Cat and Mouse (8 page)

He read the list. “I can do that. All of them are subscribers to my paper.”

It was still too early for dinner when we came back to the motel. Harley went in to take a shower. I read through the addresses Duane had given us and then phoned Jan.

“You won’t be home tonight,” she guessed.

“I won’t. Anything new up there?”

“Nothing. And with you?”

“Belton and I are working together. He’s a good man to have along, a retired Marine.”

“That should make him your kind of man. I miss you, Brock.”

“It’s mutual. And you be careful! We can’t be sure that man is still in town here.”

“I’m well protected, sweetie. Mrs. Casey is now sleeping in our bedroom and she brought her dagger along.”

Harley came in as I hung up.

“The missus?” he asked.

I nodded.

“You happily married?”

“Most of the time. Are you?”

“Not lately,” he said. “You think maybe I’m trying to transfer my sense of guilt to my wife?”

I shrugged. “That’s too complicated for me.”

“Yeh. You know, you and I are a lot alike.”

I grinned at him. “Maybe we should have asked for a double bed.”

“Let’s get off that kick, Brock.” He paused. “We’re going to find that bastard, aren’t we?”

“Or die trying. Did you see much action in the Marines?”

“I killed a few people.” He took a deep breath. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about it. Should we eat here?”

“We may as well. The food’s not bad and they have a liquor license.”

He had his standard double bourbon, I a bottle of Beck’s. We both ordered the special of the day, Wiener schnitzel, cottage fries, buttered carrots, and a tossed green salad.

Over our coffee, he said, “I’m bushed. I spent most of last night driving to San Valdesto after the funeral. Maybe only one or two stops tonight?”

“Fair enough. It’s been a tiring day for me, too. How about this Fernando Valdez, the guitarist? His address isn’t far from here.”

“Let’s go.”

The residence of Fernando Valdez was not a house; it was a converted garage. A long shelf loaded with flowers in pots ran the length of the overhead door. A battered Dodge pickup truck was on the driveway.

The entrance was on the side of the building. There was no bell. Harley knocked.

The tall, thin Chicano youth who opened the door was wearing blue cords and a blue work shirt. His long black hair was gathered in a ceramic ring at the back. He was barefoot.

Harley said, “I’m Jasper’s father and this is a friend of mine. We’re investigating Jasper’s…death.”

“Come in,” the youth said.

His dining table was a steel card table, a campers’ stove sat on a table nearby. His bed was an army cot. His clothes were on hangers, strung on a long pole at the far end of the room. There were three chairs for visitors. There was no bathroom or any faucet in sight.

Harley said, “We’re trying to learn the true name of a man who calls himself Big Bear. We haven’t had much luck.”

“Neither did any of us,” Fernando said. “I’m sure he had more than one name. I suspect he had a police record and that could be why.”

Harley said, “He seemed to be admired in your group.”

“Not by me. He was the one who put Jasper on the hard stuff. Your son, Mr. Belton, never touched the stuff until that creepy bastard put him on it. That’s more than I can say for the rest of Duane’s friends.”

“Duane told us Big Bear left town owing him seventy dollars.”

Fernando smiled. “That’s peanuts to Duane. His mama sends him a big fat check every week. She lives in Beverly Hills and he lives in
Venice!
Gringos!” He smiled again. “Nothing personal, gentlemen.”

“No offense taken,” Harley said. He took a five-dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to Fernando. “There’s nothing else you could tell us about Big Bear?”

Fernando shook his head. Then, “Wait. There was a woman he brought to one of Duane’s parties one night. Damn it, I forget her first name! Her last name was Meredith and I remember the street she told me she lived on. It’s Cervato Way but I can’t remember if she told me the house number. She must have been about sixty and ugly as sin. There can’t be too many people named Meredith on Cervato Way. It’s only about three blocks long and ends at the beach.”

“Thank you,” Harley said.

“You’re welcome. I hope you find that bigoted bastard. If you do, give him a shot for me.”

“I will,” Harley said. “Thanks, again.”

