And Kill Once More. Al Fray
What about that, Kate?”
“That’s the thing that really worries me, Marty. As I said, Sandy and I have been one-two for a lot of years. We traded school girl secrets in junior high and compared notes on dates when we were in Beverly Hills High School and all the rest. Same sorority at USC and I was the maid of honor when she and George went down the aisle three years ago and if there’s anyone in California that I know especially well it’s Sandy Engle. She’s a girl who likes to get around and always has. Yet in the two years that she and George have had their estate up in the canyon, she hasn’t left the grounds once. Not once—and I’ve got to know why.”
“You mean that literally. She’s never been outside the fence—if there is a fence, that is.”
“There’s a fence, and it isn’t locked but it might as well be as far as Sandy is concerned,” Kate said grimly.
I set the napkin holder down. “That’s good enough for point three until a better one comes along.” I grinned. “Who shops for the necessities like beer and mink coats and an occasional loaf of bread?”
Kate ground out her cigarette and searched my face with a puzzled eye. “You’re joking of course.” She smiled thinly. “Sandy has the mink all right, and the things that go with it, all except one. A mink coat isn’t of much use unless people see it and to see Sandy’s fur you have to drive up to the desert.”
“Does she hint that she’d like to break out? What does she offer as a reason for her exile?”
“Now that I think of it, she doesn’t let the subject come out in the open. She never talks about it or anything, just sits on the nest. Whenever I invite her to my place in Hollywood she makes some hasty excuse and turns to a different subject.” Kate looked down and her fingers twisted together nervously. They stopped and she looked up. “This may sound silly—but her eyes haven’t gotten the word, Marty. She wants to get away. I’m sure of it. Sure enough to have looked up the Gregory Agency in the yellow pages of the phone book. She couldn’t have changed, Marty. Not Sandy. Not that much. She’s—she’s somehow a prisoner, and yet—”
Across the counter the old fellow had finished dividing the pastry and was sliding the pieces into a mirrored display case. I caught his eye long enough to order a couple of more cups of coffee and went back to the chore at hand.
“You wouldn’t have gone this far without having come to a conclusion of some kind,” I said easily. “Coming to Gregory is costing you money. What have you decided?” She glanced up, then gave me a meaningful look and toyed with the spoon until our coffee refills spilled into the cups. When we were alone again she bit her lip and looked away.
“Some way George is keeping Sandy there. I mean I think he is and—”
“How could he?” I asked quickly.
“I don’t quite know. Still—if he isn’t, somebody is.”
It wasn’t much, and I said, “There’s a constitutional amendment against that sort of thing. If she’s being held against her will we’ll get her out.”
The blonde flashed me a dim smile that said she wasn’t completely sold. I wasn’t, either. I let the conversation wither while we went through the second cup of coffee, then dropped a half buck on the table and ushered her out to her expensive collection of chrome and gray leather. One thing for sure, if this was a gag someone had gone to a lot of trouble building it.
We eased out onto the highway and rolled north, the big car logging the miles pleasantly and silently. I went over the facts again and tried to get a foothold—not only on what she’d told me, but the small aura of involuntary information that clung to her and the rest of the setup. The one common denominator was money. Where there’s a lot of it, there’re usually people eager to get their hands on it. In this case that could get to include me.
And what about Sandy’s staying so close to the family circle? I thought about that and a different light fell across it, dim and obscure, yet perhaps touching on possibilities. If she didn’t leave, she wouldn’t be any place else—maybe she had a reason for staying at the ranch against her will. In short, Sandy Engle could be hiding up in these hills—I tossed a sidelong look at the blonde, wondering if the same thought had occurred to her.
The sun was beginning to make itself felt. I touched a button and rolled the rear windows down into their wells. It didn’t help. Then the blonde put a finger on the buttons on her side and rolled all of the windows back up. Tight. Then another button and somewhere a soft motor hummed to life and settled back down to near silence as it attained speed. The car began to cool. I blew a slow breath through rounded lips and shook my head.
“Let’s talk about money, Kate,” I said. “We peasants choose a new car now and then, something out of what is laughingly called the low price range but they’re still listed in the consumers’ guides. Also listed there, just to give us something to work for, are the class wagons and I seem to remember that the air-conditioning unit you just turned on is listed as an extra, available at something over six hundred bucks a copy. Now if you and the Engle woman were so buddy-buddy for humpteen years, she must have had a bit of scratch too. Tell me, how was she fixed before she married G.E. and what about him?”
She gave me a cool look and I guessed she was trying to decide whether or not I was being personal so I raised a business-like eyebrow and waited. “Sandy didn’t have a tremendous amount of money but I’m sure she didn’t have to count the pennies.”
“And George?”
“He has a business in L.A. Insurance. The subject hasn’t come up, of course, but I gather that he does rather well.”
“Wait a second,” I said quickly, my foot coming off the gas. “You mean he commutes to L.A. from here. Sixty miles each way every day?”
“No.” Kate touched a tongue to her red lips and looked across at me. “He’s what is commonly called ‘an older man’—that is, he’s probably a good twenty years older than Sandy. Maybe fifty-one or two. Naturally he has his affairs in smooth working order and only goes to the office a couple of mornings a week.”
“Oh,” I said, and tried to give it an understanding tone, but I wasn’t convinced. I put the gas back down and the car responded with instant vigor. I thought about some of the insurance agents I know. None of them can make a living in two days a week. Sure, a couple of them are doing all right but they open the office at nine and twelve hours later they’re out beating their gums in somebody’s parlor. Long hours. And Engle builds a mansion in the hills on part time work? Easy, Marty. There might be something here.
I drove fast and tried to make my mind keep pace with the wheels. I didn’t have much to go on, but Engle just might be conducting some business at home that didn’t stand to be talked about, and that might explain the unwilling guests. In which case we might all be eventually embarrassed—even Sandy.
When I looked across at the girl I caught her giving me a thoughtful eye. With the windows closed and no breeze whipping through the car her long blonde hair fell almost to her shoulders and she sat against the gray leather with an easy grace you don’t run across very often. I wanted to reach over and pat her tan cheek and tell her everything was going to be all right and to stop worrying. But that wouldn’t have accomplished much and instead I decided to start a new chain of questions.
The blonde beat me to the punch, “Have you been with the Gregory Agency for quite a while, Marty?”
I let a frown work across my face but the question wasn’t exactly unexpected. I’d been thinking of an answer for a good thirty miles.
“Be careful you don’t trip over my long white beard,” I said, “because Gregory has been handing pay checks to Bowman for almost twelve years. Satisfied?” I finished with a dubious smile, and salved my conscience with the fact that I hadn’t told her a direct lie. I hadn’t said which Bowman.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” she laughed, and pinked a little “It’s just that you’re burned so brown