Melting Clock (11 page)

Beau smiled and stood up. He straightened the creases in his brown uniform and gently slapped my cheek. He got blood on his palm.

“We’ll talk again in a few minutes,” he said, moving to the cell door and opening it.

I kept my mouth shut until Beau and Mel were out the door. The crowd, except for the retarded man, followed them in the direction of the Old California Antique Shop.

“You see,” said Nelson, pointing his hat at me.

I wasn’t sure what it was I was supposed to see, but I doubted Nelson planned to explain and I knew I didn’t care. He sat in his chair and swiveled so that his back was to me again. He looked up at the retarded man and shouted, “Martin Sawyer, you are, as you have been for the past thirty-five years, looking through the wrong window.”

Nelson pointed to his right; the retarded man watched with curiosity and no understanding.

“Nelson,” I said. “I didn’t do it.”

Nelson swung around and looked at me.

“Well,” he said with a deep sigh. “I am relieved. Why did you not make that clear to me when I first found you, gun in hand? I think I’ll just let you out and apologize.”

“I want a lawyer,” I said.

“You will have to take that up with the troopers Rangley,” he said.

“I’m
your
prisoner,” I reminded him.

“I have washed my hands of the whole—Martin Sawyer, get the hell away from that window.”

We were at this crucial point in the conversation when the Rangleys and the doctor came back in, leaving their audience outside.

“Peters,” said the senior Rangley, “when did you get to Mirador?”

“About an hour ago, maybe an hour and a half,” I said.

“And,” he went on, “you went right to the antique shop?”

“No, I got gas from that kid, the one standing out there on the sidewalk. The pimply one with the overalls.”

“He told us,” said Rangley.

“I’m going back to the body,” said the old doctor wearily.

“Hold your horses,” said Rangley, holding up his hand. Then to me, “Where were you last night, between—”

“Midnight to five or so,” said the doctor. “That’s safe enough.”

“Culver City lockup,” I said, standing up. “From about eleven to nine in the morning.”

“Go check it, Mel,” Rangley said. His brother nodded and went out the door. I watched him muscle through the watching kids and head for the car.

“I’m going back,” said the doc. He turned and went back to the street, leaving me, Nelson, and the trooper who hated puzzles.

No one spoke for a while. Nelson sat. Rangley stood and I held onto the bars with one hand and used my other one to dab my bloody nose with Rangley’s handkerchief. My head hurt but I decided to put on a happy face.

Mel Rangley came running back in about two minutes.

“He was in the Culver City lockup,” Mel said.

I grinned broadly and threw the bloody handkerchief to Beau Rangley, who wasn’t ready for it. The balled piece of cloth hit his neatly pressed shirt, leaving a dark, deep spot, and fell to the floor.

“Sorry,” I said pleasantly.

“I think you’d better come with us,” he said. “We’ve got a few more questions to ask you. Somewhere quiet. Let him out, Nelson.”

Nelson put his straw hat on his head and swiveled toward Rangley.

“I think not,” he said.

Rangley shook his head as if the world were a series of unexpected little heartbreaks that had to be endured.

“Open it,” he repeated.

“No,” said Nelson, standing.

Rangley was not looking at the sheriff, but I was. I could see the tremor in his knees, the twitch of his jaw, and the determination in his eyes.

“Nelson, one half-hearted piss and you’d flush down the toilet.”

“Given the information provided by the good doctor, the confirmation of presence by the Culver City police and your obvious hostility toward the prisoner,” said Nelson, “I do not believe it is in the best interest of the laws of the State of California and the Municipality of Mirador to release the prisoner to you. And that I do not intend to do.”

Rangley turned to the sheriff and took three steps till they were nose to forehead. Nelson quaked and almost lost his straw hat, but he didn’t back down.

“You’re one simple shit, Nelson,” Rangley hissed.

“That is as it may be,” Nelson agreed, “but Peters remains in my charge.”

With that Trooper Rangley stormed out the door and went to join his brother in their car. The small crowd turned to watch them drive off.

