CHAPTER ELEVEN

It took me two days to drive to Reno. My Chevy ran well, but the old beater lacked air conditioning and it was 118 degrees in the shade in Alturas, where I stopped to load up on iced drinks and gas. The late sun was yellow on Nevada’s arid mountain slopes when I left the hot lonely desert behind and crossed the Truckee River in downtown Reno. I checked into a hotel on the Strip and spent the next 15 minutes cooling off under a shower.

≈ ≈ ≈

The casino’s gaming room was a space-age fantasy, large as a football field. A place of flashing lights, jingling bells, inescapable Muzak. Loudspeakers announced winning keno numbers. Hordes of brightly dressed people swept between gambling stations like schools of jellyfish. Glittering shoals of one-armed bandits, working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, nibbled at the purses of women in stretch pants and sequined blouses and tinted eyeglasses. Men slumped over blackjack tables, drinks at elbows, their bald heads reflecting the glow of immense chandeliers. Stone-faced dealers in white shirts and black pants showed their teeth when winners tipped them and looked neutral the rest of the time.

After three hours at a $25 poker table I was up nearly a thousand. The other winner was a skinny oilman from Oklahoma. His eyes were shadowed by a tipped-forward 10-gallon hat. The tip of his bony chin and hooked nose seemed to touch as he chomped an unlit cigar. He had on a pale blue shirt, with little chromium tabs weighting down his collar, and a narrow black-ribbon necktie. The oilman picked his hole cards up slowly with a bony, liver-spotted hand, looked at them once, then left them face-down on the green-felt table. When he won he flipped his hole cards one at a time, dragging out the action deliberately in a manner that irritated some of the other players. The losers were a succession of impulse gamblers who sat in when a seat became vacant, dropped a few hundred, then folded.

Unlike the blackjack dealers, the poker dealers were a jovial crew, rotated every 40 minutes. They were Marvin, Terry and Gayle. Marvin and Terry looked like Sonny and Cher. Gayle looked like Dolly Parton on crack, but she was full of fun and earned plenty of tips.

Beauty queens circulated with trays of free drinks. I sipped rye and water. I was looking at a $400 pot. I held a pair of kings and had one more card to come. The player to my right had just bet the limit. I had watched him lose steadily. When he frowned he had at least three of a kind. He was frowning. I folded my hand and got up, leaving my stake on the table to hold the seat. I pushed through the crowds to a washroom and splashed water on my face. A white-jacketed attendant handed me a towel and whisked a brush across my shoulders. I tipped him a Canadian dollar. The attendant stared at the foreign currency morosely and was still staring at it when I went out. Instead of returning to the game I sat at a bar with my back to the poker tables.

Despite the crowds, I felt the room’s desperate loneliness. I knew that if I continued to play I would lose my stake. One of the pit bosses came over and sat on the next stool. He was a darkly handsome man with thick wavy hair, about 30. He smiled amiably and said, “You’re doing all right. Where did you learn to play poker?”

“Victoria, B.C.”

“They got any heavy action up there?”

“There’s a couple of clubs. If you know where to look you can find big weekend games on construction sites, logging camps.”

“Yeah, that’s the way it’s done. A hustler shows up with a canvas carryall, holes in his socks, straw between his teeth. Cleans the suckers out on pay night.”

“That’s right. Arrives on a bus, leaves in a private plane.”

“Here in Reno, it’s the other way round,” said the pit boss, laughing. Then he added, “Enjoying yourself here, people treating you right?”

“I’ve got no complaints.”

“I guess not. You’re up, what, about a grand?”

I nodded. The pit boss didn’t miss much. A waiter came over and the pit boss insisted on buying me a drink. He said, “If you’re interested, there’s a spot on a no-limit table upstairs. Guy plays like you, he could make a bundle.”

“Or drop one.”

The pit boss shook his head. “I’ve been watching. You’re playing a good game, not trying to win every hand.”

“This is my first night in town, I’m just enjoying myself, fooling around. Tomorrow I go to work.”

