I asked, “Do you know where Steve Farmer lives?”
“Across the bay,” Sharon said. “On Salmon Creek Road, above the marina.”
That was a long walk from Bodega—more than five miles. But if it was Farmer that Jerry had been going to see, for whatever reason, Farmer could have met him here at the post office. Or anybody else could. Or he could have hitchhiked somewhere.
“Do Steve and Jerry get along well?”
“Sure. They’re pretty close.”
“Did either of them ever speak about a girl named Bobbie Reid?”
“No-o. Is that somebody they know in San Francisco?”
“It’s somebody they knew,” I said, “and who knew Christine Webster.” I did not see any reason to go into detail. “What can you tell me about Gus Kellenbeck?”
“We don’t know him very well,” Mrs. Darden said. “He only moved here about four years ago, when he bought out what used to be Bay Fishery; and he seldom comes into Bodega. I do know that he’s a good businessman. The past couple of years haven’t been a boom for anyone in the fishing business—mostly because of poor salmon runs. But he’s managed to keep the plant operating at a profit. Or so the talk is. He pays the fishermen top dollar for their catches.”
“One of those fishermen being Andy Greene?”
“Yes.”
“What’s your opinion of Greene?”
“Not very high,” Sharon said. “He has a nasty mouth.”
“And a nasty disposition,” Mrs. Darden added.
“Has he ever been in trouble of any kind?”
“Not that we know about.”
“Did Jerry get along with him?”
“I believe so. He never said anything against the man.”
“And he also got along with Kellenbeck?”
“Yes. He seemed to.”
I tendered a few more questions, without learning anything else of interest and then finished my second cup of coffee and rose to go. In the foyer both Sharon and her mother wished me luck, and I thanked them for their help, and Mrs. Darden let me out. She seemed almost disappointed to see me leave; her parting smile struck me as even warmer than her welcoming smile. Maybe I reminded her of her husband in more ways than one. Maybe she found me attractive and desirable and wished she could get to know me better.
Maybe I was an idiot.
Too much libido, that was my problem these days, brought about by too long a period of celibacy. What I ought to do pretty quick, even if I had to pay for it, was get my ashes hauled—as we used to say in the good old days. Otherwise I was going to start salivating every time a woman looked at me with anything except revulsion.
I drove down into the village and parked near the tavern. It was not far from the post office; somebody going in or out could have seen Jerry Carding last Sunday night. Longshot, but it might pay off: It didn’t. The tavern had just opened for business and the bartender on duty only worked until six on Sundays; he did give me the name and address of the night barman, but when I hunted up the place and talked to the guy a few minutes later, he had nothing to tell me. He knew about Jerry’s disappearance—it was evidently a major topic of conversation in the Bodega Bay area—but did not know the kid by sight. Last Sunday had been a slow night, he said. Just a few regulars, all of whom had come in early and stayed until around eleven or so. He could not remember anyone arriving or leaving between nine and nine-thirty.
So all right. If Jerry had met someone at the post office and been driven away in a car, I was out of luck; I could not go around knocking on every door within a five-mile radius on the off-chance that someone had been passing by at an opportune moment. Which left me with Mr. Ingles at the Sonoma Cafe. And an even longer longshot: Jerry would have had to leave the village on foot in order to be seen passing the cafe, and Ingles would have had to look out at just the right time in order to see him.
The Sonoma Cafe turned out to be a standard roadside diner—small frame building set back some distance from the highway, facade unadorned by anything except a sign bearing its name. It was open but not doing any business; the lunch counter and a row of brown vinyl booths were deserted. The only person in there was a guy in his sixties, fussing over a pot of something on the stove that had the aroma of fish stew.
He kept on fussing until I sat down at the counter: then he turned and came over to me. He was wearing a white shirt, a bow-tie, and an apron, and he had a shrewd bright-eyed look about him. On his scalp were tufts of hair as thin and fine and colorless as dandelion fluff.
“Afternoon,” he said.
“Afternoon. That stew smells good.”
“You bet. Like a bowl?”
