Fadeout (4 page)

"Well, it was fun, of course. It always is, meeting someone who used to—you knew as a kid. He was happy about it too, seemingly. And he invited me and Fox and Gretchen to his house for Sunday barbecue. Well, the round with Dad was pretty grim. Oh, there were nurses. But he demanded a lot of attention from me. And Gretchen. And he made no bones about hating Fox's guts. It was being pretty miserable for Fox. He loved the place—the valley, the town, this canyon. But not the situation, understandably. He'd only come because I'd insisted. 

"So of course I knew Hale was just being polite when he asked us. He expected to be turned down, probably. But I took him up on his invitation. Just to have something different to do. Someplace to go. Maybe someplace pleasant for a change. Especially for Fox and Gretchen. And we did go. And there were maybe a dozen people. All very nice, the kind of easygoing moneyed people you find in places like Pima. Not many pretensions. 

"And one of them, not too surprisingly, had a guitar with him. He hardly knew how to hold it, let alone play it. So naturally Fox began to show him chords or strums or something. And before I knew it, before he knew it himself, he was singing. And people weren't talking anymore. They were standing around listening. And applauding. And was it good for Fox! I hadn't seen him so happy since—" She shrugged. "Well, since Gretchen was toddling around in diapers. 

"We ate. Glorious steaks. The sun was setting. And Hale suggested Fox sing some more. Everybody seemed to favor that idea. So he sang some more. And then, just about dark, he leaned back against the barbecue chimney, chording the guitar, and began to tell this absurd small-town story. Well, they laughed till they cried. So did I. It was a total surprise to me. I'd never heard him do such a thing. He said afterward he never had. It was"—she breathed a laugh and tossed her hands up—"just sheer, insane inspiration. 

"The next morning Hale phoned the ranch. He asked to talk to Fox. And with Dad listening in on the extension—it never fails—Hale said he'd been thinking over last night, and laughing over it, and what would Fox say to doing a radio program on KPIM. Sing, tell stories, play records. Fox said he wasn't a professional entertainer. Hale said he was professional enough to suit him. Well, Fox had quit the factory to come with me. Had no job. So he said he'd try it. And that's how it began. . . ." 

Dave watched her stub out her cigarette. The ashtray was a rough stone mortar. The table was Danish teak. 

"Instant success?" he asked. 

"It took a while," she said. "Hardly anyone noticed at first. Then suddenly, at the end of maybe six weeks, nobody in Pima, or in the whole valley, for that matter, seemed to be talking about anything else. Yes. It was success, beyond any of our wildest dreams. Money poured in. Every advertiser in the valley wanted to be part of it. There were so many commercials that by Thanksgiving the show had stretched from two hours to four. 

"We'd dreamed of a house of our own in a place like this canyon. Sitting huddled there in L.A. with the gas heater going and keeping warm with mugs of instant coffee, we'd plan and plan. Every room. Loving detail. So we were going to build. Luckily, we didn't have to. This place was practically new. The couple who'd built it—the man had gotten a promotion. They had to move East. When we saw it we fell in love with it. 

"Especially Fox—with this room. Of course, it was empty then. And it was perfect. Now there was the money. He made his dream come true." She stood and paced' the room, looking at it, loving it. The brandy was working. Was she going to get sentimental? He hoped not. He'd begun to like her. "The tape machine, the sound system, the art stuff, the Goya guitar, the Gulbransen piano. All of it exactly the way he wanted. Even the books. Exactly. Do you know they're first editions? Most of them signed." She took a book down, opened the cover. "William Carlos Williams . . ." 

"I noticed," Dave said. 

She put the book back and touched the shiny metal of the tall stands. "These microphones cost three hundred dollars each. They're the finest made." 

"What about the painting?" Dave.asked. "Where did that come in?" 

"The painting?" She opened blank eyes at him. The brandy had worked. "Oh . . . I thought I told you. Before the war, Pearl Harbor, he studied art. For a year, at the Provence School. On Western Avenue. He and a friend, Doug Sawyer. I never knew him. He joined the Air Force. Lost on a bombing mission over Europe in the first months. That was when Fox went into the aircraft factory. 

"He told me when we met that he'd never touch a brush again. And it was a good many years before he wanted to. And then there wasn't time or strength. Not with working eight hours a day and writing too. And he'd invested too much in the writing to stop that. Years. So painting was one of those things he was going to do when his book got published and became a best seller and we were rich." 

