The Madman Theory (18 page)

There had been no need for haste: the Sunset Nursery stayed open till 6 p.m. Collins sought out Sam Delucci, the gray-haired warehouse manager, who at first failed to recognise him. “I'm Inspector Collins, Sheriff's Investigator, still on the Steve Ricks case. Remember?”

“Oh, yeah!” Delucci looked curious. “Never did find who done him in, eh?”

“What I'm after now is this: during the week of June 6 to June 12, did anyone around here see Steve Ricks driving a new-model white Ford hardtop?”

“I didn't, that's for sure.” Delucci pulled at his bulbous nose. “He drove some old clunker—a kind of greenish color. It sure wasn't new, and it sure wasn't white.”

“Where did he generally park?”

“Oh, anywhere along the street. There's always parking space.”

“So you wouldn't necessarily have noticed?”

“Not unless I saw him getting into the car.”

“Did he have any special friend around the warehouse?”

“Steve was a good-natured guy, always joking, but I wouldn't say he had any real buddies. Why don't you go around and talk to the men?”

“What I'd like better is for you to send them over here one at a time. That way I'll know I've talked to everybody.”

One by one the warehousemen and yard-workers came to be questioned. None had seen Ricks driving a white Ford. None could remember anything specific regarding Ricks' conduct. The last man Collins interviewed was Delucci's nephew, a slender, sleek fellow in his early twenties. “Did you notice Steve Ricks driving a new white Ford hardtop during the last week he was here?”

“No, Inspector.”

“Were you friendly with him?”

“I'm friendly with everybody.”

“Did Steve say anything about his plans for the weekend?”

“I wouldn't say he went into detail.”

Collins became alert. “What do you mean by that?”

“I forget how the talk went. I asked him about the place where he played—that's the Clover Club on Morgan Street. I said something like, ‘I guess you're really going to knock 'em out this weekend, hey, Steve?' And he said, ‘Tonight only. I'm taking a little leave of absence over the weekend.' And I said, ‘That's going to grieve them Okie chicks, Steve.' And he said, ‘Can't be helped, there's a new batch born every day; all I gotta do is wait till they seek me out.' Something like that. Steve considered himself a big ladies' man—he'd fall all over himself when some good-looking dame drove up. But anyway, I asked him where he was going, and he laughed, like he was thinking of something funny. ‘It's going to be a surprise,' he said. ‘A real expensive surprise.' I asked what he meant but he wouldn't tell me—just grinned and looked mysterious.”

“A surprise? Did he say whom he was about to surprise?”

“No. I actually said, ‘Who you going to surprise, Steve?' He said, ‘I'm not supposed to tell a soul, and that's a shame. Maybe next week.' And that's all there was to it.”

“What day did all this take place?”

“It must have been Friday. He only played two nights, Friday and Saturday.”

Collins shook his head in vexation. “I wish I knew what he was talking about.”

“Sorry, Inspector, I can't help you.”

“Did he ever talk about any particular girl friend?”

“No. He played the field. He had some chick in San Jose, and I think he was hot for some girl that sang at the Clover Club. Otherwise he took it where he found it.”

Collins returned to his car and, at long last, went home.

“I've got to go out again,” he told Lorna. “I swear, as soon as this case is over, I'm going to draw all my accumulated overtime and we're going to take a week off. Maybe two weeks.”

Lorna patted his head. “That'll be the day!”

Collins drove down J Street, and there was the Clover Club, its colored lights aglitter, its beer emblems urging passersby to slide up on a bar-stool, whereupon all would be right with the world.

Collins parked and went inside. The club was still quiet; the band had not yet appeared on the stand. The huge special stepped forward to collect a fee; Collins showed his badge. He went on into the dim interior, odorous with gin, beer, whisky, damp bar varnish, peanut shells, and stale perfume.

A few patrons sat at the tables eating spaghetti or barbecued ribs; by the bandstand stood a pair of musicians talking with great earnestness.