“What kind of business you in?”

“I’m a cop,” I said and gave him my card. “I’m looking for a woman.”

“Ain’t we all,” said the pit boss, studying the card.

“This one’s been missing over 20 years.”

“If she had the bucks, she could have spent the whole 20 years right here, in this casino. We’ve got shops, restaurants, a hairdresser, tanning salon, spa, swimming pool. Two shows a night. A guy with your luck, you might run into her.”

“I wouldn’t recognize her if I did. She’s probably changed her name as well as her appearance. I don’t have much to go on.”

“Well, if I can do anything for you, give me a shout.” He gave me his own card. The man’s name was Dean Costello and his title was senior floor captain.

“You have a musical director in the hotel, Mr. Costello? Somebody who arranges music for the acts?”

“We’ve got a house band. A guy who stands in front and waves his arms. I guess he’s the musical director.”

“The woman I’m looking for was a piano player. Small-town professional. She worked with a little group in Seattle, long time ago. Had a nice voice. If she came to Reno and stayed, she probably worked the clubs.”

“You’ve got your work cut out then. She’d be one of the herd, pal. Every warbler in the country heads here. We’ve got the largest transient population in the United States. I’m an old-timer in Reno, been here three years.” He tugged at his chin, thinking. “Our band leader is also new, arrived a few weeks ago from the Big Apple. But you might talk to Barney Bevis. He’s featured in the Kitten Lounge, downtown. B.B. arrived when they had horse troughs on the main drag. If the lady ever played professional piano in Reno, Barney would know.” Costello got off his bar stool. “You doing any more gambling while you’re in town?”

“Probably. I’m staying in this hotel. You guys make it hard to go anywhere without passing the slots and the tables.”

“Psychology at work, Mr. Seaweed. But good luck.”

We shook hands. I played another half-hour and lost $100 in the process. My timing had gone, I felt stale, the cigarette smoke in the room was beginning to bother me, so I cashed out. When I went to collect my room key at the front desk the clerk said, “Your things have been moved out of Room 463, sir, to a view room on the eleventh floor.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Compliments of Dean Costello.”

Costello had comped me to a suite. A basket of fruit stood on a coffee table next to a bottle of Canadian Club and polished crystal glasses. There were flowers everywhere.

The city was spread out below me. Restless gamblers walked the Strip under the whirling lariat of a 10-storey neon cowboy. Electric showgirls with immense peacock-feather hats kicked their heels on a distant rooftop. The 10,000 lamps of the Circus Circus sign banished the night. Ribbons of moving automobile lights spread from the brilliance like spider webs. Beyond the golden bowl of the city, where scuttling money spiders wove their traps, darkness claimed the desert and it rolled on, black and mysterious, toward the distant Sierras. Jet planes glided noiselessly in and out of Reno airport, red and green lamps winking.

Somebody had hung my clothes exactly as I had left them in the other room. Satin sheets were turned back invitingly on my bed. I stripped, showered. After flossing dutifully, I cleaned my teeth, then crashed.

≈ ≈ ≈

To reach the restaurant for breakfast I had to pass through the gambling areas. It was only 7:30, but the place was crowded. In the poker pit the oilman was sitting behind a big pile of chips. Three rappers had replaced Sonny and Cher and Dolly Parton.

After breakfast I strolled Sierra Street to the Truckee River. Like every other visitor to this quickie-marriage, quickie-divorce capital, I stopped on the bridge and stared down into the shallow water where, according to legend, jubilant divorcees hurl old wedding rings. The early sun glinted on tiny wavelets rippling across the pebbled bottom. I saw no golden rings — only beer bottles and plastic bags and a rusting shopping cart. To my surprise, nervous pan-sized trout darted in and out of the shade.

Although it was still early I was sweating by the time I reached the downtown precinct office. A uniformed Reno cop stood in the entrance hall with his arms folded, staring impassively at a sobbing woman. She was crouched in a corner, clutching her drawn-up knees, hiding her face between her arms. Mascara tears dripped onto her legs and traced little black tracks along her white thighs. A man wearing blue jeans and a tartan shirt knelt beside her with one hand touching her shoulder. Nobody spoke.

