“Did you recognize any of them?” Ford asked.
After a moment’s hesitation Lum Wing shook his head.
“Did you hear what they were saying?”
“They talked too fast. Also I didn’t listen.”
“Do you understand Spanish, Mr. Wing?”
“Four, five words.”
“I gather that you didn’t overhear any of those four or five words spoken on that occasion?”
“I’m an old man. I mind my own business. I don’t listen, I don’t hear, I don’t get in trouble.”
“There was a great deal of trouble that night, Mr. Wing. You must have heard some of it whether you listened or not. You appear to have normal hearing for a man your age.”
“I fix it so it’s not so normal.” He showed the court how he made earplugs out of little pieces of paper. “Beside the plugs, there was the wine. It made me sleepy. Also I was tired. I work hard, up before five every morning, doing this, doing that.”
“All right, Mr. Wing, I believe you... You’ve been employed at the Osborne ranch quite a few times, haven’t you?”
“Six, seven.”
“Did Robert Osborne speak Spanish?”
“Not to me.” Lum Wing stared blandly up at the ceiling.
“Well, did you ever hear him speak to the men in Spanish?”
“Maybe two, three times.”
“And maybe oftener? A lot oftener?”
“Maybe.”
“It would, in fact, have been quite possible for you to recognize Mr. Osborne’s voice even if he was talking in a foreign language?”
“I wouldn’t like to say that. I don’t want to make trouble.”
“The trouble is made, Mr. Wing.”
“It could be worse.”
“Not for Robert Osborne.”
“There were others,” the old man said, blinking. “Other people. Mr. Osborne wasn’t talking to himself. Why would he talk to himself in Spanish?”
“Then you did recognize Mr. Osborne’s voice that night?”
“Maybe. I’m not swearing to it.”
“Mr. Wing, we have reason to believe that a fight which ended in a murder took place in the same room in which you claim to have been sleeping. Do you realize that?”
“I didn’t commit a murder, I didn’t commit a fight. I was sleeping innocent as a baby with my earplugs in until Mr. Estivar woke me up by shaking my arm and shining a flashlight in my face. I said what happened? And he said what happened, Mr. Osborne is missing and there’s blood all over the floor and the cops are on their way.”
“What did you do then, Mr. Wing?”
“Put on my pants.”
“You got dressed.”
“Same thing.”
“I take it that your earplugs had been removed by this time.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you could hear perfectly well?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What did you hear, Mr. Wing?”
“Nothing. I thought funny thing how quiet, where is everybody, and I look out my window. I see lights on all over the ranch, the main house, Estivar’s place, the garage where they keep the heavy machinery, the bunkhouse, even in some of the tamarisk trees around the reservoir. I think again what’s the matter, all those lights and no noise. Then I see the big truck is gone, the one the men came in, and the bunkhouse is empty.”
“What time was that, Mr. Wing?”
“I don’t know.”
“You mentioned previously that you had a pocket watch.”
“I never thought to look at it. I was scared, I wanted to get out of that place.”
“And did you?”
“I opened my door — there are two doors to the building, the front one the men use and the back one that’s mine. I stepped outside. Estivar’s oldest son, Cruz, was standing between me and the bunkhouse with a rifle over his shoulder.”
“Did you speak to him?”
“He spoke to me. He told me to go back inside and stay there, because the police were on their way and when they asked me if I touched anything I better be able to say no. So I sat on the edge of my cot, then in five, ten minutes the police arrived.”
There was a sudden audible stirring throughout the courtroom, as if the arrival of the police marked the end of a period of tension and gave people freedom to move. They coughed, changed position, whispered to their neighbors, sighed, stretched, yawned.
Ford waited for the sounds to subside. Without actually turning to face the audience he could see that the place where Agnes Osborne had sat during the morning was still empty. His uneasiness over her absence was tinged with guilt. He had probably talked to her too harshly. Women like Mrs. Osborne, who were blunt themselves and seemed to invite bluntness from others, were often the least able to tolerate it.
Ford said, “What happened after the police arrived, Mr. Wing?”
“Plenty, plenty of noise, cars moving around, doors banging, people talking and shouting. Pretty soon one of the deputies came to me and started asking questions like what you asked, did I see anything, did I hear anything. But mostly he wanted to know about my knives.”
“Knives, Mr. Wing?”
“I carry my own knives to cook with — cleaver, choppers, parers, slicers, carver. I keep them clean and sharp, locked up in a case and the key in my money belt. I opened the case and showed him they were all there, nothing stolen.”
“Did you ever hear of a butterfly knife?”
Lum Wing’s impassive face looked as surprised as possible. “A knife to cut butterflies?”
“No. It’s one that resembles a butterfly when the blade is open.”
“I leave such silly things to the Mexicans. Around here they all carry knives, the fancier the better, like jewelry.”
“When the deputy questioned you that night, you were not able to give him any more information than you have given the court this afternoon?”
“No, no more.”
“Thank you, Mr. Wing. You may return to your seat... Will Jaime Estivar come to the stand, please?”
As they met in the aisle the old man and the young one exchanged glances of puzzlement and resignation: it was a middle-aged world, which Lum Wing had passed and Jaime hadn’t yet reached and neither of them cared about or understood.
Chapter Nine
“For the record,” Ford said, “would you state your name, please?”
“My church name or my school name?”
“Is there a difference?”
“Yes, sir. I was christened with five names, but at school I just use Jaime Estivar because otherwise I’d take up too much room on report cards and attendance sheets, things like that.” He had sworn to tell the truth, but the very first thing he uttered was a lie. What’s more, it tripped off his tongue without a moment’s hesitation. The boys he admired at school were called Chris, Pete, Tim, or sometimes Smith, McGregor, Foster, Jones; he couldn’t afford to have them find out he was really Jaime Ricardo Salvador Luis Hermano Estivar.
“Your school name will be sufficient,” Ford said.
“Jaime Estivar.”
“How old are you, Jaime?”