Pasadena (57 page)

“I’d say I can’t tell from this picture.”

“Do you remember seeing this wood when you reached Edmund?”

“I never saw this wood. I never went to his side.”

“Is it possible that this wood was carried in by the rising tide?
After
Edmund died?”

“I don’t know, but it sounds possible.”

“And so you were saying, the next thing you knew, you found your brother dying, with the mallet in his temple. Is that right?” The memory was a terrible pain, as bright and awful as any she had known: but more would come. “Would you tell the jury for yourself, Mrs. Poore?”

She said that Edmund had died at Bruder’s feet.

“Did he have the look of a murderer?” This question, too, was withdrawn
and Mr. Ivory shifted his interrogation. “Tests have found Mr. Bruder’s fingerprint on the mallet’s handle. Did you know this, Mrs. Poore?”

Lindy hadn’t known this, and she wondered if it was possible. Could Mr. Ivory be twisting the evidence the way she had twisted the truth about her final conversation with Edmund?

“Mrs. Poore?”

“Yes?”

“Did Mr. Bruder kill your brother?”

“I can’t say. I didn’t see it.”

“But if you had to explain it, Mrs. Poore, wouldn’t you say that Mr. Bruder is guilty of killing your brother?” She said neither yes nor no, and she met the gleaming eyes of the jury, which told her that they had quickly snapped the story into place, the lock clicking. “Mrs. Poore?” said Mr. Ivory.

She looked to Bruder, but he would no longer look at her. He had given up on Linda Stamp.

“I didn’t see him do it,” she said, but it was too late. Her hesitation had spoken. The jury was shifting in their seats, conclusions reached circumstantially, and Cherry flipped the page in her notepad, and eventually Lindy Poore stepped off the stand and left the courtroom. Later that night, Willis—who sometimes she could hardly believe was her husband—would come to her and stroke her throbbing belly and say, “All you did was tell the truth.”

No matter how hard
he tried, Blackwood could not shake from his mind the story of Linda’s testimony against Bruder. It must have been a gruesome sight for her, her brother felled at her lover’s feet. And then to meet him in the courtroom. Blackwood wasn’t surprised to learn that things had come to this—Linda’s heart had been wayward, after all, staggering this way and that. We pay for such behavior, thought Blackwood: the debts mount indeed. He recalled his first meeting with Bruder and the blood smeared across him; hadn’t he taken delight in the death of the barracuda, in inflicting unnecessary torture? Hadn’t there been a murderous gleam in his eye? Blackwood was convinced that Bruder was capable of sinking a mallet into a man’s head, certainly in the name of love. “I assume that Mr. Bruder was convicted of this horrible crime, Mrs. Nay?”

“Yes. He was sent to San Quentin. A cell with a little window overlooking the bay. Everything smelled like salt and the marsh.”

“You visited him, Mrs. Nay?”

“Remember, I was still a reporter at the time. I went to talk to him. I knew there was another story to tell.”

“Another story?”

“His version.”

“Was it different from hers?”

“They always are.”

“What was his version, Mrs. Nay?”

“Oh, Mr. Blackwood. Should we really go into it now? Aren’t we here to discuss your purchase?” An unfamiliar modesty touched Cherry, as if this one story, the one that was truly about her, shouldn’t
be relayed. In the end she’d done her part, and she took comfort in that. Bruder had acknowledged her deed, and wasn’t that enough for Cherry? No, she wouldn’t tell Blackwood what she had done for Mr. Bruder fifteen years ago.

“Of course we’re here to talk about the property,” said Blackwood, “but I’d like to know if I’m entering into a transaction with a …” He stumbled across the word. “A murderer.”

“Don’t think of him like that.”

“How can I not?”

“You’re jumping to conclusions.”

“Now I’m confused. From what you just said—”

But Cherry stopped him and plucked his sleeve and pointed out the graceful sight of a bald eagle landing on the telephone wire that ran from the mansion to the ranch house. “All is not lost,” she said mysteriously.

“Sorry, Mrs. Nay?”

“Nothing is as it seems.”

Later, Blackwood was thinking of this conversation as he drove down the coast. He was considering what this type of betrayal might do to a man—to be sent to San Quentin by the testimony of the woman he loved. Bruder must be storing a violent well of hatred within him, to have killed Edmund and then to have to sit in a narrow cell with a sliver of view of the Golden Gate. Typically, Blackwood would be wary of dealing with a man with a felonious past (he’d made that mistake once before), but it was too late, and now Blackwood wanted to speak directly with Bruder. Blackwood felt that he could no longer rely on Mrs. Nay as an intermediary. He was certain that the final terms of the deal could be settled if only he and Bruder met again.