Collins went over to the bandstand. The musicians ignored him with the contempt the performer reserves for customers. Collins waited for a break in their conversation, which concerned an exotic method for stringing a guitar invented by one Slick. At last he found an opening. “What orchestra is on tonight, fellows?” he asked politely.

“Jake Mansfield and his Floyd County Ramblers.”

Collins nodded. “You guys must know Steve Ricks.”

“We knew him when, you might say,” agreed the taller of the two, a man with a gaunt white face.

Collins showed his badge. “I'm investigating the killing. You know anything that might help me?”

“That's hard to say,” said the second man, who had wide nostrils and small eyes. “What do you need to know?”

“Did you notice Steve driving a new white Ford hardtop the week before he died?”

“No,” said the short man.

“Not me,” said the tall man.

“Did Steve let on where he was going the weekend he didn't play?”

“He told Jake he was sick,” said the tall man indifferently.

“Jake figured he had another gig lined up and was about to fire him,” said the short man. “That's my understanding. But I don't really know.”

“Did Steve have any special friends in the band?”

The white-faced man picked up his guitar, and strummed a chord or two. “I've heard say he'd cut your heart out for a nickel, but he never bothered me.”

“Did he say anything about surprising anyone, or anything like that?”

“Not to me.”

“Not to me.”

“Who would be his best friend around here?”

“Hard to say. Nobody.”

“Maybe you can remember that Friday night.”

“Two weeks ago? Man, you must take us for one of them mental wizards,” said the short man.

“One night is like another around here,” said the tall man.

“This would be the last night Steve was here. Did he do anything unusual?”

Another man joined the group: a smooth-faced young man with an imposing waxed mustache. He carried a toothpick between his teeth, which he swung about his mouth with astounding virtuosity.

“Hey, Tex,” said the tall man, “this is the sheriff, or something. He's looking into how Steve got killed.”

Tex held up his hands in mock dismay. “Not guilty, Sheriff.”

“I'm trying to learn what Steve was doing the weekend before he got killed.”

Tex sucked his toothpick. “He didn't tell me a thing. But I come in on the tail end of something.”

“How's that?”

“There's a real swinging mama comes in here two-three times a week. She's married to a big roughneck, but that doesn't worry her. He's a truck-driver, and whenever he makes a long run she comes here stag and Steve tries to show her a time. I don't know how far he gets, but he sure makes himself popular with this broad.”

Collins waited patiently; Tex shifted the toothpick across his mouth.

“At intermission he was over in the booth with her and some chick. I thought I'd drop by and maybe Steve would introduce me to this other gal. Steve was talking and they were listening and laughing. I sat down in the booth. Steve was talking real big, about not wanting ‘the money' but it was something he just couldn't miss. Then he said, ‘I shouldn't have told you, but it was just too good to keep.' I asked him what was so funny, but he wouldn't tell me. He just kept putting me off, while the girls kept laughing. So I got miffed and wandered off.”

“Do you know where this woman lives? The truck-driver's wife?”

“I think it's in a trailer court. I don't know which one. She'll probably drop by tonight. She gets lonesome and don't like to stay home.”

Collins remembered his previous visit to the Clover Club, when Jake Mansfield had pointed out a woman with a big rough-looking husband. “Is this woman about twenty-five or thirty, not too tall, and with red hair?”

“That's her.”

“Okay,” said Collins, “I'll wait around. If you see her first, point her out to me.”

He went to a table, took a seat and ordered a bottle of beer.

Time passed. Customers entered the Clover Club. Jake Mansfield and the Floyd County Ramblers played and sang a set of five numbers, to which Collins tried not to listen.

He failed to see the woman enter; but all of a sudden there she was at the bar, talking with animation to a woman in peach-colored slacks. To Collins' relief she was alone. There would be no truck-driver husband to cope with.

He rose from his table, walked up behind her, and touched her shoulder. She turned an arch look backward, smiled briefly, shook her head, and turned back to her friend. Collins said, “If you please, ma'am, I'd like to speak to you a moment.”

She turned again, examined Collins with great attention. “Do I know you?”

