Zigzag (2 page)

“What about sounding your horn?”

“Yeah. Sure. That's what Bishop said he done.”

“Do you remember hearing the horn blow?”

“No. Windy and foggy both, and I wasn't paying no attention until the smash made a hell of a big noise. I told that to the cops, too.”

“According to your statement,” I reminded him, “you heard a sound that might have been a horn blowing.”

“Yeah, might've been. I couldn't be sure.”

“How fast would you say Mr. Clements' vehicle was traveling?”

“How fast? I told you, I wasn't paying no attention.”

“The speed limit through Rio Verdi is twenty-five. Would you have noticed if he'd been doing forty or better, as Mr. Bishop claims?”

“No. Plenty people don't slow down like they're supposed to.”

“David Bishop owns a second home up on Ridgecrest. Do you know him?”

“No.”

“Never saw him before the day of the accident?”

“All right, yeah,” Orcutt said, “I seen him a few times. He bought propane refills when he was up here in the summer. But I never said more'n a dozen words to him.”

“Have you seen him since the accident?”

“No.”

“Sure about that?”

“What, you think he come in here and tried to get me to side with him? Well, he didn't. And I wouldn't of done it if he had.” Orcutt ran an unsteady hand over the beard stubble on his chin, making a sandpapery sound. “Listen, mister, that's it; we're done. I got work to do.”

Scratch one witness, as far as Arthur Clements' civil suit was concerned. If Orcutt knew anything other than what he'd told the authorities and now me, he was not likely to admit it in court. The old, sorry code of noninvolvement.

I left him to his work and his hangover. I'd have been willing to bet that as soon as he closed business for the day the first place he'd head for was the saloon down the road.

 

2

The second witness's name was Earline Blunt, a widow in her middle fifties. She called herself, and was known locally as, the Windmill Lady. The reason for that was abundantly evident when I arrived at her roadside home a half mile or so from the scene of the accident. The front and side yards, both shaded by tall pines, were a riot of windmills—little ones not much bigger than pinwheels, large ones taller and broader than garden statuary, and dozens in between. All shapes and sizes, some plain, some painted bright colors and adorned with whimsical illustrations, each—according to the information I had—handmade by the widow Blunt with the assistance of an unmarried daughter she lived with.

The ones on display here served as advertisements as well as yard decorations. Mrs. Blunt made her living, or part of it, selling her creations to various shops along the river and elsewhere in the general area. On this drizzly, windy afternoon, the blades on all of them were spinning merrily and more quietly than you'd expect. Very well constructed, Mrs. Blunt's windmills.

She was home, and much more receptive to me and the purpose of my visit than George Orcutt had been. Her only reactions were a philosophical sigh and, “I guess I'm not surprised, the way I keep getting called into court for jury duty.” She invited me inside, introduced me to her shy and rather homely daughter, Jean, offered me hot tea or coffee—I accepted the latter—and sent Jean off to do the fetching.

We sat in comfortable, overstuffed chairs in a living room brimming with table-size examples of her art. I told her I thought she did wonderful work, and the compliment put her in an even more receptive mood.

“I've always been fascinated by windmills and their history,” she said. “Did you know that the first one was invented by a Greek engineer, Heron of Alexandria, in the first century AD?”

“No, I didn't.”

“Oh, yes. Others were used as prayer wheels in China and Tibet dating back to the fourth century. Of course, mine have no practical purpose. Some folks consider designing and building miniatures a frivolous pursuit, but others seem to be charmed by them.”

The daughter came in with a tray, set it down on the table between her mother and me, and drifted away without a word. Mrs. Blunt abused her cup of tea with three teaspoons of sugar and a splash of what looked like skim milk. She was not quite as overweight as her daughter, but still on the heavy side—a gray-haired, rosy-cheeked woman with a nice dentured smile. Her hands were large and bore the calluses and other marks of her profession. God forbid she should ever develop severe arthritis.

“Well, then,” she said as I took a sip of black coffee. “You have questions about the accident, you said?”

“A few, yes.”

