County Kill (19 page)

I thanked her and left.

There was no other place to go. I wouldn’t have any new hope until four o’clock, and that could prove to be nothing. I headed the flivver toward Montevista.

Pete, I kept reminding myself, had known Johnny longer than Skip had. Pete had been familiar with Johnny’s old loves and new. And his steady love?

Under the overhanging trees in peaceful Montevista the flivver chugged along. She seemed to turn almost automatically between the stucco pillars.

There were three landscape men working in the front yard and an improvement was already visible. On the front porch June Christopher Lund was sitting with a cup of coffee, overseeing the work. She smiled as I came along the walk from the parking area.

“You’re the foreman,” I guessed.

“Right. I want it nice for Skip when he comes home. And he’s coming home, isn’t he?”

“We live in hope.”

She smiled confidently. She turned to call through the open window behind her. “Glenys, your boy friend is here.” She turned back to grin maliciously. “You caught her with her hair down and no Einlicher in the refrigerator.”

“You shouldn’t tease her,” I said. “She’s a real citizen.”

“I’ve always teased her. You can go right in.”

In the living room Glenys was going through a stack of phonograph records, arranging them in two piles. She was wearing blue jeans and a T shirt and there was a long streak of dust on her forearm.

“Coon-Saunders,” she said, “and their Kansas City Night-hawks. Have you ever heard of them?”

“I remember Joe Saunders,” I said, “but the original band was before my time.” I nodded toward the front yard. “Your idea?”

“June’s. She no longer needs an Aunt Glenys — not with Uncle Brock around. Do you like warm Einlicher?”

“At this price I can drink it warm.”

She went out and came back with two bottles, one for her and one for me. She sat down near me and said acidly, “I see another of Skip’s dear friends was killed last night. Well, at least the hot-rodder can’t be blamed for that murder.”

“Easy, now, Aunt Glenys. Skip’s in enough trouble without having family enemies.”

“He’ll be clear now, won’t he?”

“I don’t know. He’s in trouble. I have one small, last hope of finding the murderer, but he’ll still be in trouble. If I find the murderer, I’ll have to stop investigating and turn into a politician. I’m not very good at that.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Politician? Does that mean … a … a
deal?”

“In a way. It’s too complicated to explain and I would have to betray a trust to make it clear. Let’s talk about something else.”

Her chin lifted. “What shall we talk about?” A pause. “Jan?”

I flushed. She did, too.

She sipped her beer. “Damn you! I’ll get a man even bigger than you. And one with some class — a
halfback!”

I grinned at her. “I know one like that, and he’s rich and single, too. His name is Scooter Calvin. I’ll bring him around some night when you’re back in civilization. He’s lighter
than I am, but better looking and taller.”

“Oh, shut up!” she said, but there was no venom in her voice.

We talked about other things then. When Bud came home from school and learned that his Aunt Glenys had planned to throw away all his Coon-Saunders records, we had a temporary domestic crisis.

And then it was time to call Dunphy.

T
HE HUB AND
nub of it had been here all the time. At Chickie’s, where the queen reigned. I stood in the hot, late-afternoon sun in front of her place and saw the faded, ancient Rambler parked about half a block up the street, under the shade of a eucalyptus.

I went up the steps slowly and into the dim coolness. The blind on the largest window had been lowered and it was dark in the bar. The guitar player and one of his buddies were playing gin rummy at a table near the kitchen door. There were no customers.

“Mrs. Rico here?” I asked.

The guitar player nodded and inclined his head toward the kitchen door. “She’s busy now.”

“Who’s out there?” Juanita called. “Is that Pancho Callahan?”

“Right.”

“Come back,” she called. “I can’t come out; my hands are full of flour.”

The boys at the table said something in Spanish as I pushed through the swinging door. I came into a small,
cluttered, dark, but well-scrubbed kitchen. There was a light directly over Juanita’s head and her lustrous hair glinted. She was kneading dough.

Her smile was innocent and cordial. “What’s new?”

“Most of it’s old,” I said. “As old as time. You never told me you and Johnny Chavez were lovers, Juanita.”

She stopped working. Her brown eyes went toward the swinging door and then came back to rest sadly on me. “Not so loud. Who told you that?”

