Росс Макдональд - The Zebra-Striped Hearse

His wife took up the sentiment and breathed more life into it. “She was wonderful to Dolly, a second mother. Remember when Dolly used to call her Aunt Izzie? Not every woman in Izzie Jaimet’s position would permit that, but she’s no snob. She gave our Dolly some of her happiest hours.”

They clung to each other and to this warm fragment of the past. The icepick in her hand brought her back to the sharp present.

“How did you get ahold of this? I sent it to Mrs. Jaimet for a wedding gift. She doesn’t even live in town any more.”

“She used to live in town?”

“Right across the road,” Stone said. “We were neighbors with the Jaimets for close to twenty years. She sold out to the Rowlands after Jaimet died, and moved to Santa Barbara. But Liz and her kept in touch. She even invited Liz to attend her wedding. Liz didn’t go though. I convinced her she’d be out of place–”

His wife interrupted him: “Mr. Archer didn’t come here to listen to a lot of ancient history.” She said to me: “You haven’t answered my question. Where did you get ahold of this?”

She shook the icepick at me. I held out my hand, and she relinquished it. I put it away in my pocket.

“I can’t answer that question, Mrs. Stone.”

“I’ve been answering your questions, all day and half the night.”

“It hasn’t been quite that bad. Still I’m sorry that I can’t make things even with you. You’ll find out soon enough what this is about.”

“Is it the man they found across the road?”

I didn’t affirm it or deny it. “This may be important to you personally. It may lead to a solution of Dolly’s murder.”

“I don’t understand how.”

“Neither do I. If I did, I wouldn’t be here asking you questions. How well and how long did Mrs. Jaimet know Dolly?”

“All her life.” She sat down suddenly on the chesterfield. The net of time had drawn tight on her face, cutting deep marks. “That is, until about three and a half years ago, when she moved to Santa Barbara. But it didn’t stop then. She invited Dolly to come and visit her in Santa Barbara. I tried to talk Dolly into it – Mrs. Jaimet could do a lot for her – but Dolly never made the trip.”

“How could Mrs. Jaimet do a lot for her?”

“The way she did do a lot for her. Mrs. Jaimet is an educated woman; her husband was the principal of the high school. She used to give Dolly books to read, and take her on picnics and all. I was working in those days, and she was a real good neighbor. She just loved Dolly. So if you’re thinking she had anything to do with Dolly’s death, you’re ’way off the beam.”

“ ‘Way off the beam,” her husband echoed. “She was like a second mother to Dolly, being she had no children of her own.”

“Which was her secret sorrow. She never will have children now – she’s too old.”

Elizabeth Stone looked down at her own body. Jack Stone put his arm around her shoulders. She crossed her legs.

“Where can I get in touch with Mrs. Jaimet?”

“She’s living in L. A. with her new husband. I ought to have her address some place. She remembered me with a card at Christmastime. I think I still have that card in the bureau.” She started to get up, and froze in a leaning posture. “If I give you the address, you have to promise you won’t tell her who gave it to you.”

“I could promise, but it’s bound to come out. Nearly everything does in the long run.”

“Yeah, you have something there.” She turned to her husband. “Jack, will you get it for me? It’s in the top drawer of the bureau with the other special cards I saved – the one with the silver bells.”

He rose quickly and left the room, and she subsided onto the chesterfield. Her baby-blue eyes were strained and speculative.

“The man across the road was stabbed with an icepick. It said so in the paper. The icepick you have there, the one I bought for Mrs. Jaimet’s wedding – it couldn’t be the one, could it?”

“Yes. It could be.”

“I don’t get it. How would a lady like her get mixed up in a killing?”

“Some of the darnedest people do.”

“But she’s a real lady.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“I may not be a lady myself, but I know one when I see one. Isobel Jaimet has class, the kind that doesn’t have to flaunt itself. I happen to know she has very good connections. Matter of fact, she married one of them the second time around. Her second husband was her first husband’s second cousin, if you can follow that. I met him years ago when he was staying with the Jaimets. He was very important in the military. The Jaimet family itself used to own the whole west side, before they lost it.”

“What is her second husband’s name?”

“Let’s see, it’s on the tip of my tongue. Anyway, it’s on the card she sent me.”

“Would it be Blackwell?”

“That’s it! Blackwell. You know him?”

I didn’t have to answer her. Her husband’s slippered feet were clop-clopping down the stairs. He came into the room carrying a square envelope, which he handed to his wife. She opened it.

“Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,” the bright card said. “Colonel and Mrs. Mark Blackwell.”

SERGEANT LEONARD was waiting for me at the front of his house. He was wearing an eager expression, which sharpened when our eyes met under the light.

“Did they break down and confess?”

“They had nothing to confess. Elizabeth Stone bought the bar set as a wedding present for an old neighbor.”

“It sounds like malarkey to me. They don’t have the money to buy that kind of presents for the neighbors.”

“They did, though.”

“Who was the neighbor?”

“Mrs. Jaimet.”

“Mrs. Ronald Jaimet? That’s malarkey. She couldn’t have had anything to do with this.”

I would have liked to be able to agree with him. Since I couldn’t, I said nothing.

“Why, her and her husband were two of our leading citizens,” he said. “They had a front-page editorial in the paper when he died. He was a member of a pioneer county family and the best principal we ever had at the union high school.”

“What did he die of?”

“He was a diabetic. He broke his leg in the Sierra and ran out of insulin before they could get him back to civilization. It was a great loss to the town, and just about as big a loss when Mrs. Jaimet moved away. She was the head of the Volunteer Family Service and half a dozen other organizations.” He paused reflectively. “Did the Stones say where she is now?”

I lit a cigarette and considered my answer. Between my duty to the law and a man who trusted me, and my duty to a client I no longer trusted, my ethics were stretched thin. Leonard repeated his question.

“I think they said she was married in Santa Barbara last year. You’d better talk to them yourself.”

“Yeah. I better. In the morning.” He scratched at his hairline. “It just came to my mind, the Jaimets lived right across the road from the Stones. We found Simpson buried right spang in their back yard, their use-to-was back yard. What do you make of that?”

“I don’t like it,” I said honestly, and changed the subject before he could ask me further questions. “I have that coat in the car if you want to look it over.”

“Yeah. Bring it in.”

I spread it out on the carpet in his living room. While I told him what I knew of its history, he was down on his knees, examining it inside and out.

“Too bad there’s no cleaners’ marks,” he said. “But we may be able to trace the ownership through these Cruttworth people in Toronto. Another long trip for somebody.”

“I’m getting used to long trips.”