Rainy City (13 page)

He inhaled deeply and said, “Maybe you’re right. I just want to find her. I need her.” He stared down at some obscene graffiti on the desk, his strength dissolving suddenly. I feared he was going to start crying.

“Melissa was supposed to marry a doctor. That’s what her folks wanted. Especially her mother. Or an executive. Someone with money. Me…my folks wanted me to be an architect. Then Dad decided I should be an accountant because I got A’s in math. All I ever wanted to do was write poems. You should have seen the cop’s face downstairs when he asked my occupation. You should have seen it!”

I said, “It’s not very practical.”

“You too? I knew it. You’re cold. People are cold. You should have seen all the stiff faces on the freeway. They won’t give rides easy. I heard one of the cops mention a private dick from Seattle and right away I knew it was you. I’m sorry for what I Called you. You’re right. They would have pinched me anyway. I guess I must look guilty as hell.”

In the other room, Percy summed it up. Burton had come to Bellingham angry, demented, looking for his wife. When Mary Crowell wouldn’t tell him where Melissa was, he flew into a rage and clubbed her. In his haste to escape, he forgot his poems. Plain and simple.

“Nice theory,” I said. “But anyone who knows Burton will tell you it isn’t possible. He’s not the violent type.” Percy laughed. “Not the violent type? He tried to hit you. He took a swing at my two officers when they arrested him…”

“He’s scared. He’s almost paranoid of cops. He’d never hit an old lady. His lawyer will get a couple hundred people on the stand to testify to that.”

“We’ll see,” said Percy.

“Besides,” I said, “she had an appointment this morning. She told me that. She told him that. I didn’t prompt him. He brought it up himself.”

Percy said, “I doubt if this phantom appointment showed. And if they did, Mary didn’t answer her door because she was already in never-never land.”

“What about Holder?”

Percy gave me a look of incomprehension.

“The guy outside in the parking lot,” I said, refreshing his memory.

“He was tailing you. He admitted that.”

“And?”

“What you want me to do? Arrest him? No law against tailing somebody.”

After the dust settled and they had led Burton away to a cell, I sat down and tried to clear my mind. Someone had killed my dog. A woman was missing. Someone had attacked Kathy and ransacked her apartment. Someone had murdered Aunt Mary. I could assume all these events were related in one manner or another. Maybe they were. Maybe they weren’t.

I went outside and trundled two blocks through a light rain until I found a pay phone booth that smelled like a wet poodle. It was two-thirty. Kathy answered on the third ring.

“June

I’m home,” I said.

“Ward?”

“You’re early.”

“I cut class.”

“How’re things?”

“Oh, miserable,” said Kathy. “Professor Creighton and I and Burton all went before a judge this morning but Crowell has a lawyer and he’s really good. He said Melissa was hiding from Burton because Burton beat her and the reason they snatched the little girl was because they were afraid Burton would run off with her and abuse her too. They claimed they had Melissa’s permission to get Angel. It was confusing even to me, and I knew what was happening. He knows how to muddle anything. The judge was so mixed up it wasn’t even funny. Now he wants more information before he’ll do anything.”

“So some pineapple abducts his granddaughter and the judge says fine?”

“Temporarily. We could have asked to have her put into a home, put her on neutral turf, but Burton figures Angel’s had enough upset. We tried to talk Burton out of it—after all, it’s not a strategically smart move—to let his father-in-law keep Angel—but he wouldn’t budge. Unless we can find Melissa and straighten out this mess, Crowell’s likely to keep control of his granddaughter for a long while. That lawyer is smooth, Thomas. Real smooth. I thought Professor Creighton was pretty slick, but I guess he’s a little rusty. But we’ll work it out. Where are you phoning from?”

“Bellingham.”

“Did you talk with Melissa’s aunt again?”

“I drove up to see her but she was dead when I got here.”

“Cisco?”

“Pancho…”

“Did you say…”

“Somebody beaned her with a bottle of Heinz ketchup.”

“Cisco?”

“That’s what I said. They yanked it out of the refrigerator and clubbed her over the head with it. It was a Heinz economy size.” ?

WHILE WAITING FOR ANGUS CROWELL’S MORTICIAN BROTHER, I made arrangements for Kathy to stay with her girlfriend until I got back into town. I saw no point in taking chances. Maybe the burglary wasn’t related to any of this, but some peabrain with a penchant for mayhem was still loose and I didn’t want him stalking Kathy.

