She caught the drift of her words, did a slow blush, and checked her loquacity. I leaned on the plywood counter between us.
“What sort of girl was Ginnie Green?”
“I wouldn’t know. I never really knew her.”
“Your sister does.”
“I don’t let my sister run around with girls like Ginnie Green. Does that answer your question?”
“Not in any detail.”
“It seems to me you ask a lot of questions.”
“I’m naturally interested, since I found her. Also, I happen to be a private detective.”
“Looking for a job?”
“I can always use a job.”
“So can I, and I’ve got one and I don’t intend to lose it.” She softened the words with a smile. “Excuse me; I have work to do.”
She turned to her short-wave and sent out a message to the patrol cars that Virginia Green had been found. Virginia Green’s father heard it as he came in the door. He was a puffy gray-faced man with red-rimmed eyes. Striped pajama bottoms showed below the cuffs of his trousers. His shoes were muddy, and he walked as if he had been walking all night
He supported himself on the edge of the counter, opening and shutting his mouth like a beached fish. Words came out, half strangled by shock.
“I heard you say she was dead, Anita.”
The woman raised her eyes to his. “Yes. I’m awfully sorry, Mr. Green.”
He put his face down on the counter and stayed there like a penitent, perfectly still. I could hear a clock somewhere, snipping off seconds, and in the back of the room the L.A. police signals like muttering voices coming in from another planet. Another planet very much like this one, where violence measured out the hours.
“It’s my fault,” Green said to the bare wood under his face. “I didn’t bring her up properly. I haven’t been a good father.”
The woman watched him with dark and glistening eyes ready to spill. She stretched out an unconscious hand to touch him, pulled her hand back in embarrassment when a second man came into the station. He was a young man with crew-cut brown hair, tanned and fit looking in a Hawaiian shirt. Fit looking except for the glare of sleeplessness in his eyes and the anxious lines around them.
“What is it, Miss Brocco? What’s the word?”
“The word is bad.” She sounded angry. “Somebody murdered Ginnie Green. This man here is a detective and he just found her body up in Trumbull Canyon.”
The young man ran his fingers through his short hair and failed to get a grip on it, or on himself. “My God! That’s terrible!”
“Yes,” the woman said. “You were supposed to be looking after her, weren’t you?”
They glared at each other across the counter. The tips of her breasts pointed at him through her blouse like accusing fingers. The young man lost the glaring match. He turned to me with a wilted look.
“My name is Connor, Franklin Connor, and I’m afraid I’m very much to blame in this. I’m a counselor at the high school, and I was supposed to be looking after the party, as Miss Brocco said.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I didn’t realize. I mean, I thought they were all perfectly happy and safe. The boys and girls had pretty well paired off around the fire. Frankly, I felt rather out of place. They aren’t children, you know. They were all seniors, they had cars. So I said good night and walked home along the beach. As a matter of fact, I was hoping for a phone call from my wife.”
“What time did you leave the party?”
“It must have been nearly eleven. The ones who hadn’t paired off had already gone home.”
“Who did Ginnie pair off with?”
“I don’t know. I’m afraid I wasn’t paying too much attention to the kids. It’s graduation week, and I’ve had a lot of problems—”
The father, Green, had been listening with a changing face. In a sudden yammering rage his implosive grief and guilt exploded outward.
“It’s your business to know! By God, I’ll have your job for this. I’ll make it my business to run you out of town.”
Connor hung his head and looked at the stained tile floor. There was a thin spot in his short brown hair, and his scalp gleamed through it like bare white bone. It was turning into a bad day for everybody, and I felt the dull old nagging pull of other people’s trouble, like a toothache you can’t leave alone.
3.
The sheriff arrived, flanked by several deputies and an HP sergeant. He wore a western hat and a rawhide tie and a blue gabardine business suit which together produced a kind of gun-smog effect. His name was Pearsall.
I rode back up the canyon in the right front seat of Pearsall’s black Buick, filling him in on the way. The deputies’ Ford and an HP car followed us, and Green’s new Oldsmobile convertible brought up the rear.
The sheriff said: “The old guy sounds like a looney to me.”
“He’s a loner, anyway.”
“You never can tell about them hoboes. That’s why I give my boys instructions to roust ’em. Well, it looks like an open-and-shut case.”
“Maybe. Let’s keep our minds open anyway, Sheriff.”
