Sleeping Beauty (20 page)

“Why didn’t you tell us that before?” Dolan said.

“I’m still not sure.”

“What else could it be?”

“A run-out on her part, with Harold Sherry cashing in on it. Or he may have her stashed somewhere.”

“Dead or alive?”

“She could be either. She could be alive but in danger. That’s why I’m anxious to find her.”

The Sheriff spoke: “Or the two of them could be on a plane, with fifty thousand apiece for their day’s work.”

“That’s a possibility, but I doubt it.”

“Do you know something more that you haven’t told us?”

“No, I’ve given you the essential facts. But of course you can get a lot more from Laurel’s family.”

“What
about
the Lennox family?” the Sheriff said. “Could this be a case of malice, do you think? Is somebody trying to make them look real bad?”

“Harold Sherry has reason. I told you that.”

“What about other suspects? There’s been a lot of feeling against the Lennox people since the oil spill. There was a near riot at the wharf today, did you know that?”

“I was there.”

“Then you know what I mean. Do you think a gang of ecofreaks are trying to blacken the Lennoxes’ reputation?”

“By killing people and putting them in the oil?”

“If you want to put it that way.”

“No. I think the oil spill and the other crimes are probably unconnected.”

Then I remembered what Elizabeth had told me, about the effect of Harold’s earlier visit on her husband and her marriage. Perhaps there was a psychological connection, after all.

“Are you having second thoughts?” Whittemore said.

“Yes, but they’re a little off the subject. Harold Sherry has a grudge against the Lennoxes, but it goes back fifteen years.”

As I told them about it, I became aware that time was slipping away. I was going to have to hurry to catch Dr. Brokaw. Resisting further questions, I moved toward the door.

“Are you in a hurry?” the Sheriff said.

“Yes. I have an appointment.”

“That’s okay. As long as it isn’t with Harold Sherry.”

He laughed. I went out laughing.

Dolan followed me into the corridor. “You might want to stick around for a little while. We’ve got a witness on his way over here now.”

“A witness to what?”

“That isn’t too clear. When I spoke to him on the phone a little while ago, he talked as if he could identify the man you pulled out of the water this morning. He’s got a wild idea that the decedent is somebody he knows. Or somebody he knew over twenty-five years ago when he was an officer in the Navy.”

“What makes the idea so wild?”

“The naval vessel he was on burned off Okinawa. And this guy seems to think that the body floated all the way in from there—that it’s been in the water for the last twenty-five years.” Dolan tapped the side of his skull with his fingers.

“Your witness wouldn’t be Captain Somerville?”

“No, but he works in public relations for Somerville. His name is Ellis. He came around early this morning when we brought the body in here, wanting to keep the whole thing as quiet as possible. He didn’t say a word about knowing the guy. I noticed he did have a bad reaction when we showed him the body. But I figured he was just one of those sensitive types.”

“I think he is. I also think something’s bothering him.”

“You know Ellis?”

“I met him today around noon. He seemed very jittery.”

“Was he drunk?”

“No. But he’d been drinking.”

“He’s drunk now,” Dolan said, “and maybe a little crazy in the bargain.”

“Is he a suspect, in your opinion?”

“I don’t know. He sounded like a guilty man on the phone. I’m not sure what he’s guilty of, but I took the precaution of sending a car for him.”

The Sheriff left, and a few minutes later Ellis arrived, accompanied
by a uniformed deputy. Ellis had deteriorated since I’d seen him at noon. He walked loose-kneed, and he didn’t appear to recognize me. But he saluted Dolan, raising his hand to his damp forehead in a gesture that seemed intended to ward off evil.

I followed them into a room where we could see our breath. Dolan pulled a drawer out from the wall and uncovered the little old man. Ellis bent over the drawer and almost fell. Tears fell from his face onto the dead man’s face.

“It’s Nelson,” he said in awe. “It’s Nelson, all right.” He turned to Dolan. “But how did he get so old? He was just a young man when he went into the water off Okinawa.”

“He was alive yesterday.”

