“I see.” She hesitated, and then made a small shrug; it really didn’t matter much to her one way or another. “Well, I suppose in that case... Seaview Ranch is about seven miles south of here, between Little River and Albion. It has a private road that branches off the highway, toward the ocean; you can’t miss it because on one side there’s a creek and on the other there’s a hill with some rocks on it shaped like an arrow. The headland out there, where the ranch is, is called Arrow Point.”
I thanked her, went back to the car, and drove south out of the village on Highway One. It was the same way I’d come in, because Highway 128 intersects One just below Albion; I had to have passed the access road to Seaview Ranch earlier. It was after five o’clock now, with a couple of hours of daylight left, but the rain and the fog had turned the day dark, strewn it with shadows. I was forced to turn on the headlights because of the poor visibility.
The highway clung to the edge of the coastline, dipping and twisting across wooded ridges and creek mouths, around deep coves with sea-sculpted walls and jumbles of wave-tunneled rocks, all obscured by the misty drizzle. A mile and a half past the hamlet of Little River, the landmarks I was looking for appeared on my right: the creek first, choked with underbrush and spanned by a short bridge, and then the road and the hill beyond. The rocks up there didn’t look much like an arrow, but maybe that was because of the weather and the bad light: they had a way of distorting shapes, obliterating the contours of things.
I slowed and made the turn. There was a wooden gate closed across the road ahead, a sagging wood-and-wire fence stretching away on both sides. A sign on the gate said: Private Property — No Trespassing. I braked a few feet short of the gate, got out and went up to it. It was fastened by a wire ring looped over a short post; I unhooked the ring, shoved the gate open and swung it out of the way. The road, graveled, glistening with rain puddles in the headlight glare, curled to the left beyond and disappeared into the undulant wall of fog. Nothing else was visible except for a few trees and some craggy land studded with rocks, overgrown with bushes and coarse grass. The smell of the sea was sharp, brackish; I could hear the surf pounding away in the distance, muffled and rhythmic, a lonely sound.
When I got back into the car I took the .38 out of the glove compartment where I’d put it when I left San Francisco and laid it on the seat beside me. I could feel myself tightening up inside, little knots of pressure in my chest and groin. The tension and the contained anger made my mouth dry, the palms of my hands damp with sweat.
I switched off the headlights — if Emerson was here, I did not want him to know I was coming — and took the car through the open gateway. The road hooked around the edge of the hill, bent back to the right again past a stand of eucalyptus; the rest of the terrain stayed barren and rocky. I rolled down the window, driving at a crawl, so I could listen to the pound of the surf. It seemed closer now, a low booming pulse, as if the fog itself were a living thing.
More eucalyptus appeared ahead, and beyond them I could make out fuzzy clots of light and the vague shapes of buildings. The light meant he was here, all right. My right hand felt greasy as I eased the car up to where the trees were, stopped in their shadow, and shut the engine down.
With my fingers wrapped around the .38, I got out and moved forward along the edge of the road. The wind off the ocean was blustery, full of humming sighs and moans; it blew rain into my face, cold and stinging, like little pellets of ice. I paused alongside the last of the trees and wiped my eyes with my sleeve, squinting through the murkiness ahead.
The buildings were more distinct now, the nearest maybe seventy yards away on my right, across an open expanse of rumpled, grass-tufted ground. That one, weathered and gray and peak-roofed, had to be a barn; clustered near it were a couple of small outbuildings. Some distance removed to the left was the ranch house, an old-fashioned white frame structure, two-storied, sheltered by a half moon of wind-bent evergreens and eucalyptus. It was set at an angle so that it faced northwest, out toward the shoreline and the sea beyond. That was where the light was coming from: two windows in the front wall, one in the side wall facing me. A car, some sort of squarish compact, was drawn up near the porch.
I started across the open ground, angling toward the trees at the rear of the house. By the time I got there, I was wet and shivering. The back of the house was dark; I left the tree shadows and cut over to the near corner, moved along the side wall until I came to the lighted window. I put my back against the boards and craned my head forward to look through the rain-streaked glass. Front parlor, with the same Oriental motif as the Burlingame house; the Chinese furniture and rugs and tapestries looked incongruous in that Victorian room, out here in the middle of nowhere. The portion of the parlor that was visible appeared empty. I ducked under the window, flattened out on the other side, and took a look at the inner half.
A man was sitting half sprawled on a brocade couch near the fireplace, with his head lolling forward on his chest. He looked drunk; on the black-lacquered table in front of him was a nearly empty bottle of bourbon and an empty glass. But he wasn’t Carl Emerson. I could see enough of his face to tell that, and to identify him.
Orin Tedescu.
I was past the point of being surprised by much of anything. I said, “Damn,” under my breath, and went around to the front, up the stairs and onto the porch. When I turned the knob the door opened inward with a faint creaking sound. I shoved it wide, so I could see what lay within: a wide foyer, doorway to the parlor on the left, staircase at the rear flanked by a central hall, and another doorway on the right that opened into a darkened dining room. The only sounds came from outside — the crashing of surf, the steady drum of the rain.
I went in after a dozen seconds, eased the door shut, and stepped through into the parlor. Tedescu was still sitting in the same position, slack-mouthed, breathing through his nose in little snores that were inaudible until I got up close to him. His hair was damp, plastered down on his skull, as if he’d spent some time out in the rain; his shirt and trouser legs were also damp. And so was a tweed overcoat tossed over the arm of a nearby chair. The smell of liquor, mingled with that of wet fabric, came off him in waves. I poked him once with the muzzle of the .38, but he didn’t respond. The way it looked, he had drunk himself into a stupor.
At the rear of the room was a closed door; I opened it and looked into an empty sitting room that had been turned into a study. I came back through the parlor, went across into the dining room and then into a kitchen at the rear. Empty. So were a screened rear porch, a big antiquated larder, and a bathroom with a wooden tank-type toilet.
I climbed the stairs to the second floor, taking it slow, holding the gun at arm’s length. Three bedrooms, an upstairs sitting room, and another bathroom — all of them deserted. One of the bedrooms had an open suitcase on a rack, and the bed had been slept in. Emerson’s suitcase, probably, which would mean that he’d spent the night here. But where was he now? And what the hell was Tedescu doing here?
Downstairs again, back into the parlor. Tedescu still hadn’t moved. I put the .38 in my pocket, got a handful of his shirtfront, and shook him a couple of times. He grunted, made a feeble protesting gesture with one hand. I slapped him across the face, forehand and backhand, not being gentle about it. His head wobbled bonelessly, but his eyes stayed shut.
“Tedescu,” I said, “wake up. Wake up!”
He muttered something, made a gagging noise as if he were going to vomit on himself. When I slapped him another time, his eyelids fluttered and finally popped up like window shades; he stirred and sat up. It took him a couple of seconds to get his eyes focused on me. They were blank at first, heavily bloodshot; then recognition, vague and fuddled, seeped into them. His mouth worked, but all that came out of it was spittle.