Too easy, she thought. Leo’s accusation that Ruth and Robert were lovers came only after they were both dead. There was no real evidence: Robert was sent away to school... Ruth was depressed and suffered from headaches... Robert didn’t have girl friends... “When I worked for the Bishops,” Carla had said, “everything was quiet. Mr. Bishop used to read a lot and Mrs. Bishop took long walks for her headaches.” What kind of walks had they been, innocent purposeless strolls around the countryside? Or did she head straight for the river, the most direct route to Robert?
“Well, I better be going,” Jaime said, “before somebody comes barging out looking for me.”
“Wait just a minute, Jaime.”
“Sure, but—”
“I want to get in touch with Carla Lopez and I can’t remember the address she gave in court this morning.”
“You could ask her family in Boca de Rio, only they probably wouldn’t tell you. They’d think you were trying to cause trouble for her. They’re that way — you know, suspicious.” After a moment he added, “I bet the cop knows where she’s at — Valenzuela.”
“I’ll try him. Thank you, Jaime.”
“You’re welcome.” He sounded as if he wasn’t quite sure how welcome.
There were several valenzuelas in the telephone directory but only one was listed in the yellow pages under Insurance. The same number was given for both office and home, and Devon had the impression of a shoestring operation, not the kind of thing that would lure a man away from an important job in the sheriff’s department.
The voice that answered the phone was hoarse and unsteady. “Hello.”
“Mr. Valenzuela?”
“Who’s this?”
“Mrs. Osborne. Mrs. Robert Osborne.”
“If you want a policeman you called the wrong place. I’m retired. In fact, I’m tired and retired and maybe a little drunk too. How’s that?”
“Not so good. I was hoping you could help me.”
“I’m not in the helping business any more.”
“I merely want some information,” Devon said. “I thought you might know how I can get in touch with Carla Lopez.”
“Why?”
“I’d like to ask her some questions.”
“She has no phone.”
“Can you tell me where she lives?”
“She’s not home tonight.”
“I see. Well, I’m sorry to have bothered you. I can get her address tomorrow morning from the court records or from Mr. Ford.”
There was such a long silence that Devon thought Valenzuela had hung up or perhaps walked away from the phone to pour himself another drink. Then, “Catalpa Street. 431 Catalpa Street, Apartment Nine.”
“Thank you, Mr. Valenzuela.”
“You’re welcome.”
It was the second time within the hour that she’d been welcome but not very.
Chapter Fifteen
As soon as Estivar stopped the station wagon, lights went on around the outside of the house as though Mrs. Osborne had been waiting for him in the dark with the relentless patience of a predator. Fog had rolled in from the sea and the merry-go-round wind chime above the courtyard door was still. The brass horses who’d pranced and galloped all afternoon to the sound of their own music stood silent now except for the moisture dripping off their hoofs onto the flagstones below.
“You came,” Mrs. Osborne said, sounding a little surprised that he’d kept his word.
“I usually obey orders, ma’am.”
“It wasn’t an order. Dear me, you’ve completely misunderstood the situation.”
In her blond wig and cherry-red velvet robe she looked as though she were going to a party or expecting one to come to her. Estivar didn’t feel like a party, either coming or going. The fog made him uneasy. It seemed to cut off the rest of the world and leave him alone in a small cold gray room with this woman he feared.
He said, “You sent for me.”
“Of course. I thought it was time you and I had a nice friendly chat. It might be our last... Now, don’t go imagining that I’m depressed or anything like that. I’m simply being realistic. Things do happen, you know. People go away, they die, they even become other people sometimes. Things happen,” she repeated. “Come in the house, won’t you?”
“All right.” He was glad to get out of the fog. At least the house was warm, the lamps were lit and there was a fire glowing gold and coral in the grate.
She sat down in one of the wing chairs flanking the fireplace, motioning him to take the other. There was a backgammon table between them. The dice were thrown and the black and white pieces arranged as if someone had walked out in the middle of a game. She and Robbie used to play backgammon, Estivar thought. She always let him win even if she had to cheat to do it, so that when he lost to Rufo or Cruz he was bewildered, he couldn’t understand the sudden failure of luck and skill together.
“You look nervous, Estivar,” she said. “And guilty. Do you have anything to feel guilty about?”
“Nothing that would be of interest to you, ma’am.”
“In your testimony this morning you made some unflattering references to my family. I don’t mind for myself. But you gave people the wrong impression of my son.”
“I didn’t mean to do that. I meant to give them the right impression.”
She either missed the irony or pretended to. “Whatever your intentions, the effect was the same — that my son was prejudiced, that he didn’t get along with his own foreman, let alone the migrant workers. It’s all on the record now and there’s only one way it can be removed.”
“What is that?”
“It would invalidate the whole hearing if Robert were to turn up alive.”
He thought of the blood in the mess hall, seeping between the cracks in the floorboards and soaking into the soft pinewood and standing in puddles as though it had dripped from a leaky roof. “Mrs. Osborne, he’s not going to—”
“Stop. I refuse to listen to you. What do you know about it, anyway?”
“Nothing,” he said, wishing it were true. “Nothing.”
She was staring down at the backgammon board, frowning, as if the game had begun again and it was her turn. “The police will be useless from now on. The hearing gives them the excuse they’ve been waiting for to drop the case completely. So it’s up to you and me.”
“How do I come into it, Mrs. Osborne?”
“You have a great many friends.”
“Some.”
“And relatives.”
“A few.”
“I wanted you to see that they get the message as soon as possible.”
“What message?”
“About the new reward. I decided to handle the details personally, without an intermediary like Mr. Ford.” Ford had, in fact, refused to be a party to it or even to discuss it with her. “It’s often occurred to me that the first reward was bungled. There were too many strings attached. This time I’ve offered to pay ten thousand dollars for any information at all concerning my son after he left the house that night.”
“You’re letting yourself in for a lot of trouble.”
“What have I got now? Do you think this isn’t trouble, not knowing whether your only child is dead or alive? But you wouldn’t understand. If something happened to Cruz, you’d still have Rufo and Felipe and Jaime and the twins. I had only Robert.” She went over to the cherrywood desk and opened one of the drawers. “I was looking through some old pictures tonight and found this... Do you remember?”
It was a color snapshot, enlarged and framed, of a tall towheaded smiling boy in his early teens. He held a spaniel pup hardly bigger than his own hand, and the pup, too, seemed to be smiling. The picture was of youngness, boyhood and puppyhood.