The Zebra-Striped Hearse (27 page)

He rose quickly and left the room, and she subsided onto the chesterfield. Her baby-blue eyes were strained and speculative.

“The man across the road was stabbed with an icepick. It said so in the paper. The icepick you have there, the one I bought for Mrs. Jaimet’s wedding—it couldn’t be the one, could it?”

“Yes. It could be.”

“I don’t get it. How would a lady like her get mixed up in a killing?”

“Some of the darndest people do.”

“But she’s a real lady.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“I may not be a lady myself, but I know one when I see one. Isobel Jaimet has class, the kind that doesn’t have to flaunt itself. I happen to know she has very good connections. Matter of fact, she married one of them the second time around. Her second husband was her first husband’s second cousin, if you can follow that. I met him years ago when he was staying with the Jaimets. He was very important in the military. The Jaimet family itself used to own the whole west side, before they lost it.”

“What is her second husband’s name?”

“Let’s see, it’s on the tip of my tongue, Anyway, it’s on the card she sent me.”

“Would it be Blackwell?”

“That’s it! Blackwell. You know him?”

I didn’t have to answer her. Her husband’s slippered feet were clop-clopping down the stairs. He came into the room carrying a square envelope, which he handed to his wife. She opened it.

“Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,” the bright card said. “Colonel and Mrs. Mark Blackwell.”

S
ERGEANT
L
EONARD
was waiting for me at the front of his house. He was wearing an eager expression, which sharpened when our eyes met under the light.

“Did they break down and confess?”

“They had nothing to confess. Elizabeth Stone bought the bar set as a wedding present for an old neighbor.”

“It sounds like malarkey to me. They don’t have the money to buy that kind of presents for the neighbors.”

“They did, though.”

“Who was the neighbor?”

“Mrs. Jaimet.”

“Mrs. Ronald Jaimet? That’s malarkey. She couldn’t have had anything to do with this.”

I would have liked to be able to agree with him. Since I couldn’t, I said nothing.

“Why, her and her husband were two of our leading citizens,” he said. “They had a front-page editorial in the paper when he died. He was a member of a pioneer county family and the best principal we ever had at the union high school.”

“What did he die of?”

“He was a diabetic. He broke his leg in the Sierra and ran out of insulin before they could get him back to civilization. It was a great loss to the town, and just about as big a loss when Mrs. Jaimet moved away. She was the head of the Volunteer Family Service and half a dozen other organizations.” He paused reflectively. “Did the Stones say where she is now?”

I lit a cigarette and considered my answer. Between my duty to the law and a man who trusted me, and my duty to a client I no longer trusted, my ethics were stretched thin. Leonard repeated his question.

“I think they said she was married in Santa Barbara last year. You’d better talk to them yourself.”

“Yeah. I better. In the morning.” He scratched at his hairline. “It just came to my mind, the Jaimets lived right across the road from the Stones. We found Simpson buried right spang in their back yard, their use-to-was back yard. What do you make of that?”

“I don’t like it,” I said honestly, and changed the subject before he could ask me further questions. “I have that coat in the car if you want to look it over.”

“Yeah. Bring it in.”

I spread it out on the carpet in his living room. While I told him what I knew of its history, he was down on his knees, examining it inside and out.

“Too bad there’s no cleaners’ marks,” he said. “But we may be able to trace the ownership through these Cruttworth people in Toronto. Another long trip for somebody.”

“I’m getting used to long trips.”

Leonard rose with his hands in the small of his back, then got down on his knees beside the coat again.

“Sometimes,” he said, “the older-established cleaners put their marks inside the sleeves.”

He turned back the right cuff. Several code letters and figures were written in indelible ink in the lining: BX1207. He stood up smiling.

“It’s a lucky thing I looked.”

“Do you recognize the mark, Sergeant?”

“No, it isn’t local. But we can trace it. I know an officer in L.A. who has a pretty complete collection of these marks.”

“Sam Garlick.”

“You know Sam too, do you? We’ll get to work on it first thing in the morning. You may not have to go to Toronto after all.”

I left the coat with Leonard and went back to Bel Air. The Blackwell house had lights in it, and there was a taxi standing in the drive. The sound of my feet in the gravel woke the driver. He looked at me as if I might be about to hold him up.

“It’s a nice night,” I said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Who are you waiting for?”

“A fare. Any objections?” His broken sleep had made him a little surly. He had a seamed dark face, and the eyes of a loner.

“I have no objections.”

He said with aggressive politeness: “If I’m in your way I can move. Just say the word.”

“You’re not in my way. What happened, brother—did a bear bite you?”

“I don’t like these long waits. These dames have no consideration.
She must of been in there nearly an hour.” He looked at his watch. “Over an hour.”

“Who is she?”

“I dunno. Some big blonde dame in a leopard coat. I picked her up in Santa Monica.”

“Is she old or young?”

“She isn’t young. You ask a lot of questions.”

“I’ll bet you two dollars you didn’t pick her up at the Santa Monica Inn.”

“You lose. Are you her husband?”

“A friend.” I gave him two dollars and went back to my car. We sat and had a waiting competition which lasted another fifteen or twenty minutes. Then the front door opened.

