by Susan Dunlap
“But why?”
“That is the question. What would anyone gain by hiding Michelle’s body for three days? If the killer had left town and used those three days to put distance between himself and Henderson it would have made sense. But everyone involved with Michelle and the Bohemian Connection was still here.”
Vida stared at the hole, her fingers pressing even tighter against her purse. “Maybe the killer wanted to prevent Michelle from doing something?”
“Okay. But it would have had to have been something that she was going to do this weekend. He kept her from doing it, but also tried to avoid the publicity of her death—at least until Monday. What is it that Michelle was going to do?”
With a sigh, Vida said, “Demonstrate. She was going to picket outside the Grove.”
“Which brings us back to the Bohemian Connection.”
“Not necessarily. She could have been killed by a pimp. Some guy—”
“You don’t really think that, do you, Vida?”
It was a moment before she shook her head. “No. We’ve never had any trouble with any of them here.”
“Was there anything else Michelle planned for this weekend?”
Vida looked back at the sewer hole. She was silent for a full minute. “No, nothing she didn’t do any other weekend.”
The sun was hot on my hair; my T-shirt stuck to my back. There seemed to be an odd odor coming from the direction of the sewer hole—an odor of decay. But the odor was in my mind; Michelle’s body was gone. I had seen it carried out. I’d been down in the hole after it was gone. I’d climbed up; the sheriff had seen me, and Craig, and Sugarbaker. Sugarbaker!
“There was something else Michelle was going to do this weekend, Vida. She was going to talk to her congressman. She was going to ask him about speeding up action on her cesspool complaint.”
Vida smiled. “I can see Michelle doing that. I can see her striding up to the platform and demanding his attention. But, Vejay, if she wasn’t killed because she was going to demonstrate, she surely wasn’t murdered because she complained about mosquito larvae.”
“I suppose. But I think we should tell the congressman when he’s here.”
“No.” Her teeth clamped together. I’d seen that “don’t push me” look before when Vida chaired the union meetings. “There’s a limit. We’ve had enough publicity in this family.”
“I’ll do it. You won’t have to be involved.”
“Vejay, just let it go, will you? I don’t want to hear theories; I don’t want to talk about Bohemians. I have to look at caskets and try to make some arrangements. It will be a big funeral.” She walked toward her truck.
“Just one thing,” I said as she was about to climb in. “Do you remember a Bohemian Ball at the bar some years ago?”
“Vejay, I said no more.”
I caught her arm. “You asked me to find out about Michelle. I’ve done nothing else since noon yesterday. I’ve annoyed people I barely knew, I’ve made an enemy of the sheriff, and I’ve been physically attacked. It’s too late for you to withdraw your request. You owe me, at least enough to answer my question.”
Vida took a step back, freeing her arm. From the look on her face it wasn’t clear if she was stunned or angry.
“Vida.”
“All right. I do owe you an answer. Yes, I do recall the Bohemian Ball.”
“When was it?”
She opened the door to her pickup and stood with one foot on the rise, teetering slightly in her high heels. “I remember that. It was a big thing, with the costumes and all. People were getting pushed out of shape by the Bohemians coming in and partying then. There was a lot of jealousy here. Jim picked up on that. He’s very good at sensing things before they get out of hand. So he arranged the First Annual Bohemian Ball. Or, he thought it would be the first.”
“I gather it ended poorly.”
“Like so many things here. Too much liquor. Jim was too new to the area then to sense that coming. But still, it was a good idea. People put a lot of thought into their costumes. I remember that because Michelle wanted to go. She was so disappointed and angry when she couldn’t. She carried on for days.”
“Didn’t she have a date?”
“Michelle always had dates. She was going with Craig then. But the Bohemian Ball was in the bar. Michelle wasn’t old enough. She was still a month short of turning eighteen.” Vida climbed into the truck and quickly shut the door. “I’m really late.” She started the engine.
I backed away. As I watched the truck’s departure, I spotted a fellow onlooker—Ward McElvey. He was sitting on his steps beside the garage. He looked as if he’d been sitting there in the sun for some time. His light blue shirt was blotched with sweat; sweat outlined his underarms and streaked down the middle of his chest. His polyester pants stuck to his legs. And his hair, which had been fluffed with a dryer when I last saw him, now hung limp.
I made my way around the sewer hole to him and asked, “Are you waiting for someone?”
“Jenny. I told her to be here at one o’clock. I have things to do, people to see. This is a busy time for real estate.” He glared at his watch. “It’s nearly one-thirty.”
It was more like quarter after. “And you’ve been sitting in the sun waiting all this time?”
“Yeah.”
“Is your other car in the garage?”
“Other car? There is no other car. What we have is the Pacer, and Jenny took that.”
“But you dropped her off. I saw you unloading this morning.”
He glared at me. “Well, that was then. I figured that I could take her and all her paraphernalia downtown and leave her for the day. I had to wait half an hour after I planned to leave to do it. I had to rearrange an appointment. Was she thankful? You bet she wasn’t,” he said without waiting for a response. “Then, I’m not in the office an hour before she calls. She’s got to have the car. Her easel broke and she’s got to get it. fixed.”
