on the shiny table and thought it over. “I really don’t know. There doesn’t seem to be any place to start.”
“Who invites you, George or Sandy?”
“Sandy of course.”
“Well, does she know the other people or are they friends of his? I mean did she know them before they came up there?”
Kate’s eyes widened and for several seconds she stared at me. When she answered her voice was tense and I could see the glow of excitement rising in her face.
“I can’t be sure about Sandy, but I haven’t known a single one of them before George and Sandy moved up here. And for several years before she married we ran together quite a bit. They shouldn’t all be strangers to me, should they?”
I brought over the salt shaker and put it beside the sugar. “Another small point,” I grinned. “Maybe we’re going to get a yard or two here. How long have they had this desert hideaway?”
“Almost two years.”
“How often do you park your suitcase in their guest room?”
“Actually,” she laughed, “Sandy and I don’t stand on formal invitations. I drive up whenever I feel in the mood, maybe every six weeks or so, but not on a pre-arranged schedule. They have plenty of guest space and I just phone and say I’ll be there.”
“And you sometimes find a friend to bring?”
“No. This is the first time—but Sandy was more than glad to have me invite someone.”
I reached for the napkin holder. “Then there is this business about Sandy Engle not leaving the old homestead. What about that, Kate?”
“That’s the thing that really worries me, Marty. As I said, Sandy and I have been one-two for a lot of years. We traded school girl secrets in junior high and compared notes on dates when we were in Beverly Hills High School and all the rest. Same sorority at USC and I was the maid of honor when she and George went down the aisle three years ago and if there’s anyone in California that I know especially well it’s Sandy Engle. She’s a girl who likes to get around and always has. Yet in the two years that she and George have had their estate up in the canyon, she hasn’t left the grounds once. Not once—and I’ve got to know why.”
“You mean that literally. She’s never been outside the fence—if there is a fence, that is.”
“There’s a fence, and it isn’t locked but it might as well be as far as Sandy is concerned,” Kate said grimly.
I set the napkin holder down. “That’s good enough for point three until a better one comes along.” I grinned. “Who shops for the necessities like beer and mink coats and an occasional loaf of bread?”
Kate ground out her cigarette and searched my face with a puzzled eye. “You’re joking of course.” She smiled thinly. “Sandy has the mink all right, and the things that go with it, all except one. A mink coat isn’t of much use unless people see it and to see Sandy’s fur you have to drive up to the desert.”
“Does she hint that she’d like to break out? What does she offer as a reason for her exile?”
“Now that I think of it, she doesn’t let the subject come out in the open. She never talks about it or anything, just sits on the nest. Whenever I invite her to my place in Hollywood she makes some hasty excuse and turns to a different subject.” Kate looked down and her fingers twisted together nervously. They stopped and she looked up. “This may sound silly—but her eyes haven’t gotten the word, Marty. She wants to get away. I’m sure of it. Sure enough to have looked up the Gregory Agency in the yellow pages of the phone book. She couldn’t have changed, Marty. Not Sandy. Not that much. She’s—she’s somehow a prisoner, and yet—”
Across the counter the old fellow had finished dividing the pastry and was sliding the pieces into a mirrored display case. I caught his eye long enough to order a couple of more cups of coffee and went back to the chore at hand.
“You wouldn’t have gone this far without having come to a conclusion of some kind,” I said easily. “Coming to Gregory is costing you money. What have you decided?” She glanced up, then gave me a meaningful look and toyed with the spoon until our coffee refills spilled into the cups. When we were alone again she bit her lip and looked away.
“Some way George is keeping Sandy there. I mean I think he is and—”
“How could he?” I asked quickly.
“I don’t quite know. Still—if he isn’t, somebody is.”
It wasn’t much, and I said, “There’s a constitutional amendment against that sort of thing. If she’s being held against her will we’ll get her out.”
The blonde flashed me a dim smile that said she wasn’t completely sold. I wasn’t, either. I let the conversation wither while we went through the second cup of coffee, then dropped a half buck on the table and ushered her out to her expensive collection of chrome and gray leather. One thing for sure, if this was a gag someone had gone to a lot of trouble building it.
We eased out onto the highway and rolled north, the big car logging the miles pleasantly and silently. I went over the facts again and tried to get a foothold—not only on what she’d told me, but the small aura of involuntary information that clung to her and the rest of the setup. The one common denominator was money. Where there’s a lot of it, there’re usually people eager to get their hands on it. In this case that could get to include me.
And what about Sandy’s staying so close to the family circle? I thought about that and a different light fell across it, dim and obscure, yet perhaps touching on possibilities. If she didn’t leave, she wouldn’t be any place else—maybe she had a reason for staying at the ranch against her will. In short, Sandy Engle could be hiding up in these hills—I tossed a sidelong look at the blonde, wondering if the same thought had occurred to her.
The sun was beginning to make itself felt. I touched a button and rolled the rear windows down into their wells. It didn’t help. Then the blonde put a finger on the buttons on her side and rolled all of the windows back up. Tight. Then another button and somewhere a soft motor hummed to life and settled back down to near silence as it attained speed. The car began to cool. I blew a slow breath through rounded lips and shook my head.
“Let’s talk about money, Kate,” I said. “We peasants choose a new car now and then, something out of what is laughingly called the low price range but they’re still listed in the consumers’ guides. Also listed there, just to give us something to work for, are the class wagons and I seem to remember that the air-conditioning unit you just turned on is listed as an extra, available at something over six hundred bucks a copy. Now if you and the Engle woman were so buddy-buddy for humpteen years, she must have had a bit of scratch too. Tell me, how was she fixed before she married G.E. and what about him?”
She gave me a cool look and I guessed she was trying to decide whether or not I was being personal so I raised a business-like eyebrow and waited. “Sandy didn’t have a tremendous amount of money but I’m sure she didn’t have to count the pennies.”
“And George?”
“He has a business in L.A. Insurance. The subject hasn’t come up, of course, but I gather that he does rather well.”
“Wait
