“It sure does.”
“So he has a manager of some sort?”
“He always has. Cecil Tolley’s girl, Mary. Worked there since Billy opened it.” Sheriff Dunlap looked at me steadily. “What you are inching your way toward is asking me whether Billy’s been in contact with Mary Tolley since he left.”
“That’s it.”
“Well, he hasn’t.”
“Did he leave instructions before he left?”
“No.”
“Isn’t that surprising?”
“It doesn’t worry me.”
“Why not?”
“Because, Mr. Samson, it doesn’t worry Mary. I know her pretty good, and that suffices for me.”
I had to concede that she was likely to have a better feel for what should be worrisome in Nashville than me. I told her so.
“It sure does make me feel all warm inside to know I have your confidence,” she said.
“The other thing that puzzles me is about cars,” I said.
“I sure can hardly contain myself in the waiting.”
“The assumption is that they left in Boyd’s car, is that right?”
“They’re gone and it’s gone.”
“What kind of car is it?”
“One of those Nip imports. A Datsun, a white sports car, but I forget the exact model name.”
“Have you tried to find it?”
“I put it on the state list for a week.”
“But no sightings?”
“No.”
“Why not longer?”
“Car’s not stolen. And I wouldn’t have said that either Billy or Cilia Pynne was exactly a threat to society.”
“O.K.,” I said. “What about Mrs. Pynne’s car?”
“Ah, now, I managed to find that one,” the sheriff said mischievously.
“My question is why Mrs. Pynne would drive her car all the way to I.U. to meet Boyd if what they did there was just leave it behind.”
The sheriff shrugged. “I’m not sure quite what there is you want answering.”
“They could have met anywhere. Even in the center of town. If somebody saw them, so what? They probably weren’t hiding the fact they were leaving together. And it wasn’t a matter of gaining time, because Frank Pynne called you first thing the next morning. As long as she actually got out of the house without waking him up, she was away. Might actually have been a little safer if she walked to the road and he picked her up there. No risk from the noise of starting the car that way.”
“Next time maybe they should come to you for help with their plans.”
“It doesn’t answer the question. Why did she drive to I.U.?”
“I don’t know.”
“All I could think of was that Boyd was away during the day somewhere that way. Do you know where Boyd was on Saturday, the twelfth?”
“No. Never occurred to me to find out.”
“But it doesn’t bother you?”
“Not a lot.”
I shook my head with some frustration. “I don’t understand why people are so uninterested in these two people leaving town.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say we’re uninterested. I’d say we’re mostly dying to know all about it, and when Billy comes back folks will be plaguing him to tell them all the details.”
“So you assume Boyd will come back?”
“Oh sure. Bound to. Billy’s a hometown boy. He’ll always come back.”
“But not Mrs. Pynne?”
“Different sort of case,” Sheriff Dunlap said. “From what I know, I wouldn’t have said there would be a lot here for Cilia Pynne, not after all this hoo-hah.”
“There’s just a whiff of provincialism in that, Sheriff. Priscilla Pynne is an outsider here, so maybe you aren’t as concerned about her as you would be if she was local born and bred.”
Sheriff Dunlap said solemnly, “I don’t think you have any facts to support that suggestion. If we know people, we have a better chance of understanding what is serious and what isn’t. But we know how to provide protection and our other services to comparative strangers, and we do so to the best of our abilities. If two folks want to run away together, there’s no way we’re going to put that at the top of our priority list. We’ve got plenty of other things that are a damn sight more important to the peaceful and secure pursuit of life in this community.”
I sighed: I was unhappy not to be able to get to grips with what was unsettling me. But I said, “No more questions, then, Sheriff. Sorry to take up so much of your time without seeming to be constructive to you.”
“Don’t you fret yourself, Mr. Samson. And if there’s anything else we can do for you, why you just come on back and ask, hear?”
Chapter Seven
After I left the sheriff’s office, I crossed the street. I intended to ask someone for directions to Billy Boyd’s art gallery, but then I realized I didn’t know what it was called.
I was a bit at loose ends.
I went back to the telephone box I’d used before. I called Frank Pynne’s home number. There was no answer. I leafed through the Yellow Pages to see whether one art gallery seemed more likely than another on the basis of their ads.
The one called Boyd’s seemed less than a long shot.
It was all of a block west of the courthouse, on a corner of Village Green Community Park. I went straight there, pleased to have someplace relevant to go.
It was closed.
What little time I spent looking through the windows made me think that it looked a lot like an art gallery.
When I turned around, I noticed a red Ford Fiesta parked near the opposite corner on Thomas Street. I stopped and looked at it for a minute. It seemed a little too chancy to be what I thought it might be. But I walked over to it. I had not recorded the license plate of the previous Fiesta in my life, so I couldn’t tell for sure. This one had no cardboard boxes in the back, but it did sport a window decal of the Brown County Trust.
It was also parked in front of a restored frame building which bore a plaque identifying it as the place of business of David Hogue, Attorney-at-Law.
All praise to the smallness of small towns.
