I did a little thinking, then shook my head. “It doesn’t get me anywhere.” After pacing the floor for a while and thinking some more, I asked: “There was no doubt the girl was Alma?”
“It might not have been,” Lu said with a grin, “but the Feds said it was, and they don’t make mistakes. It was her car. Oneof her bags had been thrown clear. It was full of her stuff. They couldn’t identify the body. They had no record of her fingerprints, and the body was badly burned. If it wasn’t her, who else could it have been?”
“No one missing at the time?”
“They didn’t say so.”
“No, I guess I’m trying to make too much of this. Do we know anything about Sheila Kendrick?”
“I don’t.”
“We’d better check up on her. Get after her, Lu. I want to know where she came from, what she’s been doing for the past few years. She comes from San Francisco. You’ll have to go out there and dig. It’s important.”
Lu looked inquiringly at Mick.
“Do I do it?”
“Sure you do it.”
“All right, but you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“Maybe you’re right, but it’s the only lead I have. I’m going to do a little digging myself. I have to start from the beginning. Maybe I’ll turn up something if I go back far enough. I’m going to work on the Baillies.”
“I can’t see how they figure in this,” Mick said, shaking his head, “but you work it the way you think.”
“Wait a second, Lu,” I said, as he moved to the door. “Did you ever see Alma?”
“Once, but not to talk to. She was waiting in a car for Verne.”
“Remember her?”
“Not really. She was fair, but that’s all I can remember. I didn’t get a good look at her.”
“Okay, Lu.” When he had gone I said to Mick: “Well, I’ll move off first thing tomorrow morning. Take care of that twenty-five grand for me. If I come unstuck, you keep it.”
Early the next morning I drove out of Santa Medina and headed for Albuquerque. On the way I stopped at Gallup and called in on the Sheriff’s office. He was an elderly, well-nourished party with a lot of spare time on his hands. He welcomed me when I explained I was a writer and wanted information about the Baillies.
“Not much I can tell you,” he said, hoisting his feet on to the desk. “Sit down and make yourself at home. I ain’t got any liquor to offer you, but maybe you can get along without it.”
I said I thought I could, and started in to see what I could get out of him. He remembered the car smash all right. It had been the talk of Gallup for weeks.
“It happened like this,” he told me, sucking at his pipe. “I was standing in the doorway, sunning myself, when she drove in. The description the Feds had put out wasn’t much. I knew they were looking for a fair girl in a dark-brown leather coat and driving a green coupe Chrysler. Well, the car this girl was driving was a green coupe Chrysler, but the licence plates didn’t tally with the ones in the Fed’s handbill, and she wasn’t wearing a leather coat. I was interested, mind you, and I watched her, but I didn’t think it was the girl. She bought groceries, and I kept wondering if she was Alma.” He grinned boyishly at me. “If she was Alma, then she was dangerous and I’m too old to fool around with guns. I let her go. But I called up the local office and reported having seen her. Well, they found her a mile or so out of town, smashed up against a tree. That’s all there’s to it.”
“A nice efficient sheriff,” I thought. The Feds must have loved him.
“They were sure the girl in the car was Alma Baillie?”
His mouth fell open.
“Why, sure. There was a reward out for her, see? By rights I should have got it, but the Federal officer claimed it. He was pretty decent about it and gave me a share. He didn’t make a mistake. He had all the proof he wanted. The leather coat was found. It was burned, but it was easy to identify. And there was plenty of stuff in her bag to convince me it was Alma,”
“How about finger-prints?”
“What are you getting at, young man? They didn’t have her prints recorded. You want to take it easy. If you go through life being suspicious of people you’ll be an old man before you know it.”
I thanked him, gave him a cigar and went out into the sunshine again, far from satisfied. From Gallup I drove to Albuquerque and called in on the News Editor of the local newspaper. I spun him the same yarn, and asked if he had any information regarding Alma Baillie that might be helpful.
The News Editor was a smart little guy, with keen grey eyes that looked at me through a pair of heavy shell spectacles.
“Just what did you want to know, Mr. Dexter?”
“I’d like to see the house she stayed at, and I’d like to know if you believe she met her end in the car, or whether it was some other girl.”
