Clavery’s growing and suppressed nervousness was reflected in his eyes, in his hands as he knuckled his jaw, curled his fingers to pick an imaginary hangnail. I had the distinct feeling that his mind wasn’t really on what he was saying. “Señora Isabella was Jean’s first employer. The old lady considered herself lucky to have found such a girl.”
“What my husband is trying to say,” Natalie said as she broke in, “is that Jean was conscientious, quiet, devoted to her work. She led a sheltered, faultless life, if somewhat dull.”
“I’d very much appreciate her address,” I said.
“She moved, a couple of days ago, to share an apartment with an one-time schoolmate, Lura Thackery. The address is on Calmwaters Boulevard.”
“Where had she lived previously?”
“In Señora Isabella’s hacienda,” Natalie said. “The old lady provided a very lovely suite, including a room they outfitted and used as an office. Jean moved in at the beginning of her employment. She remained after the señora’s death until her duties were completed.”
“Catching up tag ends?”
“Something like that,” Natalie said. “Señora Isabella had one surviving blood relation, a granddaughter, Elena Sigmon. The old lady’s son-in-law, Keith Sigmon, and Elena flew in from Venezuela forty-eight hours after the señora died. Elena had never been in the States before. Jean Putnam remained to give whatever assistance she could.”
Clavery pushed himself out of the chair as if it had become a pincushion. “Poor Jean! Did she reach you before she died, Rivers?”
“Yes,” I said. I didn’t elaborate. I let him stew, watching him closely. I sensed the fright in him, rather than seeing any visible evidence of it.
Then Natalie intervened smoothly. “I’m sure Mr. Rivers would acquaint us with anything Jean might have said concerning us.”
A look passed between them. It gave Clavery a little more fortitude. With a nervous moistening of his lips, he said, “I wish we could be of more help.”
“Don’t fret over it,” I suggested, certain that he would. “I usually get where I’m going.”
I didn’t wait to be invited out. I stopped at the first shopping center I passed and got Lura Thackery’s address and phone number from a phone-booth directory. I let the phone ring a dozen times before I decided she wasn’t home.
I filed Lura Thackery for future reference, and drove out to Señora Isabella’s hacienda.
The local papers had carried a picture-feature spread about the place when the old lady had purchased it from the estate of a one-time citrus magnate.
The old woman had made the restoration of the home and grounds a pet project. She had completely renovated the house. With upwards of twenty million dollars to toy with, she’d brought in artwork from as far away as Valencia and Milan. She’d put a crew of horticulturists at work on the tropical gardens that surrounded the house like a vast, carefully planned, exotic jungle. There were even strange birds of colorful plumage at home in the foliage that shaded the long, winding drive and acres of green lawn and flower beds.
The house slid into my view, a huge square U of stucco, stone, and iron filigree. Vaulted open porticoes with slim columns faced inward on a flagstoned courtyard where a fountain played over lily pads in a marble pool.
The aura of Castilian refinement was shattered by a female voice screeching a stream of curses in Spanish. A man’s voice told her in everyday American that if she didn’t shut up he would knock her damned teeth out.
I broke into the cozy family discussion by lifting and lowering the heavy brass knocker on a massive wormy cypress door.
The heavy portal was opened by a girl in a scanty pirate’s costume. Deeply tanned, she had a lean-hipped, small-breasted figure that suggested sly sensuality. Her face was small; in later years it would be the face of a vixen; right now it was startlingly pretty, with a mouth that was almost too wide, a small nose, and wide-set blue eyes under carelessly unplucked brows. A wisp of dark-blond hair showed beneath the bandanna knotted on her small head, and in her right ear she wore a large ring of gold.
As she focused her eyes on my face, I realized she was in the first warm, cozy stage of drunkenness. “What is it?”
“Are you Miss Sigmon? Miss Elena Sigmon?”
“Uh-huh. Who are you?”
“My name is Ed Rivers.”
“Whatever you’re selling, we don’t want any.”
“I’m not selling anything. I want to talk to you,” I said.
“Make an appointment. I’m on my way to a party.”
“It’s about a girl who worked for your grandmother,” I said. “Jean Putnam.”
“She no longer lives here. She moved out a couple of days ago.”
Elena Sigmon tried to close the door. My shoulders were in the way. The alcoholic haze lessened in her eyes. “You seem to be a ruffian,” she said thinly. “Do you want me to call the police?”
“If you like.”
She regarded me with eyes that had become surly and brooding. Then she eased the pressure against the door. “Do explain yourself as briefly as possible. My day is already behind schedule.”
I was in an entry foyer that was austere, almost barren. Ahead, a short stairway dropped to a living room the size of a small cathedral with a vaulted ceiling. “So is Jean,” I said. “Considerably behind.”
“Really? What is she to you?”
“A client.”
“Are you a lawyer?”
“No,” I said. “A private detective.”
A momentary chill came to her. “I think you had better talk to Keith, my father.” She turned with the lean motions of a lithe, sinewy female leopard and went out of sight in the spacious living room.
She either had trouble finding him, or they carried on a conversation of nearly ten minutes’ duration. When Elena finally returned with him, Keith Sigmon greeted me with a smile and outstretched hand.
He was a tall, slender, slightly dissipated man of about forty-five. Age, and probably his habits, were just beginning to mar a lean face chiseled in lines of classic good looks. His jaw line was clean, his chin square. His lips, nose, and widow’s-peaked forehead were patrician in cut and perfectly blended. His black hair, barely salted with gray, seemed molded in softly waving lines to his proud head. “I’m Keith Sigmon, Mr. Rivers, and hope I may be of service to you.”
With a motion of his hand, he invited me into the living room. “Elena, why don’t you get Mr. Rivers a drink?”
“Anything you’d prefer?” She was now the dutiful daughter. Her attitude had veered toward warmth. “I’ll pass,” I said.
Sigmon patted her shoulder. “Then get me a small Bacardi, dear.”
The living room interested me only because Jean Putnam had lived and worked here. Sigmon noted my survey of the substantial furnishings, the Persian carpeting, the fine oil paintings on the walls. The room reflected real grace and luxury, the sort of good taste that is generations in the making, none of the tinsel or gaudiness of the newly rich.
“I see you appreciate my mother-in-law’s eye for quality,” Sigmon said. “She will be missed, not only by those close to her. There are few of her breed left in the world.”
Sigmon was now quite a contrast to the male voice that had threatened dental destruction to a brattishly screeching daughter.
“I’m under the impression,” I said, “that Señora Isabella was quite fond of Jean Putnam. Maybe the old lady recognized points of breeding they had in common.”
“I really couldn’t say. Neither can I understand why Jean has sent a private detective here.”