Free Fall in Crimson (3 page)

She hitched her chair forward and hooked her bare heels over the porch railing. Her legs were well-formed and slender. The skin, moderately tan, looked flawless as plastic.

"I've been over it ten thousand times. It seems so pointless, dying like that. I wouldn't admit it to myself at the time, but I did later: I was relieved. I'd been bracing myself to go all the way with him. Through all the pain. Caring for him when he became helpless. I was getting myself charged up to really do a job. But at the same time I dreaded it. Which is natural. He didn't love me. He sort of liked me. I had good lines and I was obedient, like a show dog. And I sort of loved him.

"There can be a habit of love, I think. You justify the way you are living by telling yourself that love leaves you no other choice. And so you are into love. Women stay with dreadful men. You see it all the time. You wonder why. You know they are wasting their lives. You know they are worth far more than what they have. But they stay on and on. They grow old staying on and on.

They say it is love so often to themselves, it does. become love. I can't understand the Anne Renzetti I was then. I look back and I don't understand her at all. We're all lots of people, I guess. We become different people in response to different limes and places, different duties.

Maybe in a lifetime we become a very limited bunch of people when, in fact, we could become many many more-if life moved us around more. "Well, it moved me here and I know who I am now, and I will stay with this life for as long as I can. I never even suspected who I might really be. If it hadn't been for that new manager falling asleep at the wheel, I might never have known about this Anne. You can't miss what you don't know, can you? Maybe that's why we all have that funny little streak of sadness from time to time. We are missing something and don't even know what it is, or whether it will ever be revealed to us."

Meyer looked approvingly at her. "When you know who you really are, you fit more comfortably into your skin. You give less of a damn what kind of impression you make on people. My friend McGee here has never been at all certain of his identity."

She gave me a quick, tilt-eyed, searching glance. It had an unexpected impact. "Thinking of himself as some kind of rebel?" she asked.

"Something like that," Meyer agreed. "A reluctance to expend emotion, and a necessity to experience it. Cool and hot. Hard and soft. Rattling around in his life, bouncing off the walls."

"Would it make you two any more comfortable if I went for a walk?" I asked. "Then you can really dig Into my psyche. Meyer, for God's sake, what kind of friendship and loyalty are you showing me?"

"Sorry," he said. "I keep thinking of Anne as an old friend of both of us. As a matter of fact, we only really talked one time, didn't we?"

"For a couple of hours one night, aboard the Caper, after Ellis went to bed. But it made me feel as if I'd always known you. All the way back to childhood."

"The way he can do that," I said, "could have made him one of the world's greatest con men. But he has scruples. And they get in the way of the con."

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"So you are sort of a team of con men, conning me?" she asked.

"Let's say we share your interest in finding out more about how Ellis Esterland died," I told her.

"Perhaps I haven't got a hell of a lot of real interest left? No. That's unfair. He was an important part of my life. I worked for him for six years. I can say I never really understood the man."

"Did any of his wives?" I asked her.

"I don't know about the first one, Ron's mother. Her name was Connie, and I've heard she was a real beauty. I've never seen a picture of her. Ellis didn't keep pictures of people around. Of course Judy Prisco and Josie Laurant were-are-both handsome. He liked to be seen in the company of women who make heads turn. I would suspect I was low on the list. But in the right light I've had my moments. Whenever we went out together he would look me over first. Very critical of the color and design of clothes, the shape of a hairdo, the right jewelry: The marriage to Judy ended very quickly. And she did very well; she walked away with a bundle. Of course, at his death; he was still married to Josie, even though they were legally separated. Maybe she understood him, I don't really know. I like her."

"You've met her?" Meyer asked.

"Oh, yes. When Ellis went downhill so fast, in the beginning, she flew out. I don't really know if it was genuine concern or a feeling of obligation. He was sending her almost five thousand a month as support. She spent a lot of time with him during the ten days she was in Stamford. She and I talked a lot, after visiting hours were over. That was after the exploratory. We were wary with each other at first. You can understand that. After all, she was still married to him, and I was the quote other woman close quote. She's an unusual person. She's very emotional. I don't think she knows what she's going to do or say next. And I will tell you, she at that time was just about the best-looking mother of a twenty-year-old I have ever seen. Wow. Fantastic. And she used to be such a marvelous actress."

