“Stan will be awful mad about me phoning you like this,” Muriel said nervously. “Maybe you just sort of keep it a secret when you see him?”
“I may not see him. He may not be anywhere near San Félice.”
“But he said—”
“Yes. He said.” He’d said, too, that he was taking a little trip, and the trip had lasted fifteen years. Perhaps he’d started on another little trip, and Muriel, as naive as Daisy had been in her early teens, would walk up and down the city streets searching for him in crowds of strangers; she would catch a glimpse of him passing in a speeding car or walking into an elevator just before the door closed. Daisy had seen him a hundred times, but the car was too fast, the face in the crowd too far away, the elevator door too final.
“Well, I’m sorry to have bothered you,” Muriel repeated.
“It was no bother. In fact, I’m very grateful for the information.”
“Stan gave me another number to call in case of emergency, a Mr. Pinata. But I didn’t want to call a stranger about — well, about Stan’s certain weakness.”
Daisy wondered how many strangers, the length and breadth of the country, knew about Stan’s certain weakness and how many more were finding out right now. “Muriel?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t worry about anything. I’m going to get in touch with Mr. Pinata. If my father’s in town, we’ll find him and look after him.”
“Thank you.” There were tears in Muriel’s voice. “Thank you ever so much. You’re a good girl. Stan’s always said you were a real good girl.”
“Don’t take everything my father says too seriously.”
“He really meant it. And I do, too. I’m ever so grateful for all the things you’ve done for him. I don’t mean just the money. Having somebody who really cares about him, that’s what’s important.”
Oh yes, I care, Daisy thought bitterly when she’d hung up. I still love Daddy after his little trip of fifteen years. And if he’s in town, I’ll find him. I’ll get to the elevator door before it closes; the speeding car will be stopped by a red light, a policeman, a flat tire; the face in the crowd will be his.
The wind had increased, and the air was filled with the rush of birds and flying leaves, and the scratching of the tea tree against the window sounded like the paws of a dozen animals.
Daisy sat with the phone in her hands, shivering, as if there were no glass between her and the cold wind. She could barely dial Pinata’s number, and when she was told he wasn’t in, she wanted to scream at the girl on the other end of the line and accuse her of bungling or fraud.
She took a deep breath to steady herself. “When do you expect him?”
“This is his answering service. He left word that he’d be in his office at seven. He’ll check in for his calls before that, though. Is there any message?”
“Tell him to call...” She stopped, dubious about leaving her name, even more dubious about Pinata phoning the house when her mother or Jim might be present. “I’ll meet him at his office at seven.”
“What name shall I put on that?”
“Just say it’s about a tombstone.”
16
Shame — it is my daily bread. No wonder the flesh is falling off my bones...
Jim had been waiting at the dock for nearly an hour when Adam Burnett finally showed up. He came running along the seawall, moving heavily but quietly in his sailing sneakers.
“Sorry I’m late. I was delayed.”
“Obviously.”
“Don’t get sore. I couldn’t help it.” The lawyer sat down beside Jim on the seawall. “The sail’s off, anyway. They’ve raised a smallcraft warning at the end of the wharf.”
“Well, I suppose I might as well go home, then.”
“No, you’d better wait a minute.”
“What for?”
Although there was no one within hearing distance, Adam kept his voice low. “I had a phone call half an hour ago from Mrs. Rosario. Juanita’s back in town. What’s worse, so is Fielding.”
“Fielding? Daisy’s father?”
“What’s worse still, the two of them are together.”
“But they don’t even know each other.”
“Well, they’re getting acquainted in a hurry, if Mrs. Rosario can be believed.”
“It just doesn’t make sense,” Jim said in a bewildered voice. “Fielding had nothing to do with the — the arrangements.”
“Mrs. Rosario somehow got the impression that you... or I... sent him to spy on her.”
“I haven’t seen Fielding for years.”
“And I never have. I pointed these facts out to her, but she was pretty excited, almost incoherent toward the end. She insisted I swear on the soul of her dead brother that I had nothing to do with Fielding’s going to her house.” Adam squinted out at the whitecaps, multiplying under the wind. “Know anything about a dead brother?”
“No.”
“His name was Carlos, apparently.”
“I said I knew nothing about a dead brother, didn’t I?”
“Well, don’t get waspish. I was just asking.”
“You asked twice,” Jim said curtly. “That’s once too often. My relationship with Mrs. Rosario has been brief and impersonal. You should be aware of that better than anyone.”
“Impersonal isn’t quite the word, surely?”
“As far as I’m concerned, it is. I wouldn’t recognize her if I met her on the street.”
A fishing boat was coming into port, her catch measurable by the squat of her stern and the number of gulls quarreling in her wake, trying to snatch pieces of fish from each other’s beaks.
“What does she want?” Jim said. “More money?”
“Money wasn’t mentioned. Apparently there’d been some violence when Fielding was at the house, though he didn’t have anything to do with it as far as I was able to make out. Mrs. Rosario was upset and needed reassurance.”
“You gave it to her, I hope?”
“Oh, certainly. I swore on the soul of her dead brother. Whom you don’t know.”
“Whom I don’t know. As I have now stated three times. Why the persistence, Adam?”
“She kept raving about him, and I’m curious, that’s all. How does a dead brother fit into the arrangements we made about Juanita?”
“The woman’s obviously unstable.”
“I agree. But I wonder how unstable.”
Jim got up and stretched his arms. “Well, I’ll leave you to your wonderings. I must get home. Daisy will think we’ve both drowned.”
“I don’t believe,” Adam said carefully, “that Daisy is thinking about us at all.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just before I left the house, I had a phone call from Ada Fielding. She asked me to tell you that Daisy had hired a detective a few days ago, a man named Pinata.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
“Mrs. Fielding thinks you ought to do something about it.”
“She does, eh?” Jim’s face was grim and weary. “Such as what?”
“I gather she meant unhire him. After all, it’s your money he’s getting.” Adam paused, watching the fishing boat as it tied up to the dock, wishing he were on it. “There’s more if you want to hear it.”
“I’m not sure I do.”
“You’d better listen anyway. Daisy’s meeting this man at his office tonight at seven o’clock. She promised Fielding’s new wife that she and Pinata would go looking for Fielding.”