I thought I heard something, a shuffling, breathing sound behind one of the creaking boards of a building. Around the corner I went and found myself eye to knee with the elephant. His eyes, red and frightened, were a good four feet above me.
What do you say to an elephant on the beach?
“Hi,” I tried. “How’ve you been?”
The elephant took a step back from me, a lumbering step, and waved its trunk. Beyond him on the sand I could see a heap of cloth which might or might not contain a human form. I pushed my back against the rusted steel side of a building next to the elephant and began to ease my way past, saying soothing things like, “Good boy,” and “Easy, big fella.”
I had just decided to try a lullaby when hell tore loose. My pushing against the steel siding had given it all it needed to declare its freedom from the single old bolt that held it. The sheet came loose with a screech and clattered against a pillar.
The elephant bellowed, raised one massive right front foot or paw or hoof or whatever it’s called, and threw a wild jab in my general direction. I tripped backward as the elephant kicked a steel beam inches from my head and started a clanging that echoed out to sea.
The elephant took another step toward me, and I scrambled back into the rubble, ignoring bruises and bumps. I backed into a corner as the gray hulk moved forward, shaking the long unfinished floor. His weight swayed the warped wood, and I grabbed a glassless window ledge and started to scramble out. The elephant came right after me as I rolled on the sand and looked back over my shoulder. He crashed right through the side of the house, sending out a shower of shrapnel the Big Red One would have backed away from. I didn’t know how fast an elephant could run, but I didn’t think I could outrun one. On the other hand, I didn’t think I had much choice. I went down the beach, and he came bellowing after me.
I wasn’t in bad shape. Oh, I’d cut back on the number of days I played handball at the Y on Hope Street back in Los Angeles, but I’d been doing some running and lifting. Fear helped a lot too. I beat the elephant to my car by about four steps, scrambled inside, and went for my glove compartment. The compartment was open, and the gun was gone. The gun was gone, and my Buick was rocking. An elephant was trying to shake me out. A foot thudded against the door at my side, and I could see the dent stop just short of my leg. I put the key in the ignition, turned it on, and gunned the motor. The elephant backed off with a roar that would have frightened Kong. But something had him going, and he came at me again. He stood bellowing a challenge in the drizzle, elephant against car. I knew the car wouldn’t survive a battle, and I didn’t want to kill an elephant if I didn’t have to. So I hit my horn. The first blast startled him. The second blast sent fear into his already blazing eyes. The third, followed by my backing up, sent him running down the beach in the general direction of I-don’t-know-where but the opposite direction from where I knew I had to go.
I watched the gray lump disappear and wondered what people would think when they saw the creature racing in the general direction of Mexico. I wondered even more what Arnie the no-neck mechanic would respond when I showed him my door and told him it had been kicked in by a wild elephant.
I drove down the road as close as I could get to where the ghost town stood and the heap of clothing lay. Then I made my way down to the spot, with a good idea of what I would find. There were no footprints around the body except those of the victim herself. I could see it was Rennata Tanucci, knew it was before I pulled back the coat crumpled over her face.
The bullet holes, two of them, were easy to find, one in the middle of her chest, the other in her stomach. I knelt next to her body and followed her hand that seemed to be pointing to something in the sand. The something was a crude drawing that she had apparently made. It looked like a snowman next to a snowman. One snowman was bigger than the other, and the bigger one had two eyes, a hole for a nose, and a mouth that drooped crazily. Both figures were inside a crude box, which may have been a house. It’s hard to apply rules of taste to the last creation of a dying artist. The message, whatever it might mean, was shallow and almost worn away by the rain. Her head was turned toward the shore, and her open eyes looked at a brick house on the far ridge above the beach.
“Lady,” I said softly, covering her again, “I wonder what the hell you were trying to tell us.”
“No doubt,” came a voice from behind, “that she expired with the hope that we would catch you. In which case, I am pleased to report, we have achieved that end.”
I didn’t turn to Nelson’s voice right away. There was something I wanted to see first, and I saw it, my.38, about a dozen feet from the body where someone had thrown it.
“You can’t expect to go chasing elephants and shooting people on beaches without attracting some attention,” said Nelson with clear satisfaction.
I turned and stood up. Nelson and Alex were facing me. Nelson had his gun out. Alex didn’t.
“Murder, as you know, is a rare thing in Mirador, Mr. Peters, a rare thing indeed. It is my belief, however, that if it does come, it is good if it is done by an outsider and good if I catch that outsider and even better if it takes place shortly before a major election.”
“Then I’ve done you a favor,” I said.
He nodded with a self-satisfied smile. “You might, indeed, say that,” he said. “Now, if you would be so good as to step a few feet away from the body of that unfortunate woman, Alex will get that weapon, which, I assume, is yours.”
I stepped away slowly. Nelson might take it into his head to simplify matters by gunning down his murderer in a rousing battle. The thought entered his mind as if by telepathy, and he glanced at Alex, who clearly wasn’t having any.
“The conscience and strength of my deputy are an inspiration to us all,” Nelson said sarcastically, as Alex moved forward to get the.38 in the sand. “You need not bother about handling the weapon, Alex. With this drizzle and sand, fingerprints are unlikely and, certainly in this case, unnecessary.”
“Nelson, I didn’t kill this woman.”
“We shall see,” he said, rocking on his heels. “Your gun. We catch you over the body. She, as I recognize, is one of the circus people and, if I am not mistaken, the wife of the young man who met his demise this morning. You and the lady friend have a little falling-out, Peters?”
A sudden blast of wind plastered my wet pants to my leg, pushed Nelson sideways, and made a groan through the ruins.
“Don’t move,” came Nelson, fighting the wind.
“I’m not moving unless the wind moves me,” I said. Alex, I saw, hadn’t been affected by the blast of air. He held the pistol out for Nelson, who examined it with the joy one would expect to see in the eyes of a pearl diver who has just come up with a beauty the size of a marshmallow.
“There are no low-life circus freaks to do battle for you now, Peters,” said Nelson. “So Alex and I will just take you back to our little jail, arrange for this body, and have ourselves a chat, a cup of coffee, and a confession or two.”
“I didn’t kill her,” I repeated.
“Oh, yes, you did,” he said. Then he looked up into the rain and showed his not too straight and not terrible white teeth. “Good day to spend indoors chatting.”
“You …”
“What am I, Peters?” he said, losing his joy-of-life attitude. “How the hell do you know what I am? I do more good in this world in one day than you’ll do in your whole miserable lifetime. Just ask Alex. Ask him about the parties for the Mex kids I give, the handouts.”
“Alex,” I said, feeling my back start to sag in pain. “Is he a saint?”
“Let’s get back,” said Alex, walking past Nelson and heading toward the ridge.
“Tell him, Alex,” Nelson shouted. “Tell him.”
“Sheriff Nelson is a good man,” Alex said, his back still turned. He made it sound like something he was reading on a pack of matches.