Dead Seed (2 page)

She hung up and stared at us. “Carol and Fortney left for Carmel an hour ago.” She looked at Mrs. Casey. “How long has that van been out there?”

“About half an hour,” Mrs. Casey said. She sighed. “Well, I have my laundry to do. I can’t be worrying about the neighbors.”

Jan looked questioningly at me. “Okay,” I said, “I’ll go out and tell them.”

“Tell them what?”

“That Miss Medford is on her way to Carmel. They might sit there all day!”

“You tell them
nothing.
You ask them what right they have to park that obscene vehicle in front of our house.”

“Calm down,” I said. “It’s a public street.”

“Then I’ll ask them.” She started for the door.

“I’ll go,” I said. “Sit!”

Mrs. Casey had described the woman as stout. She was a little more than that; I judged her to be between one hundred and ninety to two hundred pounds of pale flab. The youth behind the wheel was slimmer and less malignant-looking. He was in worn jeans and a blue work shirt, the woman in a soiled caftan. I came around to his side of the car. He glanced at me and then returned to staring moodily through the windshield.

“Trouble?” I asked him. “Out of gas? Looking for somebody?”

He didn’t look at me. He inclined his head toward the woman next to him. “Ask her.”

I looked at her; she glared at me. “Get lost,” she said. “We found what we’re looking for.”

“If it’s Miss Medford,” I said, “she isn’t home.”

“What makes you think we’re looking for her?”

The boy sighed and took a deep breath.

I said, “Because you went to her house yesterday.”

She scowled at me. “Are all the neighbors as nosy as you?”

I shook my head. “And they probably didn’t see your car here yesterday.”

The boy said, “Let’s go, ma. I’m tired of sitting here.”

“Shut up!” she said. “And you, Mr. Big Nose, take off!”

The boy said, “Be reasonable, ma! I’m taking off myself in the next five minutes, whether you do or not.”

“Like your father did?” she said.

I said quietly, “I’m going to wait five minutes, along with the lad, and then I’m going to phone the sheriff’s station. Maybe you’ll be more civil to them.”

Her smile was scornful. “You do that, big boy. We’ll be waiting right here.”

“For exactly five minutes,” the boy said.

I didn’t hear her reply; I was heading for the house.

There, Jan asked, “Well—?”

I related the dialogue.

“So,” she said in her reasonable, wifely voice, “phone the sheriff.”

“Why?” I asked in my equally reasonable way. “We don’t own that street in front of the house. The lady was perfectly willing to wait for the sheriff. What could he charge her with? It’s not against the law to be overweight and nasty.”

“Okay. But I’m going to phone Carol tonight. I owe her that much.”

“And how about today?” I asked. “Do you realize we haven’t played golf in two weeks? Why don’t we get in a quick nine at Sandpiper before the boys take over at noon?”

She sighed. “Not today. Maybe tomorrow. I have to take some drapery samples up to that miserable woman in Solvang. You go and play with the boys.”

She went up to Solvang but I didn’t go to the course. At noon I was in Plotkin’s Pantry where Bernie always ate lunch on Wednesdays. He was nursing a martini in a corner booth all by himself.

“What in hell are you doing here?” he asked me.

“Hoping to have lunch. Is it closed to goys on Wednesdays?”

“The only time I’ve ever seen you in here is when you’re with me,” he explained. “What’s on your mind?”

“Only a few friendly questions. I’ll buy your lunch.”

“Sit down,” he said wearily. “I’ll buy your drink.”

I ordered a stein of
Einlicher
and related the morning’s adventure. “So what do I do now?” I asked him.

“How would I know?” he said gruffly. “I’m a city cop. Montevista’s not in the city. Did you expect me to muscle those two or something?”

I smiled at him. “You’re grumpy. You got turned down for captain again, didn’t you?”

He glared at me. “Who told you that?”

“Bernie,” I said soothingly, “this is old Brock, your stout friend and loyal confidant. Let’s start over.”

He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. You called it right. I got the shaft again.”

I said, “You are not exactly the Chief’s ideal Dale Carnegie cop, Bernie. But he can’t live forever.”

“I know, I know! Those two in the van—locals?”

“I doubt it. It had Arizona plates.”

“Why didn’t you call the Sheriff? The citizens in your area get the kid-glove treatment from the Sheriff’s Department.”

