Undercurrent (The Nameless Detective) (13 page)

He stepped forward and said to Winestock, "My name is Quartermain—the Chief of Police of Cypress Bay. I'd like to ask you a few questions."

Winestock seemed to stiffen slightly, and his eyes were furtive things that touched this and that in the room without focusing on anything at all. He was nervous and he was somewhat afraid, and you could see that the last man on earth he wanted to have in his living room was the local Chief of Police.

"What questions?" he asked heavily. "What about? I haven't done anything."

"Nobody said you had," Quartermain told him.

"What do you want, then?"

"I understand you knew a man named Walter Paige at one time."

Winestock opened his mouth and wet his lips the way a man who has been drinking will do. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I knew him once."

"You know he's dead, of course."

"It was on the radio."

"When was the last time you saw him?"

"Hell, I don't know. Six or seven years."

"You didn't know he'd returned to Cypress Bay?"

"No, I never knew it."

"Who do you suppose killed him?"

"How would I know who?"

"Are you aware of any enemies he might have had?"

"Walt was a good guy, he didn't have enemies."

"I thought you hadn't seen him in six or seven years."

"Six or seven years ago, I meant. He didn't have any enemies then." Winestock's eyes jerked away from Quartermain and moved over me like fevered hands. "You're the guy that came around here bothering Bev today, the one who found Walt."

"That's right," I said.

"She doesn't know anything," Winestock said. "What do you want to bother her for?"

"What do
you
know, Winestock?" Quartermain asked him.

"Nothing. Why should I know anything?"

Quartermain went over and sat down on one of the chairs; I remained where I was, not far from the door. To Winestock he said, "Would you tell us where you were today?"

"Today? Why?"

"Just answer the question."

"I was right here, mostly."

"But you did go out, is that right?"

"Yeah, for a little while."

"To where?"

"For a drive. Just for a drive."

"Where did you go on this drive?"

"Down the coast. To Big Sur."

"Alone?"

"Why? What difference does that make?"

"Were you alone, Winestock?"

"Yeah, for Christ's sake, I was alone!"

"All right," Quartermain said quietly, "tell me about the bald man—the one who was seen getting out of your car on the corner of Grove and Sierra Verde earlier this afternoon."

Winestock blinked rapidly three times, and his hands went out in a convulsive movement toward the bottle and glass on the table; but the hands were spasmodic and he seemed to have lost control of them momentarily. The glass tipped over and fell off the table and rolled under the sofa. He said "Shit!" in a thin voice and sat back and folded his arms tightly across his chest.

"Well?" Quartermain asked.

Winestock hesitated, and you could watch him searching for an answer. Then: "A hitchhiker. A hitchhiker I picked up down the coast. I didn't even think about him before." Pause. "Listen, why are you interested in him?"

"Hitchhiker," Quartermain said.

"That's right."

"You in the habit of picking up hitchhikers, are you?"

"Sometimes, what the hell."

"Tell us about this one."

"What about him?"

"Was he a stranger to you?"

"I never saw him before today."

"What was his name?"

"He didn't say."

"What
did
he say?"

"Nothing. We didn't talk much."

"Where was he headed for?"

"I don't know."

"What was he doing out on the highway?"

"I told you, we didn't talk much."

"Why did you let him out at Grove and Sierra Verde?"

"That's where he wanted to get out."

"Did he have business in Cypress Bay, in that area?"

"Goddamn it, I don't know!"

"You're sure you never saw him before?"

"How many times do I have to tell you?"

"He was a friend of Paige's, did you know that?"

"What? How do you—?"

"He was seen with Paige yesterday."

"I don't know anything about it."

"That's your story, then: a hitchhiker, a stranger."

"It's the truth," Winestock said. "I'm telling you."

"Where were you yesterday, say five-thirty P.M.?"

"Listen, now, I didn't have anything to do with Paige getting killed. I didn't have anything to do with that."

"Tell us where you were," Quartermain said patiently.

"Next door. Yeah, five-thirty, I was next door with Harry Jacobs." He looked somewhat relieved, although his face still shone with the bright sweat of fear. "Yeah, Harry and me were working on his cat."

