Rook & Tooth and Claw (24 page)

Jim glanced back at Martin’s body. “I think I’d like to get out of here,” he said.

Lieutenant Harris took him outside, and they stood on the steps in the sunshine so that Jim could take three or four very deep breaths. “God,” he said, “I hope it was quick. I hope he didn’t suffer.”

“Almost instantaneous,” said Lieutenant Harris. “Just imagine the shock to the system. Wham. He didn’t stand a chance.”

“There’s something I have to tell you,” said Jim. “I’m not supposed to report this without going through Dr Ehrlichman, but I think the sooner you know, the better. Just before yesterday’s football game against Chabot college, somebody broke into the boys’ locker room at
West Grove and smashed everything to pieces. They tore washbasins away from the walls, they ripped steel lockers to pieces. What was more, they left deep scratches in the tiles – scratches that went right through the glaze into the clay. Scratches that looked like clawmarks.”

“And this wasn’t reported to the police?”

“Dr Ehrlichman wanted an internal inquiry first. We’ve had quite a bit of police trouble lately up at West Grove. Mainly minor stuff – speed, crack, petty theft. But he wasn’t keen to have a black-and-white rolling up in the middle of a major football event.”

“What you’re trying to tell me is that the lacerations you saw on Martin Amato’s body reminded you of the scratches you saw on the locker room walls?”

Jim nodded. “There’s something else, too, although I don’t know whether it’s related. Martin’s girlfriend is a full-blooded Navajo. Her two brothers came to the college yesterday and there was an argument between them. One of her brothers made a threat that if Martin didn’t leave Catherine alone, he wouldn’t live to see the next sunrise.”

Lieutenant Harris whistled. “Who heard him say that?”

“Me … and maybe seven or eight other students.”

“In that case, I think I’d better have a talk to these brothers of hers. Where can I find them – any idea?”

Jim heard footsteps and looked around. “Speak of the devils,” he said. Walking toward them were Paul, Catherine and Grey Cloud. They came up close and then stopped.

“Sorry, but we’re tired of waiting for you, Mr Shoulder-To-Cry-On,” said Grey Cloud. “We’re taking our sister home now.”

“I told you before. Your father said she could stay.”

“Sometimes our father says things that he doesn’t really mean. We’re going.”

“Well… I don’t think so,” put in Lieutenant Harris. “I’d like to ask you two gentlemen a few questions first.”

Grey Cloud gave Jim the coldest of stares. “Has somebody been talking to you, lieutenant?”

“Somebody did mention something that you said to Martin Amato at yesterday’s college football game.”

“I told him to stay away from our sister, yes,” said Grey Cloud, without hesitation.

“And you said that if he didn’t, he wouldn’t see another sunrise?”

“That’s correct. But it wasn’t intended as a threat.”

“I wouldn’t call it a term of endearment.”

“It wasn’t. I didn’t like Martin Amato at all, and I’m not going to pretend that I did. But if you warn a man not to walk across the San Diego Freeway and he insists on doing it, what do you say to him? You say the same thing: ‘you won’t live to see another sunrise.’ That isn’t a threat. It’s simply a prediction.”

“But why should dating your sister be such a risky enterprise? Who else was going to take objection to it, if not you?”

“Some things just can’t be explained,” said Grey Cloud.

“I’m sorry … you’re going to
have
to explain them. Whatever you want to call it, you made a threat against Martin Amato’s life in front of witnesses and the next morning he was found dead.”

Grey Cloud said, “My brother and I were both at home last night. All night.”

“Can anybody vouch for that?”

“My father and my sister.”

“No other independent witnesses?”

“A friend called me from New Mexico just after 2 a.m. He forgot how late, it was. His wife had just had a baby boy.”

“You’ll be able to give me his name, won’t you?”

“For sure. And his telephone number, too. Henry Red Jacket. He called from the Wide Ruins reservation.”

Lieutenant Harris jotted it down. Then he thoughtfully scratched the back of his neck. “There’s still one point you haven’t made clear. If you didn’t have anything to do with Martin Amato’s death, then who do you think did? And what made you so sure that he was going to die?”

Paul said, “Don’t forget that we’re Navajo, lieutenant. We can feel the rain coming days before the clouds appear. We can hear people approaching hours before they arrive.”

“So? What difference does that make?”

“Martin Amato had the look of death on him yesterday, that’s all. It was almost a certainty.”

