It started to rain lightly and the old men abandoned their benches and ambled off to shelter. Helene put on her gloves and rose, ready to leave, when she saw the girl from Lassiter’s grill entering the Square from Powell Street. She had no idea whether the girl would recognize her or whether it would be important if she did, but simply as a precaution she picked up a discarded newspaper from the grass and held it in front of her as a spying shield.
She thought at first that the girl was alone and that the man walking parallel to her was just about to pass her and be on his own way. He didn’t pass. He kept right on walking beside her but at a distance, as if the two of them were in the midst or the aftermath of a quarrel. They approached the bench where Helene sat hidden behind the limp newspaper, with the pigeons cooing and coaxing at her feet.
The man had the same startling color contrast as the girl, very light hair and deeply tanned skin. They might have been brother and sister. The man was the older of the two, perhaps in his early thirties. There were clearly defined laugh lines around his eyes and mouth, but he wasn’t laughing. He looked pale under his tan, and feeble under the loud plaid sport coat. Helene had never seen him before but she remembered others like him. Years ago during the depression in Oakland, her way to school led her past a poolroom where jobless young men used to hang out for lack of anything better to do. On their faces, in their posture, they all shared a common expression, not bitter or angry, but listless, as if they hadn’t expected much anyway. The man in the plaid coat wore the same expression.
The farm girl and the poolroom buff. They looked out of place in the Square and with each other. She couldn’t imagine what connection either of them could have with Rupert. I must have been mistaken, she thought. Rupert was telling me the truth when he said he didn’t know the girl, had never seen her before. He’s probably been telling the truth about everything. Suspicion is contagious. I caught it from Gill.
It was nearly four o’clock when she returned to Gill’s office and found him with his topcoat on and his briefcase under his arm, ready to depart.
“You’re soaking wet,” he said. “Where have you been?”
“Oh, walking. Looking at things.”
“If you hurry, you can catch the 4:37 train home.”
“Aren’t you coming too?”
“Later. I have to see Dodd.”
“Why?”
“It’s time we had a showdown with Rupert.”
“But why now, today?”
“The dog’s been found.”
She looked at him stupidly. “Dog? What...”
“Amy’s dog,” he said.
15.
“The Sidalia Kennels,” Dodd said. “It’s a combination small-animal hospital and boarding kennel on Skyline Boulevard just outside the city limits. He brought the dog in Sunday night, the fourteenth of September. The vet himself wasn’t there but a college kid, a Cal Aggie student who helps out during the summer, was on duty at the time. The dog had a spot of eczema on his back and Kellogg’s instructions were to keep him there until further notice. He paid a month’s board in advance. The dog was wearing a plaid harness but no leash. He’s in good shape, according to the vet; the eczema’s gone and he’s ready to leave whenever Kellogg wants to pick him up... Did you call Kellogg’s office, by the way?”
Gill nodded. “Miss Burton said he left at noon to go home.”
“We’ll catch him there then. You understand, don’t you, that there’s nothing much we can do except ask him questions and hope for answers. It’s not illegal to park a dog at a kennel. And it’s not illegal to use a power of attorney, even fifteen thousand dollars’ worth.”
“What would he want with all that money?”
“Let’s go and find out. We’ll take my car if you don’t mind.”
With the slackening of the rain, a wind had risen, and the little Volkswagen wavered with the gusts as if it were going to roll like tumbleweed across the road. But there was no place for it to roll. All the way out Fulton Street the five o’clock traffic moved bumper to bumper. Gill sat with his fists clenched against his thighs, and every time Dodd applied the brakes, Gill’s foot stamped on the floorboard.
“It’s a little car,” Dodd said after a time. “It only needs one driver.”
“Sorry.”
“There’s no need to get all tensed up about this, Brandon. When we confront him with what we know of the truth, he may break down and tell us the rest of it. Then again, he may have a nice pat explanation for everything.”
“Including the money?”
“The money part’s easy. He needed it to send to Amy — her expenses in New York are running higher than she expected.”
“She isn’t in New York.”
“So if I were Kellogg, I’d say, prove it.”
“I will, even if I have to wring the truth out of him with my bare hands.”
Dodd was silent a moment, apparently engrossed in guiding the car through the traffic which had thinned out somewhat west of Presidio Boulevard. “Come on now, Brandon. You’re not really figuring on that bare-hand bit.”
“I am.”
“Why are you carrying a gun, then?”
“I — don’t know. I bought it this afternoon. I’ve never owned a gun before. It suddenly occurred to me that I ought to have one, that I needed one.”
“And now you feel better?”
“No.”
“Nor do I,” Dodd said grimly. “Get rid of it.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“I think it will. You’re not the type who should be messing around with loaded guns.”
“I guess I knew that,” Gill said. “It’s not loaded. I didn’t buy any cartridges.”
Dodd made a little sound that seemed to indicate amusement or relief or some of both. “I can’t figure you, Brandon.”
“If I wanted to be figured, as you put it, I would have gone to a psychiatrist, not a detective. Turn right at the next corner. The house is in the middle of the third block.”
“You’d better leave the gun in the car.”
“Why? It’s not loaded.”
“Kellogg might get the idea that it is, and counter with one of his own that is loaded. That would leave us out on a pretty thin limb.”
“Have it your way.” Gill handed over the gun and Dodd locked it inside the glove compartment.
“There’s one more thing, Brandon. Let me do the talking. At first, anyway. You can horn in later if you like, but right at the beginning let’s not get this thing slobbered up with emotions.”
Gill got out of the car, stiffly. “I don’t like your choice of language.”
Dodd’s reply was lost in the wind. He pulled up the collar of his coat and followed Gill up the walk to the porch.
It was a middle-income neighborhood where great attention was paid to outward appearances. Lawns no bigger than an elephant’s ear were groomed to perfection, hedges barely had time to grow before they were clipped. The roses and camellias were fed almost as well and regularly as the occupants of the houses, and were probably given more care and inspection for signs of disease. It was a street of conformity; where identical houses were painted at the same time every spring, a place of rules where gardens, parenthood and the future were planned with equal care, and even if everything went wrong the master plan remained in effect — keep up appearances, clip the hedges, mow the lawn, so that no one will suspect that there’s a third mortgage and that Mother’s headaches are caused by martinis, not migraine.