"His what?"

"Catamaran, he's got this cat. We were working on it."

"Who else was there?"

"Harry's wife, she was there, she saw us."

Quartermain stood up. "Let's go talk to the Jacobses."

"Sure," Winestock agreed. "Sure, they'll tell you."

We went out through the rear of the house. There was no sign of Beverly, but I had the feeling she was somewhere close by, perhaps watching, perhaps listening. The rear yard was small and shaded by a pair of pepper trees, and there was a low redwood fence separating the Winestock property from a similar lot—and a similar Old Spanish house—next door.

Winestock stepped over the stake fence and led us along a narrow path to the rear door. He rapped loudly on the screen and called, "Harry! Hey, Harry, it's me, Brad!"

Pretty soon the door opened, and a guy about thirty—tanned, running to fat, wearing dungarees and a white sweatshirt—looked out at us. Quartermain asked him if he was Harry Jacobs, and the guy said that he was—hello, Brad, who're your friends? Quartermain said that he was the Chief of Police and Jacobs looked surprised and puzzled, but hardly upset; he told us, readily enough, that sure, Brad had been with him yesterday afternoon around five-thirty, working on the cat, he'd had her out on the bay that morning and she—

"Did Winestock leave at any time between four and six?" Quartermain asked.

"No, he didn't leave until after dark."

"Is your wife home, Mr. Jacobs?"

"Sure. You want to talk to her?"

"If you wouldn't mind."

"Sure, sure. Hey, Angie, come here, will you?"

Angie was a faded blonde, tanned, also running to fat, wearing dungarees and a white sweatshirt; superficially at least, I thought, they were the ideal couple. She confirmed the fact that Winestock had been with her husband, working on their catamaran from about three the previous afternoon until after dark—and that Winestock had not left during that time.

"All right," Quartermain said, and thanked the two of them.

"Say, what's it all about?" Jacobs asked.

"Nothing, Harry, just a mistake," Winestock said, and laughed nervously.

Quartermain and I did not have anything to say. We returned to the Winestock house, and there was still no sign of Beverly. In the parlor again, Winestock retrieved his glass from under the sofa and poured himself a good hooker and had it off without taking a breath. Quarter- main and I watched him dispassionately.

"What else can you tell us about Walter Paige?" Quartermain asked him finally.

"Nothing. It's been six or seven years, like I told you."

"How well did you know him back then?"

"Not well, just a few drinks here and there."

"He was pretty good with the women, wasn't he?"

"Oh sure, he always had the women."

"Like who, for instance?"

"A whole string, who knows exactly?"

"Was your sister a good friend of Paige's?"

"What the hell do you mean by that? Listen—"

"Answer the question, Winestock."

"No. No, she hardly knew him."

"You know Russ Dancer, don't you?"

"Yeah, I know him."

"How well did he and Paige get along?"

"All right, I guess."

"I've heard there was once some bad blood between them."

"I don't know anything about that."

"You're sure?"

"I'd tell you if I knew anything, Jesus Christ!"

"Did you ever read anything of Dancer's?"

Winestock wet his lips open-mouthed again. "Like what?"

"You tell me."

"I read a couple of his westerns, yeah."

"How about a book called
The Dead and the Dying
?"

"I never heard of it," Winestock said immediately. "Why do you want to know about that?"

"Why would Paige have a copy of it?"

"How the hell would I know? Listen, what do you want out of me, huh? I don't know anything about Paige, I don't know anything about a goddamn book. Why don't you leave me alone, a man's got the right to be left alone."

Quartermain watched him steadily for several long, silent seconds; his blue eyes were cold and sharp and calculating. Winestock kept his gaze averted, sweating, fidgeting. Finally Quartermain said, "I guess that's about all for now. But I might want to talk to you again, Winestock. You'll be available, won't you?"

"I'm not going anywhere. I haven't done anything."

"I hope that's true."

"It's true, all right." He wiped the back of his right hand across his damp forehead. "Look, I hope you get whoever killed Walt."