"And you got rich and he started. Right?" 

"Right." She finished the last of her brandy and set the glass down with a click. "And the book is going to be a reality too. All those years of writing are going to pay off at last. Do you know what the advance royalty was? Twenty-five thousand dollars. That, my friend, is success! He was illustrating it himself. Here . . ." She slid a portfolio from the art cabinet and opened it on the drafting table. Dave went to look. The drawings were ink and wash. Quick and funny and filled with small-town atmosphere. 

"I'll have to read the stories," he said. 

"You do that." The brandy hadn't softened her. It had dissolved the polish.. She walked to the desk, scooped up the heap of scripts, came back and thrust them into his hands. "And try to forget your grade-B-thriller theories, Mr. Brandstetter. Fox Olson didn't demolish his new sixthousand- dollar car and trudge off into nowhere in the middle of a rainy night. He'd reached the best years of his life. They were just beginning. Record companies were interested. Television ... " She glanced at her watch again. "See Hale McNeil, if you still have any doubts. At KPIM. He'll show you the letters, the contract offers. Now I'm sorry, but you're going to have to excuse me.... " 

Dave smiled. "There'll be other days." 

"I hope not!" she flared. "Frankly, I'm really quite upset and angry about this. It's perfectly senseless. When the storm is over, Fox's body will be found. Then you'll feel as absurd as I know right now you are." She turned away. "Come along. I'll give you your coat. . . ." 

When he reached his car, under the dripping, blue-gray manzanita, his feet wet again from the shallow river that was the road, he tossed the damp scripts into the back seat. He started the engine, released the brake. But he wasn't leaving yet. He drove up the road fifty yards, argued the car around, twice nearly sinking the rear wheels in a pothole big enough to qualify as a scenic wonder, and parked with the engine running. There was a lot of wet green brush here. Mountain holly. It masked the car. 

He waited. About five minutes. Then a station wagon swung into the Olson driveway. Green-and-blue logo on the door: KPIM. Dave slid across the seat. The blurred glass didn't help, but through a gap in the brush he saw the station wagon brake behind the Mustang. The old Chevy was gone. It must have belonged to the girl, Terry. 

The driver got out of the station wagon. Distance and rain made it impossible to see his features. He was well set up, broad in the shoulders. No hat. Dark hair. Tan fly-front coat. Head down, he trotted along the flags toward the house. Dave lost sight of him in the tangle of brush for a second. Then he found a gap that showed him the house door. It opened. 

Thorne Olson came out, still in the brown boy's clothes. She ran five steps through the rain and into the man's arms. He closed them around her. She clung to him and he bent his head and covered her mouth with a kiss. They stood there locked together for a good fifteen seconds. More than enough time for a polite exchange of greetings. Then they went into the house and the door closed. 

Dave waited a few minutes, then let the hand brake go and headed back down the canyon. 

She was rolling a wheel along the road. When the tire wobbled against her it smeared mud on the white raincoat. She had tied a triangle of clear plastic over her hair. It lay like drenched tissue paper. When she heard the car come up behind her and turned to look at him, strands of wet hair lay plastered down her face. She raked at them with the fingers of one muddy hand and gave him a little frantic wave with the other. The wheel got away from her then. It lurched into the roadside scrub and lay down like a sick animal. 

He set the hand brake and got out. The water thundered down the arroyo. Over its roar, he shouted, "Get into the car." 

"The wheel!" she wailed. 

"I'll bring it," he said. "Get in." 

When he opened the luggage compartment the smell of new automobile came out. He'd only opened it twice. For suitcases. Well, all that hand- some, contoured carpeting was due for a shock. He heaved the split and earth-clogged tire inside and slammed the lid. Now his own coat was muddy. He sighed, wiped his hands on it and climbed back into the car behind the steering wheel. 

"Gosh, thanks." She perched, dripping, on the seat edge. "But I'm ruining your lovely new car." 

"It's a company car," he said. "They expect me to use it hard. Like James Bond." 

"What company? Who are you? Brand what?" 

"Brandstetter, David. Medallion Life. I'm an insurance investigator." He let go the hand brake and began to inch the car along again. The rain came down hard now. The windshield wipers waved like the arms of a drowning man. "What did you think you were doing?" 

"I had a flat and no spare. I was walking to Pima. My boyfriend works at the Signal station." She looked at her muddy hands. "Have you got a Kleenex or something?" 

