“Perfect,” I said.
“You going to go down?” Farrell said.
“Probably,” I said. “I’m getting nowhere up here.”
“Join the group,” Farrell said. “Incidentally, we got an inquiry on you from Senator Stratton’s office.”
“If nominated I will not run,” I said. “If elected I will not serve.”
Farrell ignored me.
“Came into the commissioner’s office, and they bucked it on down to me.”
“Because he mentioned the Nelson case?”
“Yeah. Commissioner’s office never heard of you.”
“Their loss,” I said. “What did they want to know?”
“General background, my impressions of your competence, that stuff.”
“Who did you talk to?”
“Guy named Morrissey, said he was the Senator’s aide.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Said you were cute as a bug’s ear,” Farrell said.
“You guys,” I said, “are obsessed with sex.”
“Why should we be different?”
chapter twelve
I FLEW TO Atlanta the next morning, took a train from the gate to the terminal, got my suitcase off the carousel, picked up a rental car, and headed southeast on Route 20 toward Alton. Most of the trip was through Georgia, Alton being just across the line in the western part of South Carolina, not too far from Augusta. I got there about two-thirty in the afternoon with the sun shining heavy and solid through the trees that sagged over the main road.
It was a busy downtown, maybe two blocks wide and six blocks long. The first building on the left was a three-story white clapboard hotel with a green sign that said Alton Arms in gold lettering. Across the street was a Rexall drugstore and lunch counter. Beside it was a men’s clothing store. The mannequins in the window were very country-club in blue crested blazers and plaid vests. There were a couple of downscale restaurants redolent of Frialator, a store that sold yarn, and a big Faulknerian courthouse made out of stone. The cars parked nose in to the curb, the way they do in towns, and never do in cities.
I parked, nose to curb, in front of the Alton Arms, and walked around a Blue Tick hound sleeping on the hot cement walkway in the sun. His tongue lolled out a little, and his skin twitched as if he were dreaming that he was a wild dog on the East African plains, shrugging off a tse-tse fly.
The lobby was air-conditioned, and opened into the dining room, up one step and separated by an oak railing. At one end of the room was a fireplace sufficient to roast a moose, to the left of the entrance was a reception desk, and behind it was a pleasant, efficient-looking woman with silvery hair and a young face.
Her looks were deceptive. She was as efficient as a Russian farm collective, although probably more pleasant. It was twenty minutes to register, and ten more to find a room key. By the time she found it I had folded my arms on the counter and put my head down on them.
She was not amused.
“Please, sir,” she said. “I’m doing my best.”
“Isn’t that discouraging,” I said.
When I finally got to my room, I unpacked.
I put my razor and toothbrush on the bathroom counter, put my clean shirt on the bureau, and put the Browning 9mm on my belt, back of my hipbone, where the drape of my jacket would hide it in the hollow of my back. Nice thing about an automatic. Being flat, it didn’t compromise any fashion statement that you might be making.
I had considered risking Alton, South Carolina, without a gun. But one of Spenser’s best crime-buster tips is, never go unarmed on a murder case. So I’d packed it under my shirt, and clean socks, and checked the bag through. I’d probably need it checking out.
I got walking directions to the Carolina Academy from a polite black guy wearing a green porter’s uniform, and lounging around the front porch of the hotel. The Blue Tick hound was still there, motionless in the sun, but he had turned over on the other side, so I knew he was alive.
Carolina Academy was a cluster of three white frame houses set in a lot of lawn and flower beds, on the other side of Main Street, behind the commercial block that comprised the Alton downtown.
The headmistress was a tall, angular, whitehaired woman with a strong nose and small mouth. She wore a long white gauzy dress with a bright blue sash. Her shoes were bright blue also.
“I’m Dr. Pauline MacCallum,” she said. She was trying, I think, for crisp and efficient, but her South Carolina drawl masked the effect. She gave me a crisp, efficient handshake and gestured toward the straight-back chair with arms in front of her desk.
“My name is Spenser,” I said and gave her one of my cards. “I’m trying to develop a little background on a former student, Olivia Nelson, who would have been a student here during the late fifties-early sixties-I should think.”
The small nameplate on the desk said Pauline MacCallum, Ed.D. The office was oval shaped, with a big bay window that looked out on the tennis courts beyond a bed of patient lucies. On the walls were pictures of white-gowned graduating classes.
“We provide for K through 12,” Dr. MacCallum said. “What year did Miss Nelson start?”
“Don’t know,” I said. “She was born in 1948, and she graduated from college in 1969.”
“So,” Dr. MacCallum said, “if she came for the full matriculation, she would have started in 1953, and graduated in 1966.”
She got up and went to a bookcase to the left of her desk, and scanned the blue leatherbound yearbooks that filled the case. On the tennis courts there was a group of young women in white tennis dresses being instructed. The coach had a good tan and strong legs, and even from here I could see the muscles in her forearms. Each of the young women took a turn returning a gentle serve. Most of them swiped at the ball eagerly, but limply, as if the racket were too heavy. Rarely did the ball get back across the net.
“I hope that’s not your tennis team,” I said.
“Miss Pollard is a fine tennis coach,” Dr. MacCallum said. “But this is a physical education class. All our girls are required to take physical education three hours a week.”
She took the 1966 Carolina Academy Yearbook out from the case and opened it and thumbed through the pictures of graduating seniors.
“Yes,” she said. “Here she is, Olivia Nelson. I remember her now that I see the picture. Fine girl. Very nice family.”
She walked around her desk and offered me the yearbook. I took it and looked at the picture.
There she was, same narrow nose with the dramatic nostrils, same thin mouth, shaped with lipstick even then. Eighteen years old, in profile, with her hair in a long bob, wearing a high-necked white blouse. There was no hint of Vietnam or dope or all-power-to-the-people in her face. It was not the face of someone who’d listened to Jimi Hendrix, nor smoked dope, nor dated guys who chanted, “Hell no, we won’t go.” I nodded my head slowly, looking at it.
The chatter beneath her picture said that her hobby was horses, her favorite place was Canterbury Farms, and her ambition was to be the first girl to ride a Derby winner.
“What’s Canterbury Farms?” I said.
“It’s a racing stable, here in Alton,” Dr. MacCallum said. “Mr. Nelson, Olivia’s father, was very prominent in racing circles, I believe.”
“What can you tell me about her?” I said.
“Why do you wish to know?”
“She was the victim of an unsolved murder,” I said. “In Boston.”
“But you’re not with the police?”
“No, I’m employed by her husband.”
She thought about that for a bit. Outside the girls continued to fail at tennis, though Miss Pollard seemed undaunted.
“I can’t recall a great deal about her,” Dr. MacCallum said. “She was from a prosperous and influential family here in Alton, but, in truth, most of our girls are from families like that. She was a satisfactory student, I think. Her transcript will tell us-I’ll arrange for you to get a copy-but I don’t remember anything special about her.”