Inside the building, three plainclothes men were at a water cooler, laughing. Behind an inquiry desk a clerk with a huge beehive hairdo that almost concealed her tiny face was speaking into a telephone. When she hung up, I said “I’m a policeman from Victoria, B.C. Maybe I could talk to somebody, one of the detectives here.”

“You’re a what?” She stared at me as if I were a Martian.

“I’m a cop.”

Her eyes shifted to a point behind me and she shouted. “Hey, Ben. You got a minute?”

A broad-shouldered man detached himself from his friends at the water cooler and strolled across. He gave me an appraising glance and said, “What can I do for you?” He had an easy, assured manner, not quite friendly.

“I’m a cop from Victoria. I’d appreciate it if you could spare me some of your time.”

“The only Victoria I know in these United States is in Texas, but you don’t look like no Plains Indian. You from up north?”

“Right. I’m Silas Seaweed.”

“Detective-Sergeant Conklin.” He extended his paw and I shook it. “I just finished my shift, Mr. Seaweed, but I can give you a minute. Come on.”

He led me into a small, solid-walled cubicle furnished with a bare table and two chairs. A feather boa dangled from a coat hook — the only touch of colour in that white-painted space.

Conklin sighed as he eased himself into the chair behind the desk and brushed a hand across his eyelids. There were dark crescents beneath his eyes and black stubble on his chin.

I said, “Busy night, Sergeant?”

He shrugged. “Call me Ben. The night was about normal.”

“You mean it was tiring, frustrating and largely a waste of time?”

Conklin grinned. “Am I listening to the voice of experience?”

“I pounded a beat for a while.”

“Way I feel this morning, I should quit before I develop my first ulcer. Trouble is, what would I do? There’s too many private dicks in this town, you can’t make a dime.”

“Just so we’re clear. Right now I’m on sick leave because somebody took potshots at me.”

Conklin’s dark eyes narrowed but he smiled and said, “They gonna give you a medal?”

I grinned at him and said, “I’m looking for a woman called Marcia Hunt. She’s a Canadian citizen, been missing a long time.”

“Does she have a record?”

“No. She was married briefly to a convicted felon named Frank Harkness, a.k.a Frank Turko.”

“What exactly do you want?”

“A big favour. I want to know whether you have sheets on these people.”

“Tell me about them.”

I told him.

Conklin examined his fingers. “Suppose I find that these people have local records. So what? How would that help?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know, I’m clutching at straws. The trail is cold, dead. I haven’t got a lead.”

“I won’t promise anything. This is irregular, as you know.” Conklin stifled a yawn with the back of a hand. “Mostly, when outside police come here they bring introductions.”

“I have a personal stake in this thing. I’m working on my own time.”

“If I find something, where can I reach you?”

I gave him the name of my hotel and got up. “I’m standing between a man and his bed.”

“I wish you were, Silas, but you’re standing between me and a shopping cart. My wife works shifts too, at a casino in Sparks. It’s my turn to buy groceries and do the housecleaning.”

<<p class="break">≈ ≈ ≈

I was soon grateful that I had comfortable walking shoes and a thick skin. I checked the talent agencies first, without success, and then the legwork began. I combed Reno’s taverns, bars and clubs, starting at the big casinos on Sierra Street and working outward, asking polite questions of impatient people who had troubles of their own and were not particularly interested in mine. This town was full of dangerous strangers. People hid inside velvet-lined cages and lived lonely, insulated lives. I spoke to musicians and bootblacks and concierges and waitresses. I spoke to men who had been playing piano so long they could hold complex conversations while performing lounge-bar standards and never miss a note. I chased down numerous false trails and came to a dead end every time. I bought drinks for lonely people sitting on bar stools at seven in the morning, questioning them before they were too smashed to remember what day it was.