“Why didn’t she go to Gresham’s? Surely they could tape up an easel at the hardware store.”
“Ask her, if she deigns to drop by. She seems to think the only place that can deal with the complicated equipment of the finer art world is on the road to Santa Rosa.” He glared at his watch again. “I don’t know why I married into that bunch of loonies. One’s worse than the next. The best of the lot was old Mrs. Remson.”
“Why?”
“Because she had the decency to drown herself.”
I expected him to look up in embarrassment, to back off from his statement. He didn’t.
I sat next to him on the step. I wanted to ask him about Alison and if she had had any professional contact with him.
“Single-minded, that’s what they are. With Jenny, it’s her art. The earthquake could come and she wouldn’t notice, unless she thought the rubble would be suitable for a still life. Have you seen the inside of our house? It’s like an art museum. You can’t find the plaster for the paintings. You know…” He looked at me as if just realizing I was there. “What’s your name?”
“Vejay.”
“You know, Vejay, I don’t like the paintings. I never told her that, of course, but those canvases are like…” He searched for the right word. “They’re like wounds on the wall. You can’t see the house for the paintings.”
I sat still, amazed by this outburst.
But Ward McElvey wasn’t through. He took a breath. “Jenny couldn’t hold a job, not a real job. She can’t even stay down there on the sidewalk all day. If it’s not her easel, it’s her charcoal, or her lights, or something she needs at the house, or something she needs from Santa Rosa. She can’t do anything that requires responsibility. She doesn’t cook. She doesn’t clean. Most of the time I doubt she knows I’m there. I’m just a convenience, someone to run the business and keep her in money. I’ve been a convenience to the whole goddamn Remson family. If they’d had to depend on Ross you know where they’d be? Down in that hole with Michelle, that’s where. You could
n’t count on him any more than on Jenny. Less. Always taking off whenever he felt like it. And even when he was here he was no use. You couldn’t be sure he’d come to work. And when he was there it was all we could do, the old man and me, to make sure he stayed out of the way of the locals.”
“Why was that?”
“Didn’t trust him.”
I took a guess. “Was that because he was the Bohemian Connection?”
“Yeah. This is a small town, you know…” He paused, looking at me, searching for my name, then gave up. “Like any little town there are two sets of rules, one for the outsiders and another for the locals. People don’t care if tourists come in here and buy women and deal drugs. They don’t object to anyone making a buck off the tourists; you can sell them whatever you like. But let me tell you, when it comes to dealing with the seller themselves, that’s another story.”
“You mean no one minded Ross being the Bohemian Connection, but they wouldn’t want to buy a house from him.”
“You got it, lady. Pain in the butt, too. The old man had to have him there. His son could do no wrong. I couldn’t even suggest that he might possibly be hurting the business. Oh, no. Closest I could come was to say that he might do better with the out-of-town buyers. Old man bought that. He knew what was going on; he just didn’t want to admit it. But I’ll tell you, doing all the local work and sifting out newcomers for Ross—if he happened to be in—was no picnic.”
“You must have been glad when he left.”
“No loss, let me—”
The Pacer roared up the street and squealed to a halt inches from my truck. Jenny jumped out and hurried toward the house. She stopped abruptly in front of us. Had there been room on the stairs she would have rushed on into the house without pause.
“About time,” Ward said.
“I couldn’t leave.” It was a statement rather than an apology.
“I needed the car at one o’clock.”
“Why? Are you carting around your Sunset Villa guests?”
I’d forgotten about the Underwoods, the older couple Ward had been taking to the site of his senior citizen condominiums yesterday.
“They’re gone,” he said.
“Oh.”
“They said it was too dangerous up here.” Ward glared at the sewer hole.
Jenny laughed. “Maybe once they saw the site for Sunset Villas they decided they didn’t want to live in an ark.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Come on, Ward, you know how far underwater that land will be when it floods.”
“Sunset Villas will have foundations. There’ll be stairs. The units aren’t going to sit flat on the ground.”
“Maybe they didn’t want to travel from their door by canoe then.”
Ward jumped up. For a moment I thought he was going to hit her. “Damn you. I do everything for you. Can’t you ever think of me?”
She stepped back. A flicker of fear broke through her impassive expression. “I’m here, aren’t I? It’s not convenient. I had a subject waiting when I left.” She glanced back at the car. “And the Pacer, Ward, you insisted on that car. We could, have had two perfectly adequate used cars for what that cost. But you had to have that one. It’s fine for driving around looking at houses. All that glass; it’s made for looking. But it’s no good for me. I can’t leave anything in the car without wondering if it will be ripped off. If I put paints in the back they run. If I leave groceries, they spoil—”
“When do you deal with groceries?”
Looking at me, as Ward had, as if for the first time, Jenny said, “And have you come to watch us fight? It saves you the bother of asking questions, doesn’t it?” Without waiting for a reply, she rushed past Ward up the stairs.
I expected him to follow her, but instead he sat back down. I expected him to apologize for their scene, to try to explain, at least to appear embarrassed. But he merely looked disgusted.