Outside, he said, “I’ve had more than enough for today. Let’s hit the sack.”

I agreed.

T
HE MORNING WEATHER REPORT
on the radio could have been a taped replay of the standard San Valdesto report: overcast in the morning, clearing by noon, except along the coast.

At breakfast, Harley asked, “This Meredith woman first?”

I nodded. We had found the only Meredith listed on Cervato Way last night in the phonebook—
J. Meredith, 267 Cervato Way.

I nodded.

“Your car or mine?” he asked.

“Mine. Traffic here is a little heavier than it is in Sun City.”

He sighed. “I get the message. When we go out together my wife always insists on driving.”

“Why don’t you phone her before we take off?”

“Later,” he said.

Two sixty-seven Cervato Way was an old one-story frame house flanked by a small convenience store on one side and an older two-story stucco house on the other.

A thin white-bearded man who could have been older than either house was putting out his trashcan at the curb in front of the larger house when we got out of the car.

“You guys cops?” he asked.

I shook my head. Harley said, “Why do you ask?”

“There was such a rumpus in there last night, I figured somebody must have complained. Such screaming—!”

“And you phoned the police?”

“Not me, mister! I got enough troubles of my own.”

“Have you seen her this morning?” Harley asked.

The man shook his head. “But I see her morning paper is still on the sidewalk. She always picks that up early.”

Harley looked at me and then at the house. I said, “Let’s go up and find out.”

We went up to the low front porch and rang the bell. No answer. A minute later, Harley rang it again. No answer. He tried the knob. The door was not locked.

“Should we go in?” he asked.

I nodded.

The narrow hallway ran the length of the house. The small living room was on the left as we entered, a smaller guest room on the right. Nobody was in either room. The bathroom on the left farther down the hall was also vacant. The kitchen and a small breakfast nook were at the rear of the house. Nothing.

There was another door at the left end of the kitchen. Harley opened it and we saw the steps going down. Basements are not common in Southern California. Harley flicked the light switch at the head of the stairs.

It wasn’t a basement. It was a root cellar, an excavation about eight feet by eight feet with a dirt floor. Two large rats deserted the body they were feasting on and scurried into the area beneath the steps.

A woman was lying there, a thin woman in a yellow kimono. I couldn’t guess her age by her face; her face was covered with blood.

“Jesus!” Harley said.

“We’d better phone the police,” I said.

We were going down the hall toward the phone in the living room when the front door opened. A uniformed police officer stood in the doorway, a wide and swarthy man with a gun in his hand.

“Stay right where you are,” he said, “both of you! Turn around and put your hands on the wall and don’t make any foolish moves. Put ’em up high.”

A younger, thinner patrolman had followed him in. We did as requested as they frisked us.

“Okay,” the swarthy officer said. “You can put your hands down now—but don’t turn around!”

“We were heading for the phone when you came,” I said. “My name is Brock Callahan. You can confirm that by my driver’s license. You can also check me out with a phone call to Captain Aram Apoyan at your station. We were about to report to him that there is a dead woman in the root cellar. The doorway to it is in the kitchen.”

“Phone the captain,” he told the other officer. “I’ll stay here.”

I said, “If it was her neighbor who phoned you guys, he should have called last night when he heard her screaming.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“He did. That’s why we came in. The door wasn’t locked.”

“We’ll get back to him,” he said.

The younger man came back to tell his partner that Captain Apoyan had confirmed that he knew me and I was to report to him
immediately.

The old man wasn’t in front when we went out but four neighbors from across the street were standing on the walk, watching the house. Another police car pulled up as we drove away, plainclothesmen.

“That old coot could have saved her life,” Harley said bitterly.

I didn’t comment. It was a silent drive to the station.

Aram smiled at me as we entered his office. “The
odar
is back to haunt us. And this time it’s breaking and entering.”

Odar
is the Armenian word for other, for the non-Armenian. I said, “Entering, but not breaking. The door wasn’t locked.”

“A minor difference. And what is your interest in this woman who was killed, this Jane Meredith?”

“We think she might have been living with the man who killed Jasper Belton in San Valdesto. This is Jasper’s father.”