"She gave it up?" I asked.

"Or it gave her up. Ellis talked about it a few times. Too much temperament. Or temper. Too hard to handle."

"Have you seen her since?" I asked.

"No. But we talked, after Romola was hurt. She would call me up and we would talk. It seemed to help her to talk to me. It seemed to settle her down. She'd be practically hysterical when she would place the call."

"Did Ellis know how bad off he was?" Meyer asked. "Did the doctors level with him?"

"Oh, yes. They had to. He was quick to detect any kind of evasion. It was almost impossible to lie to him. He had an excellent specialist. Dr. Prescott Mullen. Prescott flew down several times to check him over when we were living on the Caper. We became very good friends, actually.

He's a fine man." There had been a subtle stress on the qualifying word "very" "As a matter of fact," she continued, "I'm expecting him here tomorrow, to stay for a week. He said on the phone he's been working too hard and needs a break."

"I wonder if he could add anything," Meyer said.

"Like what?" Anne asked.

"Well, if Esterland was facing a very untidy end, a highly unpleasant finale to his life; he might not have told you, Anne. I still wonder about his arranging his own death. Was there insurance?"

"Yes. Quite a large policy. But it would have been good even if he had killed himself with a gun.

He'd had it a long time."

"You knew his personal financial affairs?"

"I was his secretary, Meyer. I kept the books, balanced the checkbooks, dealt with the brokers and the lawyers. That was my job. There was a lot to do because he changed his legal residence to Florida and established new banking and trust department connections in Fort Lauderdale.

The bank and I were co-executors of his will, so I got a fee for that as well as the money he left me. I can see you both wondering. Was it very much? I'll tell you. It was twenty thousand dollars.

It fooled me. I guessed it would be lots or nothing. I thought it would be nothing because I
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wasn't in the will. It was a codicil he'd added a month before he was killed. But to repeat myself, Ellis would never never arrange his own death."

"The point Ron was making," I told her, "was that anybody who arranged the death of a dying man shouldn't inherit. So what we are talking about is the way Josephine Laurant Esterland inherited the bulk of the estate."

It startled her. She swung her feet down from the railing and turned to face me more directly.

"Ron is thinking that? It seems sort of sick. I mean, it seems so ... cumbersome. A public place like that. Witnesses. So much could go wrong. I see what he means, of course: that if Romola died in that coma, which she so apparently was going to do and finally did, then Josie would get only a small bequest. The support stopped when Ellis died. We-Ellis and-we were taking it for granted that he was going to outlive his daughter. And we were talking about the foundation.

And he had appointments with the lawyers and trust people and his CPA to work out the final details. He died before he could keep those final appointments. He hadn't really put much thought into the foundation until Romola had that terrible accident. And we knew she probably would die. And yes, it did make a difference of an awful lot of money to Josie to have Romola outlive her dad. Joe+ie would make such a terrible conspirator. She babbles. She can't keep secrets."

"Are you in touch with her?" I asked.

"I think I owe her a letter. We've been tapering off. After all, Ellis was all we had in common, and memories of Ellis aren't enough to keep a friendship going. In her last letter she said she was going back to work, that it wasn't really a very good part, but she was looking forward to it, to working again."

She sighed, looking downward into her glass. I liked the line of cheek and jaw, the gentle look of the long dark lashes, the breasts small under rosy gauze, the pronounced convexity of the top of the thigh. Except for small lines at the corners of her eyes, a puffiness under her chin, the years had left her unmarked. She checked the glasses, took them to fix another drink.

When she came back out, she said, "I can understand why Ron is suspicious and upset. But I think it just happened. I don't think anybody planned it. What will you do next?"

"Go to Citrus City and see if the River County sheriff has anything at all," I said.

"If he had anything, wouldn't he have arrested somebody?"

