"You've been doing some research into Mildred's life," he said.
"Not really. She's the subject of a painting that I was hired to recover. But the case keeps sliding off into other cases. Mostly disaster cases."
"Give me a for-instance."
"The disappearance of Richard Chantry. He dropped out of sight in California in 1950, and left behind some paintings which have made him famous."
"I know that," the sheriff said. "I knew him when he was a boy. He was the son of Felix Chantry, who was chief engineer of the mine in Copper City. Richard came back here after he got married. He and his young wife lived in the house up the mountain, and he started painting there. That was back in the early forties."
"Before or after his half brother William was murdered?"
The sheriff walked away from me a few steps, then came back. "How did you know that William Mead was Richard Chantry's half brother?"
"It came up in conversation."
"You must have some pretty wide-ranging conversations." He stood perfectly still for a moment. "You're not suggesting that Richard Chantry murdered his half brother, William?"
"The suggestion is all yours, Sheriff. I didn't even know about William's death until today."
"Then why are you so interested?"
"Murder always interests me. Last night in Santa Teresa there was another murder-also connected with the Chantry family. Did you ever hear of a man named Paul Grimes?"
"I knew him. He was Richard Chantry's teacher. Grimes lived with him and his wife for quite some time. I never thought too much of Grimes. He lost his job at the Copper City high school and married a half-breed." The sheriff averted his head and spat on the ground again.
"Don't you want to know how he was murdered?"
"It doesn't matter to me." He seemed to have a supply of anger in him, which broke out at unexpected points. "Santa Teresa is way outside my territory."
"He was beaten to death," I said. "I understand that William Mead was also beaten to death. Two murders, in two different states, over thirty years apart, but the same _m.o."_
"You're reaching," he said, "with very little to go on."
"Give me more, then. Was Paul Grimes living with the Chantrys when William Mead was killed?"
"He may have been. I think he was. That was back in 1943, during the war."
"Why wasn't Richard Chantry in uniform?"
"He was supposed to be working in the family's copper mine. But I don't think he ever went near it. He stayed at home with his pretty young wife and painted pretty pictures."
"What about William?"
"He was in the army. He came here on leave to visit his brother. William was in uniform when he was killed."
"Was Richard ever questioned about William's death?"
The sheriff answered after some delay, and when he did answer he spoke with difficulty: "Not to my knowledge. I wasn't in charge then, you understand. I was just a junior deputy."
"Who conducted the investigation?"
"I did, for the most part. I was the one that found the body, not too far from here." He pointed east toward the New Mexico desert. "Understand, we didn't find him right away. He'd been dead for several days, and the varmints had been at him. There wasn't much left of his face. We weren't even sure that he'd been killed by human hands until we got the medical examiner out from Tucson. By that time it was too late to do much."
"What would you have done if you'd had the chance?"
The sheriff became quite still again, as if he were listening to voices from the past that I couldn't hear. His eyes were shadowed and remote.
Finally he said, with too much angry certainty, "I wouldn't have done anything different. I don't know what you're trying to prove. I don't know why I'm talking to you at all."
"Because you're an honest man, and you're worried."
"What am I worried about?"
"Mildred Mead, for one thing. You're afraid that something has happened to her."
He took a deep breath. "I don't deny that."
"And I think you're still worried about that body you found in the desert."
He looked at me sharply but made no other response. I said, "Are you certain that it was her son William's body?"
"Absolutely certain."
"Did you know him?"
"Not that well. But he was carrying his official papers. In addition to which, we brought Mildred out from Tucson. I was there when she made the identification." He went into another of his silences.
"Did Mildred take the body back to Tucson with her?"
"She wanted to. But the army decided that after we got finished with it the body should go to Mead's wife. We packed the poor remains into a sealed coffin and shipped them back to the wife in California. At first none of us knew he had a wife. He hadn't been married very long. He married her after he entered the service, a friend of his told me."
"Was this a local friend?"
"No. He was an army buddy. I disremember his name-something like Wilson or Jackson. Anyway, he was very fond of Mead and he wangled a leave to come out here and talk to me about him. But he couldn't tell me much, except that Mead had a wife and a baby boy in California. I wanted to go and see them, but the county wouldn't put up the expense money for me. Mead's army buddy got shipped out in a hurry, and I never saw him again, though later, after the war, he sent me a postcard from a vets' hospital in California. One way and another, I never did make a case." The sheriff sounded faintly apologetic.
"I don't understand why Richard Chantry wasn't questioned."
"It's simple enough. Richard was out of the state before the body was found. I made a real effort to have him brought back-you understand, I'm not saying he was guilty, in any way-but I couldn't get any support from higher authorities. The Chantrys still had a lot of political power, and the Chantry name was kept out of the William Mead case. It wasn't even publicized that Mildred Mead was his mother."
"Was old Felix Chantry still alive in 1943?"
"No. He died the year before."
"Who was running the copper mine?"
"A fellow named Biemeyer. He wasn't the official head at the time, but he was making the decisions."
"Including the one not to question Richard Chantry?"
"I wouldn't know about that."
His voice had changed. He had started to lie, or to withhold the truth. Like every sheriff in every county, he would have his political debts and his unspeakable secrets.
I wanted to ask him whom he was trying to protect, but decided not to. I was far out of my own territory, among people I didn't know or entirely understand, and there was a sense of unexpended trouble in the air.
XXI
The sheriff was leaning toward me slightly, almost as if he could overhear my thoughts. He was as still as a perching hawk, with some of a hawk's poised threat.
"I've been open with you," he said. "But you've been holding back on me. You haven't even told me who you represent."
"Biemeyer," I said.
The sheriff smiled broadly without showing any teeth at all. "You're kidding me."
"No, I'm not. The girl is Biemeyer's daughter."
Without any obvious change, his smile turned into a grin of shock and alarm. He must have become aware that he was revealing himself. Like a hostile fist relaxing, his face smoothed itself out into blandness. Only his sharp gray eyes were hostile and watchful. He jerked a thumb toward the mountain behind him.
"The girl you left up there is Biemeyer's daughter?"
"That's right."
"Don't you know he's majority owner of the copper mine?"
"He makes no secret of it," I said.
"But why didn't you tell me?"
It was a question I couldn't answer easily. Perhaps I'd let myself imagine that Doris might possibly be better off in a world quite different from her parents' world, at least for a while. But this world belonged to Biemeyer, too.