“I don't know what I can tell you that I didn't tell the investigating officers. But go ahead and ask.”

“Let's start by going over exactly what you saw. You were following behind the Clements vehicle when it happened?”

“That's right. I'd just left the Rio Verdi Market.”

“Several car lengths behind, according to your statement. About how many would you say?”

“Oh, less than a dozen.”

“And you had a clear view of the collision?”

“More or less. It happened very fast.”

“As far as you could tell, did Mr. Bishop, the driver on Ridgecrest, take any evasive action when he came through the intersection?”

“Evasive action?”

“Try to swerve out of the way to avoid the collision.”

“Well … just before he hit the other car, yes.”

“Only just before?”

“At the last second.”

“He claims he sounded a warning. In your statement you said you couldn't recall hearing his horn blow.”

Mrs. Blunt sipped some of her tea, pinky extended like a character in a British drawing room farce, before she answered. “Well, all my windows were closed and it was a windy, foggy day. But I think I would have heard a horn if it had been blowing.”

Small points in Arthur Clements' favor. Enough to sway a civil court judge and jury? Probably not.

“Could he have seen the Clements car coming as he neared the intersection?”

“I doubt it. Trees there block your vision, which is why a person should always come slow down the hill.”

“Did he seem to be fighting for control of his car, could you tell? The way somebody would if his brakes had gone out and he was trying to use gears or the emergency brake to reduce his speed?”

“That's a hard question to answer. The accident happened so fast, as I said. He might have been, I suppose, but … well, the impression I had was of a person going too fast and not paying proper attention.”

“But you can't be sure?”

“No. It was just an impression.” Her jaw firmed and she added deprecatingly, “I'm very aware of distracted drivers these days. The ones who talk or text on their cell phones are a menace. The fines for that kind of carelessness ought to be much larger than they are.”

I agreed completely. Stiffer fines was the only way to reduce the number of idiots who believe they can safely do one or two other things while operating a couple thousand pounds of potentially lethal machinery. But David Bishop evidently hadn't been guilty of that particular error in judgment. He'd owned a cell phone, but it had been in his coat pocket at the time of the accident and unused for any purpose since the previous night. If he'd been distracted, something else was the cause.

I asked some more of the questions I'd put to George Orcutt, with the same lack of results. No, she didn't know David Bishop, couldn't remember ever seeing him prior to the accident. Yes, she knew George Orcutt slightly but couldn't or wouldn't say what she thought of him as a reliable witness.

“Is there anything else you can tell me, Mrs. Blunt? Anything at all that might help clarify what took place that day?”

“I wish there was, but no, I—” She broke off, frowning, the way you do at a sudden memory jog. “Oh. Oh, wait. Floyd Mears.”

“Floyd Mears?”

“I just remembered. He pulled out of the service station in that big white pickup of his just as I passed. Yes, I'm sure he did.”

“He was behind you when the accident happened?”

“He must have been. A short distance behind. But he wasn't there when I stopped and got out after the crash.”

“Turned off the highway?”

“No, he couldn't have. There's no other road between the service station and Ridgecrest. In all the excitement and confusion I completely forgot about him at the time, or else I'd have told the officers.” Mrs. Blunt sat forward, peering at a point over my right shoulder while she worked her memory. “He must have made a sudden U-turn. I seem to have a vague recollection of his pickup going away in the opposite direction.”

“So he could also have witnessed the collision.”

She said, purse-lipped, “And drove away to avoid becoming involved. That would be just like the man.”

I wondered if George Orcutt had seen Floyd Mears following Mrs. Blunt and then U-turn away from the scene of the accident. No surprise that he hadn't told me if so, as uncooperative as he'd been.

“I take it Mears is local,” I said. “Do you know him well?”

“No one knows him well. He keeps to himself, hardly has a civil word for anybody.”

“Can you tell me where he lives?”

“In the hills somewhere between Rio Verdi and Monte Rio, I don't know exactly where. Grace Hammond at the market might be able to tell you.”

“What does he do for a living?”