I dosed my residual aches and pains with over-the-counter Tylenol and worked my way through the Nevada Bell directory. It took a long time, but I slowly eliminated most of the Hunts, Harknesses and Turkos in the state. I checked old city directories. I went to Carson City and combed the state archives, trying to find out whether Marcia Hunt had ever bought property in Nevada, registered a child into the school system, applied for social assistance, a driver’s licence, a fishing licence.

A job printer made me 1,000 cards with my phone number on them and the message:

marcia hunt, where are you?

reward offered for information.

And I managed to give most of the cards away.

Back at my hotel after every fruitless day I checked for messages. Ben Conklin did not call, nobody called. My greatest discovery was a joint where the barman had a 10-word vocabulary and the patrons were all serious drinkers. The place had a sawdust floor and no jukebox. It was a place where people could destroy themselves without interference from any earthly authority provided they paid cash and kept quiet about it. Some nights I went in for an hour or two, watching winos fall off their stools, crawl outside, throw up, then return to continue their slow suicide. These were people who had examined the game and didn’t like the rules. The ante had got too high, they’d folded their cards. Sometimes I thought they were onto something.

≈ ≈ ≈

Taff’s Keyboards was an old-fashioned music store located on a street near the railroad tracks. A faded, sun-cracked wooden sign over the shop door announced that pianos were for sale, trade or rent. I pushed the door and a bell chime jingled me inside. Racks of sheet music filled every space not occupied by instruments. There were pianos, organs, and electric keyboards. Somewhere out of sight, a piano was being tuned. A silver-plated bell push was screwed to the countertop. I hit the button with the palm of my hand and the tuning ceased. Thick red curtains swung apart and an elderly man shuffled in. He wore black patent-leather shoes, black pants with a silk stripe down the legs, and a white, collarless shirt. He had black sleeve protectors on, and dirty hands. “You’re too danged early,” he said. “I’m not finished and when I am I’ll let you know.”

I said, “I’m not who you think I am.”

The old man frowned. “You’re not from the movers?”

“No, I’m a cop.”

“Goldanged movers are always buggin’ me about something. They called this morning, supposed to pick up that Steinway in the back, but it isn’t ready.”

“I heard you tuning it.”

“A cop, eh? Well, you’re not going to buy a piano so what do you want?”

“I’m making inquiries about a missing woman. I hope you can help.”

“How much is this gonna cost me?”

“A few minutes of your time.”

“Good. Sumbitch came in here last week packing a gun. Asked for money, but he didn’t get none.” The shopkeeper cackled at the memory.

I said, “Twenty years ago, more or less, somebody called Marcia Hunt, also known as Harkness, might have come into this store and bought a piano.”

“Smart woman if she did. I’ve got the best deals in town, don’t let anybody tell you different.” He scratched his ear with a finger, then stared at his dirty hands. He said, “See that? Dust everywhere. Wait a minute.”

With that he turned on his heels and pushed his way through the red curtains. I heard water running. The shopkeeper returned, wiping his hands on a dirty towel. “I’m going to have a cup of coffee. Let the movers wait,” he said and busied himself with a jar of instant behind the counter. “Okay, mister,” he said. “Talk.”

The shopkeeper listened intently while I told my well-rehearsed tale, then he excused himself and went out back again, returning immediately with a kettle of boiling water. He poured the water into two mugs. “Here,” he said, “help yourself. There’s only decaf. I hope you’re not one of these coffee purists.”

“Thanks,” I said, looking at the murky green-grey concoction before me.

“That’s me,” he said complacently, lighting a cigarette. “Rather spend my time bullshittin’ and drinking coffee than taking care of business.” He inhaled deeply, then coughed until his face turned purple and veins protruded from his temples. When the coughing fit subsided he put the cigarette in an overflowing ashtray. Blue tobacco smoke spiralled upward and hung over his head like an inversion as he poked around in drawers. He said, “I’ve got records going back to 1943. Book for piano sales, other book for rentals and repairs. The sales book is kinda skimpy. Best times I had were in the ’50s. There was money around them days. Mothers still wanted their kids to learn real music. Sometimes I’d sell two pianos a month. Now mothers buy their kids dvd players and iPods. I’m lucky to sell six pianos a year. Kids that do take up music are into saxophones and guitars, but I won’t touch ’em.”