Keeping watch on the road, what he could see of it, he leaned across and opened the glove compartment. There was a box of tissues. Blue box with little white tracery flowers. He jerked some of the soft papers out and handed them to her. "How come you didn't go back to Olson's?" 

She sneezed. A plastic bag for trash hung off the dashboard. Thoughtful Medallion. She stuffed the muddied Kleenex into it and pulled fresh ones to blow her nose. "They don't have a spare." 

"I meant, you could have phoned from there." 

"
He's
there," she said. 

Dave glanced at her. "When did you get this flat? You left up there a good hour ago. Where's your car?" 

"Back up the road. A little below the bridge." 

"I didn't see it," Dave said. "It's parked up that little overgrown side road that used to lead to a house that burned down." 

"What were you doing there?" 

"Waiting." Her face set. Young, sullen. She muttered, "There was something I wanted to see." 

"Who was coming to Olson's—right?" 

"Right. It was him. Hale McNeil. When you didn't come down, I began to wonder if it would be. But it was. Him. He. Then, when I started up my car, the damn tire was flat. My third in two weeks . . . Can I have a cigarette, please? I left mine in my car." 

He dug out his pack and handed it to her. "There's a dash lighter," he said. "It sounds to me as if you either ought to get new tires or stop backing up country roads to spy on your employer. Why shouldn't Hale McNeil visit Mrs. Olson? They're old friends." 

The smoke from the cigarette hung gray and still in the warm car. She blinked at him through it. "Insurance investigators come around when there's something wrong," she said. "You think there's something wrong about Fox Olson's death, don't you?" 

He watched the road. "Do you?" 

"Yes." She poked the lighter back into its socket. "I think he committed suicide." "Why?" The smoke smelled good. "Light one of those for me, would you?" 

"Because Thorne and Hale are having an affair." She pushed the lighter and hung the new cigarette in her mouth. All the lipstick was gone. It looked vulnerable as a flower. 

"You think," he asked, "or you know?" 

"I know." She lit the cigarette and leaned across and set it carefully in his mouth. "I saw them. Last July. Right out in broad daylight. Naked. By the pool. Disgusting. I mean, how revolting can you get? They're old enough to be grandparents or something." She thrust the lighter back into place. 

He grinned. "I have news. We senior citizens have our moments. Thank God." He glanced at her. "Anyway, I assume they thought they were alone." 

"I wasn't supposed to be there," she admitted. "It was my day off. But Sandy and I—Sandy Webb, the one who works at the gas station—we'd had a fight. I didn't feel like sitting around moping. . . . Where's the ashtray?" 

"Reach under the dash," he said. "It tilts out." 

She found it and tilted it out and put ashes into it. 

"So I thought I'd go up to the studio and work. I didn't get far. They didn't see me. I cut out. I was sick. I drove straight to the station—KPIM. Fox was taping two shows that day. He did that on Wednesdays. It was why I had the day off. Maria too. She cooks and keeps house. That was why Thorne and Hale—" 

"Today's Monday," Dave said. "I didn't see Maria." 

"She moved out when Fox died. She doesn't like Thorne. It was Fox she liked." Her smile was crooked and forlorn. "Everybody liked Fox." 

"Was Thorne hard to work for?" 

"It wasn't that. She fired Maria. Last Christmas. Well, you just don't do that to Maria." 

"What was the reason?" 

"Thorne hired a Japanese houseboy. Through an agency in San Francisco. A Christmas gift to Fox. She said when they were poor back in L.A. and daydreamed about getting successful and having servants, Fox always said a Japanese houseboy was the only kind he'd want. You know?" 

"So what happened to the houseboy?" 

"Oh, he's still in town. Works at the Pima Motor Inn." 

"I didn't mean that. I meant, why was it he didn't last?" 

"I don't know exactly. . . ." She frowned and stubbed out her cigarette. "I remember, the day after Christmas, he was out in a pair of little white trunks, vacuuming the pool. About nine in the morning. When I walked into the studio Fox was standing by the window. He didn't hear me, didn't see me, just stood there staring down at Ito for the longest time. Then, suddenly, he turned and without a word ran out of the studio and down the stairs and into the house. Pretty soon Thorne came out and called Ito inside. After that, Fox came back up. But he was very quiet all day. Ito was never around the place after that."