"We'll get him," Quartermain said. "Or her. Nobody is going to get away with murder in Cypress Bay."

Winestock was reaching for the bottle again, jerkily, as we stepped out of the parlor.

When Quartermain and I were sitting in his car on the street outside, he said, "You're probably wondering why I didn't pull him in—and why I didn't talk to the sister."

"Well, you wouldn't have gotten anything out of her. If she knows what it is that's making Winestock sweat, she'll guard hell out of it to protect him."

"Yeah. And as far as pulling Winestock in, his alibi seems okay for the time of Paige's death, at least for now, and I don't have much to hold him on; and I've got the feeling he did as much talking in there as he's going to do for the time being. But he'll sweat more now, wondering if and when we'll be back, and if he sweats long enough and hard enough, it might break this thing open."

"Giving him rope?"

"That's it. He knows that bald man, all right—and he knows more about Walter Paige than he's telling."

"Dancer's book, too," I said. "Did you notice how quick his denials were?"

"I noticed," Quartermain answered grimly.

He pulled away from the curb, and once we were on our way he called Donovan and asked him to contact Lieutenant Favor at his home. When Donovan had done that, and had Favor waiting on standby, Quartermain issued orders for immediate stakeout duty on the Winestock house, saying that we would maintain surveillance on the southwestern corner of Bonificacio and Los Robles until Favor's arrival. Through Donovan, the lieutenant said he would be there within twenty minutes.

We circled the block and parked, and from the corner we could see Winestock's Studebaker and anyone leaving or entering the Winestock house. I could see, too, a thin whitish muggers' moon in the purple-black night sky, and it seemed to have the look of a scythe blade hanging poised over Cypress Bay. Nightmare symbolism, I thought; the hell with that. But I felt uneasy, keyed up—the same feeling you might have if you were standing on ground above a series of earth faults and you knew the faults were there and you could hear a distant rumbling and feel vague tremors beneath your feet. Something was going to happen, you sensed that, you knew the whole thing was going to crack wide open pretty soon now. And when it did, there would be tragedy and pain, and even if you escaped the immediacy of it yourself, the shock waves would reach you and touch you and just maybe they would hurt you a little too . . .

Thirteen

The faded-blue Studebaker was still sitting dark and empty on the street, and no one had come out of or gone into the Winestock house, when Favor arrived fifteen minutes later. If Brad Winestock was going somewhere tonight, it seemed he was in no hurry about it; either that, or he was being cautious.

Favor pulled up behind us, headlamps dark, and Quartermain got out briefly to talk to him; then he came back and started the car and turned south on Bonificacio. I said, "Where to now?"

He switched on the lights. "To have a talk with the Lomaxes, I think."

We drove out to Cypress Point, and the front gate on Inspiration Way was still open; but when we got down into the tiny valley, the Lomax house was void of lights and sound and the forest-green Mercedes was gone. Old-bronze night lamps were mounted on either side of the front door, and pole lights spaced at intervals encircled the mesh-screened tennis court, but these, too, were unlighted. The only illumination came from the moon, pale and ghostly.

We got out of the car and went up to the door, the way you have to do even though you know it's pointless. Quartermain rang the bell, and chimes tolled emptily through the interior and faded into deep stillness again. We stood there for a couple of minutes, waiting for nothing at all, and then returned to the car.

Quartermain said, "Maybe they're out to dinner, or a movie."

"Maybe so. But why didn't they close the front gate then? Or put on the night-lighting?"

"That doesn't have to mean much."

"Just that they were in a hurry."

"People are always in a hurry," he said. "We'll come back later, or in the morning. They'll be home eventually."

"Do you know them well, Ned?"

"Well enough. I thought I did, anyway."

I had nothing to say to that. I fired another cigarette and coughed out the match and kept on coughing as he swung the car around onto the entrance lane. Too many cigarettes again today—Christ! The moss-laced pine and the rock terracing and the miniature waterfalls had a look of unreality about them in the darkness, as if they were papier-mâché imitations on some elaborate stage set. The feeling added depth and fuel to my continuing sense of uneasiness.