"Anything else?"
"No. Then he hung up."
He hadn't wanted to say too much, I thought. She might have realized he wasn't me. She'd already told him enough so that he could find his way down here and continue the hunt on his own hook—pinpoint where Arlo Haas and Constanza Vargas lived, maybe stake out the hospital in Paso Robles on the chance that Grady would show up there.
I asked, "What's Mr. Haas's condition?"
"Not good. Ay de mí, not good."
"The doctors think he'll live?"
"They don't know yet," Emilio Vargas said. "If he does live, he might not walk again."
"Was he able to speak when you found him?"
"He spoke, but we couldn't understand what he said."
"So you don't know what brought on the stroke."
"No."
"Why'd you go to his farm?"
"I tried to telephone him," Constanza Vargas said, "to tell him Grady was gone, but he didn't answer. Three times I called. When Emilio came home from work we drove there to find out what was wrong."
For the first time I looked at the piece of paper she'd put in my hand. Small sheet of blue notepaper. Grady's neat, precise handwriting in dark blue ink. My name as the salutation.
I have been thinking about what you said, and of course you're right. He might find his way here and I mustn't take any chances that my father or the Vargases will be harmed. Please don't try to find me. Please let me do what I have to do. Yours very truly, Grady Haas
Christ, I thought. She's going back to the city, back home to make it easy for him; and when he comes, she'll surrender herself like a sacrificial lamb. That's what this is all about—a form of suicide. Death on the altar of what she perceives as an unholy love.
I put the note in my coat pocket. "Grady left here on foot, is that right? Didn't take any form of transportation that you know about?"
Mrs. Vargas shook her head. "She must have walked away."
"And then hitchhiked, I suppose. She'd be able to do that around here, wouldn't she?"
"Someone would give her a ride, yes."
To her father's farm; that was the obvious place. Maybe then she'd told Haas she was going away, back home—maybe that was what had triggered his stroke. But if that was it, the attack hadn't come until later, when he was alone. She wouldn't have gone away and left him if she'd known he was suffering, maybe dying. She wasn't that bereft inside.
"Grady's car," I said. "Was it still at the farm, still inside the barn?"
"We didn't look," Emilio Vargas said. "When we found the old man . . . all we thought about was him."
His wife asked me, "You think she went there for her car?"
"Makes more sense than trying to hitchhike out of the valley."
"But then where would she go?"
I shook my head.
"Not to San Francisco?"
"No," I lied, "not to San Francisco."
"That man . . . you don't think he has already . . ."
"Found Grady? No. He hasn't had enough time."
"Who is he? Why is he after her?"
"I don't know," I lied again. "She's the only one who does."
"Then how will you find him, stop him?"
I didn't answer that. I'd had enough talk; and the heat in there was becoming intolerable. Sweat ran on my body. My mind felt muzzy, the way it does when you have a fever. But there was one more thing that needed to be said.
I asked Emilio Vargas, "You have another weapon in the house besides that rifle?"
"No."
"Not even a target pistol? I'm unarmed."
Headshake. "I would give it to you if I did."
"All right."
I moved past them, out to the front entrance. They followed. As I opened the door and went into the windy dark, Constanza Vargas said behind me, "Vaya con Dios," in a voice that made the words sound like a prayer. I didn't respond. But the phrase stayed with me into the car, most of the way out of San Lucas. Vaya con Dios. Go with God.
No, I thought, no. God has nothing to do with this. With most things, maybe, but not with everything on this earth. And not with this.
Chapter 21
Cattlmen Road was deserted; I didn't meet another car between San Lucas and the turnoff to the Haas farm. When I neared the side road that snaked back into the hills to the gravel company, I shut off my headlights and slowed to twenty-five. The moon was still out and the sky above the eastern foothills was just beginning to show the first seepage of dawn. I could make out the road and the surrounding terrain all right.