He put on a pair of glasses and browsed his records. After less than a minute he pointed a long nicotine-stained finger. “Here it is,” he said. “Marcia Hunt, 1379 Pitchpine Road. I sold her a Heintzman upright for $600 on August 6, 1985.” He laughed. “What do you know! We hit pay dirt or not?”

I chewed my lip. Marcia was no ghost. Twenty years ago she had been here, in this room. She had walked through the same door. To judge by the age of his stock, she might have gazed at the same pianos. I thanked him and said, “Did Marcia pay cash or use a credit card?”

“Cheque. I’ve got a copy of the invoice.” He handed it across for me to look at and asked, “What difference does it make whether she paid cash or not?”

“I think she only used her real name when she had no other option. It’s made her hard to trace.”

The invoice was as the dealer had said — Marcia had paid by cheque. There, in a neat signature written with a fountain pen, she had acknow-ledged that the piano had been delivered to her residence in good condition. This was the same hand and the same pen that had written a thank-you note to Dr. Cunliffe. The reason she continued to use the name Hunt, instead of Harkness, remained a mystery.

≈ ≈ ≈

Pitchpine Road was a rutted desert trail branching off Highway 395, 10 miles south of town. The road had been built to service a long-abandoned silver mine. What remained of an ancient prospector’s dream was a collection of vandalized corrugated-iron sheds and rusty narrow-gauge rail spurs. Beyond the mine, the road had been fenced in places where optimists had tried to develop hobby ranches. Side roads snaked off toward a range of humpbacked hills. Hovels with sagging porches and cracked windows baked in the heat. Scrawny chickens scratched among weeds. House dogs, snoozing in the shade, came to life and barked as I drove past in my Chevrolet.

Real-estate signs advertised lots for sale, but the signs were ancient. Some lay flat on the sun-baked earth, overgrown by cactus and creosote shrubs. I kept going past tumbledown barns and sun-drunk horses till a fingerpost marked 1379 pointed me toward yet another side trail.

This trail, washboarded and barely wide enough for a single vehicle, wound down an ancient water-carved draw between wind-eroded sandstone cliffs. Brown hawks rode on thermals high above. More hawks perched motionless on fence posts and utility poles. I bridged a rise and stopped the car. Stretched before me was a dun-coloured valley, locked in on every side by low hills. Beyond, shimmering in the heat haze, the Sierras rose beneath a blue cloudless sky.

According to Reno’s city directory, 1379 Pitchpine Road was rented to Mrs. Joan Alfred. A grove of trees surrounded a tall, wind-driven water pump. Nearby was a neat red-painted house and a large barn, enclosed by white picket fence. I got back in the Chev, drove on and parked near the barn.

The house was a square, box-like bungalow with a pyramid roof pierced by a brick chimney. It was surrounded by a wide, screened veranda. Three steps led up to the veranda. I climbed the steps, crossed the veranda and knocked on the door.

A painter’s easel with an unfinished canvas was set up in the veranda’s shade. Nobody answered the door so I looked at the canvas. It showed a wrinkled, grey-haired ranch hand holding a chestnut horse by its bridle. The horse was unfinished, as was some background detail. The work, expertly done, was signed “Allie.”

I knocked again, waited a minute and went back down the steps. Standing with my back to the house, I noticed somebody lying in a hammock suspended between two lemon trees near the water tank. I went across. The man depicted in the unfinished oil painting was asleep in the shade. He had on an open-necked cotton plaid shirt, blue jeans and cowboy boots. An empty glass and an empty bottle of Jack Daniels sat on a table within reach of his hand.

I cleared my throat noisily and said, “Sorry to disturb you, sir.”

