A Purple Place for Dying (8 page)

Rogan and Mazzari had offices in an old yellow bank building on the central plaza. The girl said that Mr. Michael Mazzari was over at the courthouse and would I care to make an appointment. The courthouse was within walking distance. The corridors were hot, damp and dingy. We found Mazzari in shirt sleeves by a corridor drinking fountain, talking with two other men. The attendant spoke to him and pointed us out. He nodded and in a little while he came over. He was a dark bull-necked little man with a quick white toothy smile. He was just beginning to thin out on top. He appraised Isobel from ankles to the part in her hair with that utter frankness of the confirmed and practiced hunter.

His handshake was hard. "McGee? And Miss Webb. Oh? Miss Webb? John your brother? I see. Or maybe I don't see. My girl tell you where to find me?"

"I told her it's an emergency."

"Is it?"

"It certainly is," Isobel said forcefully.

He excused himself and went over and spoke to the attendant outside the courtroom doors, then took us to a small room nearby, evidently one of the witness rooms, a putty colored cube with golden oak furniture. We sat at a scarred table and he said, "It's a civil action in there. Automobile accident. I hate the goddam things. The jury is off trying to figure out how much to give my client. I may be able to spare five minutes or two hours, depending how they get along together. What's the emergency? I assume it has something to do with Mona Yeoman."

"She was murdered yesterday afternoon," I said.

He had the look of a man hard to jolt, and that jolted him. Astonishment gave way to suspicion. "Now wait a minute," he said. "Even old Jass couldn't put the lid on anything like that. And I haven't heard a thing."

"It was supposed to look as if she'd run off with John Webb. There's no body. Webb is gone too. A pair of reasonable facsimiles took a plane out of Carson yesterday."

"Maybe it was Mona and John Webb." Isobel started to object. I hushed her and told Mazzari the facts-the long-range shot that slammed her down, the insulin kit, the stewardess's observations, and police pickup of Webb's car.

He whistled softly. "What a wild situation! Look, without you on the scene, Mr. McGee, it would have worked. Excuse the rude joke, Miss, but those two laid the groundwork for running off together. They had the hots. That's what made her restless enough to bring me into it, on the money end."

"Was there any truth in her claim that Jasper Yeoman robbed her?"

He stared at me. "Who am I retained by?"

"Not Mona. She's dead."

"Where do you fit into this, Mr. McGee?"

"You couldn't solve her problem by legal means without taking too much time. And even then it was dubious. She thought I could find some shortcuts. She paid my way out here. But I didn't like the sound of it."

"So now I represent you?"

"Either of us who needs it. Provided you… you aren't in the wrong pocket."

He looked irritated. "I don't mind the question. I am not in anybody's pocket. I could be richer than I am, believe me. I wouldn't be screwing around with this kind of negligence suit. I am one independent wop, and pretty fierce about it, if that's what you want. You could be further ahead hiring somebody with clout in this area. Mona came to me because I've got the maverick reputation. I spit in the eye of the mighty. I'll never get elected to public office, thank God."

"So now we have a lawyer. First question, Mr. Mazzari…"

"Mike."

"I'm Travis. This is Isobel. Mike, did Jass bleed that estate?"

"Bleed is not the word. He took it out of her pocket and put it in his. But it would take two years and a staff of accountants to nail it down. It wasn't at all crude or obvious. It was a case of making very plausible but unwise deals on unloading the asset values in the estate, unloading them through dummy setups and eventually picking them up again very cheaply for his own account. With careful management, that estate could have been worth five million by today. But it petered out to nothing some years back."

"How about the courts?"

"I don't think you'd ever turn up any evidence of corruption. Jass was a good old boy. He could take you dove hunting. Or quail hunting. Everybody knew that little girl would never lack for a thing. When he puts his attention on it, he can charm birds down out of the trees. He's known to be very sharp, but honest. Perhaps he told himself he was simplifying, just putting all the marbles where he could watch them better, getting rid of legal restrictions which could cramp his style. Also, this culture has a feudal flavor about it. The wife is the vassal. A flighty woman who could put her hands on her own money might be hard to handle. Forcing it into the courts would be tough. It could be done, with a lot of time and a lot of money. There would be reluctance. Why make a stink when things are fine the way they are? You understand. The fact remains, he gave that estate one damned complete ransacking."

