County Kill (2 page)

“I’ll be careful.” I hung up.

Glenys Christopher was a client of Jan’s and she had been a client of mine, some years back, on my first case.

I asked Bud, “Don’t you have an aunt in this town?”

He nodded. “Aunt Glenys. I don’t like her. You’re not going to call
her
, are you?”

“Not if you don’t want me to. Isn’t she married?”

“She was married,” he said dully. “But not for long, and she got her own name back. It was like a divorce, only it wasn’t.”

“An annulment?”

“That’s what they called it.” His face tightened. “Mom says she can’t get one of those; she’d have to get a divorce. Brock, why don’t people stay married?”

“A lot of people do. San Valdesto and Beverly Hills just
seem to have more people who don’t. Is your mother thinking of getting a …”

I couldn’t finish. He nodded, his eyes on the floor.

I said, “Let’s go. Your mother will be worried.”

We went down to my ancient flivver and drove over to the filling station. I filled the tank to the brim; gasoline was much more expensive in San Valdesto.

We took the Valley route through the dry, gray hills and didn’t see the ocean until we were past Ventura. Bud sat glumly in the seat next to me, offering no conversational openings, and no remarks came to me that seemed likely to brighten his mood.

A drinking mother and a missing father….
Who’d
want me? Sociologists are so concerned with the rise of juvenile delinquency. It was the adult delinquency that gave me the shakes.

The ocean came into view and it had some blue in it for a change. The gray clay cliffs to the right, the flat ocean to the left, and a bleak moodiness in the car.

I said, “Bud, adults aren’t easy to understand. They get all messed up and mess up other lives, too. You have to live
your
life. Your life is the important one; most of it’s ahead of you.”

“Sure,” he said tonelessly.

“You’re your own best friend,” I went on dumbly. “You’ll find other friends you can trust, but it takes time. Don’t try to hurry it; it takes patience.”

“Sure,” he said once more.

I gave him a few more miles of silence and then asked, “How long since you’ve heard from your dad?”

“A couple weeks. I’d always see him at least three times a week.”

A couple weeks…. The police hadn’t started looking for him until last night, when a man named Johnny Chavez
had been found dead in a cabin in the hills high above San Valdesto. Johnny and Lund had supposedly gone on the trip together. Evidently Bud hadn’t seen this morning’s headlines.

He said, “Couldn’t you look for him? I’ve only got thirty-two dollars saved, but Mom would pay you, I’ll bet. She’d do
that
for me, wouldn’t she?”

“Your dad must pay her money for your support,” I pointed out. “She ought to know where he is.”

Bud shook his head. He seemed embarrassed. “I don’t think Pop has any money of his own.”

I had made the natural mistaken assumption that a man with three names and a number was wealthy. I had forgotten that many poor but pretentious people had adopted the pattern.

But Bud’s mother was a Christopher and I
knew
they were wealthy. I said, “When I met your Aunt Glenys I thought she only had that younger brother. Who else is there?”

“Just Aunt Glenys and Uncle Bob and Mom,” he answered. “Mom was married when she was seventeen.”

“I see. And what does your dad do?”

“When we lived in Beverly Hills, he had a filling station. That’s where he met Mom. Dad had this hot rod and Mom had her Mercedes, see, and they used to tease each other, and one day they had this race and Mom tipped over and broke her leg and Pop found out then, see, how much he loved her and — ” He broke off. “It’s just like a story, isn’t it?”

With a detergent commercial, I thought. I thought of the austere, black-haired, composed, and beautiful Glenys Christopher. With a hot-rodder in the family….

I asked, “What did your Aunt Glenys think about the marriage?”

“I guess she wasn’t for it. But Uncle Bob was. Uncle Bob and Pop get along great.”

When I’d known Uncle Bob, he had just been graduated from Beverly Hills High School, a hotshot halfback weighing the football scholarship offers which he didn’t need.

Bud said, “Uncle Bob thinks you’re great, too.”

“I know. He told me. What’s he doing now?”

“He’s a lawyer. In San Francisco.”

From a cynical high-school halfback to a San Francisco lawyer. That was quite a climb. Unlike Callahan, Bobby hadn’t wasted his football reputation.

Silence as we approached Carpinteria. We were past it when Bud said, “I don’t want to go home. Boy, I’ll
get
it when I come home!”

