The Hanged Man (13 page)

“But do you?”

“I think that the theft of the card and the clumsy murder of Quentin Bouvier are entirely in keeping with Bernardi's general level of incompetence.”

“He was clumsy enough to get caught, therefore he's guilty?”

He smiled. “Exactly.”

“In your opinion, was there anyone else who might've been happy to see Bouvier dead?”

“I can't imagine that there was anyone who wasn't perfectly delighted. The man was an insect.”

“What about his wife?”

He smiled again. “She inherits, does she not? A tidy little sum, I'll wager.”

“Do you know of anyone in particular who disliked Bouvier?”

“Everyone disliked him.”

“Sylvia Morningstar says she liked him.”

“Sylvia Morningstar says she likes everyone. She's the Mother Teresa of Santa Fe, to hear her tell it. Mother Teresa dresses better, of course.”

“So there's no one—”

“No one in particular, no. The man was universally despised. Quentin Bouvier is the man that Will Rogers never met. He was a charlatan. He was a self-serving, self-aggrandizing lout. Dying was the one decent thing he did in his life.”

“You weren't very fond of him.”

“How acutely perceptive of you.”

“What do you know about Veronica Chang?”

“Nothing. Your ten minutes are up, surely?”

“One more question.”

He sighed a low, rattling sigh. “One.” He cleared his throat.

“Who wanted to buy the card?”

“I'm not at liberty to reveal that.” He opened his eyes and lifted his head from the wall. “I wish I could say that it's been a pleasure, but of course it hasn't.”

With a great wobbling of flesh and splashing of water he lowered himself into the pool. The trembling surface reached just to his second chin. He didn't say goodbye before he turned and began to wallow toward the entrance. I watched him clamber slowly up the steps, his hand clutching at the metal rail, and I realized that probably, for the rest of my life, whenever I debated having a second beer, the view of his naked backside would return to haunt me.

He was still in the resting room ten minutes later, when I emerged from the pool area: a mountain of blubber lying beneath a white cotton sheet that rose and fell with his wheezing breath. The table next to his was empty and I lay down on it. As the attendant swaddled me in cotton, I looked over to the mound that was Quarry and I said, “Sooner or later I'll find out who the prospective buyer was. Why don't you save me some time?”

From beneath the sheet he said, “I have no interest whatever in saving you anything. Paco, please tell this man that I don't wish to be disturbed.”

Paco smiled at me and shrugged. “Is better be quiet now,” he told me. “Is better, the resting after the water.” He drew the sheet up over my head and tucked it in.

I lay there, wrapped up and steaming like an enchilada. My body throbbed. Sweat poured down my skin. I drifted off for a while, hearing from a distance the slow asthmatic wheeze of Quarry's breathing. I was lying on a beach in Cancun, Rita beside me, the air candied with the scent of coconut oil. Quarry coughed again, another liquid, rattling eruption. The weight of the sunlight pressed me flat against the sand. The fronds of palm trees flickered in the breeze, a faraway seagull fluttered off into the blue …

I suddenly realized that something was missing. Not from the fantasy, from the current reality. The room was silent.

Quarry's wheezing had stopped.

I hadn't heard him leave. I tugged my hand away from my side, where the sheet held it, and pulled the damp cotton material away from my face. I pushed myself up from the table and turned to him.

He lay there. He was absolutely still. In the center of his chest, surrounded by an irregular stain of bright scarlet, a transparent rectangular chunk of plastic jutted up at an angle from the sheet, like an electric switch set to Off.

“So how'd you get the ice pick into the resting room?” Hernandez asked me. “Everyone's naked in there, right? How'd you do it without someone seeing it?”

“I didn't,” I said.

“You concealed it in some bodily orifice?”

I winced. “Did you ever try concealing an ice pick in a bodily orifice?”

“Uh-uh. Tell me about it.”

“Hernandez, why aren't you looking for the other guy? The guy the attendant saw?”

He shrugged. “Why should I bother with him when I've got you?”

“Because he's the one who probably killed Quarry.”

“Yeah? You're so smart, why didn't you nab him?”

“I told you. I was a little busy at the time.”

“Tell us again.”

The attendant, Paco, had come around the corner, seen Quarry, and had immediately wanted to do three or four things at once, including run around in circles. He had wanted to give Quarry CPR, which would have been futile in this case, and, in the case of puncture wounds to the chest, is seldom a very good idea. He had wanted to pull out the ice pick, which would have destroyed any prints on the handle. He had settled for giving Quarry mouth to mouth. A braver man than I. By the time I called the police and an ambulance, and learned from Paco about the man, the man was gone. “A skinny guy,” I said. “Anglo. Dark brown hair. Very tanned. No scars. And he wasn't circumcised, Paco says.”

Hernandez nodded. He turned to Green. “He wasn't circumcised.”

Green nodded. “Then I guess we don't have to worry about Israeli spies.”

Their routine, I thought, was beginning to wear a bit thin. I said, “Hernandez—”

Someone knocked at the door. Hernandez called out, “Come in.”

The door opened and a trooper stood there, holding a Smokey the Bear hat in his hand. “Talk to you, Sergeant?”

Hernandez nodded, pushed himself off the desk, walked across the room, followed the trooper out, pulled the door shut.

Agent Green was studying me. I studied him. Early thirties, tall, heavyset, balding. Eyes that missed nothing in a blank face that expected nothing and would be surprised by nothing. After a moment he said, “What was the name of that woman up in Hartley?”

I was certain that he knew the name as well as I did. “Polk,” I said, “Deirdre Polk.”

“Polk, yeah. She died, too, didn't she.”

“Yeah.”

He nodded. “Seems like a lot of people end up dead after they talk to you.”