“You didn’t; that’s what is important. Your husband tried to knife Johnny once, didn’t he? So your husband must have known what was going on.”

She shook her head. “Jose was drunk that day. Since that day he has never again mentioned the name of Johnny Chavez.”

“But he knew about it. Last night he brought Red Hovde over to my motel room. That’s Jose’s Rambler up the street, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “Why would he bring Red over?”

“Maybe he thought Red was big enough and drunk enough to scare me off. He knew about you and Johnny, Juanita. And he killed him. Does he still have the rifle?”

“Damn you,” she whispered, “not so loud. I have the guns. Jose has no guns.”

“A knife, though? He used it on Pete because Pete knew what was going on. But out in the open country it’s not easy to creep up on a man with a knife. So he used one of your rifles. There’s a slug down at Headquarters waiting to be matched to your rifle, Juanita.”

“No,” she whispered, but there was doubt on her face. “Never!”

“They jumped Red, too — Jose and his friends — didn’t they?”

The doubt grew in her face and she looked at me fearfully.

I asked. “Do you live in this building?”

She nodded.

“Get me the.30-.30 then. I’ll take it down to Headquarters and we can check it out.”

“Jose,” she said softly, “has not fired a gun since he was a boy. He wouldn’t … he couldn’t … he plays cards, he plays the guitar, he is happy. No!”

“Get the gun,” I said. “And I’ll take Jose down to Headquarters. There’s a fingerprint that needs matching, too — a fingerprint in blood from the doorknob of Skip Lund’s apartment. The blood is the blood of Pete Chavez. And the fingerprint could be Jose’s.”

“No,” she said. “We can’t have the police in my business. If Jose is guilty — ”

“The police must know,” I finished for her. “You’re not an executioner, Juanita. There is no other way.”

From the barroom I heard a door close. The front door. And then there was a shade being pulled. Juanita looked doubtfully at me. The big shade had been down; what shade was being pulled now?

She stared at the swinging door.

“The shade on the door?” I asked quietly. “The shade that says ‘Closed’ on it when it’s down?”

She was breathing heavily, staring at the motionless swinging door.

I said, “He was playing cards when I came in. I think he has now sent his friend home and locked the front door. I guess he overheard us, Juanita.”

“Wait,” she said hoarsely. She wiped her hands on her apron. “You wait here.”

I thought she was going into the bar, but she headed for another door, a door that probably led to their living quarters.

I stood near the big triple sink, cursing my inadequacy. I had come here directly from Montevista, not going back to the motel for my.38.

When I had left the motel this morning, there hadn’t seemed to be any need for a gun; it was now safely locked in my valise.

Quietly I moved over toward the doorway through which Juanita had disappeared.

And then, from the other room, I heard the ring of the phone and I waited. I heard his voice, the quiet voice of the matriarch’s husband, the dominated man named Jose Rico. The guitar man.

He spoke too low for me to hear, but then he called, “Mr. Callahan, it’s for you. It’s Sergeant Vogel.”

Vogel? How would he know I was here? Well, maybe…. I said, “I’ll be there in a second.” But I stood where I was.

In a few seconds he swung the door open and stood half in the kitchen, half out, holding the door open with his back. There was nothing in either of his hands, and no noticeable bulge was in his pockets.

He said quietly, “Sergeant Vogel says it’s important.”

“Thank you.”

I went past him warily, wondering about Juanita, keeping Jose in sight peripherally as I walked to the phone behind the bar.

I still had Jose in sight as I picked up the phone. It was a dead line.

I said, “Now your friend is involved, too. You had him phone, didn’t you? That makes him an accomplice.”

He shrugged and smiled. He walked to the other end of the bar and reached a hand underneath it. When the hand came out, there was a gun in it, a big service automatic, a.45.

His voice was soft and musical. “Pete is dead. Johnny is dead. Adulterers, both. Home wreckers, men of violence
and no substance. They are better off dead.”

“It was murder,” I said. “You can’t change that.”

“Nor bring them back to life. How much money do you want?”

I stalled, hoping for time, hoping for the return of Juanita. I stalled and pretended to be considering his question.

“How much?” he asked again.

I said doubtfully, “Juanita wouldn’t stand still for murder. She wouldn’t let you buy me off.”

