Sleep with Slander Read online

  “Mostly, yes. And find him.” Sader was trying to pin down his impression that she had a secret, a hole card, something she had learned this afternoon. Her manner simmered with excitement; there was color in her face. Even the big dog lying at her feet looked perked-up, alert. “The main thing is to locate him and see him, make sure he’s all right.” Their eyes met for a moment. Hers seemed to dance. “If I remember rightly, you hinted today that Tina Champlain found the child through you. The mother was someone you had known during that time you were in trouble.”

  Her bright mouth puckered with an appearance of dismay. “Oh, dear, did I let that drop?”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “People trusted me. I have to be careful.”

  Sader said patiently, “You want the child to be well cared for, don’t you?”

  “Of course. It’s because of him that I need to watch every word I say.”

  Sader was suddenly tired of her game. She wanted to lead him by the nose to some prearranged surprise, some point of revelation, where he would stand flat-footed and at a loss while she crowed over her advantage. “I think you’re worrying over nothing,” he said. “We aren’t interested in the past, the child’s original background. It’s the present that counts. I want to see him. That’s all.”

  Her face stiffened. “You said it concerned money. An inheritance.”

  Sader shrugged, waited. He remembered how she had stood looking at him from beside the big Buddha, his impression then that he would never get anything from her. And with dry amusement he realized how she would have affected old man Gibbings.

  “You said that the situation might change if the baby had been illegitimate.”

  “I talked to the lawyers,” Sader said, “and they said not to worry. Just to find the kid. Why don’t you tell me where he is?”

  She had come in primed to play a game, and Sader hadn’t responded. He saw from the studying look in her eye, that she was in search of a new approach. “I don’t know where the little boy is now.” The dog cocked his head as if something in his mistress’s voice puzzled him—perhaps the effort to sound honest. “I tried to find out today. Not exactly just to tell you, because I don’t know yet whose side you’re on.”

  “Just say I’m on the kid’s side.”

  She crushed out the cigarette. “You can joke about it, Mr. Sader, but believe me, if you’re ignorant of the baby’s real background you’ve been short-changed. I know that none of Tina’s people ever had a dime. Do you know what her father does for a living? He’s a railroad station agent, a little place in eastern Canada.”

  Sader was watching her. “He’s still alive?”

  “As of four o’clock this afternoon. I talked to him by phone, and he never heard of any money coming to Tina or the baby . . . nothing that wasn’t collected at the time of that plane crash, when Champlain was killed.” By the flush of color in her face, the lift of her chin, Sader knew that this was part of it, part of the secret; and he sensed that she had parted with this much to lead him on again. “We can be honest with each other, can’t we? You can admit, for instance, that the people who want to find the baby don’t want to give him any money. They want him.”

  Sader shook his head. “You’re wrong. There’s no intention of claiming the child again. You know the mother. You know—let’s put it this way—the person who handled all the details of the adoption. He hasn’t changed, and he won’t.” Sader remembered Gibbings’ warning, that he was not in any case to be identified as the baby’s grandfather. This was the time to remember that warning. “There’s nothing you can sell him. There is something you can sell me. For one hundred dollars. The name of the relative who has Tina Champlain’s child.”

  Sader opened the right-hand drawer and took out the office checkbook and opened it in front of him. Wanda Nevins had risen from her chair. Sader looked up at her, wondering at her silence. He thought that she seemed shocked, that there was a sudden pallor in her face.

  “Are you selling?” he said.

  She stared at him as if not understanding. He tapped the checkbook with the tip of his pen. “One hundred. Pocket money. Might buy next month’s nylons.”

  “I’ll have to think about it.” She was moving away. The big dog got to his feet with a grunt, padded after her, his toenails tapping the floor. She stopped at the door to the outer room, and Sader decided this was the point at which he was supposed to up the ante. He grinned to himself. When she glanced back at him he pretended to cover a yawn. She snapped a finger at Bruce, and went on into the other room, and then her voice drifted back to him. “Believe me, Mr. Sader, you’re working in the dark.”

