Her breast nudged my arm. “That was my sister Allie. I guess you’ve seen her picture?”
“No, I haven’t. She was very pretty.”
“Yes, she was the pretty one in the family.” She opened a drawer and handed me a smaller and younger photograph. “This was her graduation picture when she graduated from Fresno High in 1935. She was a real stunner, as you can see.”
I nodded in agreement, though the fine eyes which confronted me in the picture had long since been closed.
“She was nice, too,” the woman said. “It isn’t fair, what happens to some people. It would have made more sense if I’d been shot instead of Allie.”
She slumped in a chair. I was afraid she might dissolve in tears, and be lost as a witness. But perhaps her tears had all run out long ago. The only effect of the shocks she’d been experiencing seemed to be that she was sobering up.
“Who shot Allie?” I said.
“That’s the question I’ve been asking myself for more than twenty-five years. I lie awake in the middle of the night thinking about it.”
“And what do you think, Mrs. Mungan?”
“I used to think it was her husband, Russo. Allie married beneath her, and he was an older man, insanely jealous.” It sounded like a line she had repeated many times, until it had become a piece of family folklore. “But the police said he couldn’t have done it. He didn’t miss a day of work in the shipyards, and it would have taken him a couple of days anyway to make the trip back and forth between here and Bremerton.”
“What made Russo jealous?”
“That’s just the way he was.”
“Were there other men in your sister’s life?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I’m asking you, Mrs. Mungan.”
“I’m not answering. Let her rest in peace, why can’t you?”
“Other people are being killed. Tom Russo’s wife has been kidnapped, and your daughter Gloria is involved with the kidnapping.”
“You told me that before. I don’t believe it.”
“After everything that’s happened in your family, you don’t believe it?”
Her mouth opened and stretched wide. The flesh around her eyes crinkled. She looked as if she had seen a ghost and was getting ready to scream. But she was silent, looking inward as if the ghost was in her mind.
“Was Nelson Bagley your sister’s lover?”
“No. He wanted to be. He used to follow her around like a dog. But Allie wasn’t really interested in him.”
“How do you know that?”
“She wrote me about him from Bremerton. Russo was jealous of him, but he was a joke to Alison.”
“Sometimes a joke like that turns out to be not so funny.”
“What do you mean?”
“Russo thinks Bagley killed her.”
“I know that. He tried to nail Bagley after he got back from the war. But by that time Bagley was a helpless cripple. His ship burned and he went overboard and it knocked all the sense out of his head. The police said even if it was true they had no way of proving it at that late date. And they couldn’t drag a man like Bagley into a courtroom.”
“But you dragged him here Tuesday night.”
“I didn’t drag him. I had him here for dinner. Anyway, it was Harold’s idea. He was interested in what caused the fire on the ship, and he thought maybe Nelson Bagley could tell him something.”
“What did Nelson tell him?”
“I don’t know. I got pretty upset myself, and I drank too much before dinner. When I saw Nelson Bagley and tried to talk to him, the whole thing fell on me like a ton of bricks and I started drinking. I didn’t sober up until the next morning, and by that time they were long gone.”
“Harold and Gloria and Nelson Bagley were gone?”
“That’s right. I naturally thought they took him back to the hospital. When you came in this morning—and told me Bagley was dead, I panicked. I told you the first thing that came into my head.”
“Did you say you talked to Bagley Tuesday night?”
She hesitated. “We exchanged some words, yes.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that he was sorry about Allie.”
“Is that all?”
“Let me think.” She frowned as if she was listening to an imperfect playback. “He didn’t say much, and even then I wasn’t able to catch everything he said. He couldn’t talk very well, and I was upset just having him here. He was like a ghost from the past, you know? A poor little roughed-up hammered-down ghost.”
“Did you ask him any questions?”
“I tried to, but we didn’t get very far. I asked him who killed my sister. He said he didn’t know. I finally got him to admit that he knew Allie in Bremerton before she left her husband. He claimed he didn’t know her intimately, that she was interested in another man. I asked him some questions about the man. He said he didn’t remember. It may have been true—he had a memory like a sieve. And the truth is, I got tired of pressing him. Talking to that poor little incinerated man made me realize that Allie had been dead for over twenty-five years and no amount of questions or answers would bring her back.
“Anyway, Harold came in and broke it up. He said it was time to watch some television. I needed a drink real badly by that time—to put down the past, you know? I try not to drink in front of Gloria—it sets a bad example—so I took the bottle into my room and locked the door and I guess I must have passed out.” She closed her eyes, miming the passage of the night. “When I woke up, it was morning and they were gone and all the dirty dishes were in the sink.”
“Have you seen Gloria since Tuesday night?”
“I don’t think so. No, I haven’t. She phoned me last night, from Tom Russo’s house. She said she couldn’t get home because Harold had her car. It’s the only car in the family, and I’m dependent on Gloria for transportation since I lost my license—”
I interrupted her. “If Gloria calls again, will you tell her I want to talk to her? Tell her it’s a matter of life and death.”