I shrugged.

He smiled. “Come on! You were thinking blackmail, right? Maybe you were afraid your wealthy neighbor might get burned.”

“Don’t be absurd. I happen to like Carol Medford and I think those people might be harassing her. And I have always admired her new boyfriend.”

“She’s had enough of ’em. Who’s her latest?”

“Fortney Grange,” I said, and waited for his reaction.

“What’s he—another young one?” he asked.

Were Mrs. Casey and I the only living members of the Fortney Grange fan club? I said, “Not too young. Let’s eat.”

He had herring in sour cream. I had a corned-beef sandwich and another stein of
Einlicher.
Over our coffee, he said, “If you could get the license number of that van, I could help you there.”

I handed him a slip of paper and said, “I thought you’d never ask.”

“You bastard,” he said. “You devious bastard!”

The gang I usually played with at Sandpiper on Wednesday was not playing today. I went to my own club and hit a bucket of balls and then went home.

The van was not in sight. But there was a Sheriff’s Department car parked in the Medford driveway. Ten minutes later, Mrs. Casey came out to the pool to tell me there was a policeman at the door who wanted to talk with me.

“Send him out here,” I said.

The officer looked too young to remember me. But he smiled and said, “I had no idea the Rams paid this kind of money when you were with them.”

“They didn’t. I had a rich uncle who met an untimely death. Untimely for him, I mean. I suppose you want to ask about those two who were parked out in front this morning?”

He nodded. “Your housekeeper told me she tried to get the license number on the vehicle, but couldn’t. You didn’t get it by chance, did you?”

I shook my head, which was not a lie. I had got it by design, not by chance. The front plate had been clean enough to read.

“Did Miss Medford ever live in Arizona?” he asked me.

“I don’t know. Did you ask the butler next door?”

He looked uncomfortable. “I forgot to. I’m kind of new at this. He told me the woman was there yesterday morning, but Miss Medford wasn’t home. A very heavy woman, he told me.”

“Very,” I agreed. “The kid was skinnier. Nicer, too, is my hunch. His mother didn’t seem worried when I threatened to phone you boys. By the way, who did phone you?”

“The butler. But they were gone when we got here. Weren’t you with the police department in Los Angeles after you quit football?”

I shook my head. “I was a private investigator.”

“Oh,” he said in a tone just faintly tinged with contempt.

“A man has to eat,” I explained.

“I suppose,” he said doubtfully. “Hey—wait-how did you know the woman was his mother?”

“Because he called her ‘ma’. After you’ve been with the department for a while you’ll pick up these sophisticated detection techniques.”

He flushed. “You don’t have to get snotty.”

“It’s a hangover,” I explained, “from my cheap-peeper days. Sorry. My father was a cop. He was killed in the line of duty.”

His flush deepened. “Okay, I had a shot coming. You’re right; a man has to eat.” He took a breath. “If you get anything that might help, you’ll phone us, won’t you?”

“Of course,” I lied.

Bernie phoned around three o’clock. “Get a pencil and a piece of paper,” he said.

There was a pad and pencil next to the phone. I said, “Shoot, Loot.”

“That van,” he told me, “is registered to a Carl Tryden Lacrosse, aged forty-six, of Skeleton Gulch, Arizona.” He spelled out the Tryden and the Lacrosse: “Mean anything to you?”

“I know a La Crosse in Wisconsin,” I said, “but that’s a town.”

“Right. And two words. This is one. If you tell anybody I looked this up for you, I’ll deny it. When are we going to play poker again?”

“As soon as I recover from the beating I took last time. Thanks a lot, old buddy.”

The Tryden didn’t register with me, but Carl Lacrosse—that name had a familiar sound. I had seen it somewhere, and recently. It had stuck in my memory because my flanking tackle for four years with the Rams had been Moose Mulvaney from La Crosse, Wisconsin. To hear Moose tell it, La Crosse was the twentieth-century Eden.

Jan came home around three-thirty. “Guess who is up in Solvang?” she asked me.

“Ronnie? Paul Newman? Gore Vidal?”

“Don’t be silly. Carol.”

“Did you talk with her?”

“I didn’t even see her. But my client has this house hidden in the hills near there, and I saw Carol’s Rolls in the driveway of a house on the road up.”

“There must be more than one Rolls Royce in the Solvang area.”

