“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 past midnight. I had been in the hospital so long that I was beginning to feel like a patient. I left by a route different from the one I had come in by. I didn’t want to see Captain Mackendrick or Purvis or Paola or either of the dead men again.

I had noticed the La Paloma sign from the freeway and had some idea of where the convalescent home was. Driving toward it from the hospital, I passed a dark row of doctors’ offices, a nurses’ residence and several blocks of lower-middle-class houses, all one-storied and built before the war. Between the houses and the freeway was a narrow park studded with oak trees. In their shelter a few late lovers were parked with fog on their windshields.

The one-storied stucco complex of the La Paloma was almost as close to the freeway as a filling station. Once I had stepped inside and closed the heavy front door, the noises of late-night traffic dwindled to a far-off irregular sound like that of distant surf. I could hear the more immediate sounds of the place, snores and sighs and vague indecipherable demands.

A nurse’s muted footsteps came up behind me. She was young and black and pretty.

“It’s too late for visiting,” she said. “We’re all closed down for the night.”

“I want to see a member of the staff—Mrs. Johnson?”

“I’ll see if I can find her. She’s getting very sought after. You’re the second visitor she’s had tonight.”

“Who was the other one?”

She paused, then said, “Would you be Mr. Johnson?”

“No. I’m just a friend.”

“Well, the other one was her son—dude with a red mustache. He stirred up quite a hassle before I got him out of here.” She gave me a hard but not unfriendly look. “I hope you’re not planning to stir up another hassle.”

“Nothing could be further from my thoughts. I want to stir one down.”

“All right, I’ll get her. But keep it quiet, eh? People are sleeping.”

“Sure. What was the hassle about?”

“Money. Isn’t it always?”

“Not always,” I said. “Sometimes it’s love.”

“That comes into it, too. He had a blonde in the car.”

“Not all of us are so lucky.”

She hardened her look a little in order to deflect a pass, if that was what I had offered her. “I’ll get Sarah.”

Mrs. Johnson came unwillingly. She had been crying, and her eyes were swollen.

“What do you want?” She made it sound as if she had very little left to give.

“I’d like to talk to you for a couple of minutes.”

“I’m behind in my work already. Are you trying to get me fired?”

“No. I do happen to be a private detective, though.”

Her gaze veered around the dark little anteroom and rested on the outside door. Her thick body tensed as if she were getting ready to run out onto the highway.

I stepped between her and the door. “Is there someplace we can sit down in private for a few minutes?”

“I guess so. But if I lose my job it’s on your head.”

She led me into a visiting room that was crowded with mismatched furniture, and turned on a dim standing lamp. We sat down facing each other under the lamp, our knees almost touching. As though the touch of mine might contaminate hers, she pulled down her white nylon skirt.

“What do you want with me? And don’t give me any more guff about being a newspaperman. I thought you were a policeman from the beginning.”

“I want your son, Fred.”

“So do I.” She lifted her heavy shoulders and dropped them. “I’m getting worried about Fred. I haven’t heard from him all day.”

“He was here tonight. What was he after?”

She was silent for a moment, but not inactive. Her face worked as if she were swallowing her lie and possibly planning another.

“He needed money. That’s nothing new. And it’s no crime to ask your own mother for money. This isn’t the first time that I’ve helped him out. He always pays me back as soon as he can.”

I cut through her smoke screen of words. “Come off it, Mrs. Johnson. Fred’s in trouble. A stolen picture is bad enough. A stolen girl compounds the felony.”

“He didn’t steal the girl. That’s a lie, a sniveling lie. She went along with him of her own free will. In fact, it was probably her idea in the first place—she’s been after Fred for some time. And if that little spade said something different, she’s lying.” The woman shook her fist at the door where the black nurse had disappeared.

“What about the picture, Mrs. Johnson?”

“What picture?”

“The painting that Fred stole from the Biemeyers’ house.”

“He didn’t steal it. He simply borrowed it to make some tests on it. He took it down to the art museum, and it was stolen from there.”

“Fred told me it was taken from your house.”

She shook her head. “You must have misunderstood him. It was taken from the basement of the art museum. They’re responsible.”

“Is that the story you and Fred have agreed on?”

“It’s the truth, so naturally we agree on it. Fred is as honest as the day is long. If you can’t see that, it’s because your own mind is twisted. You’ve had too much to do with dishonest people.”

“That’s true enough,” I said. “I think you’re one of them.”

“I don’t have to sit here and listen to your insults.”

She tried to evoke her own anger but somehow it wouldn’t come. The day had been too much for her, and the night hung over her like a slowly gathering wave. She looked down into her cupped and empty hands, then put her face into them. She didn’t sob or cry or say a word. But her silence in the midst of the muffled freeway noises sounded like desolation itself.

After a time she sat up and looked at me quite calmly. “It’s time I got back to work.”

“Nobody’s watching you.”

“Maybe not, but they’ll blame me if things are in a mess in the morning. There are only the two of us on in this crummy place.”

“I thought you worked at the hospital.”

“I used to. I had a misunderstanding with one of the supervisors there.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“It wasn’t important.”

“Then tell me about it, Mrs. Johnson.”