“About Alison,” I said, realizing that Jenny could return any moment and Ward wouldn’t be about to hang around to answer my questions then. “Did Alison ever ask you about rental properties?”
“Rental units? Hmm.” He looked calmer as he considered his own area of interest. “She did, yes.”
“Did she ask about ones with absentee landlords?”
“That’s the only kind I handle. Local owners do their own renting.”
“Did Alison ask where the owners live and if they come by often or at all?”
“That’s right. She told me that they had a special service for landlords who couldn’t come by to keep an eye on their property. They could assure them that it would be up to par. Seemed like a good thing.”
“Did she ask specifically which landlords never came here at certain times of the year?” Another time Ward might have wondered what I was getting at, but his mind was still on his argument with Jenny. He was answering me on automatic pilot.
“She said she’d start with them.”
“So you gave her their addresses?”
“Uh-huh.”
The front door slammed.
“Did you take her to see the houses?”
Ward stood up. “No.”
Jenny rushed down the stairs and past us to the car. Ward followed her. Hurrying after him, I said, “Then did you give her the keys to look at the places herself?” It was a guess.
“Yes,” he said as he jumped in the passenger’s seat.
CHAPTER 17
SUDDENLY I HAD A lot to consider and a lot of time to do it in. It was not quite two o’clock. It wouldn’t be dark till nearly nine. There was nothing to do till then, except think.
And eat.
I headed back through town. The afternoon was still young. I could have a sandwich and then rent a canoe and paddle off some of the tension I had built up.
The drive along North Bank Road was slow. By habit I checked out Jenny’s easel and chair; for once she was without a subject. Farther down the street I spotted Alison walking out of the bar—with the two men who’d come up to us on the beach! That was certainly something else to ponder.
At home I pulled my truck in by the garage, climbed out, and made my way up the stairs. A branch of poison oak was beginning to stick out between two steps. I’d need to put on gloves and work boots and climb under the stairs to uproot the plant. A project for another day.
I hurried on inside to the kitchen, made a chicken sandwich with cilantro, and took it and a glass of iced tea out onto my back porch. One of the bricks was coming loose from the back of the fireplace. I wondered if I could let that go and just continue losing a little heat in winter, or was a loose brick the first warning of expensive disaster. Homeowning, I’d discovered, had many surprises, few of them pleasant, and none cheap.
It was just nine o’clock when I pulled my truck up beside one of the cement pillars at the entrance to the cemetery. Although I fully expected the Bohemian Connection to enter Maria Keneally’s house by way of the driveway, I felt it was tempting fate to leave my truck in the cemetery parking area where it could easily be seen.
It was getting chilly now. I didn’t know how late it would be before the Bohemian Connection arrived with clients. Those clients might spend hours at one of the bars before they chose to leave the bright lights for the muted excitement of this rendezvous. The Connection could drive up quietly and let them in through the door that led off the garage. But I was prepared. I had a blanket, a flashlight, a thermos of coffee, and two sandwiches. I was wearing jeans, a sweater and a down vest, and my work boots. I found the other Maria Keneally’s gravestone (from where I could see the driveway) and settled atop it, arranging my various belongings around me.
The living Maria Keneally’s house was small. From here I could see any light turned on in the kitchen, bath, or bedroom, and the reflections of lights from the living room and dining area. I was tempted to circle the house, to make sure I hadn’t missed anything, but I vetoed that idea—no sense in running into the Connection pul
ling up in the driveway.
So I sat. The wind was stronger at night. The big redwoods rustled. Gusts blew fallen leaves against the headstones. I draped the blanket over my shoulders.
I had had all day to ponder Michelle’s murder but somehow I couldn’t then. But now I considered her body in the sewer hole. Why had it been dropped down there? She had been murdered above ground. Why had her killer chosen to dump her body down there? As I had discussed with Vida, her murderer must have known Michelle’s body would be found by Monday at the outside. It was late at night when he killed her—dark on Half Hill Road. He wouldn’t have dumped the body down the hole because it was easy. It wouldn’t have been easy. He would have had to have left the body slumped against the stairs, or against his car, then lifted the wooden cover off the sewer hole, carried the body back and thrown it in, then replaced the cover. Michelle was a small woman; it wouldn’t have been hard to lift her body. But it all would have taken time. It would have made noise. Why hadn’t the murderer chosen the easier way of simply sticking the body in his car and driving to some secluded place to drop it off. It was dark; the body would have been safe in any vehicle, even one as open as Ward McElvey’s Pacer. There were plenty of spots around here to dump a body. It was not uncommon to read of bodies being discovered years after they disappeared.
And if the killer didn’t want to leave Michelle’s body in the woods, there was the Pacific Ocean half an hour away. If he’d dropped her body over one of the cliffs there would have been plenty of new bruises on it by the time it reached the ocean, and there would have been a chance of it being washed out to sea.
So why the sewer hole? Did the killer want the body found? I pulled the blanket closer around my shoulders. Why would the killer want the body found? Was he trying to implicate someone else? I couldn’t imagine that. I was having enough trouble believing any one of the people I knew had sufficient reason to kill Michelle, without thinking that they not only wanted her dead, but someone else imprisoned.