A second plaque traced the building’s history since erection in 1887. And a mimeographed sheet in the window gave a list of the B.C.T.’s activities in June. There was a committee meeting scheduled for seven that night.
I tried the door. It was open. I cheered up a lot.
I went in cautiously and turned left into a waiting room.
A secretary sat at a desk beside the front window. She looked as fresh as an Indiana tomato.
“Hello,” she said. And smiled.
A plate on her desk told me her name. “Betty Weddle,” I said, “you’ve just about made my day with that cheery greeting.”
“That’s kind of you to say so. Can I help you?”
“Am I right that Mr. Frank Pynne is here?”
“Yes. He’s with Mr. Hogue.”
“I’ve been trying to get a few words with him all afternoon. Do you know how long he’s going to be?”
“I don’t really know. They’re talking about a meeting that’s being held here tonight, but if I’ve got anything to say about it Mr. Hogue will be getting something to eat before then.”
I gave her my name. “I’m a private detective from Indianapolis,” I said, “and I’ve been hired to try to trace Mr. Pynne’s wife. If it’s at all possible, I’d like to arrange a time to speak to him before I have to go back tonight.”
Betty Weddle looked thoughtful. Then she rose and said, “I think I’ll just pop up and let them know the situation.”
I couldn’t have asked for better.
I spent the time admiring the room, which was particularly comfortable as lawyers’ waiting rooms go. Us private detectives spend a lot of time in such places, when we are in regular work.
This room was anchored with a rich deep brown carpet and had solid maple furniture. Several large watercolors framed the full fire and brim
stone of Brown County in autumn.
I sat down and bounced on the chair a little. It was the second place that day I would have been happy to live in for a few years. I had places to live on the mind.
Betty Weddle was back within five minutes. She was a robust woman in her thirties with an impressively tiny waist which her clothes showed off. She said, “They would like you to come up,” and she seemed a bit surprised to have that message to convey.
Not nearly so surprised as I was.
I thought she would give me directions, but she led me springily up the stairs and through the doorway at the top.
Two men waited there. One was a casually dressed but carefully presented man of perhaps fifty. The other was about thirty, and wore a dark suit and tie.
“Mr. Samson,” Betty Weddle announced as I entered the room. Then she left.
The older man came forward with his right hand extended. He was wiry but about six feet tall. “Dave Hogue,” he said. “Glad to meet you. This is Frank Pynne.”
Pynne, though about the same height as Hogue, was much fuller framed, apparently also without fat. He was dark, while Hogue was mostly gray, and Pynne had a tidy mustache which turned down at the ends.
Pynne shook hands with me, but without speaking.
“I’m pleased to meet you,” I said. “I’ve tried to get a chance of a word with you at your house and at your office, but I was unlucky.”
“What’s your business with my wife?” he asked abruptly.
“I’ve been hired to find out what happened to her.”
“She ran away with goddamn Billy Boyd, that’s what happened to her. And that’s nothing to what will happen to her when she comes crawling back.”
“Frank,” Hogue said, “we don’t have a lot of time. I don’t want to interfere. After all, the man wants to talk to you rather than to me. But if we’re—”
“Sorry, Dave,” Frank Pynne said. “And sorry to you too. I don’t know what you are or what your business is, but I shouldn’t sound off even if I do get mad every time I think about my so-called wife.”
“I’ve been hired by a woman your wife knew at college, a woman named Elizabeth Staedtler. She may be moving to Indianapolis and wants to get in touch.”
“Expensive way of getting in touch,” Pynne said. He frowned over the name, but failed to place it.
“I came down from Indianapolis around midday and I’ve heard the superficial details of what happened. I gather nobody knows where Mrs. Pynne is, just at the moment.”
“I wish I did,” Frank Pynne said darkly. He saw Hogue make a face at his implied repetition of threat. He seemed, again, to control himself.
I said, “People also led me to believe that she may well not come back, but I certainly wanted to ask Mr. Pynne what he thought about that.”
“What do I think? I think she’ll be back all right. She’ll be back because she hasn’t got the stuffings to deal with life by herself Billy will dump her and she won’t have anyone to make all her decisions for her and then she’ll be back. And I’ll make a few decisions for her.”
I was dealing with delicate areas, and not as a representative of one of the sides in the particular battle Pynne was tooling up for. It made questions more difficult to ask, since they had to be restricted in scope. “So I can take it, can I, that you haven’t heard from her since she left?”
“That’s right.”
“I should say on Frank’s behalf,” Hogue said, “that his wife’s decamping suddenly with a man like Boyd was probably as upsetting and destructive a way for her to leave as she could possibly have chosen.”
“So there was no real warning that she might leave?”
Pynne sighed. “None.”
“May I ask why it was particularly bad of her to run off with Boyd?”
The two men looked at each other. Hogue said, “It’s a rather complicated business, Mr. Samson. I don’t know whether anyone has mentioned the Brown County Trust?”
“It’s come up two or three times. I gather that it is a large and successful local conservation group.”