"You have to have some pretty solid facts before you arrest anybody. He might have some suspicions he'd talk about."

"Let me buy you gentlemen some lunch, one of the Eden Beach's great luncheon taste treats."

"Why should you buy us lunch?" Meyer asked.

She patted his arm. "Promotion and advertising, dear Meyer. I have a nice expense account all my own and I hardly ever get a chance to use it. So humor me."

Three

IN THE early afternoon I turned off Route 41 onto 846 and drove the small empty roads over past Corkscrew, Immokalee, Devil's Garden. The tourists were booming down the big roads, white-knuckled in the traffic, waiting for the warning signals from their Fuzzbusters, staring out at endless strips of junk stores, cypress knees, plaster herons, and instant greasy chicken. We rumbled gently along through the wild country, watching the birds, the dangle of Spanish moss, the old ranch houses set way back under the shade trees, the broad placid faces of the Brahma cattle.

I went up 27 past Sebring, Avon Park, and Frostproof, went over 630 through Indian Lake Estates, and came up on Citrus City from the west. The groves marched over the rolling land, neat as Prussians. Some rain guns were circling, the mist blowing across the ranks of trees.

We agreed on a motel west of the city limits at about six o'clock. Low white frame structure with
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a central office and restaurant portion looking like a piece of Mount Vernon. Above five cars were lined up in front of their thirty units.

There was a thin, middle-aged, weather-worn woman behind the desk. She had tooth trouble and held her mouth funny when she talked, and quite often put her hand in front of her mouth, the gesture of a child hiding laughter.

Once we had signed in and paid in advance, I said to her, "Say, is Dave Banks still sheriff?"

She stared at me. "Lordie, no! Dave's dead six year anyway. Guess you have been gone a time.

The sherf we got now, he's new last election. Milford Hampton. They call him Fish, but not to his face, on account he looks kind of like a fish, his mouth and the way his eyes are set. Maybe you heard of the family. His granddaddy had the big Star Bar ranch north of town. Still in the family, what's left of it after they sold off some for groves and some for town houses."

"I think I heard the name."

"He's trying to do a job, but this place is getting rougher every year. I don't know what's doing it. Floaters and drifters. Boozing and knifing folks. Used to be quiet and pretty and nice. Now a lady wouldn't want to go into town of a Saturday night at all. The good stores, they're all out in the Groveway Mall. Look, you men want a good honest dinner at an honest price, we're serving from six to eight thirty. Tonight is ribs and chicken."

The River County sheriff's office and jail were in a white modern building diagonally across the street from the ornate yellow turrets and minarets of the old county courthouse. County cars and patrol cars were parked in a wire enclosure beside the building. When we went in, I could hear the flat mechanical tone of voice of the female dispatcher somewhere out of sight. A fat girl in a pale blue uniform with arm patch sat behind a green desk, typing with two fingers.

She glared at us and said, "You want something?"

"Sure do," I said, "but if I asked you for it, you'd probably bust me alongside the head."

"Oh, you!" she said, with a chubby simper. "Who you wanna see?"

"Whoever is still assigned to the Ellis Esterland killing."

"Esterland. Esterland. Oh, the rich millionaire guy. That was a long time ago. Look, what we got around here, we got Sunday evening, which is supposed to be a big rest from Saturday night, but tonight it isn't, you know what I mean? I got to finish this dang thang. It has to go in. Couldn't you come back tomorrow, fellas?"

"Would it be assigned to anybody in particular?"

"I wouldn't rightly know myself. My guess is, it would just be an open file, you know. And in the monthly meeting, the sheriff, he goes over the open files with the officers, to kind of remind them to keep their eyes open and keep asking questions even when they're checking out other stuff. You fellas from another jurisdiction?"

At that moment a sallow man in baggy yellow slacks and a Polynesian shirt came out of one office, heading for another, a stack of papers in his hand.

"Oh, Barney! Look, can maybe you help these fellas? They want to know who's still working on that rich millionaire that got beat to death at that rest stop over on the turnpike a long time ago."