“You can’t run forever, Bud,” I told him.

Another silence and then, “Couldn’t you stay with us for a while? We’ve got lots of rooms.”

Brother! The father image, Brock (The Rock) Callahan. The hero, the knight with piano legs. What could I say?

I said what I shouldn’t have said. Because I had seventeen hundred in the bank and his aunt had been my first client. Because I’m a sucker for kids, I said, “Maybe it would be better if I got right to work on finding your father.”

Committed, now. Bigmouth Callahan. No fee, no retainer, no sense, no anything but my big mouth and the faith of a dirty-faced kid with family trouble.

Bud sighed happily and the flivver murmured contemptuously and I thought about Mrs. Warren Temple Lund the Second, who had married at seventeen — married a hot-rodder who ran a filling station in Beverly Hills. He had probably used only two names and no number until he had met a Christopher.

I asked Bud, “Did your father call his filling station the Warren Temple Lund the Second’s Filling Station?”

“Nah. He just called it Skip’s. That’s what everybody calls him — Skip. My Aunt Glenys gave that dopey name to the newspapers when Dad and Mom eloped. Aunt Glenys is kind of — well — ” He broke off, abashed.

“I know exactly what you mean,” I comforted him, “but you have to admit she is a beautiful woman.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Isn’t Miss Bonnet your girl? Isn’t she the lady that fixed up Aunt Glenys’ house — you know, a-a-”

“An interior decorator,” I supplied. “Yes, she’s my girl. Do you think she’s pretty?”

“She’s a lot prettier than Aunt Glenys,” he said stoutly. “And peppier, too. How come you’re not married yet?”

“I — uh — don’t make the kind of money Miss Bonnet needs to maintain the kind of living she likes. The way things are in my business, Bud, I may
never
make that kind of money.”

“Money, money, money.” He sighed. “Is that all grownups ever think about? It’s all they ever talk about.”

“It’s all most of them know, Bud,” I explained. “That’s why I want you to enjoy what you’re going through now. Once you’re out of high school, life just isn’t the same any more. It gets real dull.”

“Couldn’t you be a coach?” he persisted. “Couldn’t you play with the Rams again and have enough money to marry Miss Bonnet?”

“No,” I said. “Son, I am what I am and not a bit ashamed of it.”

The Monte vista turnoff now, and I swung the flivver that way and we climbed the ramp in a stiff silence.

At the top, Bud said, “I wasn’t criticizing; I was only asking. Turn right on that road next to the filling station.”

He directed me from there along a winding, black-top road bordered in eucalypti and palms, past estates and cottages,
past a country club, to a driveway flanked by stucco pillars.

We turned in here. The pillars were chipped and rain-streaked, the driveway pitted and long and poorly maintained. The lawn was a dried-out gray, dotted with succulents. If Mrs. Lund had a gardener, he wasn’t doing his job.

Ahead of us now we could see the house, two-story, old and massive, faintly Norman, and newly painted. There was a green Pontiac station wagon on the drive before the front door. A red Porsche two-seater was parked behind it. There were no police cars in sight.

But as we stepped from the car the law erupted from the shrubbery — two uniformed men and a man in plain clothes — and the uniformed men had their guns out and pointing straight at my belly.

And the man out of uniform barked sharply, “Damn you, stand right where you are!”

I stood like a statue, lacking a wreath.

And Bud said, “For criyi, are you guys off your rocker? This is Brock (The Rock) Callahan, for criyi!”

T
HE UNIFORMED MEN
were troopers, borrowed from the State Patrol station on the other side of town. The man in plain clothes was a detective-sergeant out of San Valdesto Headquarters and not actually in his jurisdiction, as this was county.

But he was a friend of James Edward Ritter’s, and Mr. Ritter appeared to be more than a friend of Mrs. Lund’s. Ritter had called him in after clearing it with the Sheriff’s Department.

His name was Sergeant Bernard Vogel and he explained all this to me carefully and politely in the living room of the Lund home. He was a man of medium height and impressive width and his politeness didn’t fool me for a second. He was a sharp, tough pro, and I would guess he could get real mean if he had to.

Bud and his mother had gone through a damp reunion. James Edward Ritter had watched it quietly, making his own judgments, I was sure. He was a man almost my size, but stuffier and a shade older. He kept glancing our way as Vogel talked with me in one corner of the immense room.