I eased onto Haas's farm lane through the open gate, up atop the railroad right-of-way. From there the shapes of the house and outbuildings were visible against the hill folds. All of them were dark. But that didn't mean anything one way or another. If Blackwell was there, waiting, he wouldn't have the lights blazing at this hour. Not him. He spun his webs in the dark.
Where the windbreak of eucalyptus started, I swung off the lane and put the car in behind the trees. I took the flashlight with me when I got out. The wind was strong here, redolent of earth and sage and grapevines; it chilled my face as I hurried along the edge of the road where the tree-shadow was thickest. The early-morning dark seemed alive with sound, but most of it was created by the wind: rustlings and rattlings in the eucalyptus, in the vineyard rows beyond; groaning creaks from the tumbledown fence across the way; birdlike flappings from the blown tails of my overcoat; moans, whispers, little purling cries. Listen to the wind, especially at night, and you can hear all the sounds a human being makes—and some that no human would ever want to utter.
I kept thinking about Blackwell, trying to put myself in his skin. What had he done when he got down here tonight? Two possibilities, given what he knew and what he didn't know. Start tracking Grady immediately; find out Haas's address from a telephone directory, come here to the farm, search the place, wait or move on to Paso Robles or try to locate the Vargases. Or else get himself a motel room, catch a few hours' sleep, and start fresh at daybreak. He spun his webs in the dark, sure, but he was also cautious, methodical. And as far as he knew, I was cooked as crisp as Savarese—so nobody was chasing him, there was no longer any real urgency in finding and disposing of Grady. Those facts argued in favor of the motel possibility. On the other side of the ledger, he knew Grady had disappeared again and he wouldn't want her to get too much of a jump on him. And he couldn't be sure of how much Arlo Haas and the Vargases knew about him, what Grady or I might have told them.
Toss-up, take your pick: I could see him doing it either way. I'd know which one, or at least have a better idea of which one, when I got to the house.
I wished again that Emilio Vargas had had a gun for me. I wished again that I didn't have such a fundamental aversion to handguns, that I had bought one of my own for times like this. I wished again that I wasn't a damned fool.
Fifty yards from the bam now. And I was aware of a new sound, rising above the others: the irregular, ratchety rhythm of the old windmill. Like the beat of a bad heart. Like the beginnings of a death rattle. In spite of the cold I was sweating again—as if the tight-winding of my body was squeezing moisture out through the pores.
The last of the trees grew just beyond where the lane ended and the farmyard began; I crept up behind its bole to reconnoiter. No car in the yard, or on the extension of the farm road past the house, or anywhere else within the range of my vision. No movement at the house or barn. I waited until clouds crawled across the pale moon; ran in a low crouch and at an angle to the rear of the barn, then along the back wall to the far side. Nothing to see or hear over there, either.
I followed the side wall, went around and along the front wall to the double doors. Got one half open and slipped inside. Heavy darkness. I was alone in it; you get so you can sense another person's presence in closed places like that. I shielded the flashlight with my hand and switched it on just long enough to see that the only car there was the older Ford with the Handicapped Driver placard on th
e dash. Grady had been here to collect her Geo, all right. The question was—when?
I opened the barn door again, looked out. Windy dark— but not quite as dark now; the shapes of things were beginning to take on more definition. Dawn wasn't far off. He's not here, I thought. Been here, maybe, but not here now. Still, I went out carefully, and when I crossed to the archway in the lattice fence I did it in a hard run.
The barking started before I was halfway across. Gus, the black Lab; I'd forgotten about him. He was somewhere inside the house, at the back, and he stayed there as I came up onto the porch. The Vargases must have shut him into one of the rear rooms, whichever one contained his food and water dishes.
I stood by the door for half a minute, listening to the dog and the wind. The door was locked, but it wasn't much of a lock; I had it open in another half-minute. I was still on sharp alert when I entered, but the feel in there was the same as in the barn. Gus and I had the place to ourselves.
This time I used my handkerchief to shield the flashlight lens before I flicked it on. The old-fashioned parlor was on the right; I went in there first. The shades were drawn and there were the smells of dog and old meals eaten alone. One of the cushions from Haas's rocking chair was on the floor and the rocker itself was skewed out of position. Blackwell? Or was this where Haas had had his stroke?