“I don't really know, except that he hunts deer and sells venison to Grace now and then. You'd have to ask him.”

“I will when I talk to him.”

“If you talk to him,” Mrs. Blunt said. “He's an unfriendly cuss, Floyd Mears is. I'd be surprised to hear he gave you the time of day, let alone admitted to witnessing the accident.”

 

3

The drizzle had stopped by the time I rolled up and over heavily wooded Walker Hill and picked out the narrow, muddy access lane to Floyd Mears' property from the landmarks Grace Hammond had given me. It was getting on toward four o'clock by then, the combination of overcast sky and dense pine and redwood forest creating a wet, dusklike gloom. If there were any other homes in the vicinity, they were well hidden. It had been a quarter of a mile since the last driveway before this one had appeared and then disappeared among the trees.

I turned in at a crawl in deference to the muddy surface and the fact that the lane led downhill, gradually at first, more steeply and crookedly after I crossed a platform bridge spanning a slender, fast-running creek. I'd gone a hundred yards or so before the lane curved, the trees thinned, and a broad clearing opened up ahead. Not one but three structures squatted there, all of them built of rough-hewn redwood—a good-sized cabin and two outbuildings off to one side.

Floyd Mears was home: a newish, mud-streaked, white four-door Dodge Ram pickup was parked near the largest of the outbuildings and light leaked through the cabin's front window. A little surprisingly, given Earline Blunt's description of him as unfriendly and reclusive, he already had company. A second vehicle, this one a nondescript Ford van several years older, was angled in behind the pickup. The visitor probably reduced even more my chances of getting Mears to talk to me.

I parked and got out onto a rough carpeting of wet pine-needled grass. It was quiet here except for the dripping of rainwater from tree branches and a faint clattering noise that seemed to come from the smallest, shedlike outbuilding. Nobody came out of the cabin. That was a little surprising, too. My car is eight years old and not the quietest vehicle on the road; they must have heard me jouncing in along the lane.

There was no front porch, just three steps to a little landing before the door. I went up and used my knuckles—once, twice, three times. Still nobody showed. Well, maybe they were in one of the outbuildings or out in the woods for some reason. Or maybe Mears had seen me through the window and just wasn't opening up to a stranger.

I tried knocking again, gave it up, and slogged over the wet ground toward the other structures. The clattering noise grew louder and I could also hear the throb of a motor as I passed the smaller shed. Generator, a large one with a troublesome bearing—Mears' sole source of electricity, evidently. The only wires anywhere on the property ran from that shed to both its larger neighbor and the cabin.

The other shed was set farther back against the pine woods, its facing side a blank wall against which cordwood was stacked under a hanging tarp. The entrance was around on the near side. When I turned the corner I saw the door—and something else that pulled me up short, set up a prickly sensation on the back of my skull.

A dead dog lay half-hidden in the grass just beyond the door.

Big Doberman, its jaws hinged open and teeth bared in a rictal snarl. A fifteen- or twenty-foot length of chain ran from a leather collar around its neck to an iron spike ring that had been driven into one of the trees. The animal had been there for some time, more than a few hours. Its fur was sodden, there was a buildup of rainwater in its upturned ear pocket, and the two raw wounds that had killed it, one in its side, the other in the ruff of its neck, had been washed free of blood. Bullet wounds. I'd seen enough in my time to identify them without going any closer.

I stood for a couple of seconds, tensed, listening. Rain drip, the hum and clatter of the generator. No other sounds. Then I did an about-face and walked fast back to the car; leaned in to release the catch on the panel beneath the dash where I keep my .38 Colt Bodyguard. Automatic reaction to strange and potentially dangerous surroundings. Better safe than sorry, always.

I slid the weapon into my coat pocket, kept my hand on it as I went back to the shed. Still nothing new to hear on the way, or when I edged up close to the entrance. I banged on the thick, tight-fitting door, using my fist this time. No response. The door was not locked; the knob turned easily when I tried it. All right, then. Illegal trespass is usually a bad idea, but the murdered dog justified it here. I turned the knob all the way, opened the door.