“No.”
Bolling was tongue-tied by the things he wanted to say and wasn’t supposed to. The boy looked from Bolling to me, wondering what he had done to spoil the occasion. Bolling took pity on him. With a defiant look at me, he said:
“Did you say your name was John Brown? I knew a John Brown once, in Luna Bay.”
“That was my father’s name. You must have known my father.”
“I believe I did.” Bolling climbed out of the car. “I met you when you were a very small baby.”
I watched John Brown. He flushed up warmly. His gray eyes shone with pleasure, and then were moist with deeper feelings. I had to remind myself that he was a self-admitted actor.
He pumped Bolling’s hand a second time. “Imagine your knowing my father! How long is it since you’ve seen him?”
“Twenty-two years – a long time.”
“Then you don’t know where he is now?”
“I’m afraid not, John. He dropped out of sight, you know, quite soon after you were born.”
The boy’s face stiffened. “And Mother?” His voice cracked on the word.
“Same story,” I said. “Don’t you remember either of your parents?”
He answered reluctantly: “I remember my mother. She left me in an orphanage in Ohio when I was four. She promised to come back for me, but she never did come back. I spent nearly twelve years in that institution, waiting for her to come back.” His face was dark with emotion. “Then I realized she must be dead. I ran away.”
“Where was it?” I said. “What town?”
“Crystal Springs, a little place near Cleveland.”
“And you say you ran away from there?”
“Yes, when I was sixteen. I went to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to get an education. A man named Lindsay took me in. He didn’t adopt me, but he let me use his name. I went to school under the name of John Lindsay.”
“Why the name change?”
“I didn’t want to use my own name. I had good reason.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t the other way around? Are you sure John Lindsay wasn’t your real name, and you took the name of Brown later?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Somebody hired you, maybe.”
He flushed up darkly. “Who are you?”
“A private detective.”
“If you’re a detective, what was all that bushwa about Hollywood and Sunset Boulevard?”
“I have my office on Sunset Boulevard.”
“But what you said was deliberately misleading.”
“Don’t worry about me so much. I needed some information, and I got it.”
“You could have asked me directly. I have nothing to hide.”
“That remains to be seen.”
Bolling stepped between us, sputtering at me in sudden anger: “Leave the boy alone now. He’s obviously genuine. He even has his father’s voice. Your implications are an insult.”
I didn’t argue with him. In fact, I was ready to believe he was right. The boy stepped back away from us as if we’d threatened his life. His eyes had turned the color of slate, and there were white rims on his nostrils:
“What is this, anyway?”
“Don’t get excited,” I said.
“I’m not excited.” He was trembling all over. “You come here and ask me a bunch of questions and tell me you knew my father. Naturally I want to know what it means.”
Bolling moved toward him and laid an impulsive hand on his arm. “It could mean a great deal to you, John. Your father belonged to a wealthy family.”
The boy brushed him off. He was young for his age in some ways. “I don’t care about that. I want to see my father.”
“Why is it so important?” Bolling said.
“I never had a father.” His working face was naked to the light. Tears ran down his cheeks. He shook them off angrily.
I bought him, and made a down payment: “I’ve asked enough questions for now, John. Have you talked to the local police, by the way?”
“Yes, I have. And I know what you’re getting at. They have a box of bones at the sheriff’s station. Some of them claim that they’re my father’s bones, but I don’t believe it. Neither does Deputy Mungan.”
“Do you want to come down there with me now?”
“I can’t,” he said. “I can’t close up the station. Mr. Turnell expects me to stay on the job.”
“What time do you get off?”
“About seven-thirty, week nights.”
“Where can I get in touch with you tonight?”
“I live in a boardinghouse about a mile from here. Mrs. Gorgello’s.” He gave me the address.
“Aren’t you going to tell him who his father was?” Bolling said.
“I will when it’s been proved. Let’s go, Bolling.”
He climbed into the car reluctantly.
Chapter 11
THE SHERIFF’S SUBSTATION was a stucco shoebox of a building across the street from a sad-looking country hotel. Bolling said he would stay in the car, on the grounds that skeletons frightened him:
“It even horrifies me to think that I contain one. Unlike Webster in Mr. Eliot’s poem, I like to remain oblivious to the skull beneath the skin.”
I never knew whether Bolling was kidding me.
Deputy Mungan was a very large man, half a head taller than I was, with a face like unfinished sculpture. I gave him my name and occupation, and Dineen’s note of introduction. When he’d read it, he reached across the counter that divided his little office, and broke all the bones in my hand:
“Any friend of Doc Dineen’s is a friend of mine. Come on in around behind and tell me your business.”
I went on in around behind and sat in the chair he placed for me at the end of his desk:
“It has to do with some bones that were found out in the Marvista tract. I understand you’ve made a tentative identification.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. Doc Dineen thinks it was a man he knew – fellow by the name of John Brown. It fits in with the location of the body, all right. But we haven’t been able to nail it down. The trouble is, no such man was ever reported missing in these parts. We haven’t been able to turn up any local antecedents. Naturally we’re still working on it.”
Mungan’s broad face was serious. He talked like a trained cop, and his eyes were sharp as tacks. I said: “We may be able to help each other to clarify the issue.”
“Any help you can give me will be welcome. This has been dragging on for five months now, more like six.” He threw out a quick hooked question: “You represent his family, maybe?”
“I represent a family. They asked me not to use their name. And there’s still a question whether they are the dead man’s family. Was there any physical evidence found with the bones? A watch, or a ring? Shoes? Clothing?”
“Nothing. Not even a stitch of clothing.”
“I suppose it could rot away completely in twenty-two years. What about buttons?”
“No buttons. Our theory is he was buried the way he came into the world.”
“But without a head.”
Mungan nodded gravely. “Doc Dineen filled you in, eh? I’ve been thinking about that head myself. A young fellow came in here a few weeks ago, claimed to be John Brown’s son.”
“Don’t you think he is?”
“He acted like it. He got pretty upset when I showed him the bones. Unfortunately, he didn’t know any more about his father than I do. Which is nil, absolutely nil. We know this John Brown lived out on the old Bluff Road for a couple of months in 1936, and that’s the sum-total of it. On top of that, the boy doesn’t believe these are his father’s bones. And he could just be right. I’ve been doing some thinking, as I said.
“This business about the head, now. We assumed when the body was first turned up, that he was killed by having his head cut off.” Mungan made a snicking sound between tongue and palate, and sheared the air with the edge of his huge hand. “Maybe he was. Or maybe the head was chopped off after death, to remove identification. You know how much we depend on teeth and fillings. Back in the thirties, before we developed our modern lab techniques, teeth and fillings were the main thing we had to go on.