“Nothing to do with you. Don’t run out on me, Joseph, just because I asked you a couple of questions.”
“I’m not running out.” But his voice was dull and singsong. “I already answered all the questions there are.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean, if you’re a detective. When Gabrielle – when Miss Torres was killed, I was the very first one that they arrested. They took me down to the sheriff’s station and questioned me in relays, all day and half the night.”
He hung his head under the weight of the memory. I hated to see him lose his fine élan.
“Why did they pick on you?”
“For no good reason.” He raised his hand and turned it before his eyes. It was burnished black in the fluorescent light.
“Didn’t they question anybody else?”
“Sure, when I proved to them I was at home all night. They picked up some winoes and sex deviates that live around Malibu and up the canyons, and some hoboes passing through. And they asked Miss Campbell some questions.”
“Hester Campbell?”
“Yes. She was the one that Gabrielle was supposed to be spending the evening with.”
“How do you know?”
“Tony said so.”
“Where did she really spend the evening?”
“How would I know that?”
“I thought you might have some idea.”
“You thought wrong, then.” His gaze, which had been avoiding mine, returned slowly to my face. “Are you reopening that murder case? Is that what Mr. Bassett hired you to do?”
“Not exactly. I started out investigating something else, but it keeps leading me back to Gabrielle. How well did you know her, Joseph?”
He answered carefully: “We worked together. Weekends, she took orders for sandwiches and drinks around the pool and in the cabañas. She was too young to serve the drinks herself, so I did that. Miss Torres was a very nice young lady to work with. I hated to see the thing that happened to her.”
“You saw what happened to her?”
“I don’t mean that. I didn’t see what happened to her when it happened. But I was right here in this room when Tony came up from the beach. Somebody shot her. I guess you know that, shot her and left her lying just below the Club. Tony lived down the shore a piece from here. He expected Gabrielle home by midnight. When she didn’t come home, he phoned the Campbell’s house. They said they hadn’t seen her, so he went out looking for her. He found her in the morning with bullet holes in her, the waves splashing up around her. She was supposed to be helping Mrs. Lamb that day, and Tony came up here first thing to tell Mrs. Lamb about it.”
Tobias licked his dry lips. His eyes looked through me at the past. “He stood right there in front of the counter. For a long time he couldn’t say a word. He couldn’t open his mouth to tell Mrs. Lamb that Gabrielle was dead. She could see that he needed comfort, though. She walked around the end of the counter and put her arms around him and held him for a while like he was a child. Then he told her. Mrs. Lamb sent me to call the police.”
“You called them yourself?”
“I was going to. But Mr. Bassett was in his office. He called them. I went down to the end of the pool and peeked down through the fence. She was lying there in the sand, looking up at the sky. Tony had pulled her up out of the surf. I could see sand in her eyes, I wanted to go down and wipe the sand out of her eyes, but I was afraid to go down there.”
“Why?”
“She had no clothes on. She looked so white. I was afraid they’d come and catch me down there and get a crazy idea about me. They went ahead and got their ideas anyway. They arrested me right that very morning. I was half expecting it.”
“You were?”
“People have to blame somebody. They’ve been blaming us for three hundred years now. I guess I had it coming. I shouldn’t have let myself get – friendly with her. And then, to make it worse, I had this earring belonging to her in my pocket.”
“What earring was that?”
“A little round earring she had, made of mother-of-pearl. It was shaped like a lifesaving belt, with a hole in the middle, and U.S.S. Malibu printed on it. The heck of it was, she was still – the other earring that matched it was still on her ear.”
“How did you happen to have the earring?”
“I just picked it up,” he said, “and I was going to give it back to her. I found it alongside the pool,” he added after a moment.
“That morning?”
“Yes. Before I knew she was dead. That Marfeld and the other cops made a big deal about it. I guess they thought they had it made, until I proved out my alibi.” He made a sound which was half snort and half groan. “As if I’d lay a hand on Gabrielle to hurt her.”
“Were you in love with her, Joseph?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“It’s true, though, isn’t it?”
He rested his elbow on the counter and his chin on his hand, as though to steady his thinking. “I could have been,” he admitted, “if I’d had a chance with her. Only there was no mileage in it. She was only half Spanish-American, and she never really saw me as a human being.”
“That could be a motive for murder.”
I watched his face. It lengthened, but it showed no other sign of emotion. The planes of his cheeks, his broad lips, had the look of a carved and polished mask balanced on his palm. “You didn’t kill her yourself, Joseph?”
He winced, but not with surprise, as though I’d pressed on the scar of an old wound. He shook his head sadly. “I wouldn’t hurt a hair on her head, and you know it.”
“All right. Let it pass.”
“I won’t let it pass. You can take it back or get out of here.”
“All right. I take it back.”
“You shouldn’t have said it in the first place. She was my friend. I thought you were my friend.”
“I’m sorry, Joseph. I have to ask these questions.”
“Why do you have to? Who makes you? You should be careful what you say about who did what around here. Do you know what Tony Torres would do if he thought I killed his girl?”
“Kill you.”
“That’s right. He threatened to kill me when the police turned me loose. It was all I could do to talk him out of it. He gets these fixed ideas in his head, and they stick there like a bur. And he’s got a lot of violence in him yet.”
“So do we all.”
“I know it, Mr. Archer. I know it in myself. Tony’s got more than most. He killed a man with his fists once, when he was young.”
“In the ring?”
“Not in the ring, and it wasn’t an accident. It was over a woman, and he meant to do it. He asked me down to his room one night and got drunk on muscatel and told me all about it.”
“When was this?”
“A couple of months ago. I guess it was really eating him up. Gabrielle’s mother was the woman, you see. He killed the man that she was running with, and she left him. The other man had a knife, so the judge in Fresno called it self-defense, but Tony blamed himself. He connected it up with Gabrielle, said that what happened to her was God’s punishment on him. Tony’s very superstitious.”
“You know his nephew Lance?”
“I know him.” Joseph’s tone defined his attitude. It was negative. “He used to have the job I have a few years back, when I started in the snack bar. I heard he’s a big wheel now, it’s hard to believe. He was so bone lazy he couldn’t even hold a lifeguard job without his uncle filling in for him. Tony used to do his clean-up work while Lance practiced fancy diving.”
“How does Tony feel about him now?”
Joseph scratched his tight hair. “He finally caught on to him. I’d say he almost hates him.”