“No, you’re mistaken. He was lost off the
Canaan Sound
over twenty-five years ago. And it was my fault.” The awe was still in his voice. He turned to the dead man and touched his scarred face and said, “I’m sorry, Nelson.” He got down on his knees, holding onto the edge of the drawer with his fingers. “Forgive me.”

Half carrying him, we got him out of the cold room and sat him down in a chair. Dolan wet a towel and wiped his face. But he wouldn’t look at us. He sat with his head hanging down in shame and sorrow, water dripping from his nose and chin.

Dolan drew me to the far side of the room and spoke in a low voice. “Do you think he’s off his rocker?”

“He could be. He’s drunk and hysterical, anyway. But there may be something in what he says. Captain Somerville told me himself that Ellis was with him at Okinawa. And I know the ship caught fire.”

We moved back to Ellis, who seemed to be getting himself under better control. “Why do you think it was all your fault?” I said.

“Because it was.” His mournful eyes came up to mine. “I was the avgas officer on the
Canaan Sound
, and I was responsible.”

“You were the what?” Dolan said.

“The avgas—the aviation-gasoline officer. We were taking on gas at sea and I must have made a mistake, because one of our tanks ruptured. The ship was running with gasoline. Before we could get it cleaned up, something sparked and the whole thing blazed up. Some of the crew went overboard. Most of them were picked up by the oiler, but some were lost. Five or six were lost. And
he
was one of them.” Ellis pointed uncertainly toward the cold room.

“You called the dead man Nelson,” I said. “Is that a first name or a last name?”

“I don’t know. We all just called him Nelson. He was a Communications messenger on the
Canaan Sound.
”

A worried-looking woman came down the corridor. She walked like a soldier advancing, angry and fearful, on the enemy. Ellis looked around for a place to hide. But there was only the door of the cold room.

“What are you doing here?” the woman said to him. “You promised me you’d stay at home until you sobered up.”

He sat with his head down, mumbling in reply. “I had to take another look at the man.”

“What man?”

“The man they pulled out of the water. We called him Nelson. He was on the
Canaan Sound.
Poor Nelson. He’d still be alive if it wasn’t for me.”

“That’s nonsense,” the woman said. “He only drowned last night.”

“You’re mistaken. There were five or six of them drowned, and I was responsible.”

“That isn’t true. None of it is true. It was an accident, pure and simple, which means it wasn’t your fault. We’ve been over it and over it.”

“I was responsible,” Ellis said. “I was the one overseeing the work when the tank ruptured.”

“Shut up.” She turned her back on him and spoke to us. “My
husband can’t be trusted on this subject. He’s a very sensitive man, and he was involved in a terrible accident. His ship was nearly lost in a gasoline spill, and because he was the gasoline officer he assumed responsibility. But it wasn’t really his fault.”

“Whose fault was it?” I said.

“It was Captain Somerville’s fault, if it was anybody’s. I’ve gone into the subject with my husband’s shipmates. Some of them think the Captain must have called for more pressure than the tank would stand. He was the only one with the authority.”

Ellis raised his head. His drunken blowzy grief had been dried and canceled by another emotion.

“Shut up, please shut up. Do you want me to lose my position?”

“You’d be better off without it. I’ve always said so. You’re nothing more than a hired flack, and you’re not good at it. I’ve always thought we should go away and start over.”

“I’m going to have to,” Ellis said.

His moment of truth had passed, along with his illusion that the dead man had floated home across the Pacific. Ellis was just a middle-aging man afraid of losing his job.

Late afternoon traffic crawled on the boulevards. My route took me through a working-class tract where I had lived when the earthquake had hit Long Beach, back near the drop-off edge of memory. The streets looked old and run-down, except
for one where yellow acacias were blossoming like an exposed vein of gold.

It was past five-thirty when I parked my car in front of Dr. Brokaw’s office. He had a corner office on the second floor of an old building which had survived the earthquake. The waiting room was sparsely equipped with some faded chintz-covered furniture, a desk, and an old metal filing cabinet. Nobody was waiting there, but vanished patients had left behind faint matching odors of fear and poverty.

