“We’re retained for various reasons,” I said. “Sigmon... Not a Venezuelan name, is it?”
“American, as a matter of fact.” His voice took on an edge.
“Do you get back often?”
“I haven’t been back since I chose Venezuela many years ago, Mr. Rivers. I would not be back now if Señora Isabella were still alive.”
“I suppose you’ve found a lot of changes in the United States.”
“I really haven’t been interested.”
“When did you get in?”
“On Tuesday, following my mother-in-law’s death. Fred Eppling, the attorney, cabled the news. Elena drove from Caracas to the mountain cottage where I was vacationing and told me what had happened. The next day we flew from Caracas to Mexico City and jetted across the Gulf to Tampa.”
“Known Eppling long?”
His shortening temper thinned his lips. “I don’t understand the purpose or the necessity for this cross-examination, Rivers. But I don’t mind answering your questions, in exchange for a few answers from you.”
“Eppling,” I reminded.
“He entered the picture after Elena’s grandmother left Venezuela and found need of a legal adviser here. I introduced myself to him when he met our plane.”
“Was Jean Putnam with him?”
Sigmon shook his head. “I met her that evening. She was here at the house, staying on to put her work in final order.”
Elena returned with that leopardine flow of motion. She had two drinks in her hands. She gave one to her father. “If the party is out, I’m going to get drunk, Papa dear. Rivers, you’re a big, ugly, strangely attractive man. And it’s Gasparilla, or haven’t you heard? Why not take the afternoon off and let me show you how to get drunk? I’ll bet we could make Cloud Nine music, drunk together.”
She had nipped heavily while fixing the drinks for herself and Dad. The fog was back in her eyes, heavier than ever. She wasn’t too drunk to know, dimly, what she was saying — merely too drunk to really care.
Sigmon went white with fury. He raked her with his gaze. She was standing in an attitude of abandonment, in a slouch that thrust her crotch forward. In two generations, the old señora’s breeding had degenerated to animal vulgarity.
All of us turned as the heavy knocker boomed on the front door.
Elena waggled a finger. “I’ll see who it is, Pops. May be a descendant of José Gaspar who’ll drag me off to a nice, hot party.”
I thought for a second that Keith Sigmon was going to slap her. Instead, he stood quivering, hands clenched at his sides, as Elena wavered toward the front door.
The caller was a neat, smallish, sandy man dressed quietly in a conservative, expensive business suit. He came briskly toward me. “Fred Eppling,” he introduced himself. “You’re Ed Rivers, aren’t you?”
He had a lean handshake that hinted at considerable tensile strength. The only hint of his age was in the gray at his temples. His eyes, like his body, were quick and ready. I suspected that he’d be right at home on a yacht deck in bad weather.
“You know this man?” Sigmon said.
“Rivers is practically a Tampa institution. He makes the papers now and then.” He looked at me earnestly. “You’re staying with it?”
“I don’t have much choice.”
“Staying with what?” Keith Sigmon said.
“Jean Putnam’s murder,” Eppling said. “I just came from police headquarters, where I talked with Steve Ivey, a homicide detective. It seems that Rivers barely missed sharing a headline with Jean.”
Sigmon had an empty-eyed moment of absolute disorientation. Elena hiccuped, a drunken little sound of fright.
Then Sigmon’s eyes became quite cold. “So that’s why you were nosing around here.”
“I imagine Rivers will be sticking his nose in many places,” Eppling said as if he were secretly relieved.
“You sonofabitch!” Sigmon said to me.
“Easy on the language, friend. I’ve taken a natural aversion to you, too.”
He looked at my face, took a step back, got his anger under partial control. “Okay Rivers,” he said between his teeth. “I’ve dealt with your breed before. If you’re trying to hatch a shakedown, you’ll find it damned unhealthy sitting on the nest.”
“I didn’t lay the eggs, and it wasn’t my choice to keep them warm.”
Fred Eppling’s eyes glinted with pleasure as he watched Sigmon sweat. He shared my lack of respect for the client he had inherited.
“Keith,” the attorney said mildly, “why don’t you have a drink?”
“An excellent idea,” Elena said. “How many shall I mix?”
“Three,” Sigmon said. “Rivers is leaving — unless he wants to get arrested for trespassing.”
Eppling strolled with me to the door. Silently he handed me one of his business cards. “You won’t need an appointment,” he said.
“Were you close to Jean Putnam?”
“No, but I respected her. I knew the attorney who was her guardian and the administrator of her estate. He was an old man, died a year ago. Through him, I met Jean.”
“Who had a reason to kill her?” I asked.
“No one. Her character was spotless.”
“Until,” I said, “a tragedy-ridden old lady from Venezuela died.”
Four
A bold-breasted, leggy woman in a simple sleeveless white dress was waiting beside my car.
Sunlight glinted on dark-blond hair that spilled to her wide shoulders. At my approach she took off heavy, dark sun glasses. The lustiness extended to her face, with its high cheekbones and strong features.
“You’re Ed Rivers, aren’t you?”
I nodded.
“My name is” — she made a slight face — “Myrtle Higgins. A little cruel of my parents, don’t you think?”
With all those accessories, she should have been a real eye-knocker. Somehow, for no reason I was able to pin down, she just missed the achievement of rare beauty. It wasn’t a promise still in her future. While young, she was right now in the full bloom of maturity. She was like a lush fruit which, when touched, is found to be made of wax. Or like a painting by an artist who has mastered all the mechanical details without being able to fuse them into a potential whole.
“What can I do for you, Miss Higgins?”
“I overheard a few words of what went on in the house. I’d like to talk to you.”
“Any time.”
“How about now?”
“Fine,” I said.
She glanced toward the sprawling hacienda. “But not here.”
I opened the car door, and she got in without hesitation. I went around the car and slid under the wheel.
I turned the key in the ignition. “Any place in particular?”
“I was invited to a party at the Clavery house.”
“I know where it is.” I started the car from the driveway.
“I came by here, intending to pick up a few things and take a taxi.” She looked back at the house as the man-made jungle closed around us. “I can get my things later. What I overheard... it made a couple of uniforms and a pair of whites unimportant.”
“You worked for Señora Isabella?”
“Yes. I was her nurse.”
“Then you knew Jean Putnam.”
“Oh, yes.” She hesitated, experiencing difficulty in laying the words out blunt and cold. “Is it true... Jean is dead?”
“I’m afraid so.”
She opened the wind-vent window wider and let the breeze strike her face. “How did Jean die?”
“She was shot.”
A shiver crossed Myrtle Higgins’ fine, wide shoulders.
I briefed Myrtle on the rest of it. “And all I get on Jean Putnam is a report of undiluted purity.”
“You get the truth, Ed. But Jean was no prig. She was always ready for fun — up to a point. The kind who’d attend the Clavery blast and cut out before the ball turned into a brawl. She was good-natured, sensitive, very considerate.”