But then I remembered that Christine Webster had been one of them not too long ago, and I stopped smiling. She had no world anymore-not this one, at least. And neither did her unborn child.
I bypassed the Administration Building; I had already decided that there was no point in trying to locate Dave Brodnax through the Registrar’s Office. College administrators are chary these days of giving out any information on students, including class schedules, and the fact that I was a detective would carry no weight at all. Lainey had said Brodnax was on the football team; I thought that maybe I would be able to get to him through the coach or somebody else in the Physical Education department.
As it turned out, finding Brodnax was easier than I had anticipated. The first young guy I stopped for directions told me the football team had just begun its daily practice in Cox Stadium; the last game of the season was tomorrow afternoon. He explained how to get to the stadium, over on the north side of the campus, and I made my way in that direction. Halfway there, I heard voices yelling the way football players do. They led me straight to the backside of a press box and an open gate in a cyclone fence.
Cox Stadium was laid out below in a kind of grotto, surrounded by wooded slopes, with more trees and undergrowth beyond the north end zone. Picturesque. The stands were made out of concrete and had rows of wooden benches; I was on the home side. I went through the gate and down fifty or sixty steps toward the field. The players, about four dozen of them in pads and practice jerseys and maroon helmets, were spread out across the turf running plays and banging into tackling dummies and doing wind sprints. The grass was pretty chewed up and deep furrows striped it where the yardlines were. It was not getting as much care as it should, probably because of maintenance cutbacks by the college when Proposition 13 limited their tax revenue.
I left the stands and crossed the track that ovaled the field and went to the sideline benches. A dark guy in his thirties was standing there, writing something on a clipboard. He wore a maroon windbreaker and had a whistle strung around his neck; I thought that he must be one of the coaches.
He glanced up as I approached him. It was cold down there and his cheeks had a brick-colored tinge. “Something I can do for you?”
“I’d like to see Dave Brodnax, if that’s okay.”
“Is it important?”
“Yes, sir, it is. Just tell him it’s about Jerry Carding and Christine Webster.”
The names seemed not to mean anything to him; maybe he only read the sports sections in the daily papers. But he said, “All right, I’ll send him over,” and moved away toward where a group of beefy-looking kids were just starting to practice the recovery of fumbles.
I watched him pick one out of the group, say something to him. The kid looked over at me, nodded at the coach, and then came trotting over. He took off his helmet just before he got to me, and I saw that he had a wild shock of reddish hair and two or three hundred freckles. He was at least four inches over six feet and would weigh in at around 240-some big kid. The knuckles on his hands looked as large as walnuts.
“Hi,” he said, “I’m Dave Brodnax.” His voice was surprisingly soft for someone his size, and it matched the look in his eyes: grave, troubled. “You another policeman?”
“Not exactly.” I introduced myself. He knew my name from the newspapers and seemed willing enough to answer questions when I explained to him why I was investigating.
“But there’s not much I can tell you,” he said. “I don’t have any idea who could’ve killed Christine or what happened to Jerry.”
“The last time you talked to Jerry was when?”
“About a month ago when he and Steve came down from Bodega Bay for the weekend.”
“Steve Farmer?”
“Right. Steve lives up there now, but his folks are here in the city. He brought Jerry down a few times, so he could visit them while Jerry was seeing Chris.”
“Jerry doesn’t have a car?”
“No. He did have one until last spring, but he sold it because he needed money to finish out the semester here at State.”
“How did he get to San Francisco when Farmer didn’t bring him?”
“Borrowed Steve’s car or took the bus.”
“Uh-huh. What was the job he had up there?”
“Deckhand on one of the commercial salmon boats,” Brodnax said. “I don’t know which one.”
“Did he like doing that?”
“He thought it was okay. But it was just a way for him to make enough money so he could come back to school. He wants to be a writer, you know. One of those investigative reporters, like Woodward and Bernstein.”
“Then as far as you know, he wasn’t having any problems in Bodega Bay? Nothing that would make him drop out of sight as suddenly as he did?”
“Not as far as I know. I guess Steve could tell you if he was.”
“Where does Farmer work?”
“At a place called The Tides. As a tally clerk and warehouseman at the fish market there.”
I asked him about Jerry Carding’s relationship with his father. His answers were pretty much the same as the ones Lainey Madden had given me: they’d got along fine, no major disagreements that Jerry had ever mentioned. Brodnax had met Victor Carding on a couple of occasions and professed a general liking for him, although “he was into booze kind of heavy and made some slurs about blacks once.” And if he had disapproved of Christine for any reason, Brodnax did not know about it.
“I understand you introduced Jerry and Christine,” I said then. “Is that right?”
“Yeah. She was in my psych class during the spring semester and I took her out a couple of times. But the vibes weren’t right for anything heavy between us. She and Jerry connected right from the first; it seemed to be the real thing for both of them.”
“Did you see much of her after she began going with Jerry?”
“Not too much. With Jerry a few times and around campus.”
“Did she ever mention anything that might have been bothering her?”
“You mean those threats she’d been getting?” Brodnax shook his massive head. “I didn’t know about them until the police told me. Chris never talked much about herself.”
“Do you know the names Martin Talbot or Laura or Karen Nichols?”
“No. I didn’t recognize them in the papers this morning and I still don’t.”
“How about Bobbie Reid?”
He frowned at that and shifted his helmet from one hand to the other. “Bobbie? What’s she have to do with Chris’ murder?”
“Maybe nothing, but her name came up. You knew her, then?”
“I met her a few times, yeah.”
“Here at the college?”
“No. Steve Farmer used to go with her.”
Now that was interesting. Christine and Bobbie knew each other, Bobbie used to date one of Jerry Carding’s best friends, Bobbie commits suicide and Christine is murdered. Another connection-but where, if anywhere, did it lead?
I asked, “How long ago was this?”
“A year or so. They were pretty involved for a while.”
“Why did they break up?”
“I don’t know. Steve wouldn’t say anything about it afterward; I don’t think it was a friendly split.”
“Was he hurt? Angry?”
“Both, I guess. But he got over it.”
Did he? I wondered. “Did you see Bobbie at any time after the break-up?”
“No, not once.”
“Do you know any of her other friends?”
“Just Steve.”
“Jerry knew her, though?”
“Sure. Same way I did, through Steve.”
“Did he ever talk about her?”
“I can’t remember if he did.”
“Why would she take her own life? Any ideas?”