desk. As Mrs. Baxter had suggested, these proved to be newspaper items, perhaps a dozen or so. Uncle Chuck arranged them face up and glanced over them. Then he made further rearrangements, grouping those together which seemed to concern the same people or firms. Almost half of the clippings told of recent expansion by a tire firm, Wiegand Tire Company.
Mrs. Baxter had left her desk and come closer to see what he had found. He called her attention to the Wiegand clippings.
“Oh yes, Mr. Wiegand,” she said. “He was not only a customer; he was an old friend of Mr. Chenoweth’s. I think they went to school together.”
Uncle Chuck fished out the card that Doris had used to write the names of the three men with whom Sargent was supposed to have spent the previous evening. The second name was that of Wally Wiegand.
Putting the card away, Uncle Chuck tried to remember where he had heard something on the subject of clippings before this—something Doris had said. Then he remembered; she had said that some clippings had been among the stuff stolen in the burglary of the garage at the house in Idylynn. “Why do you think Sargent clipped all this stuff?”
“I have no idea,” she admitted. “He never discussed it with me, and of course it wasn’t my place to say anything, but I used to feel that all this clipping and filing was a little … uh …” She stood there looking at Uncle Chuck as if at a loss for a word.
“Unnecessary?”
“Yes, and … and absurd. And sort of—nosy. It’s not our business to keep track of newspaper gossip about clients. That’s what a lot of this is—printed gossip.”
“All of this about the Wiegand expansion—”
“That’s all in the future—if it ever happens,” she said sharply. “This Mr. Wiegand is very optimistic, always full of big plans, big operations. He always came in here with a new grandiose idea, a different one every time. It was kind of … ridiculous.”
Uncle Chuck began putting the clippings back into the manila case.
“It’s not our job to keep track of things of this sort,” she added. “We keep their books, we can advise on tax matters, and if we see something obviously out of balance in their operations, we can point it out. Too much going to advertising or promotion in relation to sales and such things. But … but not this.”
A final clipping had a picture at the top of the column, a fat-faced man with a melting, somehow phony friendliness, and the caption beneath informed the reader that Mr. Wiegand was going to head the local drive for a new park swimming pool.
“Seems that Mr. Wiegand is mighty community-minded,” Uncle Chuck remarked.
“Hah!” cried Mrs. Baxter scornfully, going back to her desk.
Uncle Chuck began to untie the other manila case.
“It may just be more clippings,” she offered.
“Feels solider than that one. Why would Sargent keep some clippings here, and others at home, do you suppose?”
“I guess he stored the old ones somewhere. He’d have to. There’s only so much room here.”
With a final pluck the knot loosened and Uncle Chuck opened the top of the manila envelope. He let the contents slip out upon the desk. There was a passport and three travel folders. The travel folders all concerned Brazil, and the passport was made out to Sargent Chenoweth.
Chapter 5
After leaving Sargent’s office, Uncle Chuck stopped at a newsstand to pick up an early edition of the afternoon paper. The headlines concerned Sargent’s mysterious death, but the column beneath was brief. It was obvious few facts had as yet been given out by the police. Uncle Chuck gleaned one new item of information: Sargent Chenoweth had been badly beaten about the head by what the police described as a heavy blunt instrument, and thinking of Doris having had to identify the body, Uncle Chuck flinched.
He left the town, the suburb of San Bernardino where Sargent had had his office, and drove up into the cooler heights that led to Idylynn. The road climbed through foothills into the flanks of the mountains, and sage and manzanita gave way to pines. It was like a different country, Uncle Chuck thought. Beautiful and green. But remote. A long drive for Sargent every working day.
He parked in the driveway, got his cane, made his way to the door, taking the paper along. Thinking that Doris might be asleep and not wanting to startle her, he went in as quietly as possible, but to his surprise Doris was standing perhaps te
n feet inside and in one hand she held a tool from the fireplace, an iron poker.
“Oh … oh, Uncle Chuck! Thank God …”
“Why, Dorrie—”
“Did you just come? Just now?”
“Yes. What’s the matter?”
She gave him a wild, distraught look. “You weren’t here a few minutes ago?”
“No. Dorrie, you seem scared to death.”