  The door shut and Sader sat there with an elbow propped on the open checkbook. He waited for her to come back, and she didn’t. After about ten minutes, he knew that she was gone. He’d never been so surprised in his life.

  He woke up in the middle of the night and thought about it.

  The unfamiliar house was big, echoing and yet silent—echoing with silence, Sader thought. He had agreed to move in and look after his partner’s hunting dog, and Scarborough’s aunt’s parrot, during the time Scarborough would be in San Francisco and his aunt visiting in Salt Lake. This meant feeding the dog morning and night, refilling the bird’s water cup and seed dish without getting his fingers bitten off, and listening for the jets from Los Alamitos to take off a chunk of chimney. The house was out in the country, sort of. There were tracts on three sides, where once had been orange groves. He was positive that Scarborough clung to the incongruous arrangement in hopes of inheriting his aunt’s money. Scarborough was young, lively, and brash, always looking for kicks. His aunt was a small critical person who knitted afghans and hated cats. The fact that the house was so big and that they could live in it without running into each other too often must be a help, in Sader’s opinion.

  He found cigarettes, lighted one in the dark, got up from the guest-room bed and went to the window to smoke, looking through the misty night at the lights of Los Alamitos. The pane had raindrops on it, and when a jet went over low they vibrated glitteringly, and a dozen let go and slid down the glass. He thought about Wanda’s parting remark, and let it circle around in his mind while he examined it. Something he had said to her had worked a change, and he couldn’t imagine what it had been.

  He smoked, and listened to the night. When the jets weren’t going over, it was very quiet. He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand, and found that he was tired without being sleepy, and that by trying not to think of the letter old man Gibbings had received he had brought it ferociously to life.

  Say that it was true, and that somewhere out there in the night, right now, an abused child had found a few hours of peace in uneasy sleep.

  What kind of person would treat a kid like that?

  Somebody who hated kids, couldn’t abide them, felt about them the way Scarborough’s aunt felt about cats.

  No.

  He felt as if he had been yanked back from that mistake by physical force. The cigarette hung dry and tasteless from his lips, and his eyes burned as if he’d never get them shut again. He had been a fool, and far amiss in the heart of this matter. For the person who was abusing the child must be someone who had hated Tina Champlain with the fury of a million hells.

  He saw the questions he should have asked, and felt a sour disgust for his lack of insight. He had indeed, as Wanda had said, been working in the dark.

  He was clutched by a vast urge to haste, but there was nothing to be done now, in the Middle of the night. He lighted a second cigarette off the first and forced himself to stand calm and to plan the day ahead.

  The Lakeside Chapel of St. John’s stood alone at the foot of a knoll, shaded by a clump of pepper trees and facing a small artificial lagoon full of water lilies. The chapel was mostly of glass, with redwood beams. Across the front, a great mural panel in mosaic tile portrayed the baptism of Christ. That took care, Sader thought, of any question about which St. John was meant. He
parked at the curb and got out, crossing the velvet quarter-acre of lawn, sniffing the freshness of morning.

  The chapel was locked, deserted, but a small brass plate tacked to the inner frame of the mural gave the minister’s name and address. Sader followed the quiet street around to the other side of the knoll, to a neat white stucco cottage. When he rang the bell, a housekeeper in a blue-striped uniform came to the door.

  “Is the reverend in?”

  “Mr. Twining had to go out early on sick call,” she said. She seemed very prim, and the uniform was full of starch. “May I help you?”

  “Did you know a couple named Champlain, who used to attend church here?”

  She thought it over for a minute. “They were young people. Mr. Champlain was killed in a plane crash. About two years ago, I think.”

  “Mrs. Champlain is dead, too. I’m trying to find any friends or neighbors, someone who knew them well when they lived out here.”

  She drew back, opening the door. “Won’t you come in? Mr. Twining should be back pretty soon, and he may be able to find something for you in the church records.” She ushered him into a small formal room. “What did you say your name was?”

  “Sader. I’m a private investigator.”