“No, ma'am. It's in connection with Steve Ricks.”

“Steve? I don't know anything about Steve. I haven't seen him in two or three weeks.”

The woman apparently had not yet learned of Steve Ricks' death. She was not unattractive, if a trifle plump, more than a trifle overdressed, and overdaubed with cosmetics. Reluctantly she followed Collins a few steps away from her friend, who watched with interest.

“I'm a police officer. Perhaps you'd like to come over to my table for a moment or two.”

“This is about Steve Ricks?”

“That's right.”

“What's he done?”

“I'll tell you if you'll step over to the table.”

The woman followed him without enthusiasm. Collins seated her, introduced himself. “Your name?”

“Belva Didrick. Mrs. Belva Didrick. What's with Steve? What did he do?”

“If you're a friend of Steve's, I'm afraid I've got bad news for you. He's dead.”

Belva Didrick's face froze.

“You won't be brought into the case in any way, Mrs. Didrick,” Collins assured her. “I merely want some information.”

“When did this happen? How?”

“It happened about a week ago, and I don't know yet who did it. I gather Steve told you his plans for the weekend of June 13 and 14, immediately after the last time you saw him. Exactly what did he tell you?”

Belva Didrick spoke slowly. “It was some wild story … I didn't hardly believe him; he was always full of nonsense, and this was pretty nonsensical.”

“Yes?”

“This is how Steve told it. Some rich city folk were going on a hiking trip into the mountains—” The woman winced and stopped. “Poor Steve. He's really dead?”

“Yes, Mrs. Didrick.”

“How did it happen?”

“He was hit over the head.”

“Oh, my!” Mrs. Didrick squirmed in her chair. “He got so much fun out of telling this story. He said he'd promised not to tell no one, but it was too good to keep. One of these city people wanted to play a joke on the others, and he'd hired Steve to follow the group, carrying a bottle of whisky. He was to keep behind, just out of sight, until the second night's camp, which was at a lake. Then Steve was to camp at least two hundred yards from the others. During the night he was to bury the whisky three feet in front of a tall rock at the north end of the lake. Then he was supposed to get up early and come back down the mountain. Steve had it figured that the man wanted to win some kind of bet as to the possibility of producing whisky in the wilderness. He thought it was wacky, but the party involved was going to pay him two hundred dollars, and it made a good story.”

“It's a good story, all right,” said Collins.

“You don't believe me?” asked Belva Didrick with a gleam in her eyes.

“I believe you. Did Steve name the man who hired him?”

“No. In fact—” Belva Didrick hesitated.

“In fact what?”

Belva executed an arch little smile. “Nothing, really. Except that Steve was such a terrible flirt … I'd rather thought it was to be a mixed party.”

“It was strictly male.”

“Well, I didn't know … I can't believe Steve is dead. It's a terrible shock.”

“One more question: did you notice Steve driving a new white Ford?”

“Why, yes,” said the truck-driver's wife. “That Friday night he was driving a new car. It was white, and I'm pretty sure it was a Ford. My husband was out of town, and Steve was nice enough to drive me home. I asked him about the car, but he just acted mysterious.”

“You didn't notice the registration, or anything in the car which might have indicated who the owner was?”

“No.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Didrick. Please don't talk about this to your friends.”

Belva Didrick rose. Apparently she had altered her first impression of Collins, for she walked away very slowly, with an exaggerated swing of the hips. Once she looked back over her shoulder.

Collins poured beer from his bottle and sat watching the bubbles rise. The Didrick woman's information had merely cleared away some of the underbrush. Collins heaved a sigh. No help for it: he was going to have to climb the Copper Creek Trail to Persimmon Lake and look for the bottle of whisky.

14

The morning was clear, almost crisp. A few clouds hung in the west. The vineyards and orchards wore their richest green; to the east the Sierras lofted above the near foothills.

Highway 180 unreeled behind him; the foothills became mountains, the San Joaquin Valley spread below. The first Sequoia redwoods appeared, monsters rearing high above the evergreens. A few miles farther, Collins passed the park entrance.