There was only one last thing standing in Blackwood’s way: the agreement upon a fair price. Given all he had learned, Blackwood felt confident that Bruder would have to offer a steep discount and terms tilting in Blackwood’s favor. If Blackwood didn’t make a bid, who else would? And he drove down the coastal highway, certain that a deal could be reached before the end of the day.

In a letter, Bruder had urged Blackwood to visit him at once, and by the time he reached Baden-Baden-by-the-Sea, Blackwood was bursting with confidence. He raced along the road that somewhere, a few
miles back, had split from El Camino Real. It was a cool, cloudless day, the type of day that would begin and end in cold, drippy fog, and the kid announcer on the radio news could hardly contain himself with the flurry of optimistic headlines pulsing on the wires: Cologne had fallen; the Allies had engulfed the Ruhr area; the Russians had reached the Baltic; and a smaller item, of less import but equal interest: The German government had confiscated the last available coffins in Berlin, banning citizens from burying them. Coffins, the kid announcer read from his transcript, have now been declared vital for the war effort. “The Reich government declares that any citizen attempting to bury a coffin will be shot.”

Blackwood parked next to the farm stand and went to inspect the girl’s display. Today’s catch was a bucket of rock lobsters, and the girl pulled an undersize one, live, from the water. It lifted its small tail, and its slender, branched antennae tapped the air as Blackwood inspected it. “Where are its claws?”

“They don’t have pincers round here.”

“Did you catch them yourself?”

“I’ve got eight pots at the bottom of the ocean.”

“Do you have anything bigger?”

“This is as large as they come, Mr. Blackwood. The ocean’s being picked clean.”

“Did Mr. Bruder tell you I’m buying the Rancho Pasadena?”

“He said you wanted to buy it but you don’t have the money.”

This shocked Blackwood, that Bruder would tell lies about him, especially to a girl who certainly couldn’t understand such things. And although Mrs. Nay had provided him with more pieces of the Pasadena’s story, only just now did he realize that this girl, Sieglinde, had been born at the ranch. But how had she ended up here, with Bruder? “You used to live there?” he said. Sieglinde nodded. “For how long?”

“A long time.”

“When did you leave?”

Her attempt to answer was interrupted by Palomar’s arrival. Again he wore the striped overalls with the red satin heart, but there was a griminess to them—the heart was stained black with something that had dribbled down it. “Bruder sent me to fetch you, Mr. Blackwood. He wants to see you in the cottage.”

“I’ll be down in a minute.”

“He wants you to come now.”

Blackwood didn’t like being told what to do. But he acquiesced, anxious to get on with his task. As he parked his car in the dooryard, Bruder emerged from the cottage. He waved Blackwood inside, and only when the two were standing close, at the hearth, could Blackwood fully see the frailty that had overtaken the man. He was thinner than before, and it was obvious that he couldn’t stand for long and that many pains in bone and blood pressed upon him. He had shaved his beard, exposing hollow, sallow cheeks. He sat in the small rocker by the hearth, his knees and elbows sticking out awkwardly, and he rocked himself next to the smoldering heap of ash as a trail of smoke rose from the blackened logs. The scar at his temple was dark and throbbing.

“Can I throw some more wood on it for you?” Blackwood offered.

“That would be kind.”

After doing so, Blackwood sat in the opposite rocker, and their feet nearly touched on the braided rug. The clear March sun pressed through the windows and the low tide was distant and clement, like someone sleeping in the next room.

“I was having a chat with Sieglinde. She said some things.” Blackwood said this to see what nerves might flinch in Bruder’s face, but his flesh did not move. “Mr. Bruder, are you all right? May I get you something?” Bruder’s hand rose to his throat, touching the piece of coral. Moments in the quiet spring day passed while Bruder idly stroked the pendant, and Blackwood told himself to be patient and to wait for his opportunity.

“I understand,” Bruder began at last, “that you have mucked things up with the bank men. That you bothered to involve Dr. Freeman and his gang.”

“Is that what Mrs. Nay said?”

