Quests of Simon Ark (16 page)

“The room was quite dark,” Simon said. “And the dead man was at the end of it. Since I understand the Penitences were in the habit of entering the room one at a time at irregular intervals, any one of them could have plunged the sword into Summer and left him hanging there in the dimness.”

“But Juan Cruz tied each of them to the cross. If he didn’t do it himself, he sure as hell must know who did.” The sheriff lowered his bulk into one of the chairs and took out a fat cigar. Now that he’d shown us he was the boss, he seemed content to pursue the investigation on a somewhat more subdued level. “Cruz was constantly in and out of that cellar room. You mean to tell me that one of those eighteen guys, stripped down to the shorts or a loincloth, could have taken the sword off the wall upstairs, carried it down to the cellar in plain sight, and stabbed Summer without anyone seeing him?”

“It is possible,” Simon said.

“Nuts! I’m taking that guy Cruz down to my office, and if he won’t talk I’ll beat the truth out of him. I’ll lock up that whole place if I have to. I’m no hick-town sheriff, you know!”

Father Hadden rose and rested a gentle hand on the sheriff’s shoulder. “I have faith that the sinner will see his way to confess before very long,” he said. “Whatever the world may think of groups like the Penitentes, there is no doubt they are deeply religious men. The very fact of murder in such a place is unthinkable—the continued concealment of the crime by the killer is fantastic. He will come forward to confess, never fear.”

But Sheriff Partell was far from satisfied. “Well, you start praying for his soul, Father. I’m going out and drag that Cruz in for questioning.” And with that he rose from the chair and went outside to his car.

For a moment we sat simply in silence, as people do when some sort of vague disaster has passed them by. Finally, I broke the silence. “He may be a slob, but he’s no dope.”

But Simon Ark only sat in continued silence, as if deep in thought. “Tell me, my friend,” he asked at last, “what adventures befell you at the
Oasis?”

“Well …” I told him everything that had happened, as close as I could remember it. Neither he nor Father Hadden interrupted, but when I finished I could see they weren’t impressed.

“Delia Summer must still be up there,” Father Hadden observed. “The sheriff brought her to officially identify the body and then he took us back here.”

Simon stirred in his seat. “My friend, would you like to do a bit more traveling this day?”

“I suppose so, but let me tell you my idea first.”

“And what is that?”

I turned to the priest. “Father, you told us before that you had been in communication with the dead.”

“That is correct …”

“Then why can’t you talk to the spirit of Glen Summer—talk to him and find out who killed him?”

The priest’s face paled at my suggestion. “I fear you do not understand my problem, not at all.”

Apparently I’d said the wrong thing, for Simon interrupted quickly. “My friend, would you take the car again and journey to the villa in the mountains? Perhaps you can somehow get a chance to speak to Juan Cruz before Partell takes him over.”

“And what should I say to him if I do? Should I ask him if he killed Summer?”

Simon ignored the sarcasm in my remark. “No, my friend. You should ask him if any member of the Penitentes was absent this morning …”

“Absent?”

“Perhaps there was an extra man in the room. It hardly seems likely that the murderer would allow himself to be tied to a cross in the same room as his victim. But if there was a missing Brother—perhaps that is your answer.”

It sounded reasonable, if a bit far-fetched, and I agreed to go.

The unearthly quiet of the villa on my previous visit had not prepared me for the bedlam which had broken out in the few hours since I’d left. Now there were cars parked everywhere, in a crazy unpatterned manner that reminded me of harbored boats after a hurricane. The sheriff’s car was back, as I’d expected, and now it had been joined by a state police car and a number of unidentified vehicles. At least two of them had press cards in the windows.

A deputy sheriff met me at the door and asked what I wanted. I thought fast and flashed my membership card in the Overseas Press Club. Apparently that was good enough for him, because he stepped aside without a word. Inside the place was alive with reporters and photographers, popping their flash bulbs at every possible corner. A cluster of them had gathered in the big main room, where the stout Partell was standing on a chair examining a rack of antique Spanish swords. Beyond, in a sort of sitting room, I could see Delia Summer, deep in an old straight-backed chair, staring out the window in a state bordering shock. Juan Cruz was with her, speaking softly, but she seemed not to hear his words. I walked in and stood quietly behind them, listening.

