“Then you’ll answer it for the police.”
“I’ve done nothing illegal. The box was mine to sell as my husband’s legal heir.”
“Not until his will clears probate.”
“All right, yes, I admit that. But I needed cash after his death; he left me cash-poor.”
“So you needed the fifty thousand for living expenses.”
“Among other things, yes.”
“What other things?”
“Nothing that concerns you.”
“Suppose you let me be the judge of that.”
“Oh, all right. There were things I wanted-clothing, jewelry.”
“Wouldn’t your husband let you buy them when he was alive?”
“If you must know, no, he wouldn’t.”
“But you told me the other day you never wanted for anything the entire time you were married.”
“… I wasn’t being completely candid with you then.”
“And you are being candid with me now.”
“Yes.”
“How did you get the Hainelin box?”
“Kenneth gave it to me.”
“When?”
“Before he left the house. When we talked in his hobby room.”
“Why did he give it to you?”
“I asked him to. He’d been drinking so heavily… I was afraid he’d lose it.”
“He just handed it over?”
“Yes.”
“No argument or anything?”
“No.”
“Did you argue about anything else at that time?”
“We did not. Why do you ask that?”
“Your housekeeper said he was upset when he left the house. Any idea what he was upset about?”
“None whatsoever.”
“What did you do with the box after he gave it to you?”
“Put it with the other pieces in his collection.”
“Left it there after his death?”
“Until the next day, yes. Then I removed it.”
“Hid it, you mean.”
“Hid it. Yes. Are you satisfied now?”
“For the time being.”
“I suppose that means I’ll be hearing from you again.”
“I thought you wanted to hear from me,” I said. “I thought you were very concerned about things I’ve been finding out.”
She hung up on me again.
On the way down California Street I called Kerry’s number; I was starved-all I’d had to eat today had been some toast for breakfast-and I thought maybe she wanted to go out for an early dinner. But her line was busy. So I drove on home, and tried her again from there. Still busy. Talking to one of her women friends, maybe. Or her mother, Cybil, who was a former pulp writer and lived in Pasadena with Kerry’s father, Ivan the Terrible, also an ex-pulp writer, and who would cheerfully talk your ear off if you gave her half a chance.
I rummaged around in the refrigerator. There wasn’t anything in there I wanted to eat except an apple, and it turned out to be mushy and I threw it away after one bite. I opened the cupboard and found a can of ravioli and opened it and ate the little buggers cold, right out of the can. Kerry would have been horrified, but I’ve been eating cold ravioli for years; it’s the only way to eat the canned variety, which isn’t really ravioli at all. The kind native Italians make by hand and serve hot, that’s ravioli. The cold canned stuff is a whole different taste treat.
At five o’clock I tried Kerry again and finally got through to her. She’d been talking to Cybil, as it turned out-filling her in on our visit to the Church of the Holy Mission and the number she’d done on the Right Reverend Daybreak. She said dinner sounded fine, but she’d just had a sandwich and wouldn’t be hungry again for a while. We settled on seven-thirty and a fish restaurant we both liked out on Geary Boulevard.
I sat down in the living room with a can of beer. So now where was I, after the session with Margaret Prine and the telephone conversation with Alicia Purcell? I now knew for sure that Mrs. Purcell had hidden her possession of the Hainelin box from the authorities, that she’d sold it to Eldon Summerhayes, and that Margaret Prine now had it. So? Did the box have any direct bearing on Kenneth Purcell’s death? It didn’t look that way, unless Alicia was lying about her reasons for secreting the box, or holding something back. But why would she lie? What would she hold back? I had no good answer in either case. And that put me right back where I’d been two days ago, smack up against a dead end. The only concrete lead I’d turned up with all my running around and maneuvering, it seemed, was Danny Martinez. He was the key to the whole case. Without him, there was no way to make sense out of it, to put it all together.
Or was there?
The telephone rang. I went into the bedroom and answered it, and Tom Washburn said, “I just came back from the house. I… well, I couldn’t make myself go over there until today. I’m sorry, I just couldn’t.”
“Don’t apologize, Mr. Washburn. Did you find anything in Leonard’s papers?”
“Nothing pertaining to Richard Dessault or that man Ozimas.”
“Something else?”
“Well, I don’t know. A photograph.”
“What sort of photograph?”
“You’d better see it for yourself. I don’t know what it means; it probably doesn’t mean anything. But I think you should look at it.”
“Are you still at the house?”
“No. I’m back at Fred’s.”
“What’s the address there again?”
He told me, and I said, “I could come by around seven or so.” On my way to Kerry’s, I was thinking. “Is that all right with you?”
“Yes, fine. I’ll expect you.”
A photograph, I thought as I rang off. Which reminded me of the one I’d taken out of Danny Martinez’s farmhouse. I found it in the pocket of my other suit coat and looked at it again. And it bothered me again in the same vague way it had yesterday in my office. Or was it something associated with it that was responsible for the bother? I couldn’t seem to get a grasp on whatever it was. Too many things whirling around inside my head, too many confusing elements that kept me from seeing any of them clearly.
I started out into the kitchen to get another beer, and the telephone rang again. I did an about-face back into the bedroom, picked up, and a familiar voice said, “This is Melanie Purcell.”
She was one of the last people I expected to hear from. I said, “Yes, Melanie,” and managed to keep the surprise out of my voice. “What can I do for you?”
“You still want to see Richie?” The way she said it, I thought she might be angry or uptight about something.
“Yes, I do. Where is he?”
“At the houseboat. He came back a little while ago.” There was a pause. “He was gone two days,” she said.
“Gone where?”
“He wouldn’t tell me. I don’t care anyway, not anymore. That’s why I called you.”
“Where are you?”
“One of the neighbor’s boats. I slipped out when he got into the shower. Listen, I think he’s going out again pretty soon. He acts all excited about something.”
“I can be there in half an hour,” I said. “Can you keep him around that long?”
“I guess I can try. But you better hurry.”
“What kind of car does he drive?”
“A white Trans-Am.”
“All right. Thirty minutes, Melanie.”
Chapter Twenty
It was full dark when I got to Mission Creek. There was not much of a moon tonight and patchy clouds mostly obscured its thin, pale hook-shape; but nightlights strung along the floating walkway and aglow in boat windows and portholes, lights both moving and stationary on the freeway terminus high above, made it easy enough to see. I cut my headlamps just after I made the turn off Fourth onto Channel Street, beyond Blanche’s Cafe.
On the way down here I had been of two minds as to what to do about Richie Dessault, assuming he was still around when I arrived. One was to brace him, see what I could wrangle out of him by guile and intimidation; the other was to hang around out of sight, wait for him to leave, and then follow him and see where he led me. I had pretty much decided that following him was the best of the two alternatives. Melanie had said he was excited about something. Maybe his emotional state had nothing to do with Danny Martinez or the Purcell murders-maybe he was just tired of Melanie, if not of Melanie’s money, and had found himself another bunny to burrow up with for a while. But if his excitement was related to the case, then I stood a better chance of finding out what it was by shagging him. I could brace him later, when we got to where he was going; or tomorrow or the day after that, if tonight didn’t pan out.