With her free hand she brushed back a fallen lock of hair. “Someone was in here. I heard him. A sound woke me, or a sixth sense, or perhaps Pete whined … I don’t know. I lay in bed, listening and thinking it must be you, and then all at once something wasn’t right—”
“You didn’t hear the cane thumping?”
“Maybe that was it. I called out, I called your name. Then it got very still, and I got terribly afraid. Finally it seemed I heard the front door, just a tiny noise—”
Walking as quickly as possible, Uncle Chuck looked into the living rooms and the bedrooms, then went through the kitchen to the service area. Pete was standing on his hind legs, looking in through the pane in the upper part of the door; when he saw Uncle Chuck he began wagging his tail. Uncle Chuck opened the door and the dog shot past him. The dog ran into the kitchen. Doris stood there; he jumped on her and whined, and she patted him absently. Then she looked at the poker in her hand as if wondering where she had picked it up.
“Come on, Pete. We need your nose.” Uncle Chuck took the dog to the front door and Pete rushed out, circled before the door with his nose to the paving, then headed off up the driveway to the street above. But there the scent must have ended. Pete ran back and forth, hair raised around his neck. “Yes, you had somebody,” Uncle Chuck told Doris. “It’s somebody Pete isn’t fond of. Or a complete stranger, and Pete knows he was an intruder.”
Doris had put the poker down somewhere. Now she covered her face with her hands and began to cry.
Uncle Chuck went to her quickly and put his free arm around her. “Dorrie, listen to me. We don’t have time to give in to our emotions. Not right now. Every minute is important. We don’t even have time to speculate about who sneaked in here or why. I’ve got to tell you what I found in Sargent’s office.”
She tried to choke back the sobs.
“Let’s go back to the breakfast room. I’ll make some fresh coffee.”
“I’m scared! I’m scared!” she cried.
“I’ll fix you a drink then. Quick courage,” Uncle Chuck promised. He managed to get her started in the direction of the kitchen. Pete was outside, but he would be all right. Uncle Chuck got Doris seated in the breakfast alcove, went to the counter, opened a cupboard door. As he mixed a stiff drink for her he said, “Sargent was getting set to run out on you. The police are going to be up here pretty soon with what he had in his desk at the office. They’re going to demand some answers. Like what did you know about his new passport and his interest in Brazil?”
She’d been wiping tears from her face with the backs of her fingers. She stopped and sat looking dazedly at Uncle Chuck. “A passport—”
Uncle Chuck sighed. “Dorrie, I know you’re not telling me everything. I know it so well. You were always such a nice kid … and such a lousy liar. Now, I know enough about married life, and I learned enough about women from your aunt Tippie, God rest her … if Sargent was ready to skip, you’d know it.”
“I … I can’t imagine why you’d think—”
“Dorrie, this is me. Your old uncle. A friend you can trust.”
She stared at the drink he set down in front of her. “I—I told you, he wanted another woman. For over a year—”
“He asked you for a divorce?”
“Yes.”
“And you weren’t giving him one? Why not?”
“B—because I’m silly, and sentimental, and I think marriage ought to be for keeps. And because like that old dog-in-the-manger, if I couldn’t have him—if I couldn’t hold his love and desire—no one else was going to.” Suddenly she put her head down on her arms and gave way again to tears, the pose reminding Uncle Chuck strongly of the woman in Sargent’s office.
“It couldn’t be … Mrs. Baxter?”
She jerked her head up to stare in astonishment. “Her? She’s old. This was a young girl, hardly more than a teenager. A young girl he met outside Hemet one day when she had a flat tire on her little sports car. He said ‘a blonde with a heart-shaped face and small exquisite breasts.’”
“For gosh sakes! What’s her name?”
“Th—that’s all I know about her. Things Sarge flung out once during a quarrel. He was c—comparing her to me.”
“Hemet, hmmm? Do you think she lives there?”
“I don’t know where she lives.”
“There’s a road out of Hemet up to Borrego Reservoir. In fact, that would be the shortest way to get there.”
Doris shook her head stubbornly, wiping away tears. “I don’t know where she lives and I don’t know why he’d go to Borrego Reservoir.”
“But you do know something you haven’t told me, Dorrie.”
“Uncle Chuck, if I’ve held anything back, I mean, if I’ve forgotten to tell you something, it’s simply because it doesn’t have anything at all to do with Sarge’s death. Believe it. It’s true.”