“Mrs. Summer, I know it is a difficult thing to grasp,” he was saying, “but your husband came to me a month ago. He was shocked by the sin and vice the
Oasis
had caused in its brief existence. He wanted to repent. He wanted to join the Brothers of the Blood of Christ and suffer for the sins of his life. Just a few days ago he told me he planned to sell the
Oasis
and give the money to the Church. He was a man repentant, Mrs. Summer, and you can be thankful he died that way.”

I cleared my throat and he turned toward me. “Ah, you are the friend of Father Hadden and that man Ark. What can I do for you?”

“Could I talk to you alone?” I said. Delia Summer turned tired eyes in my direction but seemed not to really see me at all.

“I’m afraid the good sheriff will never let me completely out of his sight, but perhaps over in the corner …” He motioned me to the far end of the room, under a great red-draped painting of some Franciscan missionary whose name I didn’t know.

“Simon Ark wanted me to ask you a question,” I began.

“Yes?”

“Were there any members of your Penitentes who were not present this morning?”

A cloud of something—fear?—passed over his eyes before he answered. “There was one,” he said slowly. “The man who first introduced Summer to me. Yates Ambrose, the bartender at the Oasis …”

“You think this bartender, Ambrose, might have sneaked in here while the others were tied to those crosses? The man was his boss—he might have had a reason for killing him.”

The Mexican never had a chance to answer, because I saw Sheriff Partell bearing down on us with fire in his eyes. “Joe, show this bird to the door, and make sure he doesn’t get back in.” His orders were crisp and to the point, and the deputy he’d spoken to acted at once.

Before I had a chance to say anything else to Cruz I found myself being propelled toward the door and out down the steps to the car. “Sheriff means what he says,” the guy told me. “Stay away or we lock you up.”

I turned quickly at the bottom of the steps and only succeeded in sliding into the dust. I got up slowly like a fool. Whatever Simon and Father Hadden wanted me to find out, I surely hadn’t done it. Unless there was something about that bartender …

I passed a careful eye over the scattered parking of cars and remembered the complete absence of them when we’d driven up this morning. But there were nineteen men—twenty, counting Summer—in that place and they must have come somehow. They sure didn’t walk.

I started the station wagon and drove slowly around to the rear of the big mansion. As I’d suspected, there was another parking lot there, with some ten or twelve cars nestled under the roofs tiled overhang. Well, all of the Penitentes weren’t poor Mexicans.

On second thought I took back that last part. Some of them might live at the villa—it was certainly large enough. But there was something in the sand that caught my eye and I swung the car to a quick stop. It was an odd type of tire track, a double tread mark made by a tire only recently put on the market. The rows of double treads ran
over
the other tracks, showing that it had been the last car in. And there was another set of them on the left, coming out of the driveway. I left my car where it was and walked the fifty feet to the line of vehicles. None of them had the double-tread tires. Somebody had come and gone after they arrived. I took a quick look for footprints, but that was hopeless. With a bit of hope I headed back to the car …

The
Oasis
was picking up business as the afternoon dragged along, filling its parking lot with a variety of new and old cars. The one I was seeking was at the end of the line, one of the two that had been there earlier in the day. I jotted down the license number and went inside.

The place was more like a morgue than a palace of pleasure, and I guessed that the word had gotten around. The same bartender, who must have been Yates Ambrose, was serving an occasional drink to the somber crew. But what really stopped me was the girl, Vicky Nelson. She was still there, in the same tight shorts, sitting on the same stool smoking her cigarette.

Beyond the curtained partition waited a solid row of one-armed slot machines. There were a couple of green felt poker tables, too, and a cloth-covered bulge that might have been a roulette wheel. But these were quiet today, out of respect for a dead sinner. There were only the slots to greedily accept our quarters.

Vicky and I played a while and then I asked her, “Ever hear any talk about Yates Ambrose and Mrs. Summer?”

“You kidding? Not a chance! He couldn’t have gotten her with a fish net. Besides, he’s one of those religious nuts.”

“A Penitente?”

“Could be, for all I know.”