Edward and Clarice Crowell arrived within fifteen Minutes of when they had promised.

After he had identified his sister’s remains, discussed matters with the cops, driven behind me in their rented Subaru to Mary’s condo, and pawed lackadaisically through some of her things, Edward was ready to talk.

We ended up at an International House of Pancakes. Slow of foot and slow of mouth, Ed Crowell was tall, taller than I. He was somewhere in his late sixties. A certain timbre infused his voice, a timbre that undoubtedly had a soothing effect on the bereaved. I imagined he had been more than adept at his chosen profession. A cluster of diamonds on his pinky attested to his prosperity. He resembled his brother Angus, but he was without that definite sense of power. He was not, however, without a secure and implacable sense of his own grandioseness.

I sensed a gulf between the couple. Clarice was almost twenty-five years younger than Ed, had a Silly-Putty shine on her face, and looked at me in a way that wasn’t good, caught herself at it, and then, as if one of us merited punishment, virtually ignored my presence.

A waitress came to the booth. The mortician and his wife ordered coffee. I asked for hot chocolate. I hadn’t eaten a thing all day, but I wasn’t hungry yet. It was five-thirty and the place was beginning to fill up with the dinner crowd. Clarice ignited a Pall Mall and blew a lungful of smoke into my face. If I had to guess, I would have figured it was some sort of naughty signal.

“Now,” said Edward Crowell, speaking in his inimitable slow drawl, “what did you want to speak to us about?”

“Just some background information. That’s what I need, mainly.”

“I’m still not sure what your job is,” said Clarice Crowell, glancing around the bustling restaurant. “Do you work for the police?”

“I’m private. I was hired to find Melissa Nadisky.”

“Melissa?” Crowell tapped his fingertips together and focused his empty gray eyes on my face. “Melissa’s husband was the bastard who killed Mary, wasn’t he?”

“He’s the bastard the cops think killed Mary,” I replied. “I doubt if he did. Your sister had made plans to meet someone else this morning.”

“But they arrested him,” said Ed Crowell, as if that clinched it. “They arrested the little rat.”

“I was a cop for ten years. Cops arrest a lot of people. They make boo-boos just like you and me.”

Our coffee and hot chocolate arrived. Ed Crowell spent a few moments watching the waitress’s rump as she walked away. Clarice watched her husband’s eyes as he watched the rump and I thought I noticed a trace of lingering resentment in the way her lips twisted around the cigarette. Without thinking about it real hard, she blew another cloud of smoke into my face.

“And you believe this someone else killed Mary, whoever this was who had an appointment with her?”

“I have no idea. But I don’t think Burton had a motive.”

“Why would the police arrest him?” Clarice asked, sipping coffee. I noticed ashes from her Pall Mall floating on the surface of her Java.

“The police arrest a lot of people,” I repeated, trying not to grow impatient with their blind trust in authority. “Some of them turn out to be guilty, some just turn out to be convenient.”

“You never did tell us what you were here to see Mary about,” said Ed Crowell. “I presume it concerned Melissa?”

“I spoke with your sister Sunday. She agreed to meet me again. She also stated there was something important she had to tell me. But she wouldn’t give me any hint of it over the phone. You wouldn’t happen to have any idea what it was, would you?”

“Us?” said Clarice, startled that I would even ask.

Ed Crowell eyeballed a boisterous group of teenagers waiting to be led to a table. I could tell by the dour look on his face he hoped they weren’t seated anywhere near us.

“We only saw Mary once a year. We’d motor up for a weekend every autumn and take in the North Cascades Highway together. All the autumn foliage. Sometimes we’d take in a musical comedy in Seattle. Since I’ve retired, I’ve begun enjoying life more thoroughly. I’ve taken up photography. Bought myself a Nikon system.”

His wife was bored with his discourse. Her foot bumped mine under the table.

“Were you in touch with her?”

“Certainly,” said Ed Crowell. “We phoned.”

“But not since a month or so,” added Clarice. “Maybe even longer. I think it might even have been Labor Day…the last time we spoke to Mary.”