Pauline Hatchen backed out saying good night to Isobel Blackwell. I had a good look at Isobel before she closed the door. She was fully and formally dressed in a dark suit. Her heavy make-up didn’t entirely hide her pallor or the patches of funeral crepe under her eyes. She didn’t notice me.

I was waiting beside the cab when Pauline Hatchen reached it. “How are you, Mrs. Hatchen? I’m not as surprised to see you here as you might think. I got your call, and tried to return it.”

“It’s Mr. Archer. How nice.” But she didn’t sound too happy. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you again. It was one of my main reasons for coming back. The other night, in Ajijic, I didn’t truly realize the situation. I suppose I’m what they call slow on the uptake.”

“Did you fly in?”

“Yes. Today.” She looked around at the large and quiet night. The lights in the Blackwell house were going out progressively. “Is there somewhere we can go and talk?”

“Will my car do? I prefer not to leave here right now. I want to see Isobel before she goes back to bed.”

“I suppose it will have to do.” She turned to the driver. “Do you mind waiting a few more minutes?”

“It’s your time, ma’am. You’re paying for it.”

We walked back to my car. She seemed very tired, so tired that she had forgotten her self-consciousness. She leaned on my arm, and let me help her into the lighted front seat. Her leopard coat was genuine but shabby. She pulled it around her not inelegant legs, and I shut the door.

I sat behind the wheel. “You want to talk about Harriet.”

“Yes. Is there any word from her? Anything at all?”

“Nothing that will give you any comfort.”

“So Isobel said. I thought perhaps she was holding back on me. She’s always been a great one for deciding what other people ought to know. And I had the very devil of a time getting in touch with her. She’d gone to bed and refused to answer the phone. How any woman can
sleep
through a thing like this! But of course she’s not Harriet’s mother. That makes the difference. Blood is thicker than water.”

She sounded like an algebra student quoting a formula which she was just learning how to apply.

“Do you know Isobel well?”

“I’ve known her for a long time. That isn’t quite the same thing, is it? Her first husband, Ronald Jaimet, was Mark’s cousin, and incidentally one of his best friends. Mark is a very family-minded man, and naturally we saw a good deal of the Jaimets. But Isobel and I were never close. I always felt she envied me my position as Mark’s wife. Ronald was a decent-enough fellow, but he was nothing but a high-school teacher. He was one of those dedicated souls. Perhaps his diabetes had something to do with it.”

“Do you know anything about his death?”

“Not much. He had an accident in the mountains. Mark was with him at the time. Why don’t you ask Mark?”

“Mark isn’t available. Or is he?”

“No, he’s not here. According to Isobel, he’s gone up to Tahoe.” She leaned toward me, and her clothes emitted a gust of perfume. “Just what is the situation up there, Mr. Archer?”

“I haven’t been in touch with it today. They’re searching for Harriet, of course. She was last seen there, and a bloodstained hat belonging to her was found in the water. I found it myself.”

“Does that mean she’s been killed?”

“I keep hoping it doesn’t. All we can do is hope.”

“You think Harriet’s dead.” Her voice was low and dull. “Did Burke Damis kill her?”

“He says he didn’t.”

“But what would he have to gain?”

“Not all murders are for profit.”

We sat in close silence, listening to each other breathe. I was keenly aware of her, not so much as a woman, but as a fellow creature who had begun to feel pain. She had lost her way to the happy ending and begun to realize the consequences of the sealed-off past.

“You came a long way to ask me a few questions, Mrs. Hatchen. I’m sorry I can’t give you better answers.”

“It isn’t your fault. And it wasn’t just to ask questions that I came back. I heard from Harriet, you see. It brought home to me—”

“You heard from Harriet? When?”

“Yesterday, but please don’t get your hopes up. She wrote the letter last Sunday, before this thing erupted. It was a very touching little letter. It made me see myself, and Harriet, in quite a new light.”

“What did she have to say?”

“I can’t repeat it verbatim, though I must have read it a dozen times on the plane. You can read it yourself if you like.”

I turned on the overhead light. She rummaged in her leopard bag and produced a crumpled airmail envelope. It was addressed to Mrs. Keith Hatchen, Apartado Postal 89, Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexico, and had been postmarked in Pacific Palisades the previous Monday morning at 9:42. The envelope
contained a single sheet crowded with writing. The first few lines slanted up to the right; the rest slanted down increasingly, so that the concluding lines were at a thirty-degree angle from the bottom of the page.

I folded the letter along its creases and tucked it into the envelope. Mrs. Hatchen watched me as if it was a live thing which I might injure.

“It’s a strangely beautiful letter, isn’t it?”

“It didn’t strike me in quite that way. I’m not too crazy about some of the implications. Harriet wasn’t thinking too well when she wrote it.”

“What do you expect?” she said defensively. “The poor girl was under great strain. She’d just had a fearful battle with her father—Isobel told me something about it. Harriet was fighting for everything she holds dear.”

“So was Campion. Everything that he holds dear seems to be five thousand dollars.”

“Campion?”

“Campion is Burke Damis’s real name. He’s in jail in Redwood City at the moment. What about the five thousand dollars, Mrs. Hatchen? Would you have been willing to lend it to her?”

“Yes. I still am, if she is alive to use it. I brought it with me. Keith and I went into Guadalajara yesterday afternoon and took it out of the bank. It’s part of my settlement from Mark, and Keith had no real objection.”