Free The Blue Hammer by Ross MacDonald Page A

it?”
    “I’m not telling you. And I don’t want to talk about that picture any more. You’re still asking all the questions, and I’m doing all the answering, and I’m tired. I want to go home.”
    “Let me take you.”
    “No. You don’t know where I live, and I’m not telling you, either. That’s my secret.”
    She got up from her knees, staggering a little. I supported her with my arm. Her breast touched my side. She leaned on me, breathing deeply for a moment, then pulled away. Some of her heat migrated through my body to my groin. I felt less tired than I had.
    “I’ll take you home.”
    “No, thanks. I have to wait here for the police. Anyway, all I need right now is a private cop in my life.”
    “You could do worse, Paola. Your father was murdered, remember, possibly by the man who painted that picture.”
    She took hold of my left arm above the elbow. “So you keep telling me, but do you know it?”
    “No. I don’t know it.”
    “Then stop trying to scare me. I’m scared enough already.”
    “I think you should be. I got to your father before he died. It happened just a couple of hundred yards from here. It was dark, and he was badly hurt, and he thought I was Chantry. In fact, he called me Chantry. And what he said implied that Chantry killed him.”
    Her eyes dilated. “Why would Richard Chantry kill my father? They were good friends in Arizona. My father often talked about him. He was Chantry’s first teacher.”
    “That must have been a long time ago.”
    “Yes. Over thirty years.”
    “And people can change in thirty years.”
    She nodded in assent, and her head stayed down. Her hair swung forward so that it poured like black water over her face.
    “What happened to your father in those years?”
    “I don’t know much about it. I didn’t see a lot of my father until recently—until he had a use for me.”
    “Was he on heroin?”
    She was silent for a time. Her hair was still over her face, and she didn’t push it back. She looked like a woman without a face.
    Finally she said, “You know the answer to that question, or you wouldn’t ask it. He used to be an addict. They sent him to federal prison, and he licked it there, cold turkey.” She separated her hair with her hands and looked at me between it, probably to see if I believed her. “I wouldn’t have come here with him if he had been on drugs. I saw what it did to him when I was a kid in Tucson and Copper City.”
    “What did it do to him?”
    “He used to be a good man, an important man. He even taught a course at the university once. Then he turned into something else.”
    “What did he turn into?”
    “I don’t know. He started running after boys. Or maybe he was always like that. I don’t know.”
    “Did he kick that habit, too, Paola?”
    “I guess he did.” But her voice was uncertain, full of pain and doubt.
    “Was the Biemeyers’ painting genuine?”
    “I don’t know. He thought it was, and he was the expert.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “He talked to me about it the day he bought it on the beach. He said it had to be a Chantry, nobody else could have painted it. He said it was the greatest find he ever made in his life.”
    “Did he say this to you?”
    “Yes. Why would he lie to me? He had no reason.” But she was watching my face as if my reaction might resolve the question of her father’s honesty.
    She was frightened, and I was tired. I sat down on one of the padded chairs and let my mind fray out for a couple of minutes. Paola went to the door but she didn’t go out. She leaned on the doorframe, watching me as if I might steal her purse, or already had.
    “I’m not your enemy,” I said.
    “Then don’t press me so hard. I’ve had a rough night.” She averted her face, as if she were ashamed of what she was about to say. “I liked my father. When I saw him dead, it was a terrible thing for me.”
    “I’m sorry, Paola. I hope tomorrow will be better.”
    “I hope so,” she