“Thanks,” I said as Nelson’s knees began a serious wobble. He made it back to his chair and grasped the arms as he sat heavily.

“There comes a moment when one least expects it that dignity takes precedence over survival,” he said. “That is a moment to be watched for and avoided or one runs the risk of losing a secure job with a pension.”

“What now?” I asked.

The crowd on the street was still there but it had dwindled to three, including the retarded man who had now fixed his gaze on me. I waved to him. He waved back and Doc appeared behind him, started toward his car, changed his mind, and entered Nelson’s office, closing the door behind him.

“Street was killed by a gunshot,” he said. “I’ve recovered the bullet Death took place last night or early this morning. I called Hal Overmeyer. He’ll bring the corpus to San Plentia Hospital and I’ll play with it till I know more.”

Doc looked at me and shifted his black bag to his other hand.

“Want me to look at your nose?” he asked.

“I’ll be peachy,” I said.

“Any other wounds need tending?” he asked. “I usually have to do a little patching in the wake of the Rangleys.”

My head was throbbing and the ache in my side sucked deep and sharp.

“I feel great,” I said. “Trooper Rangley knows how to treat a fella.”

Doc looked at me and shook his head.

“Never that simple, mister,” he said. “Beau and Mel are the last of the Rangley brothers. Rick died on Guam. Sam got killed in Morocco on a tank. And Harry, well, they never found enough of him to make it official. The oldest brother, Carl, he took a broken beer bottle in the gut half a year before the war broke out. Beau and Mel are draft-free and they promised their mother they wouldn’t join. So, every time they’re introduced to a new friend like you, they make ’em welcome. Rangleys are none too brilliant. You know what
sublimate
means?”

“No,” I said. “Let me guess. They feel better when they kick someone’s teeth out.”

“Something like that,” Doc agreed. “But to give you your due, the Rangleys weren’t a friendly bunch even when there was an even half dozen of them. Sheriff Nelson, what say you let the innocent man out and all of us go over to Hijo’s and have a few beers before my date with the deceased?”

Nelson’s legs were back, at least back enough for him to nod and get up.

“Why not?” he said wearily. “I’ve got to give my wife a call first.”

Doc took the keys from Nelson and moved toward me as Nelson picked up the phone.

“One more painting?” Doc asked as he opened the cell door.

“One more clock,” I added, stepping into the office where Nelson was whispering into the receiver.

“Running out of time,” said Doc, looking at the keys.

I looked out the window at the retarded man, who was still watching me with a happy grin. This was probably the most exciting day of his life.

“There was fresh blood on the floor of the antique shop,” I said low enough so Nelson couldn’t hear me from across the room.

“Not the victim’s,” said Doc. “Probably not the killer’s either. I’d imagine whoever did it was long gone and far away before dawn.”

I pointed to the window. Doc looked where I was pointing and saw the handprint.

We moved past Nelson’s desk. The sheriff gave us a shrug, turned his back to us and continued whispering into the phone.

“Martin Sawyer,” I said, looking at the retarded man.

Doc looked up as we reached the door.

“Like many of the inhabitants of Mirador, I delivered him.”

“Harmless?”

“Harmless,” said Doc, stepping out onto the sidewalk and holding the door open for me.

Nelson, still on the phone, waved us ahead.

We were standing in front of Martin Sawyer now, and Sawyer turned from the sheriff’s office window and smiled gently at us as Doc sighed.

“Let me look at your hand, Martin.”

Martin took his right hand out of his pocket and held it out. It was pink with flecks of fast-drying blood.

“Peters,” said Doc, looking at the hand. “Martin Sawyer is incapable of committing violence.”

“But not of witnessing it.”

Through the window we could see Sheriff Nelson hang up the phone.

“I’d prefer that Martin not go through the pain of arrest and questioning,” said Doc, guiding Martin’s hand back to the overall pocket.

“I know who killed him,” said Martin Sawyer happily. His voice was soft and high.

Nelson was moving toward the door through which Doc and I had just come.

“Who” asked Doc.