“Sure.” Mrs. Darden’s pastry had not done much for my hunger.
He ladled some into a bowl, put the bowl and a couple of packets of crackers on a plate. When he set the food in front of me I said, “Would your name be Ingles?”
“It would. How’d you know?”
“Mrs. Darden mentioned that you owned this place.” I went on to tell him who I was and what I was doing in Bodega.
He looked more than a little interested: the village-gossip type, I thought. He leaned on the counter and studied me with his shrewd eyes. “Read about you in the papers,” he said. “Private eye, eh? Never met a private eye before. Don’t look nothing like Jim Garner, do you?”
“Jim Garner?”
“ ‘The Rockford Files.’ Mean you don’t watch that show on TV?”
“No.”
“Ought to. Got lots of action, lots of cars getting smashed up.”
“Uh-huh.” I tasted the stew. A little salty but otherwise not bad. “Do you know Jerry Carding, Mr. Ingles?”
“Sure do. Used to eat in here once in a while. Damned funny the way he disappeared; damned funny. Got the whole town buzzing.”
“I was hoping you might have seen him last Sunday night. Say between nine and ten?”
“Nosir,” he said immediately. “I’d of remembered it if I had. How come you’re asking me? Police didn’t come around when they was here.” He sounded disappointed that they hadn’t.
“This is one of the few places open on Sunday nights,” I said. “And there’s a chance he left the village on foot. Is it possible one of your customers saw him?”
“One of my customers? Well now.” Ingles scratched his scalp and seemed to do some memory cudgeling. “Zach Judson, maybe.”
“Oh?”
“Zach stopped in for a cup of coffee around nine, as I recall. On his way home from some lodge doings in Tomales. Stayed about a half hour. Could be he saw the boy; ain’t talked to him since.”
“Does Judson live in Bodega?”
“Nope. Jenner.”
Jenner was a tiny place about fifteen miles up the coast. I said, “Could you give me his telephone number?”
“Nosir.”
“Pardon?”
“I said nosir, I won’t give you his number.”
“Why not?”
“Because he don’t have a telephone,” Ingles said, and cackled at his own humor. “Old Zach’s deaf as a post in one ear and half deaf in the other. Wouldn’t hear a phone ringing if he was sitting on it.”
“You can give me his address, can’t you?”
“Sure. Cost you a buck, though.” He winked at me. “Service charge.”
A buck. And a thirty-mile round trip to Jenner that would probably turn out to be a waste of time; for all I knew Judson could be in Tomales again for more lodge doings, and it was doubtful that he had seen Jerry Carding anyway. But what else did I have to do? Hunt up Steve Farmer and try to pump him again about Bobbie Reid? That was about it—and it struck me as a last resort, the thing to do before tossing in the towel and heading home to San Francisco.
I sighed and got my wallet out and put a dollar bill on the counter. Ingles made it disappear in two seconds flat, as if he was afraid I might change my mind. Then he grinned at me and said, “Zach’s is the last house on the west side of the highway, just befor
e you get into Jenner. Big old gingerbready place, looks like it’d fall down if a good wind come along.”
“Thanks.” I finished my stew, gave him some more money for that, and slid a dime tip under the plate when he wasn’t looking. The stew had not been all that good and neither had he.
As I started out he called after me, “Tune in ‘The Rockford Files’ one of these nights. That Jim Garner’s a real good detective. ”
Me too, I thought wryly. Even if I don’t have my own TV show.
I headed the car north on Highway 1. The winding two-lane road had little traffic for a Sunday afternoon, but the fog had come back again, heavy and wet, and it made the pavement slick and visibility poor; it was forty-five minutes before I crossed the bridge spanning the Russian River and approached Jenner.
The hamlet—what there was of it—was located at the mouth of the river, where it widened out and joined the ocean. To the west, between the road and the water, were a lot of tide flats and a few houses. The last house south of Jenner matched Ingles’ description: a ramshackle twenties-style structure that seemed to list inland, as if the constant wind off the sea had been too much for it. A lone cypress tree grew in the muddy front yard, wind-bent and leaning companionably in the same direction; parked near it was a 1940s vintage Chevvy pick-up. Lights glowed behind chintz curtains in one front window.
