"Was that pretty typical?" I said. "Crimmins buying what he wanted?"
"What you're really asking is, Was Orton corrupt when he dealt with wealth and power?, and the answer is, Absolutely." She smoothed her sweater. "No apologies. Carson and Butch ran that town. If you wanted to survive, you played along. When Butch died, Scott took over his half. It wasn't even a town. It was a joint fiefdom with the rest of us serfs balancing on a wire between them. Orton was caught right in the middle. By the late seventies, we decided we were getting the heck out, one way or the other. Orton had qualified for Social Security and mine was about to kick in, plus I'd inherited a small annuity from an aunt. All we wanted was to sell the printing equipment and get something for ownership of the paper. Orton approached Scott first, because he thought Scott would be easier to deal with, but Scott wouldn't even listen."
Beating her chest, she put on a gorilla face. " 'Me farmer, me do nothing else.' Straight ahead and pigheaded, just like his father. So Orton went to Carson, and to his surprise, Carson said he'd consider it."
"Surprise because Carson was uncreative?"
"And because everyone knew Carson wanted to get out of Treadway himself. Each year there'd be talk of some new real estate deal."
"How long had that been going on?"
"Years. The main problem was Scott wouldn't hear of it, and half the land wasn't very attractive to the developers. The approach Orton used with Carson was to suggest the paper might be a good activity for Sybil, to keep her out of trouble." She snapped her ringers. "That did the trick."
Now I understood the Intelligencer's sudden editorial shift toward Crimmins.
"What other kind of trouble was Sybil getting into?" I said.
She smiled archly. "What do you think?"
"I saw a picture of her and Scott at a dance."
The smile faltered, then changed course, growing wider, fuller, ripe with glee.
"Oh, that picture," she sang. "We might as well have published them naked. Orton wasn't going to print it, a gentleman to the last. But that night, he was sloshed to the gills, so I put the paper to bed."
Breathing in deeply, she savored the exhalation.
I said, "What was the fallout?"
"Nothing public. I suppose there was tension among those directly concerned. Terri Ardullo always impressed me as tightly wound, but she didn't run around after Sybil with a hatchet. The Ardullos were never the type to air their laundry in public. Same for Carson."
"What did the serfs have to say about it?"
"Nothing that I heard. Doesn't pay to antagonize the nobility if you want to eat. And it wasn't as if everyone didn't already know about Scott and Sybil."
"The affair was public knowledge?" I said.
"For months. Certainly since Sybil's production fell apart. I suppose she needed another role." She shook her head. "The two of them adopted a flimsy coven First, Scott's truck would speed out of town. An hour later, the slut's little Thunderbird would zoom away. She'd always return first, usually with shopping bags. Sometimes she'd visit the peasants in the local stores, showing off what she'd acquired. Then, sure enough, Scott's truck would zip past. Ludicrous. How could they possibly think they were getting away with it?"
"So Carson had to know."
"I don't see how he couldn't have."
"And no reaction at all? He never tried to stop it?"
"Carson was much older than Sybil. Maybe he couldn't cut the mustard, didn't mind someone else keeping her busy from time to time. Perhaps that's why he bought Orton's line about finding Sybil recreation. We were certainly trying to exploit him-did you read the rag after she took over?"
"Borderline coherent."
"You're a charitable young man." She stretched. "My, this is great fun."
"What can you tell me about Jacob Haas?" I said.
"Well-meaning but a boob. Before he became sheriff, he'd been working as a bookkeeper in Bakersfield. He got the job because he'd served in Korea, took some law enforcement courses in junior college, didn't offend anyone."
"Meaning he wasn't aligned with either Butch or Carson."
"Meaning he never put their kids in jail."
"Was that ever a possibility?" I said.
"Not with Scott, but with the Crimmins boys, sure. Two obnoxious little buggers-spoiled rotten. Carson gave them fast cars, which they proceeded to race down Main Street. It was common knowledge that they drank and took drugs, so it was only luck they never killed anyone. One of them paid for his recklessness a few years later-died motorcycling."
"Any other offenses besides drunk driving?"
"General bad character. They treated the migrants like dirt. Chased the migrant girls. When the picking season was over, they switched gears and bothered the local girls. I remember one night, very late, I'd just finished with the paper, walked outside to get some air, when I saw a car screech to a stop down the block. One of those souped-up things with stripes on the side, I knew right away whose it was. The back door opened, someone fell out, and the car sped away. The person lay there for a second, then got up and started walking down the middle of Main Street very slowly. I went over. It was a little Mexican girl-couldn't have been older than fifteen, and she spoke no English. Her face was all puffy from crying and her hair and clothes were messed and torn. I tried to talk to her but she just shook her head, burst into tears, and ran away. The street ended a block later and she disappeared in the fields."
"Whose fields?" I said.
Her eyes narrowed, then closed. "Let me think about that… North. That would have been Scott's alfalfa field."
"So no consequences for Cliff and Derrick?"
"None."
"How did they get along with their stepmother?"
"Are you asking if they slept with her?" she said.
"Actually, my imagination hadn't carried me that far."
"Why not? Don't you watch talk shows?"
"You're saying Sybil-"
"No," she said. "I'm not saying anything of the sort. Merely musing. Because she was a slut and they were healthy big boys. To be fair-something I generally detest-I never picked up an inkling of anything quite so repellent, but… How'd they get along? Who loves a stepmother? And Sybil wasn't exactly the maternal type."
"But she managed to get them involved in her theatrical production."
"Only one of them-the one who drew."
"Derrick," I said. "She wrote about it in the Intelligencer. Still, spoiled adolescents don't do things they hate."
She turned quiet. "Yes… I suppose he must have enjoyed it. Why all these questions about the Crimmins clan?"
"Derrick Crimmins's name came up in newspaper accounts of the murders. Commenting about Peake's oddness. Other than Haas, he was the only person to speak on the record, so I thought I'd track him down."
"If you find him, don't send regards. Of course he'd jump at the chance to ridicule Peake. He and his brother delighted in tormenting Peake-another bit of their delinquency."
"Tormenting how?" I said.
"What you'd expect from rotten kids-teasing, poking. More than once I saw the two of them and a gang of others they ran with collecting in the alley that ran behind our office. Peake used to hang around there, too. Inspecting garbage cans, looking for paint cans and God knows what. The Crimmins brats and their friends must have been bored, gone after some sport. They circled him, laughed, cuffed him around a bit, stuck a cigarette in his mouth but refused to light it. The last time, I'd had enough, so I stepped out into the alley using some blue language and they dispersed. Not that Peake was grateful. Didn't even look at me, just turned his back and walked away from me. I never bothered again."
"How'd Peake react to the ridicule?" I said.
"Just stood there like this." Her facial muscles slackened and her eyes went blank. "The boy was never all there."
"No anger?"
"Nope. Like a zombie."
"Were you surprised when he exploded into violence?"
"I suppose," she said. "It wouldn't surprise me, today, though. What do they always say-'It's the quiet ones'? Can you ever tell about anyone?"