“How come he works in a place like this?”

“Who knows? Trying to convert Summer, I suppose.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re full of questions, aren’t you?”

I handed her a couple of quarters. “Play for me. I’ll be right back.”

Out in front the murmurers were still in force, holding their private wake for the late owner of the
Oasis.
I leaned on the end of the bar until I attracted Ambrose’s attention and I motioned him toward me.

“Got a minute, Yates?”

“Who told you my name?” He was still clutching the bar rag.

“I’m a friend of Juan Cruz.”

“Who?”

“Cut the act. I know you’re one of them. Why weren’t you up there today?”

“You must be crazy.”

“Or maybe you were up there, huh?”

“Look, mister, I don’t know anything about it. I belonged to the thing for a while, went up there a few times. I even told the boss about it and introduced him to Cruz. But I quit a couple of weeks back. That nut!”

“Was the crucifixion bit a usual thing?”

Ambrose nodded. “Every week or so. He had twenty wooden crosses in the basement room, and he’d tie us to them with horsehair cords. Sometimes he’d let himself be tied there too.”

“Did each of you have your own cross?”

Ambrose shook his head. “It wasn’t quite that organized. But Cruz never let us forget we were sinners.”

“And you weren’t out there this morning?”

“No sir! I didn’t go near the place.”

I was pretty sure he was lying, but I’d never get anywhere with him. I thanked him and went back to Vicky Nelson.

“Hi, girl. How’s things been in my absence?”

She gave me a big smile. “I beat the thing out of five dollars with one of your quarters. Put it nearly all back in, though.”

There was a stir of activity in the front and we poked our heads through the curtain. Delia Summer had returned and she was telling Ambrose to close the place up. “We’ll be open again after the funeral,” she told the crowd. “Go home now, and mourn my husband’s murder.”

They murmured and moved, slowly filing toward the door. Mrs. Summer had regained much of her composure now, but I could see she was still a shaken woman. “We have to leave,” I told Vicky. “Come on.”

“Leave? Where will I go?”

“You must have a home somewhere. Where’ve you been staying?”

She thought about that, the drink gradually beginning to cloud her vision. “A motel someplace. I don’t remember quite where. Can’t I come along with you?”

“Girl, there’s fifteen years and a wife between us.”

But by this time Delia Summer had appeared. “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before today?” she asked me, frowning in concentration.

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, we’re closing anyway, till after my husband’s funeral. You’ll have to leave.”

I shrugged and helped Vicky gather up her quarters. As soon as we were out the door Delia Summer and Yates Ambrose began closing the place up, getting ready for the period of mourning. I wondered if anyone else worked at the place and I asked Vicky.

“At night a few dealers and stick men come in,” she said. “Glen Summer hired them in Vegas.”

“And Sheriff Partell winks at all this?”

“He sure does, near as I can see. Maybe Summer was paying him off.”

One of the remaining cars in the lot apparently belonged to Vicky, but in her condition I could hardly let her drive it. She was beginning to sober up a bit, and I figured I could drive her around in the afternoon air for a while. “Climb in,” I said, holding open the station wagon door. “You can stay with me a little while and then I’ll bring you back here to your car.”

“You’re nice,” she said, climbing in.

I headed back toward Father Hadden’s church, because I was anxious to report my progress—or lack of it—to Simon. It wasn’t until I pulled up in front of the place again that I remembered Vicky’s costume. I couldn’t very well produce her in Father Hadden’s rectory in those shorts.

“Stay in the car,” I told her. “I’ll be back.”

“You’re going into
church?”

“There are worse places, believe me. I’ll be back.”

Inside, Simon Ark and Father Hadden were still sitting at the table, just as I’d left them. Empty coffee cups told me the hours had been talkative and thirsty.

“I’m back. You two get everything solved?”

Simon peered at me through the lengthening afternoon shadows that were quietly stealing into the room. “We have had an interesting talk. Did you learn anything?”

I started at the beginning and told them everything that had happened, especially about the tire tracks that appeared to be from Yates Ambrose’s car. “Simon, I think he went out there this morning, took off his clothes and put on his black hood and killed Summer with the sword. It’s the only solution as I see it.”