The Bohemian Connection (18 page)

“Why was that?”

“Didn’t trust him.”

I took a guess. “Was that because he was the Bohemian Connection?”

“Yeah. This is a small town, you know…” He paused, looking at me, searching for my name, then gave up. “Like any little town there are two sets of rules, one for the outsiders and another for the locals. People don’t care if tourists come in here and buy women and deal drugs. They don’t object to anyone making a buck off the tourists; you can sell them whatever you like. But let me tell you, when it comes to dealing with the seller themselves, that’s another story.”

“You mean no one minded Ross being the Bohemian Connection, but they wouldn’t want to buy a house from him.”

“You got it, lady. Pain in the butt, too. The old man had to have him there. His son could do no wrong. I couldn’t even suggest that he might possibly be hurting the business. Oh, no. Closest I could come was to say that he might do better with the out-of-town buyers. Old man bought that. He knew what was going on; he just didn’t want to admit it. But I’ll tell you, doing all the local work and sifting out newcomers for Ross—if he happened to be in—was no picnic.”

“You must have been glad when he left.”

“No loss, let me—”

The Pacer roared up the street and squealed to a halt inches from my truck. Jenny jumped out and hurried toward the house. She stopped abruptly in front of us. Had there been room on the stairs she would have rushed on into the house without pause.

“About time,” Ward said.

“I couldn’t leave.” It was a statement rather than an apology.

“I needed the car at one o’clock.”

“Why? Are you carting around your Sunset Villa guests?”

I’d forgotten about the Underwoods, the older couple Ward had been taking to the site of his senior citizen condominiums yesterday.

“They’re gone,” he said.

“Oh.”

“They said it was too dangerous up here.” Ward glared at the sewer hole.

Jenny laughed. “Maybe once they saw the site for Sunset Villas they decided they didn’t want to live in an ark.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Come on, Ward, you know how far underwater that land will be when it floods.”

“Sunset Villas will have foundations. There’ll be stairs. The units aren’t going to sit flat on the ground.”

“Maybe they didn’t want to travel from their door by canoe then.”

Ward jumped up. For a moment I thought he was going to hit her. “Damn you. I do everything for you. Can’t you ever think of me?”

She stepped back. A flicker of fear broke through her impassive expression. “I’m here, aren’t I? It’s not convenient. I had a subject waiting when I left.” She glanced back at the car. “And the Pacer, Ward, you insisted on that car. We could, have had two perfectly adequate used cars for what that cost. But you had to have that one. It’s fine for driving around looking at houses. All that glass; it’s made for looking. But it’s no good for me. I can’t leave anything in the car without wondering if it will be ripped off. If I put paints in the back they run. If I leave groceries, they spoil—”

“When do you deal with groceries?”

Looking at me, as Ward had, as if for the first time, Jenny said, “And have you come to watch us fight? It saves you the bother of asking questions, doesn’t it?” Without waiting for a reply, she rushed past Ward up the stairs.

I expected him to follow her, but instead he sat back down. I expected him to apologize for their scene, to try to explain, at least to appear embarrassed. But he merely looked disgusted.

“About Alison,” I said, realizing that Jenny could return any moment and Ward wouldn’t be about to hang around to answer my questions then. “Did Alison ever ask you about rental properties?”

“Rental units? Hmm.” He looked calmer as he considered his own area of interest. “She did, yes.”

“Did she ask about ones with absentee landlords?”

“That’s the only kind I handle. Local owners do their own renting.”

“Did Alison ask where the owners live and if they come by often or at all?”

“That’s right. She told me that they had a special service for landlords who couldn’t come by to keep an eye on their property. They could assure them that it would be up to par. Seemed like a good thing.”

“Did she ask specifically which landlords never came here at certain times of the year?” Another time Ward might have wondered what I was getting at, but his mind was still on his argument with Jenny. He was answering me on automatic pilot.

“She said she’d start with them.”

“So you gave her their addresses?”

“Uh-huh.”

The front door slammed.

“Did you take her to see the houses?”

Ward stood up. “No.”