Hogue nodded. “Yes, basically,” he said. “And since he arrived in Brown County, Frank here has been one of our most active newer members. We are all impressed with his deep love of our county, his quick appreciation of the wonderful variety of terrain and natural phenomena, and of the rich balance of ecological systems here. It’s really a special place, a unique area. And Frank has come to understand that and has shown great willingness to work not to petrify it or preserve the countryside just exactly as it is but to make sure that new use of old country is harmonious.”
It was a pretty well worn sort of speech. It impressed me not with Pynne’s described devotion, but Hogue’s. He felt what he said.
“The particular sensitivity to Mr. Boyd in this context,” he continued, “involves a tract of land which he inherited from”—he paused—“from his most regrettably recently deceased mother. Ida Boyd was, herself, an active member of B.C.T. and had wishes for the land which, unfortunately, she did not have time to make certain would be carried out. Billy’s plans, as he’s expressed them, are specifically contrary to his mother’s, and there has been an enormous amount of controversy surrounding him, quite without recent events.”
“Does that mean Boyd was actively working on plans for this land?”
“Actively enough to be able to talk in detail about several ways of ruining it,” Hogue said acidly.
I thought for a moment.
“You look as if you have something on your mind, Mr. Samson,” Hogue said.
“Without meaning to be offensive,” I said, “it’s Boyd’s departure. rather than Mrs. Pynne’s that seems not quite right.”
“How do you mean?” Hogue asked gravely.
“Boyd came into money and property recently, I gather.”
“And threw a party to celebrate it,” Pynne said.
“It’s just that he seems to have had a lot going for him around. here. It feels as if there is something missing to explain why he should suddenly leave the area altogether.”
“He left once before,” Hogue said quietly.
“Yes.”
“Though he was young.”
“Oh, cut the cackle, Dave,” Frank Pynne said. “Billy was dying for an excuse to get away for a while, and if he could do it and knock off my wife at the same time, nothing could have pleased the little snake more.”
“Why did he want to get away?” I asked.
“Because everyone in town thinks he killed his mother, that’s why.”
“Tell me about it,” I said.
Chapter Eight
I left Hogue and Pynne about twenty past six. It was in comfortable time for me to get back to Indianapolis by eight o’clock, which was when I could call my client.
Risking starchy temptation, I stopped to eat between Morgan-town and Samaria. It was at a diner-cum-general store, tacked onto a gas station, and it seemed full of beer coolers. But I managed to get a couple of hamburgers without buns and some space to bring my notebook up to minute.
The rest of the drive was a chance to ruminate on my afternoon’s encounters, and I did some useful work on my mental cud. I was home ten minutes before the hour.
In the basket behind the mail slot in my outside door there was a hand-delivered message. It said that for my own advantage I should call Albert Connah, and the sooner the better. Connah was the man whose son’s girl friend I had backgrounded. The note gave his home telephone number. The envelope also contained a check.
I called him.
“I liked your work, Samson. Clear, concise and cheap.”
“Thanks,” I said. “No problems, then?”
“Not for me. Just for you.”
“Oh?”
“You’re in a building that is being torn down, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I said. I hadn’t told him.
“So you’re being kicked out of your place there?”
“I’m fighting it.
I intend to have them relocate me.”
“Don’t jazz me. I made a phone call this afternoon and you’ve already lost.”
“They might change their minds before Monday.” Though Christian charity is often pretty hard to find in the Bible Belt.
“I want to see you tomorrow. I have an offer to put to you.”
“I’m not sure that I’ll be available tomorrow. I’ve got a client who may want me to do some work for her.”
“Cut the bull. You’re broke and we both know it.”
“I’m calling my client in two minutes. I’ll be making a verbal report to her, either tonight or tomorrow. After that I will know what I’m doing. Or not doing. I’ll call you then.”
“Yeah, yeah. Just be in my office tomorrow at . . . at twelve.”
“I will if I’m free.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m not hiring you for another job.”
“Great.”
“But this offer you aren’t going to refuse.”
All of a sudden I led an exciting life.
Before I called my client, I called my mother, in case there was a message to change our arrangements.
“No business calls, Albert,” she said. “But Lucy called to say her mother wants to know whether you’ll be coming over tonight.”
“O.K. Thanks, Mom.”
“Son?”
“Yeah?”
“I was talking to Mrs. Portingale, you remember her?”
“No.”
“She was in for lunch. And she’s got this room, with a spare bed in it. Her son is going off to the Marines in ten days and if you don’t mind sharing it till then you can have it. She won’t charge anything. She’ll be glad of the company.”
“I’ll think about it, Mom. But I’ve got to make a phone call now.”
“You know I don’t have a lot of room here, Albert.”
“I know. Down to the last square centimeter.”
“She’s a nice woman. You could probably arrange meals too. Just as a stopgap.”
“I will give it my earnest consideration and let you know in a day or two.”
“All right, son.”
I was glad I had something else to do rather than give it my earnest consideration immediately.
I dialed the number Elizabeth Staedtler had given me.
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