I took my car into the yard and put it next to the pick-up. When I got out a fat lazy-looking dog came around from behind the house, barked once in an indifferent way, and then waddled off again. I climbed sagging steps onto the front porch and rapped on the door.
Nobody answered. Ingles had said Zach Judson was all but deaf, I remembered; I tried again, using my fist this time, pounding hard enough to rattle the wood in its frame. That got results. The door creaked open pretty soon and a guy about seventy peered out at me through wire-framed spectacles. He had a gnarly face, a mop of unkempt white hair, and one of those big old-fashioned plastic hearing aids hooked over one ear.
He said, “Yep?” in a tone that wondered if I was going to try to sell him something.
“Mr. Judson?”
“Yep?”
I told him my name. “I’m a detective, and I—”
“You say detective?”
“Yes, sir. Investigating the disappearance of Jerry Carding.”
“Who?”
“Jerry Carding.”
“Never heard of any Jerry Carling.”
“Carding, Mr. Judson. Jerry Carding.”
“Never heard of any Jerry Carding.”
“The story’s been in all the papers and on TV—”
“Don’t read the papers. Don’t own a TV.”
“He vanished from Bodega last Sunday night, between nine and ten o’clock,” I said. “A young fellow about twenty, dark hair, Fu Manchu mustache. I understand you were in Bodega around that time and I thought you might have seen him.”
“Yep,” Judson said.
“Sir?”
“Yep. Did see him.”
Well now. “Where was this, Mr. Judson?”
“On the highway. Near Ingles’ cafe.”
“Was he alone?”
“Yep. Hitchhiking.”
“He thumbed you, then?”
“Yep.”
“But you didn’t stop for him?”
“Did stop for him. Used to hitch rides myself, back when. Decent young fella. Polite, good manners. Missing, you say?”
“Yes.” There was a tenseness inside me now; this was the kind of break I had been looking for. “You took him where, Mr. Judson?”
“What?”
“Where did you take him?”
“Not far. Just up the road a ways.”
“How far up the road?”
“To the Kellenbeck Fish Company,” he said.
SEVENTEEN
I did some hard thinking on the way back to Bodega Bay.
Jerry Carding had hitchhiked to the Kellenbeck Fish Company last Sunday night. All right. Zach Judson had not seen him approach the plant, but it was a safe assumption that it had been Jerry’s destination; there was nothing else in the vicinity, no other businesses or private homes. Meeting someone there? Could be. But then why not meet in Bodega instead? As it was, Jerry had had to walk partway and hitch a ride the rest of the way.
The other possibility was that he had gone to the fish company to look for something, either inside the building or somewhere around it. Something connected with the article he’d written; that seemed likely. Ten o’clock on a Sunday night—a nocturnal prowl. It was the kind of thing an adventurous kid, a kid who wanted to be an investigative reporter, might do.
But what had happened then? Had Jerry completed his search, with or without finding what he’d come after, and later hitchhiked away from Bodega Bay? Or had somebody found him there and been responsible for his disappearance?
And the big question—why? What was there about the Kellenbeck Fish Company that would inspire a “career-making” article and a secret late-evening visit? Yes, and why go there after he had finished the article?
I focused my thoughts on Gus Kellenbeck. According to Mrs. Darden, the past couple of years had not been a boon for anyone in the fishing business; yet Kellenbeck had managed to keep his plant operating at a profit. It was possible that he was mixed up in some sort of illegal enterprise, such as price-fixing or substituting and selling one kind of processed fish for another. But that sort of thing had little news value; it happened all the time, in one form or another. Even a novice like Jerry would have known that.
What else could it be?
What else . . .
There was an itching sensation at the back of my mind, the kind I seem always to have when there’s something caught and trying to struggle out of my subconscious. Something significant I had seen or heard. It gave me a vague feeling of excitement, as if I were poised on the edge of breakthrough knowledge: remember what it was, take that one right turn, and I would be on my way into all the other right turns that led out of the labyrinth.