The sleeper did not answer. Except for the slight movement of his chest when he inhaled, he might have been dead. He was either drunk or pretending to be. I left him to it.

Two German shepherds appeared along the valley, followed by a rider on horseback. When the dogs noticed my Chevrolet they began to bark and pelted toward it until a call from the rider brought them back. The rider was a black-haired woman mounted on a chestnut mare. I strolled across the yard and opened the gate for her. The woman raised a hand to shade her eyes, looking at me without expression as she rode through the gate and into the barn, followed by her dogs.

The woman permitted the chestnut a small drink from a water trough. She then removed her heavy western saddle and threw it across a trestle with practised ease. She glanced at me once or twice, with little apparent curiosity, as she tended her mount. The dogs, lying quietly with their bushy tails brushing the ground like twin brooms, watched her lead the chestnut into a stall.

She was tall. Skinny rather than slim and heavily tanned. Her cheeks and neck were as wrinkled as a dried apple. She had dark, deeply set eyes, black eyebrows, a large nose and a wide mouth. With her high cheekbones, firm chin and youthful carriage she must once have been a beauty, before the sun ruined things. I guessed she was about 50, but her face, neck and hands were 10 years older.

After forking some hay into a manger and watching the chestnut eat for a minute, she turned to me and said curtly, “Mister, I hope you’re not a pain-in-the-ass salesman, a government assessor or a lost prospector, because I want a cold shower and you are in the way of it.”

I turned on my best bogus charm. “I’m not lost. I probably hate salesmen as much as you do.”

She let out a breath and made a small, angry, impatient noise. “Who are you then, and what do you want?” Her diction, unlike the usual desert drawl, was clipped and precise.

“I’m a cop, my name is Silas Seaweed. I’d like to ask you a few questions, if I may.”

“You’re not local, I know that.”

“True.”

“I’m Joan Alfred,” she said, looking at me through half-closed lids. “You can wait for me on the veranda. Don’t set foot inside the house unless invited or I won’t answer for the dogs.”

Fifteen minutes later, Joan Alfred had on slacks, a green silk shirt and beaded Navajo moccasins. Her long black hair, still damp from the shower, showed a few grey strands. She had painted her mouth with dark red lipstick, and it was again obvious that before too much sun she had been very beautiful. She invited me into the living room. The two dogs followed us and flopped down by a brick fireplace. The room had a polished wooden floor and was furnished traditionally with leather chairs, heavy Mexican chests, Navajo rugs. She said something to the dogs, stood with her back to the fireplace and lit a cigarette.

“I’m from Victoria, B.C.,” I said. “I’m making inquiries about a woman named Marcia Harkness.”

Joan Alfred’s expression did not change. “How does that affect me?”

“Marcia was a pianist, a good one. In 1985 she bought a piano from a shop in Reno and had it delivered to this address.”

“I wouldn’t know, but so what? I’ve only lived here 15 years or so.”

“Does the name Marcia Harkness mean anything to you? Or Marcia Hunt?”

“No.”

I said, “Before you came, I was admiring a painting on the veranda. Is it your work?”

“No, my niece is working on it,” she said impatiently. “Allie’s away at art college right now.”

“It’s very good.”

Her nostrils flared. “Mr. Seaweed, are you here to talk about paintings, or what?”

I stood there looking at her, wondering how to play this. I said carefully, “The city directory lists you as the tenant here, ma’am. Would you mind telling me who your landlord is?”

She turned things over in her mind and shrugged. “I don’t know whether I should. Maybe the owner doesn’t want people to know.”

“No offence, Mrs. Alfred, but it probably wouldn’t hurt to tell me. The owner’s name will be registered in Carson City. It would save me a little trouble, that’s all.”

“Why should I save you a little trouble?” she said sharply.

Immediately, she relented. “I’m sorry,” she said, sounding as if she meant it. “That was stupid. I’ve had a long hot ride and perhaps my mood isn’t the best. Would you like some cold lemonade?”

“Thanks. I’d like that very much.”