Aram’s broad face became more somber. “I read about what happened, Mr. Belton, but the San Valdesto police never notified us he was here. If he is, I assure you the full cooperation of this department.” He looked at me. “Is this the same man who threatened you?”

I nodded.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know who he is. I suspect it might be some man I put away when I was working down here.”

He took a deep breath. “Wait here. I’ll see if any reports have come in to Homicide.”

He came back five minutes later. Nothing, he told us. None of the neighbors knew the man’s name. He had been living, off and on, with Jane Meredith for the last month. Evidently, she wasn’t a socializer.

“And,” he added, “the detective who frisked you both reported that neither of you was carrying a gun. Weren’t you taking a big risk?”

“I guess,” I admitted. “I didn’t bring mine and I don’t think Harley has one. I rarely carry a gun, as you must remember.”

“Well, that’s one plus for your side. What else have you learned while you were in town?”

Harley put our list on Aram’s desk. “Here are some of the people who knew my son and also this man we’re looking for. You may copy it, if you wish.”

“I wish,” Aram said. “I’ll be right back.”

He came back about ten minutes later. “We’ll check out these names and I’ll also phone San Valdesto. Where are you two staying?”

“At the Bayside Inn. If we’re not there, leave a message.”

He promised us he would and warned us to be careful.

It was a tedious and unproductive trip from then on. We were told what we already knew or told nothing by the resentful kids who probably considered us establishment citizens. Three of them weren’t home; they worked days.

We stopped in to see Aram on the way back to the motel. I told him what I should have told him earlier, about the Corinth cigarettes. So far as I knew, I explained, they were a rare brand. If they were available in town, a stakeout of the stores that sold them might be a wise move.

He agreed.

In the car, Harley said, “Back to San Valdesto? I can’t believe that jerk would stay here when he’s as hot as he is now.”

“We’ll stay over,” I said. “We still have three places to go tonight.”

In the room, he said, “I’m going out for a run on the beach. The only thing we’ve been exercising is our mouths.”

“Did you bring running shoes?”

“Everywhere I go.”

I was trying to find a pattern in all that I had learned since my trip to Tritown when Aram phoned around four o’clock. They had located a store that had sold Corinth cigarettes to a man that fit Big Bear’s description. “But we got there an hour late,” he said.

“He’ll probably be back.”

“Maybe not. He bought two cartons. And something else. We learned that Jane Meredith withdrew five hundred dollars from her savings account yesterday but we didn’t find a plugged nickel in the house. The man now has traveling money.”

“If he got it from her, why would he kill her?”

“Our best guess is that she learned his real name, somehow. Are you staying in town?”

“At least for tonight. We still have to talk to three people who weren’t home today.”

“We can handle that. What are their names?”

“Aram, you know what we both think of your night watch!”

“Shit, yes! Okay. But report to me tomorrow.”

“Of course.”

Harley came in five minutes later, soaked in sweat. I relayed the information Aram had given me. “They were twenty minutes from catching him in San Valdesto,” I pointed out, “and missed him by an hour here.”

“The bastard can’t stay lucky forever,” he said. “I think I’ll call my wife after I take a shower.”

“Do that. I’m going down and have a poolside drink and study the girls in their bikinis.”

There were no girls in the pool. That wasn’t the reason I sat there with a bottle of Beck’s. Harley Davidson Belton, I was sure, would not be as sentimental as he should be if I had stayed to overhear his conversation.

All that I had learned since Tritown should be enough to convince Tom Mallory and Chief Harris that they had a very doubtful case on Corey. But nothing I had learned was going to divert Big Bear from his mission. Maybe, as Harley had said, he couldn’t stay lucky forever. Neither could I. I had learned with the Rams that the best defense is a strong offense.

Harley brought a Manhattan from the bar with him when he came out to join me. “Where are the girls?” he asked.

“I scared them all away.”

He took a sip of his drink and stared out at the pool. “There were plenty on the beach. And too many in my Marine years. That’s not the kind of training that builds a faithful husband, is it?”