A harried-looking chemical redhead in an off-white uniform came out of the inner office. “Are you Mr. Archer?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry, the Doctor couldn’t wait for you. He had an emergency call, just a few minutes ago.”

“Will he be coming back here?”

“I doubt it. He asked me to tell you he was sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too. Where can I reach him later?”

“I’m not authorized to give out his address. But if you call the office number, you’ll get the answering service. They may be able to help you.”

“Maybe
you
can,” I said. “I’m trying to locate a man named Harold Sherry.”

“That’s funny, he’s the—” She stopped abruptly in mid-sentence.

“He’s the what?”

“I was going to say, he’s one of the Doctor’s patients.”

“Is he the emergency Dr. Brokaw went on?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t.”

“Where does Harold Sherry live?”

She glanced at the filing cabinet, then back at me. “I’m sorry, we don’t give out that information. If you’ll excuse me now, my husband is picking me up and I’ve still got work to do.”

She went into the inner room. I opened the door to the hallway and closed it without going out. I moved quietly across the room to the filing cabinet and opened the Q-R-S drawer. Several
addresses were given for Harold Sherry; all but the bottom one had been crossed out. The remaining address was % Cup of Tea, which was a public eating place hardly more than a block from where I was standing.

I left my car where it was, and walked to the Cup of Tea through gathering dusk. It was a big old cafeteria where people of all ages and classes met. There were long-haired girls and bearded young men, family groups with children, old people hunched protectively over their meager suppers. A pair of Chicano busboys were cleaning off empty tables and gathering up the dishes with noise and élan.

I went up to the serving counter to ask for the manager. But I was overcome by the sight of food. I couldn’t remember when I had eaten last. The serving girls moving around in the steam looked like buxom angels.

I ordered fried liver and onions, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, and coffee; and said I wanted to speak to the manager. He came up to my table as I was drinking my coffee—a balding man wearing a light washable jacket.

“Is something the matter, sir?”

“I hope not. The food was okay.”

“We try to make it that way.”

“I’m looking for Harold Sherry. He gave this address.”

“Oh. Harold. He doesn’t work here any more.”

“Where can I find him?”

The manager made an open-handed gesture which looked as if it was borrowed from one of his busboys. “Harold didn’t tell me that he was going to leave. He just didn’t turn up for work last week.”

“Why?”

“Too much imagination for the kind of work he was doing. That’s the nice way to put it. Are you a relative of Harold’s?”

“Just a friend. He didn’t leave any kind of forwarding address?”

“Maybe he did. I’ll check with the cashier. He spent a lot of time hanging around her.”

Her name was Charlene. She had level blue eyes and clean brown hair, and she sat behind the cash register as if she was piloting a plane. When the manager asked her about Harold, she blushed and became upset and shook her head. He retreated, making his borrowed Spanish gesture.

I waited for her to calm down, and paid her for my meal. “If you can put me in touch with Harold, you’ll be doing me a big favor.”

“You wouldn’t be his father?”

“No. I saw his mother this afternoon.”

“I didn’t know he had a mother. He’s always talking about his father. He said his father is a big oil man in Texas. Is that the truth?”

“I guess he’s moderately big.”

She breathed deeply, and her bosom rose. “So Harold had his reasons for starting here at the bottom.”

“What reasons?”

“You know, he wanted to learn the food business. His father promised to buy him a pizza franchise. But first of all he had to learn the food business.”

Her level eyes were on my face. I realized that she wasn’t so much telling me about Harold as asking me. She wanted to know if Harold was a liar.

I answered the question with another question: “Can you tell me where he is, Charlene?”

“That depends on what you want him for.”

“I can’t go into details. But Harold has come into some money.”

“Big money?”

“You might call it that.”

She didn’t believe me. In spite, or because, of that, she told me what I wanted to know: “The last time I saw him was in the liquor store. He was supposed to be in Texas visiting his father. But he was right here in Long Beach, with a big fat woman. He said her name was Ramona.” Her eyes were chilly. “He was buying her beer.”

“Do you know where I can find her?”

“You can ask them at the liquor store, I guess. They talked to her like she was a regular customer. It’s Tom and Jerry’s, down that way.” She gestured toward the waterfront.