Spider’s Cage (7 page)

He got silence.

Gleason squinted. “Irene, I mean,” he said, almost as if to himself. “Good night, Irene.”

Bdeniowitz sighed and talked to the floor. “A kid on the beach calls it in. They get the corpse downtown and find all these wood fragments, splinters, embedded in the body, especially about the head and shoulders. The homicide theorist opines as how there are a lot of junipers and scrub cypress on the way down to the beach. The full report, with theory, is released to the newspapers, who just happened already to be right down the street photographing what's left of the Maclellan place, and insist they know what happened for the morning edition
before
the autopsy.” He looked up at Windrow. Windrow returned the gaze.

“Well, we found the ounce,” Gleason protested meekly. Bdeniowitz ignored him.

“The theorist—unrelenting, brilliant, self-taught—got one thing right: You.” Bdeniowitz pointed at Windrow's nose, “You had something to do with it.” His voice was suddenly forthright and loud. “I don't buy no funny coincidences. We got you, we got mayhem, and only a block separates the two. No coincidences, not even a little one, even if it is in the Herb Caen. As for the rest,” he threw up his hands. “Shit,” he said, “The boss catches a fish this big.” He let about six inches separate his two index fingers. “When he gets back from his vacation and his taxidermist, the boss is in shock to discover the city is still where he'd left it, with people walking around in it. In spite of his condition he goes to
work. Upon reading the papers concerning the preceding events, and after auditioning theories, the boss fires everybody and orders a routine analysis of the cause of death.” Bdeniowitz read the palm of one hand with the forefinger of the other, squinting as if farsighted. “Hmm. Multiple contusions and abrasions about the head and shoulders of the deceased, many of them thought to have been caused by a blunt instrument. The wood splinters embedded in the deceased turn out to be spruce and mahogany. Well, well!” Bdeniowitz shot Gleason a look of contempt. His voice transuded sarcasm. “Further investigation, conducted both in our modern forensic laboratories and at the scene of the crime by our highly trained and skilled personnel, revealed some interesting
facts
. No investigation is complete without a couple of
facts
.” He enumerated his fingers. “The smashed remains of a stringed instrument, possibly a guitar, strewn on the rocks below the house, and its neck—with the strings still on it, not far away, trapped in the junipers about halfway down the cliff. There's blood on both. Analysis revealed the blood was of exactly the same type as the victim's. Well, well, whaddya know. Now it's a homicide, with dope, sex, and music thrown in.”

Windrow started to speak. Bdeniowitz held up a hand and shook his head.

“Then what do we find? Various drink glasses around the house, each containing residues of various expensive boozes. All of the beautifully defined fingerprints on these glasses can be accounted for by comparing them with those of the residents or servants pertaining to the premises. All, that is, except for one lovely thumbprint, which, lo and behold, turns out to belong to an ex-cop, one Martin Windrow, last seen, more dead than alive, on page twenty-one,
next to the Macy's ad, left hand gossip column, ‘breaking and entering'.” Bdeniowitz paused.

“But not as dead as the deceased,” he added quietly.

Another silence.

“You had scotch, Marty,” Gleason said.

W
INDROW LOOKED AT THE SUNLIGHT STREAMING
through the hospital window and wished he were part of it. If so, he would swim upstream a few miles. High above the city he could bounce a sunbeam off a cup of coffee into a sad man's face, sure, and he could follow black limousines through the streets, watch a body plunge down a cliff, follow an elusive singer to her telephone, spot the red roll of quarters through that tiny window in that huge array of windows, there, the two cops badgering the sick man in his bed, and warm their backs for them, make them less assiduous. Of course, light changes everything; light is information. And information is light; but whereas the sun provides warmth, the fact of the death of Pamela Neil chilled decidedly the atmosphere in the room.

The siren got real loud as it approached the base of the hospital building, and stopped.

Bdeniowitz was oddly patient. Windrow looked at him. “Did you check her for residual cocaine?”

Bdeniowitz made a wagging motion with the fingers of his upturned palm. “The story the story,” he said. “Let's have it.”

“I was there. I was just leaving her house when this Cadillac limousine…”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute. What were you doing at this dame's house? Delivering laundry?”