“Why not let me be the judge of whether it’s got anything to do with his death?”
“I … I guess I’d better lie down again. I feel terrible all at once.”
“You might as well wait for the cops. It won’t be—wait a minute, there’s a car pulling in now. My guess, it’s the detective from the San Bernardino sheriff’s office.”
She started to leap to her feet, suddenly paling; he put out a hand to stop her. “Hold it, Dorrie.” He took the now empty glass to the sink and washed it swiftly. “Just sit where you are. I’ll bring the cop, or cops, in here. My advice—listen, now—just answer their questions if you can do it without self-incrimination. They’ll appreciate it mightily, and it can help if they think you’re helping them. But if you have something to hide, clam up. Clam up all along the line. If they get one tag end of thread out of you and start to unravel, there goes the whole damned piece of knitting.”
Detective Lieutenant Martin came in holding his hat in his hands; he gave Doris a look that seemed full of genuine sympathy. “I’m sorry to have to bother you so soon again, ma’am.”
Doris had trouble getting the words out. She was obviously much afraid of Martin. “It’s … it’s all right. Sit down.”
He drew out a chair. He threw a glance at Uncle Chuck, who had remained a short distance behind him, braced against the sink counter. Martin tried not to turn his back completely on Uncle Chuck as he again faced Doris. “What plans did you and Mr. Chenoweth have for the immediate future? Any time off from his office coming up? Any trips, vacations, in view?”
She answered with a short, breathless no; but Uncle Chuck thought surely the detective had seen that the question hadn’t surprised her.
“Nothing?” Martin insisted. “Didn’t you know that Mr. Chenoweth apparently had plans for quite an extended trip?” When she shook her head, he added, “Could a trip out of the country concern his business in any way?”
“I guess you would have to ask Mrs. Baxter about that.”
“Ummm. It seems that Mrs. Baxter and your husband shared an office and not much else. From what she tells us, she moved in with him as an economy measure as much as anything. There was no mingling of clients. She paid him rent, and that was about it.”
Doris shook her head again. “I thought it amounted to more than that. But of course the business was Sarge’s. He ran it. He told me what he pleased, and I let it go at that.”
“Why would it be necessary for him to go to South America?”
“I don’t know.”
“Hadn’t he mentioned this trip to you even once?”
“No.”
“Hadn’t he bought new clothes? Luggage? Hadn’t he displayed some interest in Brazi
l, for instance? Brought home books about it, for one thing?”
Uncle Chuck saw that the cop was going to keep at Doris, using the passport as a wedge, until he got hold of something, not necessarily what she knew or didn’t know about the prospective flight to South America. Martin was a shrewd, wily, experienced cop.
“No,” Doris said. “No, no, no.”
“In getting a passport—by the way, Mrs. Chenoweth, do you have a passport?”
“No, I’ve never had one. I’ve been to Mexico and to Canada—you don’t need a passport to go to those places.”
“What I started to say, in getting a passport a person must fill out an application, and there are questions on it about where you intend to go and your reasons for going and so on. Your husband must have filled in such a form. Didn’t you see it?”
“No.”
All at once Uncle Chuck decided that, whatever else she knew and was keeping to herself, Doris did not really know anything about the passport, or whatever Sargent had planned doing with it, and that she would not be tripped up here. But Martin wouldn’t stay on this subject forever. And Doris wouldn’t keep control of her nerves forever. So at this point Uncle Chuck said, “We had better mention it now, Lieutenant—there was an intruder in the house this morning. I was away—” Uncle Chuck had made up his mind also that Sharon Baxter had kept her mouth shut about his visit to the office that morning, probably thinking that to keep quiet was in her own best interest because the cops wouldn’t appreciate her letting Uncle Chuck explore the desk. “—and my niece was alone here. She heard this intruder in the house and called out, thinking it was me. Whoever it was got out in a hurry.”
Martin turned from Doris with an air of giving grudging attention. He was no fool and he must know that Uncle Chuck was getting him off on another subject for reasons of his own. “She didn’t see him?”
“No, I didn’t,” Doris answered.
“Also,” Uncle Chuck went on, “there was a burglary here awhile back. Someone raided the garage. Expensive tools were stolen, perhaps as a cover-up for something else. Sargent’s files—stuff he’d brought home because space at the office was limited—had been rummaged through.”
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