Part 18 (1/2)
”Would Carrie have confided in him?”
”What about?”
”Anything that might have bugged her.”
”I don't see why not. People talk to Jason about the G.o.dd.a.m.nedest things. He doesn't pa.s.s it along. You know you can tell him things. Funny, come to think of it, how he never tells things about himself to other people. I guess he's had a hard life. He was in foster homes. They took him away from his own folks because they nearly killed him beating him. He wasn't even two years old. That's the only thing he did ever tell me. He had about six broken bones. Maybe more. I forget.”
”Did the storms wake you up last night?”
”h.e.l.l, yes!”
”Was Jason in this bunk?”
”Let me think. No, he wasn't. I could see in the flashes of lightning. I mean it wasn't anything unusual. He's always roaming around by himself. Or visiting people. He's a very restless person.”
”But he's been here two years, ever since they opened.”
”I don't mean restless like that. We've talked about moving on, but we never do. You get kind of hooked. Boats and water and working outside mostly.”
”But now he's packed his gear and moved on.”
”I can't believe he'd just go without a word. But maybe he would. Maybe he would. He'd have pay coming. I don't know why he'd leave without picking up his pay. Maybe he figures on sending for it. Or maybe he didn't leave. Maybe he moved into the cottage.”
”Want to check that out for me?”
”For myself too. Sure.”
As I walked slowly back to the office, alone, I could guess at what would convince Jason Breen it was time to pack and leave. If he had been under the open awning windows, crouched a couple of feet from the bed, he would have heard a conversation about Cal's murder. A little bonus for the restless voyeur of the marina. A little lead time on the blue bike. I wondered if he had sheathed his guitar in rain-proof plastic.
I briefed Cindy and we waited for Oliver. He came back panting for breath, overheated. ”Not there,” he said. ”Betty hasn't... gone to work yet. She said... she hasn't... seen Jason.”
After Oliver left Cindy said, ”You don't suppose Jason... could have listened?”
”Could be. He'd know you were going to talk to Scorf.”
”But does a person... flee on a bicycle?”
”A person flees on what they have at hand, if they are anxious to flee.”
”It makes me feel... sort of rotten to think anybody could have been listening.”
”Ollie says Jason did a lot of prowling.”
”But he seemed so nice!”
”We like the people who like us.”
”I suppose. Rats. Phone call? Sure. Here's the book.”
I phoned the offices of Frederick Van Harn, Attorney-at-Law, in the Kaufman Building. A soft-voiced girl answered by speaking the number I had just dialed.
”May I speak to Mr. Van Harn, please?”
”Who is calling?”
”A certain Mr. McGee, my dear.”
”Is it a business call or a personal call?”
”Let's say business.”
”He won't be in the office today.”
”Out of town?”
”No, sir. He won't be in today.”
”Where can I get in touch with him?”
”You could phone here tomorrow, Mr. McGee.”
”What if I said personal instead, of business?”
”You already picked one, sir.”
”Is he out at the ranch? What's the number there, please?”
”Sorry, sir. That is an unlisted number. You can reach him here tomorrow morning.”
I thanked her and hung up. I wondered vaguely if Freddy was stupid enough to be making another run to Jamaica and decided he wasn't. I asked Cindy if she could aim me toward the Van Harn ranch. She was blank on that, but she knew the road to take to get to Jane Schermer country, out amongst the grapefruits, and Meyer had told me they were adjacent.
I threw jacket and tie into the back seat of the bright little oven, opened all windows, and headed a little bit south and then turned west on Central Avenue. At first it was a six-lane avenue fringed with motels, the Colonel's chicken, steak houses, gift shops, dress shops, savings and loans, and small office buildings. After a few blocks of this, I was in used-car country speckled with tired old shopping centers and convenience stores. After a mile or so of that, the road became divided and I went through a long expanse of decaying residential. The pseudo-Moorish and old frame houses had once been impressive-and expensive.
They were cut up into apartments and rooming houses. The yards were rank and littered, and the palms in the medial strip looked sickly. The road became two lane, and I went through an area of huge new shopping centers and small dreary-looking developments where, on the flat-lands, the developers had peeled off every tree and had big bonfires before putting in the boxy little houses. As these dwindled I saw For Sale signs on raw acreage, and at about nine miles from where I had made my turn, I came to the first ranchlands, with some Brahman, some Black Angus, some Charolais. Windmills flapped near the water holes. Salt blocks were set out in little open sheds. Where there were trees, the cattle had eaten the bottoms of the boughs off in a straight line, so that at a distance it had something of the look of African landscape.
There was more contour to the land on the right of the road, and more of that was used for geometric groves, laid out with a painful precision. I saw some spray trucks working in the groves, tall booms hissing white into the trees, agitating the leaves and the young fruit.
Big trucks used the narrow road and used it fast. Their windy wake snapped at my little rental. The landscape was beginning to turn a rich and glorious green with the heavy rains. Kingfishers sat on high wires, looking optimistically down into the drainage ditches. Grease-fat bugs burst on my winds.h.i.+eld.
The entrance was so inconspicuous I nearly missed it. The narrow driveway was marked with two gray posts. A varnished sign not much larger than a license tag was nailed to one post, saying V-H Ranch. The entrance drive was lumpy and niuddy. Wire fencing was snugged close on each side of it. Ahead was a distant grove of pines. On either side was a h.e.l.l of a lot of empty s.p.a.ce, flat as a drafting table, with some faraway clots of cattle wavering in the heat s.h.i.+mmer. The fencing on both sides turned away from the road just befare the grove. The grove was a huge stand of ancient loblolly, home for hawk and crow and mockingbird and some huge fox squirrels which menaced me with fang and gesture of profane chatter. Once through the grove I could see the house a couple of hundred yards away, spotted in the middle of giant live oaks hung with moss.
It was squarish, two stories, with two broad verandas which encircled it completely, one at each level. Steep tin roof, big overhand. Porch furniture. The house looked rough and comfortable. A pair of dogs came around the corner of the house at a full run, arfing toward me. They were part German shepherd, but broader across chest and brow. One put his feet up on the side of the yellow Gremlin and grinned at me, tongue lolling. He lifted his lips to show me more tooth and made a sound like a big generator running in a deep bas.e.m.e.nt. My window was up before he could draw breath.
An old man came out onto the porch, shaded his eyes, and then put fingers in his mouth and blew a piercing blast which silenced birds and dogs and could possibly have stopped traffic on the distant highway. The dogs backed away and dwindled. They walked sideways, knees bent, tails tucked under. They swallowed, lapped their jowl, and looked apologetic.
”Git on out back!” he yelled, and they did git, in scuttling fas.h.i.+on. Then he stood on the porch, feet planted, arms crossed, and waited for me to approach, and waited for me to say the first word. He was a tall scrawny bald man with tufts of white over his ears. He was all strings, except for his watermelon belly, and he wore crisp khakis and new blue sneakers.
”It's nice to see animals pay attention,” I said.
”They know I kicks their a.s.s nine feet in the air ef'n they don't. State your business.”