"He was in trouble?"

"Oh, he was in bad trouble. He had to dip into something, and the estate was handy. He had a lot of things going sour all at the same time. Oil, cattle, plastics, trucking line, little airline. His wells pumped salt water, and his cattle froze, and he got into litigation on a processing license on the plastics operation. Union troubles with the trucking line, and three fast crashes on the airline. His money was fading like snow in a heavy rain."

"Was he a lone wolf in all those operations?"

"No. A lawyer worked closely with him. He's dead now. Tom Claymount. A very shifty character. And there is the man who was, and is, Jass Yeoman's partner in a lot of ventures. Wally Rupert. It is pretty obvious that Wally would have had to know where Jass was getting the money to bail them out."

"Mike, here is the jackpot question. With all you know about the financial fast-dealing that went on, what would be the effect of Mona's death, if it was known? If she rolled her car, for example."

"Interesting. Let me see now. Internal Revenue would have that file, twenty years old. You have to assume they would be on their toes, eager to take another clip at the Fox estate. She was the sole heir. They could move in with some very awkward questions. Where did it all go, fellows? We can assume they would be a sore trial to Jass Yeoman. They have the manpower to do the digging, and they are not as tolerant as the local court would be. Assuming the estate merely held its own, they would be after several hundred thousand dollars. What happened to the estate? Even with the rubber stamp of local court approval, Jass could find that question very embarrassing."

"All right, what if she disappeared forever?"

"Without a trace? That would hold the feds off for seven years. Then they would take the necessary action to have her declared dead, so they could reach for their share of the estate that isn't there any more."

"Somebody wants her to disappear. Jass?"

"I wouldn't think so. I don't know. It doesn't seem likely. Not the way it's being done. He is ruthless, but not in that way."

"Could anybody hate her enough to want to kill her? Could she have had somebody else on the string?"

He shook his head. "That doesn't seem likely. Hard to think of her dead. There wasn't much malice in that woman. She looked like a complete woman, but she was emotionally immature. She got dreamy about John Webb, like a young girl. It was a lovely romance."

Isobel snatched her glasses off and said, "How can you say that! She was a cheap, vulgar, vicious sexpot."

Mazzari looked at her with mild astonishment. "Are we talking about the same gal?"

"Maybe she could fool you and fool my brother, but she didn't deceive me. I can tell you that. She was in heat. That was her problem."

"Isobel, honey," he said gently. "He is your big brother and the only family you have. So naturally you guard the manger. But, believe me, Mona was just a lovesick kid. Jass understood that. And Jass understood that sooner or later she'd get over it, and when she did, she would want things the way they were before, the nice daddy-figure to watch over everything, position in the community. He knew she couldn't work out anything permanent with your brother. They're both dreamers. And both pretty nice people, actually, with cases of delayed adolescence. Jass could be more tolerant because he is, after all, twenty-six years older than she was. She was sincere. She wanted her freedom. She wanted some of her money. She wanted to marry your brother."

"All she wanted was to sleep with him!"

"Which is a very natural by-product of romantic love, honey."

"Stop Calling me honey!"

"I'll put it this way to you, Miss Webb. If you can't comprehend it, stop knocking it."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

His grin was lazy and charming. "People who censor books are usually illiterate."

She unsderstood instantly and perfectly. She tried to leave in anger, but it looked a little too much like flight. She banged the door shut.

"I lose more clients," Mazzari said.

"She'll be all right."

"It was a sneak punch. I wouldn't needle a man about being deaf or blind. She looks choice, but by the time you made it, she would be too old to enjoy it. A lifetime project. Too bad. It doesn't make it any easier for her to face up to her brother being dead. If you haven't been waltzing me around with these other items, he very probably is."

"I know."

"And your Miss Webb isn't going to take it very well. Neurotics and sexual cripples never do."