He blinked at that
“Funny you should say that. At the time I had my doubts, but nothing came of it. The Federal officer identified her. It was a lucky break for him; he earned the two-thousand-dollar reward.”
“What happened to him?”
“He retired. He’s chicken-farming now.”
“What made you have doubts it wasn’t Alma?”
He grinned at me.
“Well, you know how it is. We’re suspicious people, Mr. Dexter. Someone in Gallup said there were two girls in the car, but the sheriff said he was a liar and maybe he was.”
“Who was he?”
“I forget his name. He’s left the district now.”
“Know where he’s gone?”
“Amarillo, but he’s an unreliable witness. Half the time he’s drunk and the other half he’s trying to scrape up enough money to buy liquor. We decided he was talking out of the back of his neck.”
“I’d take it as a favour if you could hunt up his name and address.”
It took a little time, but he got it for me in the end.
“Jack Nesby,” he told me after a clerk had dug through the records, and he gave me the address.
I went around to the house where Alma Baillie had lived, but the landlady wasn’t helpful or couldn’t tell me anything. I wasn’t sure which, but I didn’t get any information from her. From Albuquerque I went to Amarillo where I found Nesby propping up the bar in a beer saloon. He was old, and dimwitted and a little drunk, but he brightened up when I bought him a large whisky.
Yes, he remembered seeing Alma come into Gallup. He poked a grimy finger at me and wagged his head as he peered at me with dim eyes.
“It was a frame-up,” he told me hoarsely. “That Fed was after the reward. There were two girls in the car. I saw ‘em as plain as I see you. There was the smart one and the shabby one. The sheriff saw ‘em too, but he kept his mouth shut because the Fed paid him off. When I spoke up they threatened to run me in for vagrancy.”
I looked at him doubtfully. The News Editor had been right when he said this guy was an unreliable witness. In a court of law he’d be hopeless, but this wasn’t a court of law,
“What was she like . . . the shabby one?”
He brooded, struggled with a dying memory and gave up.
“I dunno,” he admitted. “I didn’t pay much attention. I’ve got beyond girls, mister. But there were two of them, and I’ll swear it.”
“Was she fair too?”
“I don’t reckon she was. I think she was dark, but I wouldn’t know.”
“What makes you say she was shabby?”
“By her clothes.” He looked a little surprised at the question. “She had on a dirty old raincoat and no hat. The other was smart; real smart. You know how it is.”
There was nothing else I could get out of him, so I bought him another Scotch and left him. I got in the car and sat for a while thinking. I took my time and I went over everything I’d seen and heard since I first met Gorman. It took more than an hour, and from time to time I jotted down on the back of an envelope an idea that came to me. I was still in the dark, but there was a glimmer of light ahead and I knew if I kept plugging away I’d get somewhere. I remembered what Veda had said about her past life. This road on which my car was parked was the road on which she had travelled from Waukomis to Hollywood: State Highway 66. Somewhere between here and Waukomis I should find the restaurant where she had worked. I decided I’d look that over just in case I might pick up something.
It took a little time, and I was two days on that road, asking questions, stopping at every road restaurant, pull-up and cafe, and finally I came to the place at Clinton. I knew it was the place because at the back was a big barn.
I parked the car outside, pushed open the screen door and marched in. It wasn’t much of a place; a lunchroom with an S-shaped counter, stools and a few tables for those who wanted to eat in style. There were the usual juke-box coin slots and a display of sandwiches under glass.
A thin, surly looking man in a soiled apron leaned against the counter and stared into space. He didn’t bother to look in my direction as I came in and said “What’s yours?” as if he didn’t care.
I ordered a coffee and a slice of apple pie. When he dumped the coffee before me and began sawing at the pie, I said, “Didn’t a girl named Veda Rux once work here?”
“What of it?” He slapped down the pie and stared at me with hard eyes.
“I’m trying to trace her. She’s come into a small slice of money. There’s a ten-dollar reward for information.”
“Is she in trouble?”
“No. Someone’s left her two hundred bucks. I’m trying to find her.” I took out two fives and let him have a good look at them.
“Well, she worked here,” he said, thawing out. “I dunno where she is now. She was going to Hollywood, but I don’t know if she ever got as far.”
“You wouldn’t have a photograph of her?”
