County Attorney Ed Baker blurted truculently, “What do you want?”
Ken Chambers, Sheriff of Silverside County, stood his ground in front of Baker’s desk. He drawled, “I came to tell you something about Squint Hurley.”
“What about him?”
“I’ve been keeping an eye on him. He’s just been making a call at the Brand house on Vulcan Street.”
“What if he has?”
“I thought you ought to know. He was there over an hour. He only got back to his room a little while ago.”
“What makes you think I ought to know?”
“Jesus.” Chambers lifted his shoulders and drooped them again. “What did they elect you for, to keep you out of mischief? If you’ve got no curiosity about what Squint might be after at the Brands—”
“Who did he see there?”
“I didn’t go in with him.”
Baker made a noise of exasperation, got his phone and spoke in it. The door opened to admit a husky but tired-looking young man. Baker asked him if he knew where Squint Hurley was rooming and he said he didn’t.
“I’ll show him,” Chambers offered.
“Much obliged. Go with Chambers, Jack, and get Squint Hurley and bring him here.”
“Is there a warrant?”
“Good gracious.” Baker was wearily sarcastic. “I forgot. Stop at the printers and get an engraved invitation.”
“Okay. Excuse me for breathing.”
When they had disappeared into the anteroom, Baker went to another door, on the opposite side, and passed through into a smaller room. It had a skylight and a ventilator was whirring, but there were no outside windows. Limp in a chair, with her eyes closed, was Clara Brand. At Baker’s entrance she opened her eyes and blinked.
He stood in front of her. “Come to any decision yet?”
“I want to go home, Mr. Baker.”
“I said you could go at dinnertime. That’s no great hardship. You want these murders solved, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. They have to be.”
“You realize that can’t be without someone getting hurt.”
“I suppose not.”
“You know not. Do you want to shield a murderer?”
“No.”
“Then help me, Clara. Get it over with.”
She shook her head. “You won’t?”
“I don’t know, I... I believe I went to sleep. I’ll stay awake now.”
“Do you want a sandwich or something?”
“No, thanks.”
Under an awning on the tiled veranda at Broken Circle Ranch, Wynne Cowles, in yellow silk lounging pajamas, reclined on a portable chaise longue with chromium frame and pneumatic tires. Handy was a little table with cigarettes, matches, books, accessories. At the sound of approaching footsteps she let her magazine drop and pivoted her head, her pupils contracting as she faced the blazing sunlight beyond the awning’s edge.
“Hail, traveler!” she cried. “At the very minimum, an excuse for a highball, which is exactly what I needed.” She frowned as she extended a hand in greeting. “But what a face! You’re absolutely haggard! I’ve promised to be at Saratoga in August. You sounded on the phone as if it was something important, but you look like a cataclysm. Turn that chair around. Scotch or rye, and charged or plain?” She rang a bell.
“Rye with bubbles.” Ty Dillon sat down. “I must be an awful exaggerator if I look like a cataclysm.”
“Then it isn’t one?”
“Lord, no. Just something I want to ask you. A little information to help a struggling young lawyer.”
“I’m flattered.” A Chinese appeared and she instructed him about the drinks and sent him off. “But if you don’t mind, I’d like some information myself first. What about Clara Brand? Did she shoot that person?”
“No.”
“Is she going to be arrested?”
“I don’t think so.”
“That’s good.” Wynne Cowles removed the magazine from her breasts and put it on the table. “Darn her anyway. She’s as independent as a hog on ice. I phoned her three times this morning, and twice she refused to come to the phone, and the third time she said she didn’t-need-any-help-of-any-kind-thank-you.”
“Naturally.” Ty attempted a grin. “I’m her lawyer.”
“Don’t try to achieve flippancy, it just makes you look sick. I know you’re gone on the young sister. Sunk you are. That’s why I don’t waste effort on you. She’s a nice kid. When you phoned I thought possibly you wanted finances for the defense. I’d be glad to.”
Ty shook his head. “Not now, thanks, but I’ll bear it in mind. All I need at the moment is a little information about something that happened two years ago.”
“That’s a long time for a memory like mine. Is it going to require a feat of memory?”
“Not much of one. One day you took a sheet of white paper and wrote on it ‘mountain cat ready for prey.’ ‘Mountain cat’ was on the first line and ‘ready for prey’ on the second. Beneath that you wrote the figures, 450. At the bottom you signed it with your initials, WD. You wrote it in black ink. Your name was Wynne Durocher then.”
“So it was. O Time in thy flight... Here we are.” She pushed at books to make room on the table for the Chinese to put the tray down, stirred the tinkling ice, handed a glass to him, and took hers. “So I wrote ‘mountain cat’ on a piece of paper. It was two years ago that I was given that lovely name, Mountain Cat. By the way, I owe your girl friend a bottle of wine. If you’ll take it to her she’ll probably accept it. She thinks I’m hooked on a life contract with the devil.”
Ty sipped his highball. “You remember writing that?”
“Now do I?” Her brow wrinkled. “So many things are apt to interfere with my memory, and one of the worst is curiosity. I’m as curious as a mountain cat. If I did write that on a piece of paper two years ago, how the dickens do you happen to know it? And if you do happen to know it, why is it worth driving out here thirty miles to ask me about it?”
Ty waved a hand. “I’m a lawyer, I know everything. As for asking you about it, that may be only an excuse to have a highball with my most attractive client.”
“Baloney. I’ve seen your eyes on Delia Brand. How’s the drink, all right? Too thin?”
“No, thanks, it’s fine. You know you’re attractive.”
“I certainly do.” She smiled. “I also know whether you’re candid or not. About my writing things on white paper with black ink. What a grasp of details! I’ll tell you what — refresh my memory by showing me the paper.”
“I’d like to, but I can’t.”
“Why, haven’t you got it?”
“No.”
“Who has?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where did you see it?”
“I’ve never seen it.”
“Oh.” She looked disappointed. “From the way you described it, I was sure you had been keeping it under your pillow.” She drank, and licked her lips with a quick red tongue. “I call that a good highball.”
“So do I.” He put his glass down. “Look here, Mrs. Cowles. You’re playing with me, you’re having fun, and ordinarily I wouldn’t object to that, but this is important. You do remember writing that, don’t you?”
She shook her head. “Not yet. Quit shoving. As soon as I remember it and tell you about it, you’re going to gallop off to court or prison or somewhere, and I need you for another drink.” She rang the bell. “I’m scared to death of lawyers. I always think they’re trying to trap me.”
“Yes, I can see you tremble.”
“Of course you can— More ice, John— Anyhow, you can’t blame me if I’m curious. You say you’ve never seen this paper, you don’t know where it is or who has it, and yet you describe it as if you had seen me write it. After all...” She shrugged.