“What brought you here?”
“I was going to help myself to a couple of avocados. Not pick any, you understand, just gather up some windfalls. Also I like to get out in the country once in a while and this is as close to country as you can get without a car or bike. So I came here.”
“And after gathering up a few windfalls you left the property?”
“I intended to. Then through the trees I saw that cute little house and I thought maybe a midget lived there. I used to know a midget when I was traveling with a carnival. He called himself Paul Bunyan, Junior. Cranky little bastard, always bitching that the world was too big for him. I used to cool him down with doses of philosophy. Listen man, I’d tell him, the world is too big for any of us. He liked that kind of talk. He was a deep thinker.”
“Did you enter the small house?”
“No. The fat lady showed up with two ferocious-looking dogs. I wasn’t scared of the dogs because they were both wagging their tails. But the old girl meant business. Women have a violent streak in them.”
“Are you married, Mr. Walsh?”
Walsh thought about it. “What did I tell the police?”
“Let’s hear what you have to say now.”
“Not much of anything, actually. I’m not sure if I’m married or not. My last wife took off for Mexico with some guy she met at a bingo game. Maybe she got a divorce, maybe not.”
“After you were chased off this property, did you return?”
“I think I told the police I never came to the premises again. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t come near the premises again.”
“Did you?”
“Sure. I must have walked along the creek half a dozen times, cooling my feet and thinking. All kinds of people go there. Flowing water has a fascination for nearly everyone. Maybe it’s because, as Heraclitus wrote, all things are in a state of flux.”
“Are you still in the habit of walking along the creek?”
“No. Sitting here in this room, this is the closest I’ve come in a long time.”
“Why?”
“The little girl disappeared. After that everything changed. It wasn’t good clean country anymore. The water looked dirty and I felt like there was a cop behind every tree.”
“Did you ever talk to my daughter, Annamay?”
“I talked to a little blond girl. I didn’t know her name until I saw her picture in the paper after she disappeared. She was a nice friendly little girl, full of questions. All kids are curious about my tambourine. I told her I bang on it to attract attention. It’s part of my professional equipment. You can’t make prophecies without an audience and that’s my way of gathering an audience. Prophesying is my business, though the cops may call it panhandling or even extortion. It’s certainly not extortion. If I’m standing in front of a shop making prophecies and the shop owner pays me to move along, that’s not extortion. It’s common sense on his part and a way of staying off the welfare rolls on mine. Or maybe I follow a couple of tourists down the street announcing the world will self-destruct tomorrow or something else they don’t want to hear because they still have a week’s vacation left. They may slip me a little change to go away. Now I don’t claim this is a high-class way of making a living but it’s just as honest as some, not excluding yours, Mr. Hyatt. Financial predictions often have no more basis than my prophecies. As for you, sir” — he pointed a finger at Michael. The tip of it was missing, as though it had been chopped off by some unhappy recipient of his prophecies — “you and your kind carry on about heaven and hell and then take up a collection. You know why people put money on a collection plate? Fear. The same reason why the shop owner and the tourist pay me. But nobody calls your racket extortion.”
“You might be surprised,” Michael said wryly.
“Some do, eh?”
“Some do.”
“So we are all three of us, relatively speaking, in the same boat. Mr. Hyatt occupies the best seat. But if the boat springs a leak he’s going to get just as wet as the rest of us.”
“Is that one of your prophecies, Mr. Walsh?”
“No, sir. It’s the simple truth.”
“As you pointed out a few minutes ago, truth is relative.”
“There are a few basic facts we must all confront.”
“All right, let’s see you confront one,” Howard said. “In the early afternoon on the day my daughter disappeared, you were observed by one of the homeowners in the area as you walked along the north side of the creek. Mr. Cunningham was on the edge of his property looking for his cat.”
“Maybe he was looking for his cat, maybe he was looking for one of his chickens who’d flown the coop. And I don’t mean the kind with feathers. Anyway, he was shouting the name Randy. Not loud, kind of coaxing-like. As soon as he spotted me he went back up the hill toward his house.”
“And what did you do, Mr. Walsh?”
“I sat on the bank and watched the water flowing past me. It’s better than watching the waves break on shore because there you get the impression it’s always the same water, over and over, day after day. But water flowing down a river or a creek is always different. Every drop that passes you is different. I bet Heraclitus sat on a lot of riverbanks.”
“How long were you there?”
“I can’t recall exactly but it wasn’t long because suddenly it got very still and quiet. Then it started up, the desert wind like a blast from some hell on the other side of the mountain. You never can tell about those devil winds. Sometimes they stop pretty quick, sometimes they keep blowing for hours. I waited around for a while, then I could feel my throat drying up and my sinuses clogging, so I wet my handkerchief and wrapped it around my face and got out of there. I went back to my hotel room and closed the windows and blinds and watched the soaps. You can’t fight a devil wind. It’ll blow the skin right off you if you give it a chance.”
“Were you wearing your so-called professional costume at the time?”
“Yes. That’s how the cops found me so easy after Cunningham told them about seeing me. Not many men in town wear a white robe and carry a tambourine. In the long run though, it proved to my advantage. If I was planning any mischief would I have worn something that could identify me like that? The newspapers made out that it was real detective work on the part of the cops to find me so fast. I don’t mind giving credit where credit is due, but the fact is, a one-eyed drunken imbecile could have found me. And maybe one did.” Walsh’s moustache moved up and down at the corners in what appeared to be a smile.
“You don’t get along with the police, Mr. Walsh?”
“Sure I do. I get along with everybody. It’s just that I resent them treating me like a lunatic when I’m actually a legitimate businessman like yourself. My way of making a living may be somewhat eccentric but then look at you, playing around with paper money. And him” — Walsh pointed his mutilated finger at Michael again — “Look at you rattling the cages of people’s souls. If one among us must be considered a lunatic, then I would be the obvious choice. But would I be the real one? Think about it.”
There was a silence while everybody presumably thought about it. But Walsh didn’t like silences, especially his own. He said, “That stuff the little fat lady brought over is beginning to smell better and better. Would it be presumptuous of me to ask for a small helping?”
“I’m going to call a taxi to take you home,” Howard said. “You’ll have time to eat while you’re waiting for it.”
“I can’t be seen arriving back at my hotel in a taxi. Most people there think I own my own car. I let them think so. It gives me a little more clout.”
“You can tell the driver to let you off a block away.”