He'd brought a brown manila envelope in with him. Smiling like a waitress looking for tips, Murphy directed the mug toward the hand that held the envelope in an effort to help Adkins make the decision.
"You were at the horse show," Adkins said as he let go of his belt for the cup without noticeable disaster. "You saw the shooting?"
Setting down his own mug on the overcarved and underused Colonial kitchen table that never held more than old bills and new catalogues, Murphy nodded. "In living color."
He took a second to shrug out of his old Marine Corps sweatshirt and toss it toward the bedroom before pulling out one of the chairs and dropping down. His T-shirt was soaked, and he smelled like a wet horse. But if the good Officer Adkins wanted to talk to him, that was what he got.
"I'm looking into the incident," Adkins said, not moving.
Murphy pulled over a half-finished pack of cigarettes and shook one out. "About time somebody did."
Lighting his first of the day, he sucked in enough tar and nicotine to clear all the clean air out his lungs and waited for the cop to make his move.
Murphy had asked a couple of questions around town the day before, the "Why would somebody try and shoot Dr. Raymond?" variety, just for the article he'd prepared on the benefit. The reaction he'd gotten had been polite bemusement. Nobody knew. Certainly nobody would hurt Alex Raymond. Nobody would jeopardize the hospital, which was the county's biggest employer, the area's civic pride, the drum major in the town's parade of progress.
But, oddly enough, no one had shown outrage. Not even the fat, garrulous old fart named Bub something who was the town's chief detective. The only person even slightly distressed by Murphy's questions had been the little lady at Vital Statistics. Murphy had stopped by to check the figures on local death rates. The poor little woman manning the desk had reacted as if Murphy had asked the name of every underage virgin in town.
And now Officer Adkins was here to threaten him. Murphy sucked at his nicotine and sipped at his coffee and waited. As for Adkins, he finally gave in and settled into the other chair with more noise than a cavalry horse stopping from a dead run.
"You guys find anything out about it?" Murphy asked.
"The investigation is proceeding."
Well, that line hadn't changed since Jack Webb. It still meant they hadn't learned anything. After yesterday, Murphy wasn't surprised.
"I wanted to see if you might have remembered anything else about the shooting," Adkins said, pulling out a suspiciously clean notebook and flipping pages. "Any little thing, even something you might not have considered important."
Taking another hit of nicotine, Murphy shook his head. "Nope."
Adkins squinted hard, his jaw working. "You've been thinking about it?"
"Hard not to."
"You've been asking questions around town."
"Only to finish the piece I'd started on the benefit. The horses got two hundred words, the shooter got fifty. I think that's about fair, don't you?"
"You think this is all pretty funny, do you?"
Murphy shrugged. "At least I have some kind of reaction. I haven't heard anybody else in town even mention it."
"And you don't have anything else you want to tell me."
Murphy was thoroughly enjoying the officer's consternation. "No. Have you talked to that nurse who was there? Timmie Leary?"
"No. Why?"
"I just saw the guy. She damn near shared tonsils with him."
"And you don't have any thoughts about the incident at all?"
"Well, I'll tell you one thing," he said, balancing his coffee mug on his stomach as he leaned back even farther to stretch his feet out on the table. "I'm glad I'm not a conspiracy theorist. A good conspiracy theorist would figure that since nobody in town wants to talk about what happened, something nefarious must be going on you're all afraid of being found out."
Adkins twitched and then straightened, obviously going back to intimidation as an interview tool. "And you?" he asked. "Are you a conspiracy theorist?"
Murphy gave him wide eyes. "Me? Oh yeah, sure. I think Elvis was behind Kennedy's assassination and that the United Nations is going to invade Utah by reading the road signs backward." He shook his head. "Conspiracy theories are too exhausting, Officer. And that's not what I came to this town looking for."
"What did you come here for?"
Murphy lit a second cigarette from his first. "You want the truth? Peace and quiet. I was looking for a little R and R. Be a hell of a lot easier to do without people shooting at me, though. And then, on top of that, I hear the most disturbing thing yesterday. Can you believe it? I was told that the death rate has been skyrocketing around here... well, increasing, anyway. It's way up from last year." Murphy paused for another sip of coffee. "You got any ideas on why that's happening, Officer Adkins?"
Murphy knew damn well he was going to regret dicking around with this guy. But he'd never been able to resist the temptation to turn the tables on a bad interrogator. And Adkins was a bad interrogator.
So Murphy flashed him a big smile. "More coffee?"
Adkins sat so stiffly he damn near snapped the handle off the mug. His left eye was twitching, pulling at the acne scars on his cheeks so that they seemed to breathe. Murphy, knowing perfectly well where this was going, just sat back and watched.
Adkins fidgeted. He doodled as if he were writing down thoughts. He glared. And finally, just as Murphy knew he would, he edged up to his purpose with the hesitation of a man asking for his first paid blow job.
"You want to tell me why you're really here?" Adkins asked. "Award-winning guy like you?"
So there it was. It wasn't what Murphy had seen that had the officer here. It was what Murphy might have found out. Murphy and his reputation Sherilee so loved to trumpet around. Murphy and his goddamned, world-famous Pulitzer Prizes.
It didn't seem to matter to anybody that the last of those prizes was at least ten years old. Pulitzers, it seemed, were forever. Kind of like diamonds. Or herpes.
There was something going on in this town. Adkins knew it and Murphy knew it. And whatever it was, it almost certainly revolved around one of three things. Money or power. Money and power. Money and power and sex. Whatever it was, the people protecting it didn't want Murphy to find out. And Murphy wasn't going to be able to convince them that he didn't, either.
"Why am I here?" he asked, grinding out his second cigarette. "Got no place else to go. I burned my bridges at real newspapers a long time ago, but newspapers are the only thing I do. So when I got out of lockup this time, I accepted Sherilee's invitation to write about wine festivals and river towns."
"Lockup?"
"Rehab. Drying out. Straightening up. I am a twelve-step poster child who just wants to write about garden clubs and not be bothered by anybody."
"Then why all the questions?"
Murphy grinned like a co-conspirator. "How long you been a cop, Adkins?"
"Ten years."
Murphy nodded. "After you retire, how long do you think it'll take for you to stop checking plates and scanning crowds?" He threw off one of his more self-effacing smiles. "I'm not out of the habit yet."
Adkins teetered for a long time before falling for the reassurance. Finally he set the coffee cup down and lifted the manila envelope. "Could you tell me if you recognize any of these people, sir?"