“You realize, I trust, that they aren’t good men. They look out only for themselves and their kind. If you’re not one of them, you’ll never be.”

“Isn’t that a bit critical of you, Mr. Bruder?”

“Did you know that just yesterday Dr. Freeman sent a telegram inquiring about the Pasadena? He said that the committee would like to meet with me right away.”

Blackwood stammered: “But it’s mine!”

“It isn’t yours, Mr. Blackwood.” Bruder’s eyes rose to the bookshelf, where the telegram sat crumpled in a ball.

“I was here first.”

“Calm down, Mr. Blackwood. I haven’t answered Freeman.” Bruder paused, and his sudden stillness frightened Blackwood. Was the man ill? He couldn’t tell whether Bruder was succumbing to disease, or if this was nothing graver than weariness.

“Mrs. Nay reports—” Blackwood tried.

“I know everything Mrs. Nay has told you. We are friends, you forget.” And then: “Why have you come to see me, Mr. Blackwood?”

“It was you who asked me down.”

“Of course it was. But have you come with serious interest, or have you come to waste my time?”

Blackwood assured Bruder that he was a sincere man, and Bruder said, “And that’s why I’m speaking to you. I have no intention of doing business with men like that.”

“Like what?”

“Come now, Mr. Blackwood. You understand Pasadena as well as I.”

The conversation was proceeding so strangely that Blackwood was unsure whether or not he was making progress. Even so, he sensed he must attempt to wrest control of the negotiations. “As you know, Mr. Bruder”—and Blackwood inhaled deeply—“your ranch has sat on the market for many, many months. The longer it goes unsold, the less desirable it becomes. Now that I know the ranch’s history, the story of all that went on there, I am here to discuss a fair reduction in your asking price.”

“Do you know the ranch’s history? Do you know
all
that went on there?”

“Mrs. Nay has gone on quite a while with her stories. And you yourself have told me others.”

“Are you sure you know everything?”

Blackwood hesitated, and he felt silly with presumption.

“You were saying, Mr. Blackwood, that you’re looking for a reduction?”

“One that we both agree is fair.”

“How could something be equally fair to you and to me? Doesn’t one of us have more power than the other? Isn’t that always the case?”

But Blackwood plunged ahead. “Some would say it’s a tainted property,
Mr. Bruder. It carries with it a number of, as they say, undesirables. A dead orange grove. A mausoleum filled with a dead family. And you being a …”

“A what, Mr. Blackwood?”

“A … a, well, a man with a past of his own. This might frighten off the more timid.”

Blackwood expected Bruder’s face to fill with rage, but it did not. He continued: “A ghostly abandonment pervades the house and land. Many potential buyers will turn away from it, Mr. Bruder.”

“Ghostly, you find it?”

“To tell the truth, yes. Its rapid decline—in less than a generation—is rather shocking to a potential investor.”

“How do you mean, Mr. Blackwood?”

“Less than twenty years ago, this was one of the great houses of Pasadena. And now look at it. Everyone who lived there is dead and buried in a crypt.”

“Not everyone. You were speaking to Sieglinde just now. She seems very much alive to me.”

Blackwood thought of the girl: she resembled Mrs. Nay’s description of Linda, but it was as if the girl’s father was missing from her blood. “Aside from Sieglinde,” said Blackwood, “the family’s now gone. People don’t like such misfortune attached to their real estate.”

“You and I both know that you are right, Mr. Blackwood.”

Bruder’s agreement startled Blackwood, leaving him so emboldened that he proceeded with his next statement before he knew what he was saying. “And another thing, Mr. Bruder. It is very strange that you are the Pasadena’s owner and not Miss Sieglinde. Your ownership is another—and not insignificant—pall cast over the property.”

Bruder was silent and everything but the ocean was quiet too. Then he spoke: “Mr. Blackwood. Don’t you recall my story of the beechwood forest? Don’t any facts stick to that mind of yours?”

“Of course I remember. Every last detail. But something was missing.”

“Missing?”

“Missing, indeed, Mr. Bruder.”

“Your challenge surprises me. I told you the truth.”

“You didn’t tell me everything.”

A tiny smirk appeared on Bruder’s lips. “I see. You’re a better listener than I thought.”

Blackwood noted the appreciation in Bruder’s grimace. “You never told me why you followed Dieter home from the forest. You never told me why you came to Condor’s Nest in the first place. There was no reason you should have ever met Linda Stamp.”