“Sure. Sure. But the old guy went on the run. That shows consciousness of guilt. Don’t worry, we’ll hunt him down. I got men that know these hills like you know your wife’s geography.”
“I’m not married.”
“Your girl friend, then.” He gave me a sideways leer that was no gift. “And if we can’t find him on foot, we’ll use the air squadron.”
“You have an air squadron?”
“Volunteer, mostly local ranchers. We’ll get him.” His tires squealed on a curve. “Was the girl raped?”
“I didn’t try to find out. I’m not a doctor. I left her as she was.” The sheriff grunted. “You did the right thing at that.”
Nothing had changed in the high meadow. The girl lay waiting to have her picture taken. It was taken many times, from several angles. All the birds flew away. Her father leaned on a tree and watched them go. Later he was sitting on the ground.
I volunteered to drive him home. It wasn’t pure altruism. I’m incapable of it. I said when I had turned his Oldsmobile:
“Why did you say it was your fault, Mr. Green?”
He wasn’t listening. Below the road four uniformed men were wrestling a heavy covered aluminum stretcher up the steep bank. Green watched them as he had watched the departing birds, until they were out of sight around a curve.
“She was so young,” he said to the back seat.
I waited, and tried again. “Why did you blame yourself for her death?”
He roused himself from his daze. “Did I say that?”
“In the Highway Patrol office you said something of the sort.”
He touched my arm. “I didn’t mean I killed her.”
“I didn’t think you meant that. I’m interested in finding out who did.”
“Are you a cop — a policeman?”
“I have been.”
“You’re not with the locals.”
“No. I happen to be a private detective from Los Angeles. The name is Archer.”
He sat and pondered this information. Below and ahead the summer sea brimmed up in the mouth of the canyon.
“You don’t think the old tramp did her in?” Green said.
“It’s hard to figure out how he could have. He’s a strong-looking old buzzard, but he couldn’t have carried her all the way up from the beach. And she wouldn’t have come along with him of her own accord.” It was a question, in a way.
“I don’t know,” her father said. “Ginnie was a little wild. She’d do a thing because it was wrong, because it was dangerous. She hated to turn down a dare, especially from a man.”
“There were men in her life?”
“She was attractive to men. You saw her, even as she is.” He gulped. “Don’t get me wrong. Ginnie was never a bad girl. She was a little headstrong, and I made mistakes. That’s why I blame myself.”
“What sort of mistakes, Mr. Green?”
“All the usual ones, and some I made up on my own.” His voice was bitter. “Ginnie didn’t have a mother, you see. Her mother left me years ago, and it was as much my fault as hers. I tried to bring her up myself. I didn’t give her proper supervision. I run a restaurant in town, and I don’t get home nights till after midnight. Ginnie was pretty much on her own since she was in grade school. We got along fine when I was there, but I usually wasn’t there.
“The worst mistake I made was letting her work in the restaurant over the weekends. That started about a year ago. She wanted the money for clothes, and I thought the discipline would be good for her. I thought I could keep an eye on her, you know. But it didn’t work out. She grew up too fast, and the night work played hell with her studies. I finally got the word from the school authorities. I fired her a couple of months ago, but I guess it was too late. We haven’t been getting along too well since then. Mr. Connor said she resented my indecision, that I gave her too much responsibility and then took it away again.”
“You’ve talked her over with Connor?”
“More than once, including last night. He was her academic counselor, and he was concerned about her grades. We both were. Ginnie finally pulled through, after all, thanks to him. She was going to graduate. Not that it matters now, of course.” Green was silent for a time. The sea expanded below us like a second blue dawn. I could hear the roar of the highway. Green touched my elbow again, as if he needed human contact.
“I oughtn’t to’ve blown my top at Connor. He’s a decent boy, he means well. He gave my daughter hours of free tuition this last month. And he’s got troubles of his own, like he said.”
“What troubles?”
“I happen to know his wife left him, same as mine. I shouldn’t have borne down so hard on him. I have a lousy temper, always have had.” He hesitated, then blurted out as if he had found a confessor: “I said a terrible thing to Ginnie at supper last night. She always has supper with me at the restaurant. I said if she wasn’t home when I got home last night that I’d wring her neck.”
“And she wasn’t home,” I said. And somebody wrung her neck, I didn’t say.