Nightshades (Nameless Detective) by Bill Pronzini Page A

nothing for us to do but leave. We went out onto the platform deck, and Kerry thanked him for talking to us, and he said gruffly, “Not at all,” and banged the door shut behind us.
    On the way down the stairs she said, “Why do you always have to be so damned blunt?”
    “He was getting on my nerves.”
    “We could have found out more if you’d been a little more tactful.”
    “We? ‘Bill and Kerry Wade, from San Francisco.’ Christ!”
    “It got him to talk to us, didn’t it?”
    “All right, so it got him to talk to us.”
    “Which is more than you accomplished with your direct approach to Mrs. Bloom,” she said. “You probably blurted out that you’re a detective to Gary Coleclaw and that artist, Robideaux, too. No wonder they wouldn’t tell you anything.”
    “Listen, don’t tell me how to do my job.”
    “I’m not. I’m only suggesting—”
    “Don’t suggest. I didn’t bring you along to do any suggesting.”
    “No, I know why you brought me along. Women are only good for one thing, right?”
    “Oh for God’s sake, I didn’t mean—”
    “You can be a macho jerk sometimes, you know that? You think you know everything.”
    She got into the car and sat there with her arms folded, staring straight ahead. I wanted to say something else to her, but I didn’t seem to have any words. The thing was, she was right. I had handled things badly with Penrose, and with Gary Coleclaw and Robideaux and Mrs. Bloom. And with Kerry, too. It was just one of those days when you can’t seem to get the proper handle on how to deal with anybody. But it galled me to have to admit it, and I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Which was silly and petulant, but it was also a pride thing, however much of a macho jerk it made me. Kerry wasn’t the detective here, damn it; I was.
    A half-mile farther along there was another homesteader’s cabin, this one owned by a family named Butterfield, but I was in no frame of mind for another Musket Creek interview. I drove back into the valley. When we came to the Coleclaw place I looked it over for some indication that Jack Coleclaw and his wife had returned from Weaverville. There wasn’t any—no automobiles, no people, not even any sign of the fat yapping brown-and-white dog. So there was no point in stopping there either.
    I kept on driving up the road and out of Ragged-Ass Gulch.

CHAPTER NINE
    There was a message waiting for me at the Sportsman’s Rest. And it surprised me a little when I saw who it was from: Mrs. Helen O‘Daniel. She had called about ten o’clock, left a telephone number and an address, and asked that I either get in touch with her by phone or drop by any time this afternoon. She hadn’t said what it was she wanted. Or, for that matter, how she’d known where I was staying, although she’d probably got that information from her husband or from Shirley Irwin.
    I ruminated for about ten seconds and decided to go see her in person. I wanted a look at the lady, for one thing; and I wanted to find out if there was anything to Penny Belson’s intimations of an affair between her and Munroe Randall. You can’t bring up delicate matters like that on the telephone, or even do any subtle probing. Telephones are blunt instruments in more ways than one, especially among strangers.
    The address she’d given me was a number on Sky Vista Road; that was a ritzy section up in the hills west of town, the motel clerk told me. I got directions from her and then returned to the room to tell Kerry where I was going. She said, “I hope you don’t make an ass of yourself with her too.” I sighed and went out and got into the car and drove away feeling grumpy.
    It took me half an hour to find Sky Vista Road and the O’Daniel house. It was one of these split-level jobs built into the side of a hill, made out of redwood-and-brick with waves of ivy clinging to it. There was a covered platform deck that served as a garage, and parked on it was a lemon-colored Porsche