“It was Labor Day,” concurred Ed, stroking his chin with a large, hirsute hand. “She had dinner with some friends of hers. Some people from her office. We called and I remember telling her to buy gold. But she refused. She was like that.”

“Where did she work?”

“Masdan Insurance.”

“That’s a big outfit.”

“Been there since 1953. She was thinking about retirement. I had her almost talked into it. I’ve got her into some smart investment programs. I even had her buy into some real estate.”

“What sort of real estate?”

“Nothing important. She’s got some land near Sultan.”

Catching my eye with her dark brown raisinlike pupils, Clarice said, “You’re trying to find Melissa? Where do you think she is?”

“I wish I knew. She called Mary last week and wanted to come up here and visit. But she never showed up.”

“How long has she been gone?” Ed asked.

“A little over a week.”

“It’s been so long since we’ve seen little Melissa,” mused Clarice. “We might not even recognize her.”

“You might not.”

“Oh, it hasn’t been all that long,” contradicted her husband.

“Sure it has,” said Clarice. “I don’t think we’ve seen little Melissa since she was in high school. That was at least eight years ago. It was right after Herb died. Remember?”

“Oh, it wasn’t that long ago. More like four years.”

“I’m more interested in some of your family history, Mr. Crowell. I found out today you have another brother besides Angus.”

“Two others. Stephen and Charlie. Chuck lives in Minnesota with his wife. Grace isn’t well. Steve is in Missouri in a rest home. He had a stroke, oh, about a year back. He can talk now, but he doesn’t get around much.”

“Four children in all?”

“Our family? No, there were five.” He stirred his coffee, banging his spoon on the sides of the cup so hard I thought he might crack the glass.

Clarice explained. “A younger sister died right after she was born. That’s when your mother passed away too, wasn’t it, honey?” Crowell grunted, as if being reminded of it still hurt, even after all these years. He clearly didn’t appreciate the direction our conversation was heading. But Clarice loved gossip and ancient history, and she loved to prattle. There was no stopping her.

“It really was sort of a tragic upbringing,” continued Clarice. “I don’t know how you all turned out so well. Mary in insurance. An executive, two lawyers and a mortician.”

“A funeral director,” said Ed, correcting his wife. “But, honey, how did you all turn out so normal? Look, your father committing suicide and all that? Your moth-er dying. I guess poor Mary had the worst of it. She was the youngest, wasn’t she,. honey?”

“Angus was the youngest boy and Mary was ten years younger than-him. We were mostly grown up when it all happened.”

“But it was such a tragedy. Your mother dying like that. And Angus had some sort of beef with your father, didn’t he?”

“Father was from the old school. We all had trouble with him from time to time.” Ed was doing his best to play down the dramatic aspects of the family history just as surely as his wife wanted to relive them.

“Trouble?” said Clarice. “He used to whip all of you boys. I thought you said he almost killed Angus once, right before he ran off and joined the Navy. He whipped him until he almost died.”

“I actually don’t recall.”

It seemed to me an event like that would be hard to forget.

Clarice looked at me conspiratorially and spoke in a lower tone. Edward winced. This particular act had been played out before in their lives. “Their father committed suicide only a week after Angus left for the Navy. Isn’t that strange?”

We all chewed that one over for a moment or two. I said, “Is there any particular reason Angus and his sister weren’t on speaking terms?”

The couple exchanged glances. This was a new one for both of them. Clarice said, “Muriel had some sort of spat with Mary, but Angus spoke to Mary. Of course, while Muriel and Mary were on the outs they couldn’t have any family get-togethers or anything like that, but for goodness sakes, they were brother and sister. Of course they spoke to each other.”

“I understood they hadn’t spoken to each other in years.”

“That’s wrong,” said Clarice. “A brother and a sister? Of course they spoke. They were close.”

Edward Crowell stood up, jangled some coins in his trousers pocket, glanced around the room with the pretension of idleness and said, “I’ll pay.” The conversation was at an end as far as he was concerned.

Clarice and I walked into the foyer together while Edward paid the tab, a peeved look on his face. The timid girl at the cash register was frightened of him. Our words had disturbed him. Raking up the family skeletons wasn’t his idea of muskrat heaven. I continued pumping Clarice, who took it all very personally, simpering and batting her false eyelashes at me. We might as well have been playing footsie at the beach.