"I think she's letting herself begin to admit it, an inch at a time. She might be able to take it pretty well. Everybody is an amateur psychologist. Great devotion to the brother. With how much resentment mixed in? But it isn't my problem. None of this is my problem. I should go back where I came from."

"But this made you angry?"

"Yes. It made me angry. And those clowns thought I was making it up. Can you brief me on that Buckelberry?"

"Fred is all right. College athlete. Honor student. A very pretty and very ambitious wife. Two kids. Graduate work in police methods and procedures. But he doesn't want to be Sheriff too much longer."

"Political bug?"

"No. There's a lot of money in Esmerelda County. He's rubbed up against a lot of it. He handles himself well. And he has got the executive touch. He'll do his job, but he isn't going to offend any of that money over there that might be important to his future. He's looking."

"Do you think Jass Yeoman could be behind this whole thing, Mike? After all, hiring you, trying to hire me, she was trying to damage him."

"How seriously? She was playing pretend. She had the scene of herself standing up in court, pointing to Jass, denouncing him, riding off into the sunset with a million dollars in hand and loverboy professor beside her. When I was trying to unravel her problems, I used to get the play by play. She would just chew the living hell out of Jass, tear her hair, break things, scream at him. He would ride along with it, and a few days later they would go out to his old ranch and ride and swim, kidding around, playing gin for blood, checking out the riding stock he was breeding out there, and he would jolly her right into bed. She would be so damned mad at herself when she'd come back to town, and swear it wouldn't happen again, and actually make herself forget it had happened. Mona believed what she wanted to believe but, you see, Jass was her reality. Daddy, friend and lover. And the rest of it was just some game she was trying to play. Jass knew it wouldn't last. But it made him itchy having to wait it out. He could have chased John Webb a thousand miles, but that would just martyr him and make him more attractive to Mona. I think, if she'd proposed it, Jass would have settled for giving Webb a month or two of her. But Mona and Webb idealized their love. They called it forever. An arrangement like that would have cheapened it. Jass didn't want to lose her-both for his own sake and for hers. Maybe he didn't have the right intentions when he married her nine years ago. But it worked into something else, as it often does when the marriage is for other reasons. She talked a lot to me. I saw just how it was. If she had had it in her power to smash Jass she would have done so, because that was part of the daydream, but she would have been heartbroken later."

"And would she have brought anybody else down with Jass?"

"If she could have done anything?" He shrugged. "Claymount is dead. The old judge is dead. It could have stung Wally Rupert a little, maybe, because any real thorough checking would show he was in on that grab."

The attendant rapped on the door and opened it. "Coming back in," he said. "Thanks, Harry. Travis, if you want me along when you talk to Buckelberry, if you want to talk to him again, it can be arranged."

"Thanks, I'll manage."

"Stay in touch," he said and hastened off, shouldering himself into his suit coat.

I took a drink and straightened up and wiped my mouth and said, "I like that feisty little man."

"You damn bastard!" she said. "She paid your way to come here. What were you talking about in there, you damn bastard? Were you eulogizing that whore?"

"Isobel, dear, you shouldn't try to swear. You don't do it well. You make me think of a little girl in her Sunday frock, trying to throw mud balls."

"Don't be quaint. I had about all the sappy sentimentality I could stand in there. Mazzari is a dirty-mouthed little man. You came here to try to work Mrs. Yeoman for some money, didn't you? She's dead now. I think I understand why you're so reluctant to stir things up about my brother being missing. It would spoil your chance to chisel money out of whoever did it. Did you and, Mazzari figure out some nice safe blackmail scheme?"

"If you'd stayed we'd have had to cut you in, Isobel."

She stamped her foot. "I insist that we take some official action immediately!"

"Well, if you will start walking, we'll get into my car and we'll go to Esmerelda, and we will tell our tale to Sheriff Fred Buckelberry, if that isn't rushing it too much."

"But… I thought you…"

"Come along, dear Miss Webb. And learn a few more facts of life."

"Oh, you know so damned much about everything, don't you?"