When Vogel finished, I said, “I’m glad to see there aren’t any reporters around.”

“The Los Angeles papers weren’t notified about your call,” he explained. “There’ll be a local man who may want some answers when we get down to Headquarters.”

“We?”
I said. “My job’s finished, Sergeant.”

“Yes. But you certainly won’t object to a few questions, will you?”

“About what and from whom?”

“About young Warren and from us. The Los Angeles papers and the wire services can pick up their copy from the local paper. There’ll be one reporter with a photographer from the local paper down at the station. We’re doing the best we can about publicity, but there’s only so much we can expect after this morning’s headline, of course.”

I said nothing, thinking.

“Well …?” he asked.

“How about the sheriff?” I stalled. “Isn’t he going to be miffed about you city slickers getting all the ink?” I lowered my voice so Bud wouldn’t overhear. “The way I understand it, Johnny Chavez wasn’t a city kill either.”

He frowned and inhaled heavily.

“I don’t want to make any enemies,” I explained hastily. “I may be around town for a few days and I can’t afford enemies.”

His frown deepened and his voice was gruffer. “Around town? Why?”

I shrugged.

“Callahan,” he warned me, “we’ll get along a lot better if you’re completely frank with me.”

“All right, Sergeant. It’s because of Bud — of young Warren. I promised him I’d help find his father. I guess he doesn’t know about this suspicion of murder bit yet. He doesn’t know
you’re
looking for his father.”

“We can’t keep it from him forever,” he said. “He can read. You do a lot of charity work, do you, Callahan?”

“Never. But … well, Bud’s a fan of mine, and I knew his aunt at one time — she was my first client — and …” I sighed. “So I’m a sucker for kids and I happen to have a couple bucks in the bank at the moment. Is there some reason why you don’t want me around town?”

His face stiffened. “Now what in hell did that mean?”

“You tell me. You’ve been acting like a cop in a TV show. My reputation is pretty sound in and around Los Angeles, Sergeant.”

“We don’t need any smog-town help up here,” he said flatly. “We wouldn’t have half the troubles we do have if it wasn’t for the smog-towners who are moving in here.”

Hick-town resentment, provincial petulance — who could argue against an attitude that knot-headed? I said nothing.

And then Mrs. Lund was coming over with Bud, her arm around his shoulders. “I’m sorry, Mr. Callahan, that I haven’t been able to thank you until now. It’s been — hectic.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. “I guess I’ll be leaving now, Mrs. Lund. The sergeant wants me down at Headquarters.”

She smiled and looked at the sergeant as I looked at her. She had chestnut hair and deep-blue eyes and a candid, direct gaze. She looked like the All-American girl, too many cocktails later. There was a slackness in her face too old for her twenty-nine years.

She asked Vogel, “No trouble, Bernie, is there? Mr. Callahan isn’t in any kind of trouble, I’m sure.”

He put on his customer’s smile. “Routine, June. Are you a member of the Callahan fan club, too?”

Her chin lifted and the slackness was gone from her face. “Skip is. I’ve only heard of him through Skip. And Bud here.” She turned to me. “Could you come back for dinner? Bud wants it, so much!”

“I can make it, thank you,” I said, and looked at Vogel. “If I’m free by that time.”

He took a deep breath, looked at me and at Mrs. Lund, and nodded heavily in assent.

I went down in my car; Sergeant Vogel followed in a Department car. At Headquarters he took me right into the chief’s office.

Chief of Police Chandler Harris had snow-white hair and a pudgy face and a voice like crushed rock in a rusty bucket. He pointed at a chair, told me to sit down, and nodded at Vogel.

Vogel left the room and Harris leaned back in his chair to stare at me. It was possible that he was trying to intimidate me, but that had been tried by major-leaguers. I stared back blandly.

Finally he admitted grudgingly, “I checked you out while Vogel was talking to you. Both in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles. You check out pretty solid for a peeper.”

“I’m glad you didn’t call Santa Monica,” I said. “I’m not a peeper, Chief. I’m a licensed and bonded private investigator. Let’s not get our semantics muddled.”

“A smog-town smart aleck,” he said. “College man, huh?”

“Stanford,” I admitted.

He continued to stare, appraising me.

I said quietly, “Sergeant Vogel told me the local paper would want to ask some questions. Will that be soon? Mrs. Lund is expecting me for dinner.”