“Oh, Gus is never short of money. Squeezes a penny until Abe Lincoln has bruises, but somehow I don’t think that’s the secret of his wealth.”
“Know who he works for?”
“The devil, for all I know.”
So he drove to the county offices and looked through property records to learn where Ronden lived, and then went back to the paper, where he used the crisscross phone directory to look up the phone number, which was listed as that of Elizabeth Bradford. Betty. He called repeatedly, but got no answer.
It was late afternoon by the time he got to Ronden’s place. He knew it was a bad time to allow himself to go calling on anyone connected to Jack’s beating. He knew he didn’t have his own temper in hand, but he couldn’t keep himself from hunting Ronden.
The house wasn’t much of a place, nothing more than a rundown wood- frame. Most of the houses on the street were in poor repair-torn screens, weedy gardens, peeling paint. Directly across from Ronden’s was one of a few exceptions: a white picket fence guarded a home with a green lawn and neat flowerbeds. Nice for Ronden to look out his window and see that, O’Connor thought dryly. The view this neighbor had was not nearly so pleasant. Ronden’s house was a graying white, with a lawn that was a mongrel collection of weeds.
He watched Ronden’s house for a time before getting out of the car. There was no movement or sound of any kind coming from the house. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to do if Ronden was home.
Punch him, the way Jack had been punched? Literally take an eye for an eye?
Beat the hell out of him, then turn him over to Norton?
Pretend to be a salesman for the Fuller Brush Company, walk off peaceably, then call Norton?
He wasn’t sure which of these ideas he’d stick with, he only knew that he couldn’t sit in the car, staring at the dump Ronden called home.
As he walked up the porch steps, one creaked loudly. He paused, wondering if he was a fool not to have brought a weapon. But he had no real experience with guns, not much more than Dan Norton taking him to a firing range a few times. With Dan’s tutelage, he’d managed to hit a paper target fairly consistently, but he knew that men were not likely to act like paper targets, and thought himself little match for someone who truly knew what he was doing with a gun.
He knocked hard on the door, half in anger, half in fear. He kept his fist clenched. But after a while, it was clear no one would be coming to the door. He listened for the sound of movement within the house for a long time, and became convinced that Ronden wasn’t home.
He walked up the rutted dirt driveway toward a dilapidated garage, one that looked old enough to have housed a Model T at some point, if not a carriage. A short fence between the house and the garage enclosed a small backyard. He was surprised to see pink roses growing along the back wall. They seemed well tended-the only thing about the place that was.
He turned back to the garage. There was no lock on the latch that held the double doors closed, so he opened it and pulled on the one on the right. It swung out toward him with a loud creaking. If Ronden was in the house and hadn’t heard him yet, the man was deaf.
The scents of oil and dust greeted him, but no car occupied the garage. A few rusty garden tools and a push mower stood against one wall, a workbench on the other. He opened both doors and stepped inside to get a closer look, taking care to avoid stepping on the oily tire marks on the concrete floor. Big tires, set wide apart. A big car.
He pulled a string hanging next to a bare lightbulb overhead, but nothing happened. Either the bulb was burned out or the electricity was off. Had Ronden abandoned his home after killing Bo Jergenson?
He looked more closely at the workbench, but it appeared that little work was done on it. There were no tools on or near it. He saw a rusting footlocker beneath it, though, and bent to open it. He had just released the latch when a gruff voice said, “What are you doing in here?”
Startled, O’Connor banged the back of his head on the underside of the bench.
“Jesus!” he said, wincing. He straightened, and saw a man in his sixties pointing a shotgun at him. He raised the hand that wasn’t rubbing his head.
“I’ll thank you not to use the Lord’s name in vain.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What are you doing in here?” the man asked again.
“My name’s O’Connor. I’m with the newspaper. Put the gun down and I’ll show you my press credentials.”
“You’ve got that vicey-versy. You show me your credentials, nice and slow, and then maybe I’ll put down the gun.”
O’Connor did as he asked.
After taking a look at his press pass, the man lowered the gun and said, “I would think the world would be mighty tired of reading about the likes of Gus Ronden.”
“You own the place across the street?”
The man nodded. “Name’s Ed Franklin. Doesn’t seem to me that being a reporter gives a man a right to trespass on another man’s property, Mr. O’Connor.”
“It doesn’t.” O’Connor made a quick decision. “Let’s step out into what’s left of the sunlight, Mr. Franklin. I’ll tell you why I’m here.”
He told Franklin what had happened to Jack, and of his suspicion that Gus Ronden had murdered Bo Jergenson. “Jack Corrigan is like a brother to me,” he ended.
Franklin drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly. At some point during the story he had broken the shotgun open, and now cradled it with the business end pointing at the ground. “I’m sorry but not surprised to hear that Miss Bradford involved herself in this. I had hoped…no, I will still hope and pray that she will someday abandon this way of life.”
“You planted the roses for her, didn’t you?”
He nodded. “She admired the flowers at my place. She told me she’s fond of pink.” He blushed to a fiery red, then added in a low voice, “You’d not believe how she proposed to thank me.”
“I would,” O’Connor said. “When did you last see them here?”
“She has a place of her own, she tells me. An apartment near the ocean. But she is here quite often. I last saw her here on Saturday. She was with a dark-haired man and a big blond fellow. Not that the dark one was little. He was good-sized, too, but next to the other one, anyone would look short. Might be part Mex, but I couldn’t say for sure. They’re the ones who attacked your friend, I suppose.”
“And Ronden?”
“All sorts of comings and goings around here on Saturday. I kept an eye out. One of his creepy friends came over early on. Young guy. Dressed sharp, has some money I would guess. I didn’t see them leave, but everybody was gone by around ten, because Gus left at about that time.” He grinned. “I can always hear this garage open.”
“I don’t doubt everyone on the street can hear it. What does Gus drive?”
“Dark blue Chrysler Imperial-almost looks black. He has some fancy name for the color, but I don’t know what it is. Brand new, a 1958, but he bought it late last year. Push-button transmission, power steering, purple dash lights. Electric everything. It’s a beauty. Takes better care of it than he does the house or his girlfriend.”
“Leaking oil, though?”
“No, that’s from Betty’s car. She hasn’t been allowed to park it in the garage very often since he bought the Imperial, though.”
“When did he get back on Saturday night?”
“He came back around midnight, I think. Then not much later, Betty and those two I mentioned came over-the blond giant and the Mex.”
“Not the sharp-dressed man?”
“No, he didn’t show up again. Heard Gus yelling at somebody. Betty left with the dark one. The blond one drove off with Gus.”
“You remember what the other car was? The one Betty and the dark-haired man were in?”
“A Chevy Bel Air. Turquoise and white.”
“You have any idea where Gus might be now?”
He shook his head. “He came back in the wee hours, then left again in a big hurry.” He thought for a moment, then added, “Betty told me that Gus has a place up in the mountains. I don’t know which mountains, though. To be honest, he’s never struck me as the outdoors type.”