“I was looking for her step-daughter.”

Bdeniowitz looked at Gleason and whistled. “Her stepdaughter. this Neil was maybe thirty. She…”

“Twenty-nine,” Windrow said.

Bdeniowitz looked back at him. “Gleason,” he said. Petrel Gleason thumbed through a pocket-sized spiral notebook. Bdeniowitz didn't wait. “Twenty-nine, thirty. So how old's the daughter, Windrow? Fourteen? Twelve?”

“The Mann Act,” Gleason chuckled, still thumbing through the narrow pages. “Breaking and entering, willful destruction of private property,
the Mann Act
…”

“About the same,” Windrow sighed.

The two cops looked at him.

“She's twenty-seven, for chrissake.”

“Old enough to bite,” Gleason observed.

“She's a friend of mine,” said Windrow. “She travels when she works, which is all the time, so she doesn't maintain an apartment anywhere. When she's in town, she stays with her stepmother.”

“So you went over there to see her.”

“Yeah. Only there was some kind of foul up. She wasn't home. She got hung up working. So I sat down and had a drink with Mrs. Neil and the aesthete she lives with.”

“Twenty-nine,” Gleason announced, reading from his notebook.

“Ass-theet?” said Bdeniowitz.

“Right,” said Windrow. “Name of Woodruff. Collects art.” Gleason raised an eyebrow and begun thumbing through his notebook again. “I had a scotch,” Windrow recalled. Gleason paused, then reversed his way through the pages and stopped. “Scotch,” he said. “Woodruff,” Windrow said. Gleason began to go the other way through his notebook. “Talked about the weather for a while. Mrs. Neil's nose was running,
seems she's had sinus since they left Palm Springs. It's the fog. Like that. While we were talking Jodie called and said she'd be delayed. You might check on that call, as a matter of fact, if you can. I'd be interested in that.”

“Oh, we might check on that call for you, eh?” snarled Bdeniowitz. “What else happened?”

“What else? Nothing else. I finished my drink and left.”

“What did you talk about? The maid said you stayed for the better part of an hour.”

“Well, that's her story. They kept me waiting fifteen minutes after I got there. Then there was some business about a painting they were hanging. You probably saw a sailboat over the mantlepiece when you got there? That—”

“Wait a minute,” Bdeniowitz frowned. “Hold it. Gleason.”

“Woodruff,” Gleason said, holding a finger in the air and looking at his notebook.

Bdeniowitz shook his head.

“Goddam it Gleason,” he said quietly. “Go call O'Shaunessy at the Neil house. Get him to describe the painting that's hanging over the fireplace in the living room.”

“Right back, chief,” Gleason said. He waved the notebook. “I got the number right here.” He left the room.

Bdeniowitz turned back to Windrow. A puzzled frown lingered on his face. “Sailboat,” he muttered. “So what else?”

Windrow shrugged and partially closed up his left eye, screwing up the outside corner of it, so that the bruise stung around it. But the competition for his nervous system's attention was fierce. “Let's see. There was a kid there, helping to move the painting. Name of Jason. Young guy, wore coveralls and carried a hammer. His hair was in his face all the time.”

“We talked to him. Dumb as a post.”

“Dumb as a—”

“Can't talk and, he's deaf, too. Reads lips and speaks in sign language. Claims he didn't notice anything unusual yesterday, outside the ordinary squabbling.”

Windrow remembered how the kid had watched Woodruff. It annoyed him that he hadn't noticed why.

“They scrapped a lot?”

“All the time, according to the kid. The maid confirmed it. He didn't mention anything about a painting, though. What else?”

“Well, about the time we're through with the pleasantries the maid comes in and says there's a phone call. Woodruff goes out and takes it.”

“Wait. Don't tell me. While he's out of the room the missus jumps you. She says she and the old man aren't making it anymore, and it's been a long time since there's been a real man around the house…”

“That was the last case,” Windrow said, grinding his teeth.

“Oh.” Bdeniowitz lapsed back into his slightly puzzled state. “So did she say anything?”

