“Do you really think she’s in such danger – such legal jeopardy? Or are you just trying to put the iron in my soul?”
“I talked to the local sheriff tonight, and I didn’t like the gleam in his eye when we got on the subject of Dolly. Sheriff Crane isn’t stupid. He knew that I was holding back on him. He’s going to bear down on her when he catches on to the family connection.”
“The family connection?”
“The fact that her father murdered her mother.” It was cruel to hit him with it again, on top of everything else. Still it was better for him to hear it from me than from the dreary voice that talks from under the twisted pillow at three o’clock in the morning. “Apparently he was tried and convicted in the local courts. Sheriff Crane probably gathered the evidence for the prosecution.”
“It’s almost as though history is repeating itself.” There was something approaching awe in Alex’s voice. “Did I hear you say that this Chuck Begley character, the man with the beard, is actually her father?”
“He seems to be.”
“He was the one who started the whole thing off,” he said, as much to himself as to me. “It was after he visited her that Sunday that she walked out on me. What do you think happened between them, to make her do that?”
“I don’t know, Alex. Maybe he bawled her out for testifying against him. In any case he brought back the past. She couldn’t handle the old mess and her new marriage together, so she left you.”
“I still don’t get it,” he said. “How could Dolly have a father like that?”
“I’m not a geneticist. But I do know most non-professional killers aren’t criminal types. I intend to find out more about Begley-McGee and his murder. I suppose it’s no use asking if Dolly ever talked about it to you?”
“She never said a word about either of her parents, except that they were dead. Now I can understand why. I don’t blame her for lying–” He cut the sentence short, and amended it: “I mean, for not telling me certain things.”
“She made up for it tonight.”
“Yeah. It’s been quite a night.” He nodded several times, as though he was still absorbing its repercussions. “Tell me the honest truth, Mr. Archer. Do you believe the things she said about being responsible for this woman’s death? And her mother?”
“I can’t even remember half of them.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Maybe we’ll get some better answers tomorrow. It’s a complex world. The human mind is the most complex thing in it.”
“You don’t give me much comfort.”
“It’s not my job to.”
Making a bitter face over this and the last of his whisky, he rose slowly. “Well, you need your sleep, and I have a phone call to make. Thanks for the drink.” He turned with his hand on the doorknob. “And thanks for the conversation.”
“Any time. Are you going to call your father?”
“No. I’ve decided not to.”
I felt vaguely gratified. I was old enough to be his father, with no son of my own, and that may have had something to do with my feeling.
“Who are you going to call, or is that a private matter?”
“Dolly asked me to try and get in touch with her Aunt Alice. I guess I’ve been putting it off. I don’t know what to say to her aunt. I didn’t even know she had an Aunt Alice until tonight.”
“I remember she mentioned her. When did Dolly ask you to make the call?”
“In the nursing home, the last thing. She wants her aunt to come and see her. I didn’t know if that was a good idea or not.”
“It would depend on the aunt. Does she live here in town?”
“She lives in the Valley, in Indian Springs. Dolly said she’s in the county directory. Miss Alice Jenks.”
“Let’s try her.”
I found her name and number in the phone book, placed the toll call, and handed the receiver to Alex. He sat on the bed, looking at the instrument as if he had never seen one before.
“What am I going to say to her?”
“You’ll know what to say. I want to talk to her when you’re finished.”
A voice rasped from the receiver: “Yes? Who is this?”
“I’m Alex Kincaid. Is that Miss Jenks? . . . We don’t know each other, Miss Jenks, but I married your niece a few weeks ago . . . Your niece, Dolly McGee. We were married a few weeks ago, and she’s come down with a rather serious illness . . . No, it’s more emotional. She’s emotionally disturbed, and she wants to see you. She’s in the Whitmore Nursing Home here in Pacific Point. Dr. Godwin is looking after her.”
He paused again. There was sweat on his forehead. The voice at the other end went on for some time.
“She says she can’t come tomorrow,” he said to me; and into the receiver: “Perhaps Sunday would be possible? . . . Yes, fine. You can contact me at the Mariner’s Rest Motel, or . . . Alex Kincaid. I’ll look forward to meeting you.”
“Let me talk to her,” I said.
“Just a minute, Miss Jenks. The gentleman here with me, Mr. Archer, has something to say to you.” He handed over the receiver.
“Hello, Miss Jenks.”
“Hello, Mr. Archer. And who are you, may I ask, at one o’clock in the morning?” It wasn’t a light question. The woman sounded anxious and irritated, but she had both feelings under reasonable control.
“I’m a private detective. I’m sorry to disrupt your sleep with this, but there’s more to the situation than simple emotional illness. A woman has been murdered here.”
She gasped, but made no other comment.
“Your niece is a material witness to the murder. She may be more deeply involved than that, and in any case she’s going to need support. So far as I know you’re her only relative, apart from her father–”
“You can leave him out. He doesn’t count. He never has, except in a negative way.” Her voice was flat and harsh. “Who was killed?”
“A friend and counselor of your niece’s, Professor Helen Haggerty.”
“I never heard of the woman,” she said with combined impatience and relief.
“You’ll be hearing a great deal about her, if you’re at all interested in your niece. Are you close to her?”
“I was, before she grew away from me. I brought her up after her mother’s death.” Her voice became flat again: “Does Tom McGee have anything to do with this new killing?”
“He may have. He’s in town here, or he was.”
“I knew it!” she cried in bleak triumph. “They had no business letting him out. They should have put him in the gas chamber for what he did to my little sister.”
She was choked with sudden emotion. I waited for her to go on. When she didn’t, I said:
“I’m anxious to go into the details of that case with you, but I don’t think we should do it over the phone. It really would be helpful if you could come here tomorrow.”
“I simply can’t. There’s no use badgering me. I have a terribly important meeting tomorrow afternoon. Several state officials will be here from Sacramento, and it will probably go on into the evening.”
“What about the morning?”
“I have to prepare for them in the morning. We’re shifting over to a new state-county welfare program.” Latent hysteria buzzed in her voice, the hysteria of a middle-aged spinster who has to make a change. “If I walked out on this project, I could lose my position.”
“We don’t want that to happen, Miss Jenks. How far is it from there to Pacific Point?”
“Seventy miles, but I tell you I can’t make it.”
“I can. Will you give me an hour in the morning, say around eleven?”
She hesitated. “Yes, if it’s important. I’ll get up an hour earlier and do my paperwork. I’ll be at home at eleven. You have my address? It’s just off the main street of Indian Springs.”