Only it would not come, not yet; the harder I tried to get hold of it, the tighter it seemed to wedge back. Let it alone, then. It would pop through sooner or later, the way nagging bits of information you can’t quite remember—names, dates, titles of books or movies—come popping through once you stop thinking about them.
It was four-thirty and just starting to get dark when I neared the Kellenbeck Fish Company. On impulse I swung the car onto the deserted gravel area in front. The building had a dark abandoned look in the fog and the late-afternoon gloom; closed on Sundays, I thought, nobody here. But I got out anyway and went around onto the rear dock.
The corrugated iron doors were closed and padlocked; I could see that without going over there. Instead I wandered to the foot of the rickety pier. There was nothing on it, no boats tied up at its end. Beyond, the gray water was scummed with mist. And on the opposite shore, Bodega Head was just a lumpish outline dotted here and there with ghostly lights from the houses above the marina.
I turned to look at the building again. The itching sensation came back, but with the same nonresults. Maybe if I had another talk with Kellenbeck, I thought; maybe that would help me remember. At the least I could see how he reacted when I mentioned Jerry Carding’s visit here last Sunday evening.
So I returned to the car and drove to The Tides and hunted up a public telephone. There was a listing for Kellenbeck in the Sonoma County directory with an address in Carmet-by-the-Sea. Carmet was an older development of homes a few miles back to the north, right on the ocean: I had passed by it twice on the trip to and from Jenner.
I got there inside of twenty minutes, but it was another ten before I located Kellenbeck’s place; the homes were well spread out along the east side of the highway and the fog made it difficult to read the street signs. The house turned out to be a big knottypine A-frame with a lot of glass facing out toward the Pacific. Even for Carmet, where homes would not come cheap because of the view, it
looked to be worth a pretty good chunk of money. Kellenbeck was doing well for himself, all right—maybe too well for the owner of a minor fish-processing plant. You did not buy or build a house like this with just a small-businessman’s profits.
The trip here seemed to be a wasted effort, though. All the windows were dark, and so were those in the adjacent garage. Just to be sure I went up onto the porch and rang the bell. No answer.
A pair of mist-smeared headlights poked toward me as I was coming back to the car. Kellenbeck? But it wasn’t; the headlights belonged to a low-slung sports job, not the Cadillac I had seen yesterday at the fish company, and it drifted on by.
I got into the car and sat there and tried to decide what to do next. Take another room for the night at The Tides Motel and then brace Kellenbeck tomorrow—that seemed like the best idea. The other alternative, hanging around here and hoping that he did show up before long, had no appeal. For all I knew he was out somewhere for the evening, visiting friends or indulging his fondness for liquor; and I had no idea where to go looking for him—
The itching again.
Then, all at once, I remembered.
It came out of my subconscious clear and sharp—something I had seen, something odd—and right on its heels was another fragment. I put on the dome light, took out the torn corner I had found in Jerry Carding’s room at the Darden house, and looked at it. Then I began to construct a mental blueprint, testing it with some of the questions I had asked myself and other people the past few days. And I remembered something else then, one more fragment. And sketched in a few more connecting lines.
And there it was.
Not a complete blueprint; it didn’t explain all the twists and turns, did not show me all the way to the end. But the things it did show made sense: What it was Jerry had found out, the subject of his article. Why he might have gone to the fish company last Sunday night. Why he had disappeared.
Why his father had been murdered in Brisbane on Thursday.
Yet I had no proof of any of it. It was speculation, personal observation—just like my account of what had happened when Martin Talbot discovered Victor Carding’s body. Eberhardt and Donleavy would want to check it out if I took it to them cold, and so would the Federal authorities; but no search warrants could be obtained without some sort of evidential cause, and if Kellenbeck was alerted there might not be any evidence left to find. He could take steps to cover himself, bluff through even a Federal investigation, get off scot-free.
Labyrinth (The Nameless Detective) Page 13