I ignored that. Or tried to. When I thought about it, I still felt rotten about the death of Deirdre Polk. If I had been a little more careful, she might still be alive.

I didn't feel very good about the death of Leonard Quarry. I hadn't especially liked him. He had struck me as one of those clever, waspish, self-created figures who like to believe that they're superior to the concerns of lesser mortals—things like kindness, compassion, simple courtesy. But I hadn't wanted him dead.

Who had? The man described by Paco looked, so far as I knew, nothing like any of the people who'd been in La Cienega last Saturday night. And he was an Anglo, which eliminated Veronica Chang's brother, Paul.

Could he have been Peter Jones, the man who'd told the police that he spent Saturday night with Justine Bouvier? It didn't seem likely. Why would Jones put himself in a position where he could be identified by Paco? So who was he? The mysterious buyer for whom Quarry had been trying to obtain the Tarot card? Someone working for him?

Maybe Quarry's death had nothing to do with the theft of the card. Maybe Quarry was mixed up in something else, something totally unrelated, and it was this that had gotten him killed.

Possibly. But he was the second person who'd been in La Cienega last Saturday who'd been murdered. Both murdered within a week of each other. Quite a coincidence. I didn't much care for coincidences.

Neither, of course, did Hernandez and Green. Which is why they were so fond of me at the moment.

The door opened and Hernandez entered. He shut it behind him, crossed the floor, sat down once more against the desk. He looked at me. He nodded thoughtfully. “No prints on the ice pick. Not even smears. How'd you manage that? You weren't wearing gloves.”

“No prints on the weapon,” I said. “No witnesses. No motive. All you've got is my proximity to the victim. The attorney general won't touch that, Hernandez, and you know it.”

He turned to Green. “
Proximity
. Did you catch that?”

Green nodded.

I said to Hernandez, “Could I ask a question?”

Hernandez grinned and held out his big hands. “Hey. That's what we're here for.” He turned to Green. “Right?”

Green nodded. “To protect and serve.”

I said, “You people swept the fireplaces and checked the drains at the house in La Cienega. Did you find anything?”

“Yeah, we did, as a matter of fact.” He turned to Green. “Should I tell him?”

Green shrugged.

Hernandez said, “We found traces of burnt leather in the fireplace in Bernardi's room.”

“And you think it's from the binder that held the Tarot card.”

“It occurred to us, yeah.”

“Aren't you supposed to notify the defense lawyer of the evidence you find?”

He shrugged. “Didn't get the report till this morning.”

“Were there traces of anything else?”

“Like what?”

“Like paint. From the Tarot card.”

“Nope. But, ya know, funny you should ask. We
did
find traces of blood in the drain. It matches Bouvier's. It doesn't match Bernardi's.” He grinned. “Doesn't look good for your client, huh?”

“Bernardi's room was empty after he left the house. Anyone could've planted that evidence.”

“The skinny Anglo guy?”

I shrugged. “The house was unlocked.”

Hernandez nodded. He narrowed his eyes. “It could've been rubber cement.” He turned to Green. “Remember that guy in Taos last year?” To me: “Burglar. Coated his hands with rubber cement, let it dry. No prints. Thing is, he tore off the cement outside the house, left patches of the stuff lying on the ground. Perfect prints on the patches. We got him.” He nodded. “You could've used rubber cement.”

“Anyone see me peeling rubber cement off my fingers?”

He grinned. “This guy. The skinny Anglo. If he's the one killed Quarry, how'd he know Quarry would be here?”

“The same way I did. His friends all knew that Quarry hung out here. He thought the steam was good for his emphysema.”

“Who told you that?”

“Brad Freefall.”

“And who told our skinny little Anglo friend?”

“Beats me. Maybe you should ask around. Ask his friends if they know him. Ask his wife.”

“Thanks for the advice. We did. She doesn't. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. She wants to talk to you. The wife.”

“Good. I'd like to talk to her.”

“You don't mind if we tag along, right?”

“Do I have a choice?”

He turned to Green. “Does he have a choice?”

“Not that I can see,” said Green.

Another state cruiser was parked in front of Quarry's house, and, inside it, a trooper sat writing something on a clipboard. Green and Hernandez nodded to him as they passed. I followed them up the front steps. Hernandez knocked on the door, which was opened by still another trooper.

Green greeted him with a nod. “Ortega. How is she?”

Ortega shrugged. “She seems pretty broken up. She called a friend to come and stay with her. Hasn't shown up yet.”

“You get anything?”

“He didn't have any enemies, she says. She doesn't recognize the description of the man the attendant saw. She says she had a phone call, someone asking for him, at approximately one-thirty. Just after the private detective showed up.” He glanced at me, but kept his curiosity from rising to the surface of his face.

Hernandez nodded. “Okay. Wait with Slawson in the car.”

“Right. She's in the living room.”

We made room for him, and the trooper climbed down the steps. I followed Green and Hernandez inside.

Her head bowed and her hands in her lap, where they held a crumpled cotton handkerchief, Sierra Quarry sat alone at the end of a long sofa upholstered in a floral pattern. Lace curtains were open at the window. The smell of wood smoke floated from an expensive metal stove in the corner. The room was small, furnished with embroidered antique chairs and a heavy antique cherrywood coffee table.

Hernandez said, “Mrs. Quarry?”

She looked up. Her beautiful face was ravaged. Her mouth was slack, her nose was crimson. Most of her mascara was gone, probably smeared onto the handkerchief, but some still remained, blurred bruises in the puffy flesh around her red-rimmed eyes. The pale skin along her cheeks was mottled now, and the cheeks seemed more hollow, as if anguish had been eating away at her flesh.

“Mrs. Quarry, I'm Agent Hernandez of the state police. This is Agent Green. I guess you've already met Croft.”