Lieutenant Harris pointed his pen at him, warningly. “Let me advise you, my friend. You may be able to predict all of next week’s winners at Santa Rosita, but that’s not going to help you in a court of law.”

“You’re arresting us?” asked Grey Cloud.

“No, I’m not. But I’m going to want to talk to you again. Do us both a big favor and stay at the same address until I advise you otherwise.”

Catherine looked as if she were about to say something, but then Paul and Grey Cloud took her arms and hustled her down the steps to their waiting car.

“What do you make of those two?” asked Lieutenant Harris.

“I’m not sure. I guess if you want to understand them, you have to look at life from a Navajo point of view. They’re trying to protect their culture. They’re trying to keep their bloodline pure. That’s why they don’t approve of Catherine dating whites. Apparently she’s already betrothed to some guy out on the Navajo reservation – has been for over five years.”

“Damned pretty girl,” Lieutenant Harris remarked, as he watched her being driven away. “Seems like a waste to me.”

“Do you think her brothers might have killed Martin?” asked Jim.

“I’d like to think so. It would make my job a whole lot easier. They had motive, for sure. They might well have had the opportunity, too. If Grey Cloud’s friend called from New Mexico at 2 a.m. and spoke for twenty minutes, he still would have had plenty of time to drive down to the beach and meet up with Martin Amato.”

“Why didn’t you pull them in?”

“Think about it. The real question is –
how?
Those guys are fit, and they’re tough, but even they wouldn’t have had the strength to rip a man’s body open with one blow. Not like that. As you say, they might have had some kind of special implement – but even so …”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Urgent priority number one is a cup of strong black coffee. Then I’m going to do what I always do. I’m going to go plodding around looking for witnesses and circumstantial evidence and in the meantime I’m going to be keeping a close eye on those two jokers.”

He laid his hand on Jim’s shoulder and said, “A word to the wise… if I were you, I’d keep your eyes open. If they
were
the perpetrators, they’re not going to be thinking it’s a million laughs that you told me what they said to young Martin at the football game.”

He checked his watch. “After the coffee, I’m going to take a photographer and a forensic officer and I’m going to go over to West Grove and check out that locker room. Maybe you’re right. Maybe those clawmarks match.”

“What if they do?”

“Then I really don’t know
what
the hell we’re looking for.”

Jim had almost forgotten that it was Sunday. He drove back to his second-story apartment in a pink-painted block just off Electric Avenue, parked his car, and wearily climbed out. The morning was hazy and not particularly warm, but three or four residents were already sitting on the dilapidated sun-loungers by the pool, reading newspapers or knitting or listening to Sony Walkmen. Jim said hi to Miss Neagle, the middle-aged woman who had taken over old Mrs Vaizey’s apartment. Miss Neagle was wearing huge dark glasses and a scarf on her head, and her big dimpled thighs bulged out beneath a 1960s-style swimsuit with brown-and-white flower patterns on it.

“Hi, Miss Neagle.”

Miss Neagle lifted her sunglasses and smiled up at him. Her lipstick was so bright she looked as if she had been eating strawberry jelly. “Good morning, Mr Rook. You seem a little under the weather.”

“I didn’t sleep too good, that’s all. Tossing and turning most of the night.”

“Ha! You don’t have to tell
me
about tossing and turning. I’m a martyr when it comes to tossing and turning. Sometimes I just dread the sun going down.”

“How about sleeping pills?”

“No, Mr Rook. There’s only one sure cure for tossing and turning.”

“Oh, yes? Then why don’t you try it?”

She lowered her black-blotched eyelashes coquettishly. “I would if I could, Mr Rook, believe me.”

Jim suddenly realized what she was talking about, and gave her a quick, humorless smile. “Can’t always have what we want, Miss Neagle.”

As he walked toward the steps that led up to his apartment, he was narrowly eyed by Myrlin Buffield, from Apartment 201. Myrlin used to have a belly that hung over
his shorts like a tide of slowly-melting marshmallow, but he had been working out at Gold’s Gym lately and now the tide had crept back upward, giving him an extraordinary puffed-up look, as if he were constantly sucking in his breath. He still had the same slicked-back hair, though, and the same dagger earring. He was pretending to read
Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.

“Hi, Myrlin,” said Jim.