She threw her half-smoked cigarette into the fireplace and went through a bead-curtained doorway. I crossed to the fireplace and took a closer look at the picture hanging above the mantelpiece. It wasn’t a painting, as I’d first imagined — it was a faded brass rubbing showing a round-faced king. The king wore a crown and was holding an orb and a sceptre.

The door to an adjacent room was open. An arrangement of photographs in silver frames stood atop an upright piano in a corner.

Joan Alfred returned with a jug of iced lemonade and two glasses and set them on a coffee table. She poured two glasses of lemonade, handed one to me and motioned me to a chair.

She sat opposite, smiled and said, “I’m sorry. This house is owned by a Mrs. Fantelli. Mrs. Agnes Fantelli. She lives in New York. The place has probably been in the Fantelli family’s hands for more than a century. They were the original owners of the Pitchpine silver mine.”

The old house creaked.

Joan Alfred smiled again and said, “This place comes alive twice a day. In the morning when the sun expands the wooden boards, and at night when they shrink.” She lit another cigarette.

I stood up. The dogs raised their heads. “Do you mind if I pet them? I like dogs.”

“It’s all right. They’re used to you now.”

I dropped slowly to my heels, showed them the back of one hand, then gently stroked their heads. They lay docile, unresponsive, watching me with big yellow eyes. I looked at the brass rubbing and said, “Are you English, Mrs. Alfred?”

She was sitting with her legs crossed. My abrupt question unsettled her. One moccasin came free from a heel. To give herself time to think she leaned forward and pulled the moccasin on again. She said, “Me, English? Why do you ask?”

“That rubbing reminds me of some that I’ve seen before. They were done in English churches.”

She stared at the rubbing, lips pursed. “My husband was English,” she said and got up. “It belonged to him. That’s supposed to be King Alfred. After Tommy had had a few drinks he used to boast that King Alfred was his ancestor.”

“And was he?”

“Not as far as I know. But then, I never met any of Tommy’s family.” She smiled and moved closer. “Tommy was a sailor. He jumped ship in Oakland. To me, Tommy seemed exotic, larger than life, but then, I was young. I didn’t know much about men. He was a lot more exciting than the boys I’d met in California. So I married him, like a sap.”

“Why were you a sap?”

She shrugged. “Tommy never loved me. I was his way to getting a green card.” She spoke self-deprecatingly. “But Tommy made me laugh. How he made me laugh.”

A strand of hair had fallen across her left eye. She brushed it away with the back of a hand.

“So. You married an Englishman. Doesn’t that make you English too?”

She shook her head. “I’m a Russian out of Oakland, California. My father’s family was from the Ukraine. Mother was Lithuanian.”

“That’s what I thought,” I said softly. Her smile faded. Before she could speak I added, “I want to show you something, Mrs. Alfred.” She followed me into the next room and we looked at the upright piano together. I said, “That’s Marcia Harkness’s Heintzman. The one she bought in Reno.”

“Heintzman, that’s a pretty common name for a piano, isn’t it?” she said, avoiding my eyes.

I said, “You told me you were Russian. I think that your name before you married Tommy Alfred was Turko. Your brother was Frank Turko. Frank changed his name to Harkness when he went to Canada.”

But I’d overplayed my hand. She strode to the front door, flung it open and pointed outside. “Clear off. Get the hell out before I set the dogs on you!”

The dogs were growling and their hackles had risen.

I was tired. The trail to Pitchpine Road had been long. I said impati-ently, “Mrs. Alfred, neither you nor Marcia has anything to fear from me.”

“You’ve got that right, mister,” she said caustically. “Especially Marcia. You can find her at 2500 Stateline Road. She won’t mind if you look her up, believe me.”

“’Cept for one thing,” a voice said. That ranch hand was standing on the veranda, holding a shotgun. He wagged the shotgun at me and said, “Listen up good, mister. You and me are going across to the trees together. You first. Put your hands in the air and keep them there. Try anything foolish and I’ll blow you away. Now move.”