“Juanita,” he said quietly, “will not spoil her charity work with police. Juanita needs me and I her and we are wasting time.”

“Let’s wait until she gets here,” I said. “We’ll talk it over, the three of us.”

His eyes smoldered in suspicion and he said, “Come out from behind the bar; come out in the open where I can see you have no gun.”

Out in the open, where he could get a shot at me. Out in the open, where I couldn’t dive for cover if he missed the first shot.

I stayed where I was.

“Move!” he said softly. “Move now!”

Slowly I moved around the end of the bar, keeping an eye on the tables, looking for one with a chair missing, a table I could get under in one dive if I saw his trigger finger tightening.

He came around from his end of the bar, the big blue-black gun steady in his bony hand, his soft eyes appraising me carefully, his long face showing no emotion but his wariness.

And then, in that lost second, the swinging door from the kitchen swung in violently our way and Juanita came through it like the hero in a Western movie.

There was no puny automatic in her capable hands. It took both her hands to carry the double-barreled twelve-gauge
shotgun that was now pointed at the belly of her soft-voiced, guitar-playing husband.

“Put it away, Jose,” she said steadily. “Drop your little pistol on the floor.”

He smiled and shook his head. “You would not shoot me. And if I get rid of him, you will not tell the police. Our friends would suffer if you turned me over to the police.”

“Drop it, Jose,” she repeated sharply. “I will shoot. You killed Johnny and I will shoot if you don’t drop that gun.”

He turned to stare at her, surprise on his face. She shouldn’t have mentioned Johnny. Adultery he could understand, but not her preferring Johnny.

I picked a table I thought I could make. He turned from her to me again, just as I was ready to dive, and his face was harder now and there was hate in his dreamy eyes.

“Drop it, damn you!” she said.

This time the shake of his head was final and my eyes dropped to his hand. The trigger finger was starting to tighten.

I dived.

I heard the whine of the slug past my ear and then the smashing blast of that.45 was engulfed in a tidal wave of sound, the near-atomic boom of
both
twelve-gauge barrels going off at the same time in a closed room.

My ears would ring every time I thought of that afternoon.

• • •

“Sweep him up?” the officer said to Dahl. “We had to
mop
him up, Captain. He caught both barrels in the belly, full choke. Even the intern got sick.”

We were in Dahl’s small office. A uniformed man came in and said, “That.30-.30 checks out. Her gun, but she swears she hasn’t used it in a year.”

I looked at Vogel. Vogel looked out the window. Dahl looked at the uniformed man and said, “Jose probably used
it. How about that fingerprint?”

“Terris is checking it. He should know by now.”

The man named Terris came in before the sentence was completed. He said, “Thumbprint checks out. Thank God he had a thumb left. And he handled that.30-.30, too. At least he cleaned it. His prints are on it in oil.”

Terris went out and the uniformed man went out.

Vogel and Dahl and I were now alone. I asked innocently, “Where’s Chief Harris? Shouldn’t he be here?”

Vogel muttered something. Dahl’s smile was cynical. “Don’t get cute, Callahan; you’re not holding that good a hand.”

“I haven’t made any bets,” I said. “What happens now?”

“What do you want to happen?” he asked me frankly. “If I cover for Lund, I have to cover for Mrs. Rico, too. She killed a man, Callahan.”

“Saving my life,” I said. “He shot first.”

Sergeant Bernard Vogel said unctuously, “Is it Department policy, Captain, to make deals with private investigators?”

Dahl looked at the sergeant bleakly and ominously. “You favor holding Lund on some other charge, is that it, Sergeant? You’re willing to ride that out?”

Vogel hesitated. He had a deuce in the hole and I didn’t blame him.

Dahl looked at me. “You going to bat for your girl friend, too — is that it?”

“My girl friend?”

“You know who I mean. Juanita Rico.”

“She’s not my girl friend, Captain, and I think she’s perfectly capable of taking care of herself. I just want to take Skip Lund home to his family. I will then get the hell out of your rough town.”

I thought there was relief in Dahl’s sigh. He looked at
Vogel. Vogel shrugged, carefully not looking at me.

Dahl said, “You brought us in a killer. I guess we owe you something for that. We might
never
have found him.”