Her eyes shifted away from mine and stayed far over in the corners of her head. “Deputy Mungan made Ralph come down to the station and answer a lot of questions. Then Ralph went off to Nevada right after. Naturally I was scared.”
“Where was Ralph the night Dolly was killed?”
“I don’t know. He was out late, and I didn’t wake up when he came in.”
“You still think Ralph murdered her?”
“I didn’t say I thought it. I was scared.”
“Did you ask him?”
“Of course I didn’t ask him. But he kept talking about the murder. He was so upset and shaky he couldn’t handle a cup of coffee. This was the night after it happened. They had Bruce Campion in the clink, and Ralph kept saying that Bruce didn’t do it, he knew Bruce didn’t do it.”
“Did Ralph see Bruce before he left for Tahoe?”
“Yeah, Bruce came to the house in the morning when they let him out. I wouldn’t of let him in if I’d been there.”
“What happened between Bruce and Ralph that morning?”
“I wouldn’t know. I was at work. Ralph phoned me around noon and said he was going up to Tahoe. Maybe Bruce went with him. He dropped out of sight that same day, and I never saw him again. A couple of days after that, the papers were full of him running away, and the Grand Jury brought in a murder conviction.”
“The Grand Jury indicted him,” I said. “There’s a big difference between an indictment and a conviction.”
“That’s what Ralph said, the day he came back from the lake. I thought a week or so away from it all would get it off his mind. But he was worse than ever when he came back. He was obsessed with Bruce Campion.”
“Just how close were they?”
“They were like brothers,” she said, “ever since they were in Korea together. Bruce had more on the ball than Ralph had, I guess, but somehow it was Ralph who did the looking after. He thought it was wonderful to have Bruce for a friend. He’d give him the shirt off his back, and he practically did more than once.”
“Would Ralph give Bruce his birth certificate to get out of the country?”
She glanced up sharply. “Did he?”
“Bruce says he did. Either Ralph gave it to him voluntarily, or Bruce took it by force.”
“And killed him?”
“I have my doubts that Bruce killed either one of them. He had no apparent motive to kill Ralph, and the money Dolly had puts a new complexion on her case. It provides a motive for anyone who knew she had it.”
“But why would anybody want to kill Ralph?”
“There’s one obvious possibility. He may have known who murdered Dolly.”
“Why didn’t he say so, then?”
“Perhaps he wasn’t sure. I believe he was trying to investigate Dolly’s murder, up at the lake and probably here in Citrus Junction. When he came back from Tahoe, did he say anything to you about the Blackwells?”
“The Blackwells?” There was no recognition in her voice.
“Colonel Mark Blackwell and his wife. They brought me into this case, because their daughter Harriet had taken up with Campion. The Blackwells have a lodge at Tahoe, and Harriet was there with Campion the night before last. Then she disappeared. We found her hat in the lake with blood on it. Campion has no explanation.”
Vicky rose on her knees. Moving awkwardly, she backed away to the far side of the bed. “I don’t know nothing about it.”
“That’s why I’m telling you. The interesting thing is that Ralph spent some time in the Blackwells’ lodge last May. He worked as their houseboy for a week or so. They fired him, allegedly for stealing.”
“Ralph might of had his faults,” she said from her corner, “but I never knew him to steal anything in his life. Anyway, there’s no sense trying to pin something on a dead man.”
“I’m not, Vicky. I’m trying to pin murder on whoever killed him. You loved him, didn’t you?”
She looked as though she would have liked to deny it and the pain that went with it. “I couldn’t help it. I tried to help it, but I couldn’t stop myself. He was such a crazy guy,” she murmured, so softly that it sounded like an endearment. “Sometimes when he was asleep, when he was asleep and out of trouble, I used to think he was beautiful.”
“He’s asleep and out of trouble now,” I said. “What about the bundle of clothes he brought back from Tahoe?”
“There was no bundle of clothes, there was just the coat. He had this brown topcoat with him. But I know he didn’t steal it. He never stole in his life.”
“I don’t care whether he stole it or not. The question is where did he get it?”
“He said somebody gave it to him. But people don’t give away that kind of a coat for free. It was real good tweed, imported like. Harris tweed, I think they call it. It must of cost a hundred dollars new, and it was still in new condition. The only thing the matter with it, one of the buttons was missing.”
“Can you describe the buttons?”
“They were brown leather. I wanted to try and match the missing one so he could wear it. But he said leave it as it was, he wasn’t going to wear it.” Tears glistened in her eyes. “He said he wasn’t going to wear it and he was right.”
“Did he bring it with him when he came down south?”
“Yeah. He was carrying it over his arm when he got on the bus. I don’t know why he bothered dragging it along with him. It was warm weather, and anyway it had that button missing.”
“Which button on the coat was missing, Vicky?”
“The top one.” She pointed with her thumb between her breasts.
I wished I had Mungan’s button with me. I remembered now where I had seen other buttons like it, attached to a coat that answered Vicky’s description. One of the girls in the zebra-striped hearse had been wearing it.
23
I DROVE BACK to the coast and hit the surfing beaches southward from the fork of 101 and 101 Alternate. Some of the surfers recalled the black-and-white hearse, but they didn’t know the names of any of the occupants. Anyway they claimed they didn’t – they’re a closemouthed tribe.
I had better luck with the Highway Patrol in Malibu. The owner of the hearse had been cited the previous weekend for driving with only one headlight. His name was Ray Buzzell, and he lived in one of the canyons above the town.
“Mrs. Sloan Buzzell” was stenciled on the side of the rustic mailbox. An asphalt driveway zigzagged down the canyon side to her house. It was a redwood and glass structure with a white gravel roof, cantilevered over a steep drop. A small Fiat stood in the double carport, but there was no hearse beside it.
A violently redheaded woman opened the front door before I got to it, and stepped outside. Her hard, handsome face was carefully made up, as though she’d been expecting a visitor. I wondered what kind of visitor. Her black Capri pants adhered like oil to her thighs and hips. The plunging neckline of her shirt exhibited large areas of chest and stomach. She was carrying a half-full martini glass in her hand and, to judge by her speech, a number of previous martinis inside of her.
“Hello-hello,” she said. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”
“I’m just a type. How are you, Mrs. Buzzell?”
“Fine. Feen. Fane.” She flexed her free arm to prove it, and inflated her chest, which almost broke from its moorings. “You look sort of beat. Come in and I’ll pour you a drink. I hope you drink.”
“Quantities, but not at the moment, thanks. I’m looking for Ray.”
She frowned muzzily. “People are always looking for Ray. Has he done something?”
“I hope not. Where can I find him?”
She flung out her arm in a gesture which included the whole coast. From the height we stood on, we could see a good many miles of it. The sun was low in the west, and it glared like a searchlight through barred clouds.