“You ain’t been creeping out of your apartment nights and spying on me again, have you?” Myrlin wanted to know. “I was sure I heard somebody creeping outside of my apartment last night and I was pretty damned sure that it was you.”

“Sorry, Myrlin. My creeping days are over.”

Myrlin was deeply suspicious of Jim, almost to the point of paranoia. Ever since old Mrs Vaizey had held a séance in Jim’s apartment, and had left it thick with incense smoke, Myrlin had suspected him of being a drug addict or a dabbler in the black arts, or worse – especially since, soon after, old Mrs Vaizey had disappeared, and had never been seen again. Only Jim knew what had happened to her, and Jim was never going to tell anybody, ever.

Jim went up the steps and along the balcony until he reached his apartment. The feline formerly known as Tibbles was waiting for him outside the door with an expectant look on her face. He hadn’t had time to feed her before he went out. He unlocked the door and she dashed straight into the kitchen and waited by her bowl with her tail sticking up in the air like a witch’s broom.

Jim opened the icebox and was just popping open a cold can of beer when he heard a rapping at the door. It was Miss Neagle, wrapped up in a pink toweling robe. That wasn’t so extraordinary: she often came up in a variety of highly informal attire to borrow coffee or sugar or
orange juice. But what was extraordinary was that she was wearing a pink lobster SpaceFace hat, complete with eyes and claws. It had been a favourite of old Mrs Vaizey’s.

“Hi, Miss Neagle.”

“Hi yourself.”

“That hat sure brings back some memories.”

“I like it. I found it in my apartment when I moved in.”

“Suits you. Well, it would suit anybody who wanted to walk around with a lobster on their head.”

“Of course … that wasn’t all I found.”

Jim said, “Oh, no?” Then, “How about a beer?”

“A beer? I hope you know me better than that.”

Jim blinked at her in surprise. Apart from exchanging a few words around the pool every day, he hardly knew her at all. “Okay, then,” he said. “Whatever.”

“Bourbon, straight up. No rocks.”

Jim unscrewed the Wild Turkey and poured a generous measure into a highball glass with Miami Parrot Jungle printed on the side. Miss Neagle came over and took it and said, “Why don’t we drink to
very
long life. With the emphasis on
very
.”

“All right.
Very
long life.”

Miss Neagle leaned forward and stared into Jim’s eyes. “You don’t recognise me, do you?”

“Sure I recognise you. You’re Miss Neagle from Apartment 105.”

“Yes, I am. But I’ll tell you what else I found in my apartment when I first moved in, apart from this hat. I found Mrs Vaizey.”

“Excuse me?”

“She was still there, Mr Rook, at least in spirit. Very faint, almost faded away. But when I was lying in bed that very first night, almost asleep, she
spoke
to me.”

“She
spoke
to you? What did she say?”

“She was kind and she was sympathetic, and she gave me all kinds of encouragement. You see, I was very depressed when I first moved here. I was almost flat broke, and a man who I loved very, very dearly had just died of cancer. Sometimes I thought about ending it all. But Mrs Vaizey gave me comfort and friendship like I’ve never know before. She made me feel that I wasn’t alone any more.”

The feline formerly known as Tibbles was rubbing herself frantically against Jim’s leg, desperate for food, but all Jim could do was stare at Miss Neagle with his beer half-raised to his mouth.

Miss Neagle sipped her whiskey and smiled at him. “Mrs Vaizey was about to fade away completely, the way that all spirits do, after a while. But I didn’t want her to go. I loved her. I needed her. So I let her in. I don’t quite know how it happened. I just sort of … let her in. Miss Vaizey is here inside of
me,
Jim.” She tapped her forehead. “She’s still here … she’s still with us.”

“I don’t believe this,” said Jim. “You’re trying to tell me that you’re Miss Neagle
and
Mrs Vaizey, both?”

“Got it in one. And it happens more often than you’d think. A spirit who isn’t yet ready to fade away finds somebody who’s still alive who desperately needs her. Somebody who’s sick, maybe – or suicidal, like I was. Both of them benefit. The spirit gets to stay here for a whole lot longer, and her host gains all of her memories and all of her lifetime’s experience.”

Jim walked back into the living-room and circled Miss Neagle in deep suspicion. This was beginning to sound like some kind of very eccentric shakedown. “If this is true, that you’re yourself and Mrs Vaizey both, then of course you’ll know what special talent Mrs Vaizey had.”