  “I see.” She seemed to take on a cautious air, as if private detectives might threaten the order of her starched existence. “Does it have something to do with Mrs. Champlain’s death?”

  Couldn’t resist it, Sader thought, saying, “No, I’m trying to find her child. You said something about church records. If they’d had the baby baptized here, there would have been godparents.”

  “Yes, there would have been.” She hesitated. “I don’t remember a christening in connection with the Champlains, but there may have been one. We’ll wait for Mr. Twining and then we’ll know.”

  “Mr. Twining wasn’t the minister here at the time, was he?”

  “That was Dr. Bell.”

  She went out, leaving Sader on a maple bench. He thought about smoking and then gave up the idea. This room had never been smoked in.

  When Mr. Twining arrived, he proved to be a well-built young man in a tweedy suit and horn-rims, whose scholarly air overlaid a lot of energy. He offered Sader coffee, and broke out a pipe and filled it. He put the pipe between his teeth but didn’t light it, and when he saw Sader looking at it, he said, “I smoke in my study only. On account of Mrs. Mimms.”

  “I can see how that would work out,” Sader agreed.

  The coffee Mrs. Mimms brought was fresh and hot. Mr. Twining stirred in sugar and said, “Now, let’s see, you’ve come about the Champlains. I didn’t know them; they were before my time. I took over this parish less than two years ago. Dr. Bell mentioned them a couple of times, while I was getting settled. He asked me to keep an eye on Mrs. Champlain and the baby. About a year ago he wrote me that he’d heard from Mrs. Champlain, and he enclosed an address, but when I found time—I was awfully busy about then—when I found time to look it up, the place had been condemned for some kind of freeway extension.”

  “I was there yesterday. The whole neighborhood’s being wrecked and hauled away. There isn’t anyone I can ask about the baby.”

  “Yes. The baby. Well, I’ll have a look at the baptismal records. There may not be anything. You see, we’re an interdenominational church. We take in a cross section of Protestant people, and among them are many who don’t believe in infant baptism, and so we don’t insist on it.”

  Sader felt a premonition, a lurching loss of confidence.

  “Anything you can give me—”

  “Yes. Well, I’ll check and come back.”

  Sader waited another fifteen minutes. When Mr. Twining came in, one glance told Sader the errand had been fruitless.

  “There is no record of the baby’s baptism, Mr. Sader. I’m sorry to have been so long, but I double-checked to be sure. The only thing I can offer is this. While Mrs. Champlain was a member of our church she attended some of the Women’s Circle meetings. I know this because her name is on the rolls. I can give you the name and address of the chairman for that year.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  Mr. Twining wrote on a sheet of paper Mrs. William Forrest, 22318 Silverbirch, and told Sader how to find it.

  Twenty minutes later, walking up the flagged path from the curb, Sader made a guess at how much Mr. Forrest had laid on the line for it, and decided that it hadn’t been a cent under fifty thousand. It was a nice house, low and comfortably ranchy without being old-corral about it, not a mansion but as good as the rest of the neighborhood, which was pretty nice indeed. Sader noted the carriage lamp by the entry, the fall iris in bloom under the windows, big blue flags mixed with gold. The knocker was brass, a horse’s head, very graceful.

  The maid came and said that Mrs. Forrest wasn’t at home. She was spending a week in Palm Springs.

  Sader turned from the door. He hesitated there a moment. The street was winding, curving off westward between the wide green lawns and the big houses. It was a quiet street, an upper-class kind of street. There was no traffic, no kids running around loose, no stray bikes dropped down, no hollering, no grubby hopscotch or impromptu baseball; and Sader stood looking at it with a new expression in his eyes.

  Tina Champlain had lived in this neighborhood until her husband had died in a plane crash. Then, though it would seem that she could have stayed if she’d wanted to, she had moved away. She had gone to live in an entirely different kind of place. She had, come to think of it, taken up with an entirely different kind of man.

  A big change, Sader thought—you might say, almost overnight.

  It was almost as if Tina Champlain had become a different woman.

