Very slowly Haliday said, “Who is she, Blair? Who are you talking about?”
Keeping her gaze on the frothy water below, she said, “Hilde Melton.”
He let out a breath. “Ah, Blair, how we’ve all underestimated you. Give. Why?”
“She lied about her husband being home that weekend. He was in New York being inaugurated as president of the American Archaeology Society. She lied about having days off after that weekend. If Pryor had gone to Hawaii, she would have had to stay on the job. There’s too much to do at the end of the school year for both of them to be gone. She would have known Philip had rented the apartment through the middle of June. That’s the kind of detail work we flunkies keep track of. She could have gone any night to get the manuscript and letters. So many little things, like the way the van was parked as if it had come from the coast, not from town.”
“What about the van?” Haliday asked.
“She talks about the cottage on the coast, but it’s a big house, with a two-car garage. I think she hid the van there until late one night when she drove down the coast somewhere and ran it off the road into the ocean. And her husband’s car was always kept out there, so she could have used that to get back to town. The faculty houses have small garages,” she added. “With glass panes. It would have been seen by the mailman or someone.”
He sighed. “We’re having the deep coves searched,” he said. “Nothing so far, but we’re still looking. I sure hoped something would turn up linking her to Seymour. No luck yet.”
This time she looked at him in surprise. “You suspected her? Why?”
“You,” he said. “I told her I wanted a crack at the files and she came on like a matchmaker, pushing you at me. After that note, it seemed curious. And I had to wonder why she hired you,” he said almost apologetically. “You said it yourself, you’re not presidential timber. A month or so after Langford bought that land and his plans became known, she hired you after getting along fine without an assistant for years. It seemed almost as if she did it just to keep you around, in case.” He paused and added, “And her husband’s schedule. I checked that as a matter of routine. He came out the following weekend.”
They were both silent until she said, “None of this is very conclusive, is it?”
He laughed harshly.
After a moment she asked, “What are you going to do about me?”
“You planning to run away?”
“No.”
“Then I’m going to think about it. How did you find the exact dates of her husband’s inauguration?”
She told him about the private sitting room in the mansion filled with Walter Melton’s proofs of achievement.
“Something of a pack rat?” he asked.
“Something...” She glanced at him, but he seemed absorbed in watching the swift river. “She might have kept anything from Philip, too. Not in the mansion, but in her private residence at the coast. Why did she go out there this weekend with so much going on?”
“Let’s take a ride, Blair. Let’s go look at the ocean.”
He complained about her driving on the steep winding road, and she snapped that she knew every curve in it. The road was narrow, posted the entire length for no passing, for fifteen miles an hour, ten miles; the forest pressed in close. The road descended precipitously. “Why do you keep telling me things?” she demanded, taking a curve too fast.
“Like I said, the more you know, the more help you are. A tight community like this one, if the door closes, it takes dynamite to get it open again. An insider helps. Don’t go near her house. Head into the village. I want to use a telephone.”
As they drew near the village of Crystal Beach, more and more young people appeared on the road, some walking, some on bicycles. “Spring break,” she said, slowing to a crawl. She stopped at a filling station a few minutes later and watched him go to the telephone.
“Something to eat,” he said when he got back. “A place with a view would be nice.”
Crystal Beach had a population of five hundred, but today there were dozens of college students on the streets making it appear much more populous. Weekend traffic on 101 was heavy. Haliday shook his head at a Dairy Queen, and again at a hamburger joint, and then pointed to Cap’n John’s Seafood House. So they were going to be here for a while, she thought, and pulled in to park.
It was a strange meal. They ordered, clam chowder for him, crab salad for her; he gazed out the window and said, “Pretty,” and then became silent and remained silent.
This was a rugged section of coast, with cliffs, many rocks jutting up from the water, rocky tide pools, and a narrow strip of sand. The restaurant was seventy-five feet above the beach. Down there kids were flying kites, tossing Frisbees, clambering over mountainous piles of driftwood that from here looked like a giant’s jackstraws carelessly abandoned. The water was deep blue and calm.
When the waiter came with coffee, he nodded, then ignored it. She sipped hers, waiting. He glanced at his watch several times, and the last time, got up. “Right back,” he said and left. Fifteen minutes after he returned, he grinned at her. “Time to go. Whoever taught you to keep quiet so a man could think did a good job of it.”
Her father, she thought, as they left the restaurant. Poor Dad had tried hard to teach her mother, who never had learned that particular lesson. She drove again, up 101 to Crystal River Road, back the way they had come for half a mile, and then she turned onto a narrow winding road, past two driveways, and into Hilde Melton’s drive.
“What am I supposed to do?” she asked then, reluctantly eyeing the house ahead. It was a low, rambling, unpainted cedar building, the rustic look of the wood offset by stained-glass windows on this side. Trees misshapen by the wind, wind-carved boulders, a few pieces of silvered driftwood made up the yard. Beyond, the ocean was visible.
“You don’t do a thing,” Haliday said. “Not a peep.”
They walked to the front stoop and he rang the bell.
Hilde was still wearing jeans and a sweater. She looked at the lieutenant, then at Ellen, and said angrily, “This is just too much! What are you doing out here? What do you want?”
“A couple of things came up,” Haliday said. “Can we come in?”
“Ellen, I told you you don’t have to work for this man any longer. Who is your superior, Lieutenant?” She moved aside to let them enter and slammed the door.
The room they entered was spacious and bright, with the stained-glass windows on one side and sliding glass doors on the other. A deck was beyond the doors with a view of the ocean. The furnishings inside were rattan and bentwood, with Indian print throws on chairs and a sofa, colorful cotton rugs on a wide plank floor with a nice gloss. On the deck the furniture was heavy wood, massive terracotta planters with greenery, nothing that would blow away.
“Captain Hersholt,” Haliday said. “Dr. Melton, you said you and your husband came out here Saturday morning after the big party. Are you sure? Our information is that he was in New York and didn’t get back here until the following week.”
“You asked me about an event that happened thirteen years ago. I told you what I believed was true. We always came out here after the party, I assumed we did that time, too.”
“I understand that your husband never attended college functions, that he stayed here on the coast when he was home.”
“Your informant is mistaken.”
“What kind of a car did your husband drive back then?”
Hilde was looking more and more angry; her face flushed deep crimson. She threw up her hands and turned her back on him, crossed the room to stand at the sliding door and gaze out. “This is insane,” she said. “I don’t remember what kind of car he had. He had a car and I had one.”