“Whose life and death? Hers?”
“It could be. Did she tell you what Harold was doing with her car?”
“No. I didn’t ask her. I thought it was sort of funny, though, since they just started going together.”
“How long ago did they start?”
“A week or two, maybe. But things happen fast these days. The men are so impatient, and the girls have to go along.”
“Did Gloria mention Nelson Bagley on the phone last night?”
Mrs. Mungan hesitated. She looked at me sidewise and licked her upper lip with the tip of her tongue.
“Did she mention Nelson Bagley?” I repeated.
“I guess she did, at that.”
“What did she say about him?”
“That Harold was taking him for a little vacation. And if anybody asked about him, I wasn’t to tell them anything. That was why I lied to you this morning. God knows I didn’t know he was dead.”
“How did he happen to be wearing that tweed suit?”
“I gave it to him. The clothes he had on weren’t warm enough for him when he got here. It struck me that he was about Mungan’s height—when Mungan was younger, I mean. I got out the old tweed suit and it was big, but he could wear it. I had to help him on with it, though, he was so shaky on his pins. When I saw that shriveled little throwaway of a man without his clothes, it really brought it home to me.”
“Brought what home, Mrs. Mungan?”
“That we’re all human. And we’re all due to waste away and die. I felt as though he climbed out of the same grave where my poor sister was buried. Now he’s dead, too.”
She fell into silence, peering from under the low red fringe of her wig at the blind eye of the television set. Gradually her face composed itself, as if everything she had told me had happened on an external screen which could be switched off.
I said, “What did Harold want to watch on television?”
My question startled her. “When do you mean?”
“You said he interrupted your talk with Bagley because he wanted to watch some television.”
“That’s right. He said that Bagley’s old Captain was scheduled to come on at the start of the ten o’clock news.”
“Captain Somerville?”
“I guess so. I didn’t pay much attention. It was supposed to be something about oil. Did somebody spill some oil someplace?”
“Captain Somerville did.”
“That’s too bad,” she said without comprehension.
“What was Bagley’s reaction?”
“He came and sat where I’m sitting now.”
“Did he see Somerville on the screen?”
“I don’t know. That was when I went to get a drink.” She gestured toward the closed door, and moved impatiently in her chair. “Would you object if I had a small one now? I didn’t realize this was going to last so long.”
“Neither did I. Go ahead and have a drink.”
She got up and crossed the room, turning at the kitchen door. “I’d offer you one, but I’ve barely got enough for myself. You know how it is.”
I knew how it was with drunks. They ran out of generosity, even for themselves. I was glad to be left alone in the room, relieved of the woman’s worried presence.
Sitting among the sibilant echoes of her voice, I remembered something I had been told the night before by another woman. According to Elizabeth Somerville, a woman with a little boy had visited the Somervilles’ house in Bel-Air when Elizabeth first came to live there. By now, the little boy would be thirty or so, Tom’s age. The woman would be fifty or so, or dead.
I put my business card on the table beside Allie’s graduation picture. Then I picked up the picture and took it with me into the wilds of Bel-Air.
chapter 35
The Somerville house was blazing with lights as if there were a party going on inside. But there were no sounds of any kind except for the remote whir of traffic on the boulevards.
I pressed the doorbell and heard it ring inside. Quick footsteps approached the door. It was opened on its chain.
“Is that you, Ben?” Elizabeth Somerville said.
“Archer.”
She hesitated. Then she unhooked the chain and opened the door. “Come in. I’m all alone. Smith drove down to Pacific Point to pick up my husband and sister-in-law.”
“How is your sister-in-law?”
“Marian is taking this very hard. I didn’t think she should spend the night by herself. So we’re keeping her here for the duration.” Her blue eyes gave me a swift appraisal in the lighted hall. “You don’t look as if you’re bringing us good news.”
“I haven’t found Laurel. But I have been making some progress. This is turning out to be a complex case. It isn’t a simple kidnapping for ransom.”
“Is that good, or bad?”
“Both. I have more to work with. But it’s taking too much time. Harold Sherry may get impatient. He collected his hundred thousand, but unfortunately he and your brother exchanged shots. Sherry’s wounded, and I don’t know how that will affect the bargain.”
“You think he might kill Laurel?”
“I wouldn’t put it past him.”
Her face became grave. “What do you want me to do?”
“Take a look at this picture and tell me if it means anything to you.”
I got out Allie Russo’s picture and showed it to Elizabeth. Her eyes became very intent.
“Do you recognize the woman?”
“I’m afraid I don’t.” She handed me the picture without looking up, and remained standing with her head bowed as if a heavy weight had fallen on her shoulders. “Ought I to?”
“It was just an off chance.”
“Who is she, anyway?”
“Tom Russo’s mother. Her name was Alison. They called her Allie.”
“I didn’t even know Tom had a mother.”