Jenny rushed down the stairs and past us to the car. Ward followed her. Hurrying after him, I said, “Then did you give her the keys to look at the places herself?” It was a guess.

“Yes,” he said as he jumped in the passenger’s seat.

S
UDDENLY
I
HAD A
lot to consider and a lot of time to do it in. It was not quite two o’clock. It wouldn’t be dark till nearly nine. There was nothing to do till then, except think.

And eat.

I headed back through town. The afternoon was still young. I could have a sandwich and then rent a canoe and paddle off some of the tension I had built up.

The drive along North Bank Road was slow. By habit I checked out Jenny’s easel and chair; for once she was without a subject. Farther down the street I spotted Alison walking out of the bar—with the two men who’d come up to us on the beach! That was certainly something else to ponder.

At home I pulled my truck in by the garage, climbed out, and made my way up the stairs. A branch of poison oak was beginning to stick out between two steps. I’d need to put on gloves and work boots and climb under the stairs to uproot the plant. A project for another day.

I hurried on inside to the kitchen, made a chicken sandwich with cilantro, and took it and a glass of iced tea out onto my back porch. One of the bricks was coming loose from the back of the fireplace. I wondered if I could let that go and just continue losing a little heat in winter, or was a loose brick the first warning of expensive disaster. Homeowning, I’d discovered, had many surprises, few of them pleasant, and none cheap.

It was just nine o’clock when I pulled my truck up beside one of the cement pillars at the entrance to the cemetery. Although I fully expected the Bohemian Connection to enter Maria Keneally’s house by way of the driveway, I felt it was tempting fate to leave my truck in the cemetery parking area where it could easily be seen.

It was getting chilly now. I didn’t know how late it would be before the Bohemian Connection arrived with clients. Those clients might spend hours at one of the bars before they chose to leave the bright lights for the muted excitement of this rendezvous. The Connection could drive up quietly and let them in through the door that led off the garage. But I was prepared. I had a blanket, a flashlight, a thermos of coffee, and two sandwiches. I was wearing jeans, a sweater and a down vest, and my work boots. I found the other Maria Keneally’s gravestone (from where I could see the driveway) and settled atop it, arranging my various belongings around me.

The living Maria Keneally’s house was small. From here I could see any light turned on in the kitchen, bath, or bedroom, and the reflections of lights from the living room and dining area. I was tempted to circle the house, to make sure I hadn’t missed anything, but I vetoed that idea—no sense in running into the Connection pulling up in the driveway.

So I sat. The wind was stronger at night. The big redwoods rustled. Gusts blew fallen leaves against the headstones. I draped the blanket over my shoulders.

I had had all day to ponder Michelle’s murder but somehow I couldn’t then. But now I considered her body in the sewer hole. Why had it been dropped down there? She had been murdered above ground. Why had her killer chosen to dump her body down there? As I had discussed with Vida, her murderer must have known Michelle’s body would be found by Monday at the outside. It was late at night when he killed her—dark on Half Hill Road. He wouldn’t have dumped the body down the hole because it was easy. It wouldn’t have been easy. He would have had to have left the body slumped against the stairs, or against his car, then lifted the wooden cover off the sewer hole, carried the body back and thrown it in, then replaced the cover. Michelle was a small woman; it wouldn’t have been hard to lift her body. But it all would have taken time. It would have made noise. Why hadn’t the murderer chosen the easier way of simply sticking the body in his car and driving to some secluded place to drop it off. It was dark; the body would have been safe in any vehicle, even one as open as Ward McElvey’s Pacer. There were plenty of spots around here to dump a body. It was not uncommon to read of bodies being discovered years after they disappeared.

And if the killer didn’t want to leave Michelle’s body in the woods, there was the Pacific Ocean half an hour away. If he’d dropped her body over one of the cliffs there would have been plenty of new bruises on it by the time it reached the ocean, and there would have been a chance of it being washed out to sea.