“Not with a license plate that reads CAROL MD. Now, what would she be doing there?”

“The road through Solvang is a much quicker route to Carmel,” I explained, “than 101 is. They probably stopped to see friends on the way.”

“Maybe—and maybe not. Mrs. Casey told me she was going over to talk with Charles today. I’m going out to the kitchen to find out if she’s learned anything.”

When she came back, she looked disappointed. “Charles told Mrs. Casey that Carol told him that woman was a maid she fired years ago, even before Charles went to work for her. The woman has apparently been harassing her every time she comes to town.”

I smiled. “And there goes your villainy theory.”

“Try not to be smug,” she said. “What have you been doing while I’ve been out laboring?”

“A little checking. That van that was parked in front is registered to a man named Carl Tryden Lacrosse. Why is that name familiar to me?”

“I can’t believe it is,” she said. “Not for a man whose idea of a class camera is a Polaroid One-Shot. Carl Tryden Lacrosse is one of the finest photographers west of the Rockies. I am amazed that—”

“You don’t have to get snotty,” I interrupted. “He had some pictures in
Arizona Highways
magazine, right?”

She nodded. “Quite often. He lives in Arizona. Tell me what’s going on, Brock.”

“You tell me. You’re the smart ass.”

A miffed silence.

“I owed you that,” I explained. “How did it go with the miserable woman in Solvang?”

“I think I’ve got her nailed,” she said.

“That’s better,” I told her. “Now you’re talking my language.”

S
O, WHAT BUSINESS WAS
it of mine? The woman in the van had called it right; I was being a nosy neighbor.

“She always ran, didn’t she?” Jan asked at breakfast next morning.

“Carol? How do you mean?”

“She ran away from marriage often enough. And that’s the biggest commitment of all, isn’t it?”

“And how!”

“Please! Let us have a civilized conversation for a change. Carol is the same with her charities: no commitment, never physically active in them. She simply mails them a big check and gets her name on the honorary-sponsor letterhead.”

“So okay, she’s a butterfly. I thought you liked her.”

“I do. That doesn’t mean I approve of her. Do you?”

I shrugged.

“Be honest, Brock.”

“All right. I grew up middle class. That is where my attitudes were born. If I had been born rich, I would probably be a butterfly, too.”

She laughed.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“I had this sudden image of a two-hundred-and-forty-pound butterfly flitting from flower to flower.”

“Two hundred and twenty-three pounds as of this morning, Ms. Acid Tongue. Are we going out for nine holes?”

“I guess. I don’t have to be in Solvang until this afternoon.”

It was ladies’ day at the club and Jan didn’t have a skirt that would fit me, so we played out at Sandpiper’s ocean course. The women’s tees there are at least fifty yards shorter than the men’s on almost every hole, but Jan refused to adjust her handicap. Underneath her refined and semisophisticated exterior, she has a tiger’s instinct for the kill.

We played for fifty cents a hole. As we walked off the ninth green she graciously accepted the four and a half dollars I owed her. And she considers
me
the competitive partner!

She left for Solvang right after lunch, and another afternoon yawned at me. Her belief that Carol Medford was running from trouble was not a belief I shared. A butterfly Carol might be, but the rich don’t have to run; they are insulated by their wealth and their powerful attorneys. And Fortney Grange running—? No way!

But that woman in the caftan and that sullen kid driving a van that belonged to a famous photographer? That didn’t make sense to my rational (and investigative) mind.

I put in a long-distance call to the editor of
Arizona Highways.

He was out to lunch, the secretary told me, but an assistant editor was available and would that do? I said it would.

It was a woman. I explained to her that I was the president of a camera club San Valdesto, and we were trying to get in touch with Carl Lacrosse to address our group. But the letters I had sent to his Skeleton Gulch address had been neither answered nor returned by the post office as undeliverable.

“I am sure,” she told me, “that he would have answered if he had received your letters. He has spoken to many photography clubs. But I doubt if he spends more than a week or two in Skeleton Gulch.”

“Do you have a current address for him?”

“We don’t. The last one we have is in London, and I know he is back from there. His most recent show was in the Smithsonian. You might try them.”

“Doesn’t he have an agent I could call?”

“Not
him
He is a real loner and almost pathologically noncommercial. Anyone who is not seriously interested in photography is of absolutely no interest to Carl.”