“Most people do,” I said. “Tom’s mother was murdered here in Los Angeles in the spring of 1945. And I’ve got a feeling in my bones that her death was the beginning of all this present trouble.”
She took the picture from between my fingers and studied it under the light. This time, when she handed it back, she stared directly into my face and denied very firmly that she knew the woman. But the look of her eyes was inward, as if a whole hidden world had opened behind them.
“You told me last night,” I reminded her, “about a young woman with a little boy who came here to the house shortly after you were married. I believe your husband was overseas at the time.”
“Yes.” It was a question as well as an answer.
“I thought this might possibly be the woman.”
I offered her the picture once again. She made no move to take it. “It isn’t. It wasn’t.” But then she said, “Even if it was—supposing that it had been—what could it possibly have to do with Laurel?”
“We may know that when we find out who killed Allie Russo.”
“Surely you don’t suspect my husband of killing her.”
“Do you suspect him?”
“Of course not. I didn’t even know she was dead.”
But the woman’s death was very much with her now. Her eyes were heavy with it. She took me into her husband’s study and slopped some whisky into a couple of glasses. She drank hers down, while I saved mine.
Her spirits rose superficially. Her color improved. But the hidden world behind her eyes seemed to be changing and darkening. She couldn’t keep herself from talking about it.
“What has Allie Russo’s death got to do with us?”
“Her son married your niece Laurel, for one thing.”
“Is that a crime?” she said in a brittle voice.
“No. I don’t think it was a coincidence, either.”
“Please explain that.”
“I wish I could. So far, it’s only a suspicion.”
“And my husband’s connection with all this is just another suspicion?”
“It’s a little more than that.”
She was silent for a minute, studying both my face and the situation. “I had no idea that Ben might conceivably be involved in all this. I still don’t. But what did you mean when you said that it’s more than a suspicion?”
“If I told you that, you’d have me shunted off the case.”
“How could I do that?”
“I think you could do it. At any rate, you could make things very hard for me.”
“I wouldn’t, though, I swear I wouldn’t.”
I didn’t quite believe her. She was having a reaction from the night before, when she had expressed her anger with her husband in every way she knew. Tonight she had pulled back into the shell of marriage, beyond my reach. She said:
“Do you know that Ben was involved with Allie Russo?”
“No, I don’t. But I think he was one of several men in her life. Another was Nelson Bagley.”
“I never heard of him.”
“He was a messenger on your husband’s ship. He went overboard when the ship burned at Okinawa. And by what appears to be a weird coincidence, he floated onto your mother’s beach this morning.”
“The little man with the tar on him?”
“That was Nelson Bagley.”
“And what was his connection with Allie Russo?”
“He may have killed her. He may have seen her killed.”
“But now he’s dead himself.”
“Yes. That’s the point.”
“Was he really a crew member of the Canaan Sound?”
“I’m sure he was.”
Her eyes looked through me into the complex inner world that was growing like a city in her mind. “If Bagley was accused of killing the woman, does it mean that the Canaan Sound was here on the West Coast when she was killed?”
“Yes. The ship was at Long Beach. According to my information, Allie Russo was murdered the night of May 2nd, 1945. The Canaan Sound w
ent to sea the following morning.”
I could read the thought that followed in her mind, because it had followed in mine. Since the Canaan Sound was in port that night, its Captain was another possible suspect.
“How was she killed?”
I told Elizabeth. I told her further that the child Tom had been alone in the house with his mother’s body for several days. I wanted her to understand what murder and its consequences could be like.
She shook her head as if to lose the knowledge. “My husband may be no great paragon. But he couldn’t have done a thing like that. In fact, I know he didn’t. He spent that whole last day and evening with me.”
“Are you sure that’s what you remember?”
“It certainly is. What’s more, I believe I can prove it. I kept a diary that first year of my marriage. I think I still have it.”
She excused herself and left the study. I sipped my drink, feeling some compunction about drinking the Captain’s liquor under the circumstances. Elizabeth came back with a small locked book bound in padded white leather, with “1945 Diary” printed in gold on the cover. She unlocked it with a key, and opened it on her husband’s desk to the entry for May 2nd.
I read it over her shoulder:
It’s midnight and I’m very tired, diary, and very happy. Ben’s station wagon just took him back to the ship. We had a lovely, lazy day in El Rancho and for the first time in months I felt really married. We let Jack and Marian and Laurel have the Bel-Air house to themselves—it was Jack’s last day, too—and Ben and I spent the day with Father. Ben and Father really hit it off, which bodes well for the future. I showed Ben over River Valley School—someday we’ll send our own children there!—and Ben told me something about his Navy experiences. I felt like Desdemona listening to Othello. And I forgave him (silently, dear diary—we didn’t discuss the matter)—I forgave him for that woman who came to the house in March with her little boy. I feel as if I’ve finally become a woman myself. But now that he’s gone, and I’m alone again, I’m just a little scared, diary. There’s a terrible battle going on at Okinawa, and I think the Canaan Sound is headed for there. Come home safely, husband.
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