Free The Blue Hammer by Ross MacDonald Page B

said.
    “I understand your father had a photograph of the painting.”
    “That’s right. The coroner has it.”
    “Henry Purvis?”
    “Is that his name? Anyway, he has it.”
    “How do you know?”
    “He showed it to me. He said he found it in my father’s clothes, and he wanted to know if I recognized the woman. I told him I didn’t.”
    “You recognized the painting?”
    “Yes.”
    “It was the painting your father sold to the Biemeyers?”
    “Yes, it was.”
    “How much did they pay him for it?”
    “My father never told me. I think he needed the money to pay off a debt, and he didn’t want me to know. I can tell you something that he did say, though. He knew the woman in the painting, and that was how he authenticated it as a Chantry.”
    “It is an authentic Chantry, then?”
    “Yes. My father said it was.”
    “Did he tell you the woman’s name?”
    “It was Mildred. She was a model in Tucson when he was young—a beautiful woman. He said it must be a memory painting, because she’s an old woman now, if she’s alive at all.”
    “Do you remember her last name?”
    “No. I think she took the names of the men she lived with.”
    I left Paola in the chapel and went back to the cold room. Purvis was in the anteroom, but he no longer had the photograph of the painting. He told me that he had given it to Betty Jo Siddon.
    “What for?”
    “She wanted to take it down to the newspaper building and have it photographed.”
    “Mackendrick will like that, Henry.”
    “Hell, it was Mackendrick who told me to let her have it. The chief of police is retiring this year, and it’s made Captain Mackendrick publicity-conscious.”
    I started out of the hospital. A sense of unfinished business brought me to a full stop before I left the building. When Paul Grimes fell and died in my path, I had been on my way to talk to Fred’s mother, Mrs. Johnson.

chapter 12
    I went to the nurses’ station at the front and asked where I could find Mrs. Johnson. The nurse in charge was a middle-aged woman with a sallow bony face and an impatient manner.
    “We have several Mrs. Johnsons working in the hospital. Is her Christian name Sarah?”
    “Yes. Her husband’s name is Jerry or Gerard.”
    “Why didn’t you say so in the first place? I’m afraid Mrs. Gerard Johnson is no longer employed in this hospital.” She spoke with deliberate formal emphasis, like a court official pronouncing sentence on Mrs. Johnson.
    “She told me that she worked here.”
    “Then she lied to you.” The woman overheard the harshness of her words, and softened them: “Or it’s possible you misunderstood her. She is presently employed at a convalescent home down by the highway.”
    “Do you know the name of it?”
    “It’s called the La Paloma,” she said with distaste.
    “Thank you. Why was she fired here?”
    “I didn’t say she was fired. She was allowed to leave. But I’m not authorized to discuss it.” At the same time, she seemed unwilling to let me go. “Are you from the police?”
    “I’m a private detective cooperating with the police.”
    I got out my wallet and showed her my license photostat.
    She smiled into it as though it were a mirror. “She’s in trouble again, is she?”
    “I hope not.”
    “Stealing drugs again?”
    “Let’s just say I’m investigating Mrs. Johnson. How long ago did she leave her employment here?”
    “It happened last week. The administration let her go without a black mark on her record. But they gave her no choice about leaving. It was an open-and-shut case. She had some of the pills in her pocket—and I was there when they searched her. You should have heard the language she used to the superintendent.”
    “What language did she use?”
    “Oh, I couldn’t repeat it.”
    Her wan face flamed red, as if I had made an indecent proposal to her. She looked at me with sudden dislike, perhaps embarrassed by her own excitement. Then she turned on her heel and walked away.
    It was