“Daddy. This is Ronny. Do you hear me?”
We were just a few miles north of Santa Teresa, in what must have been familiar territory to him. He dropped the buckle and turned in the seat to speak to me directly:
“Is Daddy coming back?”
“No. He isn’t.”
“You mean he’s dead, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Did the bogy man kill him?”
“I’m afraid he did.” This was the first real evidence I’d had from another witness that the man in Susan’s story of the murder was neither invention nor fantasy. “Did you get a good look at him, Ronny?”
“Pretty good.”
“What did he look like?”
“A bogy man.” His voice was hushed and earnest. “He had long black hair and a long black beard.”
“How was he dressed?”
“All in black. He had black slacks and a black top, and he was wearing black glasses.”
His voice was singsong, and it made me distrust his accuracy. “Was it anyone you knew?”
He seemed appalled by the idea. “No. I didn’t know him. He was the wrong size.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“He wasn’t the same size as anybody I know.”
“The same size as who?”
“Nobody,” he said obscurely.
“Was he large or small?”
“Small, I think. I can’t help it if I didn’t know him.”
The boy was showing signs of strain, and I dropped my questioning of him. But he had a final question to ask me:
“Is Mommy okay?”
“She’s okay. You talked to her on the phone last night, remember?”
“I remember. But I thought maybe it was taped.”
“It was for real.”
“That’s good.” He fell against me and went to sleep.
He was still sleeping when we drove up the canyon to his grandmother’s house. His mother was waiting on the veranda steps. She ran across the driveway and opened the car door and lifted him out.
She held him until he struggled to be free. Then she set him down and gave me both her hands:
“I’ll never be able to thank you.”
“Don’t try. It worked out luckily for all of us. Except Stanley.”
“Yes. Poor Stanley.” There was a puzzled cleft, like a dry knife-cut, between her eyebrows. “What became of the blond girl?”
“Susan is with her parents. They’re going to get her psychiatric care.”
“And Jerry Kilpatrick? His father’s been calling me.”
“He’s staying with his mother in Sausalito for the present.”
“You mean you didn’t have either of them arrested?”
“No I didn’t.”
“But I thought they were kidnapers.”
“So did I, at one point. I was wrong. They’re a pair of alienated adolescents. They seem to have thought they were rescuing Ronny from the adult world. To a certain extent it was true. The girl saw your husband murdered yesterday. Fifteen years ago, when she was younger than Ronny, she witnessed another murder. If she reacted pretty wildly to this one, you can hardly blame her.”
The cleft between Jean’s penciled brows deepened. “Has there been another murder?”
“It appears so. Your husband’s father – Leo – didn’t run off with a woman after all. Apparently he was killed in the Mountain House and buried nearby. It’s what your husband and the girl were digging for yesterday.”
Jean looked at me in confusion. Perhaps she understood my words, but they laid too great a load on her stretched emotions. She looked around her, saw that Ronny had disappeared, and began to call his name quite frantically.
He came out of the house. “Where’s Grandma Nell?”
“She isn’t here,” Jean said. “She’s in the hospital.”
“Is she dead too?”
“Hush. Of course not. Dr. Jerome says she’ll be coming home tomorrow or the next day.”
“How is your mother-in-law?” I said to her.
“She’s going to be all right. Her EKG was virtually normal this morning, and so was her conversation. It gave her a tremendous lift when I told her you were on your way with Ronny. If you have the time, I know she’d love to have you drop in and see her.”
“Is she allowed visitors?”
“Yes.”
“I may do that.”
The three of us went inside. While Ronny inspected the stuffed bird collection, his mother filled me in on the past twenty-four hours. They had been mostly waiting. She had phoned the sheriff’s office, as I urged her to, but they had been unable to give her any protection. Brian Kilpatrick had expressed a willingness to come over. She told him it wasn’t necessary.
“Forget about Kilpatrick.”
She gave me a slow look. “It wasn’t exactly what you think. He intended to bring his fiancee along.”
“Forget about her, too. What you need is a guard.”
“I have you.”
“But I won’t be staying. I wish I could persuade you to leave town.”
“I can’t. Grandma Nell is depending on me.”
“So is Ronny. You may have to make a choice.”
“You seriously think he’s still in danger?”
“I have to think so. He saw the man who murdered your husband.”
“Could he describe him?”
“Not really. He had a beard and a wig that were probably false. But I got the impression that it might just possibly be someone that Ronny knows. I wouldn’t press him on the subject. But if he does any spontaneous talking keep a record, will you? Every word if you can.”
“I will.”
She looked across the room at her son as if his round skull contained the secret meaning of her life. He said with the light of discovery on his face:
“There’s been a fire around here. I can see it and I can smell it. Who started the fire?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out.” I turned to his mother. “I want you to think about getting out of here before dark.”
“Nothing happened last night.”
“Your son wasn’t here last night. You’ll both be safer in the Wallers’ apartment in Los Angeles. Just say the word, and I’ll drive you–”
She cut me short: “I’ll think about it.” Then she softened her answer. “I’m really very grateful for the offer. Only it’s hard for me to think right now. I only know I can’t go back to Northridge.”
I heard the rising mutter of a car approaching the house and went outside. It was Kelsey, driving a Forest Service station wagon. He climbed out and gave me a semiofficial handshake. His suit was rumpled, and his eyes had a slight glare in them.
“I got your message, Archer. What’s on your mind?”
“There’s quite a lot to tell you. First, I’d like to know what you got from your witness yesterday. The coed who saw the bearded man driving the car.”
“That was all she saw,” Kelsey said with some disappointment. “All she could give me was a general description.”
“What about the car?”
“It was an older car. She couldn’t tell the make. She thought it had a California license, but she wasn’t absolutely sure. I’m going to take another crack at her today. Shipstad of the LAPD asked me to.”
“You got in touch with Arnie?”
“I called him this morning. He’s pretty well discarded the idea that the wig and the beard belonged to Albert Sweetner. They didn’t fit him at all well. Shipstad is trying to trace them through wig stores and cosmetic companies. But it’s a big job and it may take a while. It would help if we could get a better description of the man my witness saw.”
“He was fairly small,” I said, “if I can believe my witness. He was wearing black slacks, some kind of black shirt or sweater, and dark glasses. And there’s no doubt he murdered Stanley Broadhurst.” I filled him in on what I had learned in the last twenty-four hours. “Can we get hold of a bulldozer and a man to operate it?”