Aragon said, “Do you mind if I come in and take a look around the property?”
“Why do you want to do that?”
“I work for Mrs. Shaw’s attorney. There are some papers for her to sign and he hasn’t been able to get in touch with her.”
“She’s not here.”
“Have you been inside the house?”
“Not so much.”
“How much is that?”
“Only in the storage room off the kitchen. I take a little food now and then.”
“How do you get in?”
“There are a whole bunch of keys on nails in the garage,” the old man said. “But I didn’t need any of them. Missus isn’t too careful about locking the house because the electric gate keeps strangers out.”
“You found the back door open, Mr. Hippollomia?”
“Not open, unlocked.”
“And it’s unlocked now?”
“Yes.”
“Would you have any objection to my going in?”
“It’s not my house. I have no say-so.”
“You’re the only one on the premises,” Aragon said. “That more or less puts you in charge.”
The old man’s shoulders twitched inside his oversized work shirt. “You go when you want, you do whatever, I’m out of it. I wait here.”
“I’d like to make sure Mrs. Shaw left the house of her own free will. By the way, do you work for her on a regular basis?”
“Yes.”
“Every day?”
“No. Twice a week I clip hedges and mow the lawn and haul away clippings.”
“Are there live-in servants?”
“No more. The fat lady who cooks, the college girl who vacuums and cleans, the handyman living in the room over the garage, I don’t see them for a long time. What do you think?”
“I think,” Aragon said, “Missus forgot to pay.”
The size and beauty of the place made its neglect more apparent. There was a sixty-foot white-tiled pool with a Jacuzzi at one end, but the water had turned green with algae and the weir was clogged with leaves and a dead gopher. Across a corner of the patio a dripping faucet had left a trail of rust like last year’s blood. A marble birdbath was filled with the needles and sheathed pods of cypress. Pollen from the jellicoe trees had sifted the flour over the glass-topped tables and latticed chairs.
Inside, the house was dusty but very neat. Two living rooms, a library and a formal dining room all had fireplaces scrubbed as clean as the ovens in the kitchen. Upstairs there was a sitting room and half a dozen bedrooms, the largest of which was obviously Miranda Shaw’s. It was here that Aragon found the only disorder in the house. The covers of the canopy bed had been pulled up over the pillows but the blue velvet spread was still draped across a matching chaise. Clothes were bulging out of one of the sliding doors of the closet. Beside the picture window a plant that looked like a refined cousin of marijuana was dying from lack of water. Some of its leaves had turned black and were curled up like charred Christmas ribbons.
In the adjoining bathroom used towels had been thrown into the pink porcelain tub. The chrome toothbrush holder was empty. So was the monogrammed silver tray made to hold a conventional hairbrush-comb-hand-mirror set.
Hippollomia was waiting at the kitchen door where Aragon had left him.
“Missus has taken a trip?”
“It looks that way.”
“I hope she comes back soon and pays the electric. I want to go home. All the ice cream is gone.”
“When I get back to my office I’ll call the company and see if I can arrange to have your truck released.”
“Why?”
“Because I feel that an injustice was done, probably due to a misunderstanding between you and the man who—”
“Misunderstanding,” Hippollomia said. “I laugh. Ha ha.”
It was noon when Aragon returned to the office. Smedler was busy on the phone, so Aragon made his report to Smedler’s secretary, Charity Nelson.
She didn’t like it. “What do you mean Mrs. Shaw went away?”
“Like in sayonara, auf Wiedersehen, adios.”
“Where did you get your information?”
“Various sources. First, a kid told me.”
“A what?”
“A child,” Aragon said. “And an old man, a Filipino, I think.”
Charity leaned back in her swivel chair, so that her orange-colored wig slid forward on her head and she had to peer out at Aragon through a fringe of bangs that looked like shredded pumpkin. “Smedler’s not going to like this, one of his attorneys prying information out of children and old men.”
“I didn’t pry and it wasn’t an ordinary child. It wasn’t an ordinary old man either. He’s waiting to get his truck out of Mrs. Shaw’s driveway. I promised to help him, so if you don’t mind I’d like to use your phone.”
“I mind.”
“Don’t you want to help an old man?”
“How old?”
“About seventy or seventy-five.”
“Sorry, I don’t help anyone under eighty,” Charity said pleasantly. “It’s one of my rules.”
Smedler came out of his office straightening his tie and smoothing his hair like a man who’d just been in a scuffle. He stared at Aragon the way he usually did, as though he wasn’t quite sure of his identity. “Did you arrange for Mrs. Shaw to come in and sign the papers?”
“No, sir. I couldn’t find her.”
“Why not?”
“She wasn’t where I looked.”
“That answer will be stricken from the record as frivolous and non-responsive. Better try again.”
Aragon tried again. “She left town.”
“Go after her.”
“I’m not even sure which direction she went, let alone—”
“Mrs. Shaw is not one of these modern flyaway women you find hanging around bars in San Francisco or blackjack tables in Las Vegas. If she left town she’s probably visiting some elderly relative in Pasadena. Miss Nelson, check and see if Mrs. Shaw has an elderly relative in Pasadena or thereabouts.”
“She ran off with a lifeguard,” Aragon said.
“This seems to be your day for making funnies... It is a funny, of course?
“No, sir. His name’s Grady and he’s broke. That’s about all I can tell you. I’m not even sure whether Grady’s a first or last name.”
“Find out and go after him.”
“The staff at the Penguin Club aren’t eager to give out information, especially the girl in the front office.”
“So make yourself charming.”
“That wasn’t part of my contract with you, Mr. Smedler.”
“It is now,” Smedler said and went back into his office.
The conversation, which seemed to depress Smedler, had the opposite effect on his secretary. Her normally flat eyes looked round as marbles.
“A lifeguard yet,” Charity said. “I wonder if she had to fake a drowning in order to make contact.”
“Probably not. Lifeguards are usually quite accessible.”
“Were you ever a lifeguard, Aragon?”
“No.”
“Too bad. I bet you’d look cute in one of those teeny-weeny Mark Spitz numbers.”
“Irresistible.”
“What a shame you’re married. I could arrange marvelous little office romances. I could anyway, of course, since your wife lives in San Francisco and you live here. That’s a terribly funny arrangement, by the way.”
“I’m glad it amuses you.”
“Don’t you get, well, you know?”
“I get you know,” Aragon said. “But San Francisco is where my wife was offered a residency in pediatrics and she took it like a nice sensible girl. Like a nice sensible guy I approved.”