“No.”
“A good looker, wasn’t she?”
He nodded.
“A bitch. Never could leave the truckers alone. Always taking them in the barn at the back when I wasn’t looking.” He scowled as his mind went into the past. “A no-good tramp.”
“Dark, nice figure, blue eyes?” I said. “That her?”
“Not blue eyes . . . I’d say brown.”
“Is that right? Left-handed, wasn’t she?”
He nodded.
“When did she leave here?”
“About a year ago.”
“Can you get closer? I want the date.” I took out another five and added it to the notes already on the counter.
He stared at the money, thought for a moment, shook his head.
“Can’t remember. But hang on. I’ll find out. I keep a diary.”
I had finished the pie and the coffee by the time he returned.
“5th July of last year.”
That was three days before Alma’s car crash. I gave him the money, thanked him and went out. More light ahead, I thought, and after checking my map I drove out of town.
My next stop was Waukomis, Oklahoma. I arrived at dusk. It was a typical Mid-Western farming town and I blew into the first beer saloon I came to.
“I’m looking for the Rux family,” I told the barkeeper. “Any of them in town?”
He wrinkled his fat nose. He didn’t seem to think much of the Rux family.
“There’s a married sister who lives up on the hill. Martin’s the name. The rest of them pulled out when the old man croaked, and a good thing, too. A damned wild family; always getting into trouble.”
I grinned.
“Yeah, they were that. I’m trying to trace Veda Rux. Remember her?”
“What are you — a dick?”
“No. She’s come into a little dough. I want to pay out. Remember her?”
“I remember her all right. She was the wildest of them all. Never could leave the men alone.” He shook his head. “So she’s come into money?”
“Where’s this sister of hers live?”
He gave me directions and I drove up the hill to where a cluster of wooden shacks huddled together against the skyline.
Mrs. Martin looked no more like Veda than I did. She was big, and fat and blowsy, but she was friendly as soon as I told her why I was looking for Veda.
“I ain’t seen her in years,” she said, wiping her red hands on a dirty towel. “Fancy! Who left her the money?”
“A fella she knew. I can’t trace her. You wouldn’t have a photograph of her?”
“Only when she was little.”
She produced that and I stared for a long time at the thin, vicious little face.
“Anything on her that’d help to identify her?”
“She had a birth-mark.” She simpered. “But it’s where it shouldn’t show.”
“What kind of birth-mark?”
“A round red mark, the size of a dime.” She told me where it was located. She was right about it not being on show.
“And she was left-handed, wasn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“And blue eyes?”
“Oh, no; brown.”
I thanked her. That seemed to be that.
I wasn’t wasting any more time. I had all the information I wanted. I had to find Veda.
I began the long drive back to the coast.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I HAD a hunch that if Veda learned I was looking for her, she’d look for me; and that’s how it worked out.
Mick helped by passing the word around to the boys that we wanted Veda, and whoever found her would earn himself some folding money. We gave the boys her description; it was as complete as we could make it, down to the birth-mark, and I knew, sooner or later, the news would reach her that I was after her.
It wasn’t going to be easy to find her, but I was willing to bet she wasn’t far away. My only hope was for her to come looking for me; it was a gamble and it came off. As soon as the hunt for her began I gave her every chance to find me. I drove around Santa Medina and the outskirts of San Luis Beach. I sat around in beer saloons and cafés and coffee shops. I took long walks. I was seldom off the street. It was hard work, but I kept at it.
After three or four days of this she walked into the trap. I was sauntering along Main Street when I became aware I was being tailed. I have had a lot of experience tailing people and shaking off guys who’ve tried to tail me. A dick working for a bonding agency has to be smart, and I’ve developed an instinct for knowing when someone’s following me. It didn’t take me long to spot her. She was a redhead now, but I’d have known her walk anywhere in spite of the sun-glasses and the auburn hair. And I’d know that figure, too. I’d know it blind-folded.
She hadn’t an idea how to tail anyone. For one thing she was dressed all wrong. You don’t tail an ex-dick in a bright-red shirt and a pair of sand-coloured slacks unless you want him to know you’re tailing him. Neither do you skip behind trees or into shop doorways or behind hedges the way she was doing it.