“Last night, Mr. Claude told me a name. Then I came back before and Mr. Claude was, was, was …”

“Dead,” I said.

Martin Sawyer looked frightened. His eyes moved to Sheriff Nelson, who was coming out of the door.

“What was the name Mr. Claude told you, Martin?”

“Gregory Novak,” said Martin. “Mr. Claude said, ‘Gregory Novak wants to kill me, but I’ll fool him.’”

“What?” asked Nelson. “Martin Sawyer, go home to your sister. There is nothing here for you.”

Sawyer rubbed his head and looked at Nelson.

“Gregory Novak,” he said.

Nelson shook his head and pushed past Sawyer, heading toward Hijo’s bar.

“Martin just told us that Claude believed someone named Gregory Novak was planning to kill him,” said Doc.

“Hold it,” I put in. “Juanita said someone would be killed by a guy called Guy or Greg, a guy with a beard.”

“Juanita?” asked Doc.

“Fortune teller in L.A.,” I explained.

Sheriff Nelson stopped, his back to us, paused for a beat and turned to look at the three of us.

“Gentlemen,” said Nelson, “I anticipate both an eventful confrontation with my spouse and a future of less than cordial social interaction with the brothers Rangley. The respite of a bottle or two of Drewery’s will be most welcome. It is my opinion that Gregory Norvell—”

“Novak,” Martin Sawyer corrected helpfully.

“Novak,” Nelson said with a weary sigh. “I stand corrected. It is my opinion that Gregory Novak is the name of a character on
Mr. Keen
or some other radio show which Martin Sawyer is unable to separate from reality. Now, I am going into the Mex bar and have a beer. Your companionship would be welcome, but it would not be the first time I have had a beer by myself.”

Doc touched Martin Sawyer’s arm and told him softly to get in Doc’s car and wait for him. Then we joined Nelson in the bar.

A
t a table, one of four in Hijo’s, Doc gave me a handful of aspirin for my head. I downed them with a bottle of some unknown and unnamed yellow liquid with a faint taste of beer. We sat drinking while Sheriff Nelson brooded over life, his wife, and the brothers Rangley. The radio behind the bar played a Treasury War Bond show. Jane Froman and Lanny Ross sang a duet—“This Love of Mine”—followed by a sketch with Betty Grable and Preston Foster as a married couple trying to get ready for a dinner while their maid, played by Joan Davis, gave them a hard time.

I got on the road as soon as I could and headed north. The Crosley wasn’t in a hurry and my head had a lump the size and shape of a yucca leaf. I pulled in at South Carlsbad Beach just before Oceanside, had a hot dog at a shack called Hernie’s, looked at the ocean and a white wooden naval lookout tower on stilts. I sat on a piece of driftwood and helped the tower look for the Japanese armada for about an hour. When I got up, my head throbbed and my back twinged, but it could have been worse.

I passed San Juan Capistrano as the sun was going down. The written history of California began at the Mission San Juan Capistrano. History was the one subject I had enjoyed in high school. In my one year and a little more at the University of Southern California, the only class I could pay attention to was history. I remembered one afternoon when Father Zephpyrin Engelhardt, the historian of the California Missions, had come to class complete with dark robes tied with a white rope and a little black skullcap on his head. He had a long white beard and carried an ancient book. I’d looked up Father Z in 1936 on my way through San Juan Capistrano, but he had died two years earlier.

It was Father Z who told us how California got its name. Father Z said, I’ve still got the notes somewhere, that a novel called
Las Sergas de Esplanadian
—
The Adventures of the Esplanadian
—by Garcia de Montalvo had been published in Spain in 1510. In the novel, which Father Z had read, there’s a fantastic island of wealthy Amazons. For reasons which no one knows, Montalvo called the island
California,
a word he never defined. A word, in short, which has no meaning.

No one knows for sure how the western coast of North America picked up the name. It might have come with Spanish explorers in the sixteenth century. I like to think it came with Hernando Cortez, who conquered Mexico and spent some time slaughtering Aztecs in the Baja. It might have come with Juan Cabrillo, who in 1542 landed near what became San Diego.