At the back of the house, now, the Lab was alternately barking and whining. I could also hear the agitated click of his nails, on the floor and scratching against a door panel. I felt sorry for him. He was alone and caged-in and he didn't understand what was going on; and that made him nervous, scared. Same way a human would feel in a similar situation. Haas had told me he didn't bite, but I'm not much with dogs and it wouldn't do him any good if I let him roam the house. I wasn't the one he wanted to see anyway.
I took a fast turn around the parlor, switching the flash on and off" to guide me. Nothing other than the rocker appeared to have been disturbed. Across a central hall, then, and into the dining room on the opposite side. The first time I flicked on the light I didn't see anything to hold my attention. But the second time, deeper into the room, I did notice something.
On the dining-room table were three coffee cups in three saucers, each before a different chair. I moved over for a closer look. The three cups made me think of Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear: one was empty, one was half full, and the other was full to the brim. The half-full cup had a stain of something on the rim. I bent, laid the beam up close to it.
Lipstick. Plum-colored lipstick.
Mary Ellen Crowley, I thought.
Three cups; three people. Mary Ellen and Haas—and Grady. Early yesterday evening, because Haas was a neat man and the cups wouldn't still be here if he'd had enough time to remove them to the kitchen. The three of them, having coffee here together. . . .
Sure, I thought, sure. Grady didn't hitchhike out of San Lucas; she wasn't the type to call on strangers for anything if she could avoid it. No, she'd walked from the Vargas house to that little grocery in San Lucas and she'd called her old friend Mary Ellen Crowley and asked Mary Ellen to pick her up and drive her here to the farm. And when they got here they'd had coffee with Haas—at Mary Ellen's urging, probably. And then what? Had Grady announced that she was leaving, returning to San Francisco? They would have tried to talk her out of it, if so, but to no avail. In any case she'd got her car out of the barn and drove off, and Mary Ellen had left too. And a short while later—not too long or Haas would have tried to call me at home, to tell me about Grady leaving—the strain had brought on his stroke.
If Grady had driven back to the city last night she'd be at her apartment now, right? I returned to the parlor, to the table where Haas kept his phone. No address book of any kind in the drawer. And I hadn't written Grady's number down when I was in her apartment, because I hadn't thought I'd need it. If it wasn't listed . . . But it was. San Francisco information gave it to me, and I rang it.
Circuit noise, nothing else.
So was she there and just not answering her phone? Or not there? Could be the scenario I'd worked out wasn't quite right and she hadn't gone to San Francisco last night after all. Had another destination in mind that she'd let slip to her old school chum, Mary Ellen.
There was a local telephone directory in the table drawer; I hauled it out, looked up Mary Ellen Crowley. No listing for her or anybody named Crowley in the area. Unlisted number, if she had a phone at all. Damn people and their idiosyncrasies!
Constanza Vargas, I thought. She might know where Mary Ellen lived. I punched out the Vargas number, and pretty soon her husband answered with the anger still sharp in his voice. Yes, he would ask Constanza about Mary Ellen Crowley. No, no one else had called and no one had come around their house. Better not, he said grimly. He went away for half a minute, and when he came back on the line he said, "She doesn't know."
I waited until he'd disconnected before I banged the receiver down. Gus had quit barking; now he was whining pitifully and the sounds were like an irritant on my raw nerves. Did Haas have Mary Ellen's address and/or telephone number written down anywhere in the house? Better look. He might have the other thing I needed too.
I climbed the stairs to the second floor, combed through his bedroom. Nothing. A second bedroom had once been Grady's and it had been left as it was when she'd last lived here—full of a girl's things, a girl's mementoes, all of them abandoned when she began her new adult life in San Francisco. Nothing there for me. Nor in any of the other three upstairs rooms.
No addresses or telephone numbers.
And no handgun. Just his twelve-gauge, down in the parlor, but that was too unwieldy to be of much use to me away from here.