So why the sewer hole? Did the killer want the body found? I pulled the blanket closer around my shoulders. Why would the killer want the body found? Was he trying to implicate someone else? I couldn’t imagine that. I was having enough trouble believing any one of the people I knew had sufficient reason to kill Michelle, without thinking that they not only wanted her dead, but someone else imprisoned.

Had Michelle been killed to avoid her picketing? Everyone from Vida to the two prostitutes said that was unlikely. Then had she been put out of the way to keep her from talking to our congressman?

Forbes Tisson was a decent enough representative. An Independent, he appealed to the self-reliant people of the Russian River area. But he seemed to understand compromise and fitting in. I doubted Forbes Tisson would go out of his way to rock the boat. I could picture Michelle telling Tisson about her mosquito larvae; I could see him assigning an aide to look into that. I could see the aide dropping a note to the Department of Environmental Health and them sending David Sugarbaker (if he was still on their payroll after this weekend’s escapade with the county car) out again. Maybe they would contact Ward McElvey. Maybe he would even have to hook up to the sewer sooner than he wanted. Still, Ward McElvey wouldn’t be about to endanger his home and business by killing a neighbor just to save a thousand dollars.

So suppose Michelle had charged on and told Tisson about the prostitution problem? I almost laughed. If Tisson would deal gingerly with the larvae, he would certainly do as little as possible to put himself up against the powerful figures connected with the Grove. At best he might make a statement condemning immorality.

So what I had here was the fact that Michelle’s body had been thrown into the sewer hole, like Follow-up. And I had no idea why. Perhaps it would work itself out. Maybe I was going at it from the wrong end. Maybe I should just concentrate on Alison.

Had Michelle suspected her? There was no question about Michelle’s feelings. And Craig? He had been angry as I questioned him, but when I asked about Alison, he had become enraged. Was he protecting her? Was she paying him off? Or was he her partner?

The wind was picking up, the air cooler. Even with the blanket on I was cold. I tried to see my watch, but it was too dark. I felt for the thermos and unscrewed the cap. As I tilted it to pour, the blanket fell off my shoulders. I vacillated between pouring and rewrapping, getting thoroughly cold before I made up my mind to go ahead and pour. And then I poured so fast that the coffee spilled over the edge and onto my jeans.

“Damn.”

I put the cup down, recorked the thermos, screwed on the lid, pulled the blanket around me, and tried to pick up the cup without spilling any more. The gravestone didn’t quite have the conveniences of home.

I sipped the coffee. And when I looked back at Maria Keneally’s house, a light was on.

Either they had come with amazing stealth for people who had just left a bar, or I had been so overwhelmed with my coffee pouring that I’d missed them.

Putting the cup down and leaving the blanket, I picked up my flashlight and, stepping with exaggerated care on the leaves, circled around the side of the house, afraid I’d fooled around so long that the Connection would be gone and only the customers would remain.

But I was lucky. The Davidson’s Plants truck was still in the driveway, and the garage door was partway up.

I made my way around the far side of the house, checking the windows as I went. They were too high for me to see in and all I could make out was light and shadows on the ceilings. As I suspected, the light was on only in the bedroom. I crept closer to the window, but I could make out no sounds of conversation. I moved around the corner by the other wall of the bedroom and next to the back door. Still I could hear nothing.

The light went off.

The back door opened.

I moved next to it.

A woman started out.

“What are you doing here, Alison?” I demanded.

She jumped back inside and pulled on the door, but I caught it before it closed, and wedged my work boot inside the door frame. I shoved the door back.

Alison turned abruptly, took a step toward the living room and the door that led to the garage.

“Stay where you are.” I flicked the light switch on.

She stopped. In her arms were sheets and pillowcases.

I stood, waiting for her clients to come rushing from the bedroom, but there were no other sounds.

“Who’s in there?” I asked.

“Where?”

“The bedroom.”

“No one.”

“Come on, I know what’s going on.”

Alison stared.

“I know you’re the Bohemian Connection and you’ve got clients in that room.”

Alison laughed. She let the sheets fall to the floor. “Is that what you think? High adventure here in Henderson? I wish I had a job as profitable as that.”