Windrow shook his head. “Not much,” he said. “She was pretty stoned. Stared a lot, made a couple of obtuse remarks and sniffled once in a while. I finished my drink and she told me to help myself to another. I was doing that when Woodruff came back and told me Jodie had called.”

“Driving drunk, eh? So who's this Jodie?”

“That's the stepdaughter.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot.”

Bdeniowitz paused for a moment before his next question.

“When did you realize she was Sweet Jesus O'Ryan's granddaughter?”

Windrow almost permitted himself a smile. Max was never as ignorant as he pretended to be.

“When I read about it in the papers, same as you.”

“She never mentioned him?”

“Never.”

“So what happened to her?”

“Woodruff told me she's in a recording session, and running late. He said she's real excited about the session, apologetic about our date, and that she'll be in touch.”

“So how come she didn't ask the maid for you?”

“That's a good question.” Windrow didn't mention that he hadn't believed for one minute that the Ryan girl had been on the telephone at all. He said, “I'll have to ask her that when I see her,” and Bdeniowitz nodded.

Gleason came back in the room. “I got a hold of O'Shaunessey,” he said. “Says there's a painting of an oil pump over the fireplace. An oil pump in the desert.”

“Yeah,” Bdeniowitz nodded. “I didn't remember a boat up there.”

“There's something else,” Gleason added. “O'Shaunessey thought it was funny you wanted to know about a sailboat over the fireplace, because they found what was left of a painting of a sailboat
in
the fireplace.”

Bdeniowitz turned to look at Gleason, then turned back to Windrow. Windrow screwed up his bruise and scratched where it met the corner of his eye. “That picture of the boat was
ARCADIA
, the
ARCADIA
II.”

“Looks like somebody sank her,” Gleason said gravely. “The frame and stretchers were broken up and the canvas was wrapped around them.” He made a twisting motion with his hands. “The whole mess was laid in on top of some newspapers and woodscraps, partially burned.”

“But it hadn't been completely burned?” Windrow asked.

Gleason shook his head. “Nope. O'Shaunessey said they could still make out most of the canvas when they spread it out. There's a sunset, a sailboat with two masts and the name on the boat was, ah…” He began to thumb through his spiral notebook.

“
ARCADIA II
,” Bdeniowitz said. He looked at Windrow. “What's it mean, apple?”

Windrow shook his head. “Beats me, Max. When I got there the oil pump was on the way out, and the sailboat was on the wall. The kid told you that, right?”

“We didn't know to ask him about the paintings. But we'll check on it. Hell, I believe you. The thing is, what's this got to do with the Neil woman?”

Windrow was silent.

Gleason scratched his head. “I guess someone just didn't like her taste in art?” he ventured, and shrugged.

“Do you think it was the same type that doesn't like private detectives?” Bdeniowitz said.

Windrow looked at him. “You mean you believe that business about the limousine?”

Bdeniowitz scowled. “We found a black Cadillac limousine in the Presidio the day after they brought you in here. Front end was bashed in, the water was all gone out of the radiator, and the motor was locked up. There was paint and plastic from your Toyota all over the front end. There was a piece of your license plate embedded in the radiator core. So your end of the story checks out.” Bdeniowitz paused. “More or less,” he added.

Windrow frowned. “You found the car the day after they brought me in here?”

“Yeah.”

“So what day is this? How long have I been in here?”

“They brought you in here on Tuesday. This is Thursday morning.”

“So I've been in here two days?”

“Two days, Marty. More or less.”

Two days, Windrow thought to himself. So, Jodie's been gone five. How long had she been in trouble? She'd called for help on Tuesday morning.

“So how come somebody wants you dead that close to the Neil murder?” Bdeniowitz persisted.

Anything could have happened, Windrow thought to himself. Everything could have happened. “I don't know,” he said aloud. He threw the bedclothes to one side. His arm ached, but it worked. “Has anybody seen Woodruff?”

“Not a sign of him,” Bdeniowitz said glumly. “What are you doing?”

“I'm getting out of here.” He stood up. He heard a rush of surf in his ears and saw sparks when he closed his eyes. He steadied himself on the bedstand and knocked the empty glass off the table onto the floor. It bounced and spun to a standstill, unbroken.