Well? Now what? Blackwell hadn't been here yet; I was reasonably sure of that. Wait for him? Hide my car in the barn and take him by surprise when he showed? It sounded good, but what if he didn't show? What if his first move this morning —or even last night—had been to go down to Paso Robles and stake out the hospital? And what if he decided to hang out there the whole damn day? I'd go crazy waiting here, not knowing where Grady was, not knowing if things were happening elsewhere. I needed to move and keep on moving until I had more answers—some sense of where people were and what they were doing.
Downstairs, out of the house into the breaking dawn, with Gus's canine laments in my ears and fatigue and the sense of urgency eating at me like lye. I was walking when I started across the yard, trotting by the time I reached the eucalyptus, running before I was halfway to where I'd left my car.
Squirrel in a wheel: running fast, but where the hell was I going?
* * * * *
The sun was creeping up from behind the foothills when I reached San Bernado. The only business establishment open at this hour was the café where I'd eaten lunch on Monday. The place was already three-quarters full: Mexican farm workers, mostly, and a couple of truck drivers.
I took the last stool at the counter. I was so tired, and wound up so tight, that I felt groggy. The food smell was doing things to my stomach, too; I hadn't eaten in close to twenty-four hours. I ordered coffee and two sugar doughnuts, and when the waitress brought them I asked her if she knew where Mary Ellen Crowley lived. The name didn't mean anything to her, not even when I added that Mary Ellen taught at the union school. Cook would probably know, she said and rolled her eyes; he knew everything. Turned out he did know: Mary Ellen Crowley lived in San Ardo, not San Bernado—ten miles down the road. He was sure of that, but not of the street. Hollister, he thought it might be. He had no idea of the number.
Squirrel in a wheel . . .
I ate the doughnuts too fast, drank a second cup of coffee the same way, and got back into the car and back on the road. San Ardo was a little larger than San Bernado, but with the same musty, dusty, time-snagged look and feel. The first place I came to that was open was a service station; I pulled in there and talked to the attendant, who looked as if he hadn't been long out of a union school himself. Mary Ellen Crowley? O
h sure, he said, she lived on Hollister Street, big brown house in the second block, two plum trees in the front yard. She and her husband and their little girl. What you did, you drove down Main Street two blocks and turned left. . . .
I drove down Main Street two blocks and turned left, and I was on Hollister Street. The big brown house with the two plum trees had a pair of cars parked in the driveway, neither of which I'd ever seen before. The unpaved street in front was empty.
As early as it was, I thought I might have to make some noise to get the Crowleys out of bed. But I only had to ring the bell once. In five seconds flat the door opened and I was looking at Mary Ellen herself, wearing a bathrobe but wide-awake and with her hair hastily combed. She wore an expectant look until she recognized me; then it was replaced by one of surprise and puzzlement.
"Why . . . the detective," she said. "How did you know?"
"Know what?"
"That Grady was here."
". . . I didn't know," I said. "She's not here now?"
"No. But you didn't miss her by much."
"She spent the night with you?"
"Yes. She didn't want to but I talked her into it." Mary Ellen glanced over her shoulder and then came out onto the porch and shut the door behind her. "My daughter and my husband are still in bed," she said. "I don't want to wake them."
"What time did Grady leave?"
"Not more than twenty minutes ago. When you rang the bell I thought she'd changed her mind and come back."
"She say where she was going?"
"To see her father and then back to San Francisco. I spent most of last night trying to talk her out of that. Going home, I mean."
"To the farm first? You're sure?"
"Yes. We were there yesterday; she called me from San Lucas and asked me to pick her up. . . ."
"I know," I said. "Go on."
"Well, not long after we arrived she told Mr. Haas she'd decided to go back to the city. He got angry and she ran out. I went after her, convinced her to come home with me. We had dinner and talked—I talked, mostly—and by then it was late and she agreed to spend the night. But this morning she was just as determined to go home to the city. She . . . Lord, I don't know what's happened to her. She's like a zombie."
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