“This handwriting is terrible,” Martha said. “Don’t they teach handwriting in school anymore?”
“Sure they teach it,” Richard said cheerfully. “I guess I just don’t learn it.”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to read it.”
“Just keep trying, Mom.”
“Oh, I’ll keep trying, all right, but will the teacher?” Martha returned to the theme. According to Richard’s version of the summer, he had done more work than a company of Seabees. “This is you you’re writing about?”
“Sure. That’s the title, isn’t it? How I Spent My Summer. Listen, Mom. Do you know what a lot of the kids are doing this year?”
“I certainly do,” Martha said dryly. “I’ve been told often enough. Some of them are driving their own Cadillacs. Others get fifty a week allowance, are allowed to stay out until midnight—”
“No, I’m serious, Mom. Some of the kids—one of them, anyway, does his homework on a typewriter.”
“At your age?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“If you use a typewriter for everything now, by the time you’re ready for college you’ll have forgotten how to write by hand.”
“You said I couldn’t anyway.”
Martha looked at him coolly. “Well, what I didn’t say, but what I’m saying right now, smarty pants, is that you’d better pay stricter attention to your handwriting. Is that clear?”
Richard groaned, twitched and rolled his eyes, but he said, “Yes, ma’am.”
“Beginning now. You should copy this theme over before you give it to the teacher, if you’re interested in a decent grade on it.”
“Didn’t we have a typewriter once? A long time ago?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to it?”
Martha hesitated before she answered, “I don’t really know.”
“Gosh, maybe it’s still around some place in the storeroom or the garage. I’m going to look for it.”
“No. You won’t find it, Richard.”
“I might. You said you didn’t really know where it is.”
“I do know where it isn’t. There’s no need to ransack the storeroom and the garage looking for something that doesn’t exist. Now please don’t start telling me what the other kids are allowed to do. Just accept the fact that you’re underprivileged, abused, neglected and short-changed, and carry on from there. Will you do that?”
“Well, gee whiz.”
“That just about sums it up, friend. Gee whiz.”
She kept her tone light so the boy wouldn’t suspect how much the sudden mention of the typewriter had shaken her. It had been Patrick’s, an old portable he had bought secondhand, and which had never worked properly. The keys stuck together, the margin regulators were temperamental, and the bell rang only when it wanted to. She remembered how earnestly and patiently Patrick had hunched over it, trying to teach himself the touch system and never succeeding at that any more than he had at all the other things he had tried. I encouraged him too much, she thought. I let him climb too high and when he fell I provided too soft a cushion so he never broke a bone or learned his own limitations.
When Richard went back to his room to rewrite his theme, Martha picked up the telephone and put in a long-distance call to San Felice.
Quinn answered on the second ring. “Hello.”
“This is Martha, Joe.”
“I was just sitting here wondering whether I should make a nuisance of myself by calling you again. I have some news for you. One of the members of the Tower, Brother Crown, has been picked up in San Diego, working at a garage. Sheriff Lassiter and I drove down yesterday to question him but we didn’t get any answers. Even when he confronted me, Crown wouldn’t admit his identity, so it looks like another dead end. I thought you would like to know about it anyway.”
“Thank you,” Martha said. “How’s the new job?”
“Fine. I haven’t sold any boats yet but it’s fun trying.”
“Will you be up this week end?”
“I can’t promise. I have to go to L.A. and make another attempt to contact Mrs. Harley Baxter Wood.”
“Karma’s aunt?”
“Yes.”
“You said the house was all closed up.”
“Yes, but I figure she’ll be opening it again now that school’s started. She has a couple of children, she can’t afford to keep on the run.”
“Why do you think she went away?”
“If I’m right, Karma’s with her, and the aunt’s taking no chances on any members of the colony getting to her again.”
For a minute there was the kind of awkward silence that occurs between people who are talking about one thing and thinking about another.
“Joe—”
“Do you miss me, Martha?”
“You know I do... Listen, Joe, I’ve got something to tell you. I’m not sure it’s important. It didn’t come out at the inquest into Patrick’s death because I simply didn’t remember it then, and later, when I did, it seemed too slight a matter to bring to anyone’s attention. Richard mentioned it a few minutes ago.”
“Mentioned what?”
“Patrick’s typewriter. He’d put it in the car a week before, intending to take it into the repair shop. But he kept forgetting about it. I think it was in the back seat when he picked up the hitchhiker that night.”
Twenty-Two
Quinn had been waiting in his car outside Mrs. Wood’s house for half an hour. When he had pressed the door chime, no one had answered, but he was pretty sure there was someone inside. Drapes were pulled back, windows were open, a radio was playing.
He looked at his watch. Ten o’clock. The tree-lined street was quiet except for an occasional car and the ringing of distant church bells. After a time he became aware that someone was watching him from one of the second-floor windows. There was no breeze to account for the sudden twitching of the pink net curtain.
He went back to the front door and pressed the chime again. A cat meowed softly in reply.
“Mrs. Wood?” he called out. “Mrs. Wood—”
“She’s not here.” It was a girl’s voice, speaking through the crack in the door. “And I’m not supposed to answer the door when she’s not here.”
“Is that you, Karma?”
“You better go away or my aunt will call the police.”
“Listen, Karma. It’s Joe Quinn.”
“I know. I’ve got eyes.”
“I want to talk to you,” Quinn said. “I won’t hurt you. Haven’t I always been on your side?”
“Sort of.”
“Then come out here on the porch and talk to me. I’d like to see you again. I’ll bet you’ve changed. Have you?”
“You’d never recognize me,” she said with a sudden giggle.
“Try me.”
“You won’t tell my aunt?”
“Of course not.”
The door opened, and Quinn saw that she’d been right: he would never have recognized her. Her dark hair was cut short, pixie style, and a deep tan covered the remains of her acne. She wore a tight silk sheath dress, needle-heeled shoes, a pound of orange lipstick, and so much make-up on her eyes that she seemed to have difficulty keeping them open, or else she was deliberately trying to look sultry.
“Good heavens,” Quinn said.
“Surprised?”
“Oh yes. Yes, very.”
She came out on the porch and arranged herself carefully on the railing. “If my mother could see me now, wouldn’t she have a fit?”
“A justifiable one, I think,” Quinn said. “Does your aunt allow you to go to school like that?”