Read Online The Blue Hammer by Ross MacDonald - Free Book Online Page B

pictures?”
    “Because Paul Grimes wanted them.”
    “You mean you do everything he does?”
    “I hope not everything.”
    She gave me her cold half-smile and nodded. “Yeah, I heard he’s slightly crooked on occasion. I shouldn’t say that, though. I’ve got nothing against him. And his daughter’s kind of a friend of mine.”
    “Paola? Is she his daughter?”
    “Yeah. You know her?”
    “We’ve met. How do you happen to know her?”
    “I met her at a party in the barrio. She told me her mother was part Spanish and part Indian. Paola’s a beautiful woman, don’t you think? I love those Spanish types.”
    She hunched her shoulders and rubbed her palms together as if she were warming herself at Paola’s heat.
    I drove back to Santa Teresa and paid a visit to the morgue in the basement of the hospital. A young deputy coronernamed Henry Purvis, whom I knew, told me that Jacob Whitmore had drowned while swimming. He pulled out a drawer and showed me the blue body with its massive hairy head and shrunken sex. I walked out of the cold room shivering.

chapter 11
    As if he were feeling lonely, the deputy coroner, Purvis, followed me into the anteroom, letting the heavy metal door swing shut behind him. He was almost as hairy as the dead man, and almost young enough to be his son.
    I said, “Is there any official doubt that Whitmore died by accident?”
    “I don’t think so. He was getting too old for the kind of surf they have at Sycamore Point. The coroner put it down as an accident. He hasn’t even ordered an autopsy.”
    “I think he should, Henry.”
    “Do you have a reason?”
    “Whitmore and Grimes had a business connection. It’s probably not a coincidence that they’re in here together. Of course there’ll be an autopsy on Grimes, won’t there?”
    Purvis nodded. “It’s set for first thing in the morning. But I did a preliminary examination, and I can tell them what the probable results will be. He was beaten to death with a heavy weapon, probably a tire iron.”
    “The weapon hasn’t been found?”
    “Not that I know of. You should ask the police. The weapon is their department.” He looked me over carefully. “Did you know Grimes?”
    “Not really. I knew he was an art dealer in town.”
    “Was he an addict at one time?” Purvis said.
    “I didn’t know him that well. What kind of addiction do you have in mind?”
    “Heroin, probably. He’s got old needle marks on his arms and thighs. I asked the woman about them, but she wouldn’t talk. The way she blew her top, she may be an addict herself. There’s a lot of it around, even right in the hospital here.”
    “What woman are we talking about?”
    “Dark woman—Spanish type. When I showed her the body, she did everything but climb the wall. I put her in the chapel and tried to call a priest for her but I couldn’t raise one, not at this time of night. I called the police, and they want to talk to her.”
    I asked him where the chapel was. It was a narrow little room on the first floor, with a single small stained-glass window denoting its function. It was furnished with a lectern and eight or ten padded chairs. Paola was sitting on the floor head down, hugging her knees, her black hair almost covering her face. She was hiccuping. When I approached her, she raised a bent arm over her head as if I might be planning to murder her.
    “Get away from me.”
    “I won’t hurt you, Paola.”
    She tossed back her mane of hair and stared at me narrow-eyed, without recognition. She had an aura of fierce forlorn sexuality. “You’re no priest.”
    “You can say that again.”
    I sat near her on the carpeted floor, which repeated the design of the stained-glass window. There were times when I almost wished I was a priest. I was growing weary of other people’s pain and wondered if a black suit and a white collar might serve as armor against it. I’d never know. My grandmother in Contra Costa County had marked me for the priesthood,