  CHAPTER SIX

  IN WESTWOOD Village, Sader went into a drugstore phone booth and called Mr. Twining. Mr. Twining expressed his regret at having sent Sader on a wild goose chase, and he said that there was another woman who had been a member of the Women’s Circle for years, and who should certainly be at home, as she was temporarily invalided following an automobile accident.

  The house was in the hills north of the university. He explained to Sader how to find the street.

  The house was sheltered by a trio of big eucalyptus. It was much like the Forrest place, about as big, and Sader had begun to get an idea of the sort of flock Mr. Twining guided. You wouldn’t get anywhere here, Sader thought, being a Holy Roller. These people would go for a dignified, liberal faith, a quiet service, and if anybody got the spirit and was seized with a desire to holler over it, he would be efficiently taken out. He rang Mrs. Bowen’s doorbell and a pleasant-looking chocolate-colored maid let him in. It seemed that Mr. Twining had already telephoned.

  She was a very thin woman in a wheel chair, wearing a pink silk robe and with a white knitted coverlet about her legs. Gray hair, glasses, and an expression that made Sader suspect her husband gambled or drank, and that she forgave him for it. She let Sader sit down on a needlepoint chair. “Mr. Twining tells me you’re trying to find the Champlains’ child.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “You are a private detective?” Gambling or drunk, Mr. Bowen would have a hard time keeping anything from her sharp eyes.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I won’t question you, prying into your affairs. I know that you detectives have to keep secrets, you can’t discuss your client’s business. I watch Perry Mason on TV every week,” she added.

  “Well, we want to locate the baby because of an inheritance.” He had said it so often that now it sounded like the truth.

  “That may be. What do you want me to tell you? I might explain that I wasn’t well acquainted with Mr. Champlain, merely to speak to at church. I knew Mrs. Champlain through our Women’s Circle. Really, what I know about them is mostly secondhand, what I happened to hear from other people.”

  Cagey, Sader thought, in case I try to pin her down. Perry’s footwork must be contagious. “Would you have any idea who might be keeping M
rs. Champlain’s child?”

  “I’m afraid not.” She sat quiet then, as if thinking this over. Across the room on a marble mantelpiece was a silver clock with a loud, peaceful tick. The hands stood at twelve minutes past ten. “There was an aunt. I met her at one of our missionary luncheons. The name was—wait a minute—” Sader waited; he felt like holding his breath. “—Shawell. I’m sure of it. I remember, I asked her how to spell it. From the way Mrs. Champlain had pronounced it, I thought the word had been shawl. You know.” She touched the knitted wrapping on the knees. “It seemed an odd name, and she spelled it for me.”

  “Shawell.”

  “Perhaps the aunt has the baby.”

  “Could you describe her?”

  “She seemed like a very nice person,” Mrs. Bowen said, with so much emphasis that Sader wanted to pop back with Who said she wasn’t?

  “I mean,” he explained, “was she tall? Thin? Well dressed? Or what?”

  “She was . . . oh, just medium height. I don’t recall much about her features, nor about her appearance in general, except that—” She hitched the knitted cover closer, laced a finger in its fringe. “What I have to say, Mr. Sader—we’re not gossips. We don’t meet every week to tear other women to tatters, though that’s the old cliché, the thing they always do in jokes and cartoons. We make clothes and quilts for the missions and we talk—we try to talk as Christians should. What was said about Mrs. Shawell, and I agreed with it, was that she seemed like such a country sort of woman.”

  Sader just sat there looking at her.

  “I see you don’t quite know what I mean. Perhaps I shouldn’t even have mentioned it. She was a little bit dowdy. And she spoke with an accent. Not much of an accent, just a little.”

  Just enough to be different, Sader thought. “I believe Mrs. Champlain’s people live in eastern Canada, that both she and Mr. Champlain were of French descent. Perhaps that would account for the aunt’s accent.”

  “Probably it would.”

  “Did you know that Mrs. Champlain was dead?” Sader asked, taking off for no reason on a new tack.