Meyer got in at ten fifteen. He looked grainy and old. I knew he’d tell me about it when he was ready, so I didn’t push him. Inexpensive bourbon has its own aroma, and he smelled as if he’d had more than two. He took a shower and came out and stretched out on his bed, fingers laced behind his head.
“I think that what we had was a two-person wake, without the body. She thinks she’s glad he’s dead, but she isn’t sure. She couldn’t stop looking at the picture of the grown-up Cody. She said he had turned out to be a really good-looking man, like his father. I let her keep the picture. All right?”
“Of course. We’ve got three left. Anyway, why ask me? This is your parade.”
“Every time I’d try to ease in on the identity of her correspondent in Eagle Pass, she’d sidestep. Nothing else was going to work. So I told her some stories. I told her all about Doris Eagle and Isobelle Garvey and Norma Lawrence. I told her about Larry Joe and Jerry and Evan. You see, Travis, Cody was her hero. The little brother, corrupted by the stepmother, had escaped and had made a successful life somewhere and was able to send money to his beloved big sister. She pictured him in a big house with a wife and kids and two cars. She couldn’t stand what I was telling her. When she finally came to believe that the photograph she held in her hand had been positively identified by all concerned as Cody T. W. Pittler, her next line of defense was that Doris Eagle had died in a legitimate accident, that Izzy Garvey had gone off with Cody and run out on him later, and that he had been blown up aboard my boat. I asked her why all the names, and she said it was because the police still wanted him for what had happened at Eagle Pass. I had showed her the Doris Eagle clippings and the clippings about Norma’s death. I told her about Norma’s life, what kind of a woman she had been. She kept drinking. I kept drinking. We wept. I kept asking her why she wanted to protect such a man, even if he was her brother. She kept saying he was all the family she had.
“Finally she said that whenever she had changed her address, she had phoned the best friend she ever had, a woman in Eagle Pass named Clara Chappel. They had been all through the grades together back when she had been Clara Pitts. Because seating was alphabetical, they always sat near one another. They had double-dated, and they had Uoth gotten drunk on tequila on the same date and lost their virginity the same night. They had been married at the same time, she to Sonny Fox, and Clara to Sid Chappel. Clara had always told her she wished Cody was a little older so she could marry him. She said she had moved seven times, since she had gone north with Sonny Fox, and had phoned Clara each time. Cody stayed in touch with Clara. She didn’t know how. Clara never told her. She said it proved Cody was smart. He knew that if his sister knew how to get in touch with him, the police could find out from her. And she would never tell anyone about Clara. Then she seemed to realize she was telling me and shouldn’t be. She drank more. It became difficult to understand what she was saying.
“At one point she led me out into that dreadful backyard and reached into the bottom of an old iron stove and took out a tiny candy box and opened it, shone the flashlight into it, onto a wad of hundred-dollar bills. Jesse had never found out about the money. She said he would have just taken it and left. She said Jesse wasn’t good about money. Then she told me it had arrived early last month, early June. Seven thousand two hundred. You realize of course, Travis, that it was Norma’s money. I told her it had been Norma’s money. She wanted me to take it. I wouldn’t. She put it back in the stove and clanged the old door. We were both crying. We supported each other back to the house. She said her head was aching terribly from being hit by Jesse. She called it his last love tap. She tripped on the top step and fell heavily into the trailer. I pulled her to her bed and lifted her onto it, half of her at a time. I drove back here with one eye shut so there would be one center line instead of two, one pair of oncoming headlights instead of two. It is a criminal act to drive in such a condition. I could have killed innocent people. I feel very sad and soiled and old. She really hasn’t anything left now.”
“I’ll see if I can reach Paul Sigiera.”
“You do that.”
He kept his eyes shut while I tried. His breathing became heavier. He produced a long rattling snore. I finally reached Sigiera despite the efforts of two other officers on duty.
“Ah so,” he said. “The Consultant and the Professor. What are you all consulting and professing?”
“Cody sends money to his sister at irregular intervals. Cash. From four to ten thousand in hundreds. Over a dozen shipments since he took off. He keeps track of her through a woman named Clara Chappel. She used to be Clara Pitts. Married to a Sid or Sidney Chappel. She phones Clara her changes of address and Clara relays them to Cody.So you know a Chappel family?”
“Hope to spit. There is no place in Maverick County high enough to stand on and see everything Sid Chappel owns.”
“I have the feeling that when sister Helen June sobers up tomorrow, she is going to get to a phone and let Clara know that McGee and Meyer know about Cody’s pipeline. So I thought if you got to Clara Chappel first-”
“And leaned on her? You’ve got to be kidding. Maybe I can do it with footwork and fancy talk. How’s Helen June?”
“Living among junk with a piano player until today; then he rolled his Bronco over on himself and squashed his head.”
“Just a coincidence?”
“You could call it that.”
“Why in hell did Helen June tell you people anything?”
“The Professor talked nice to her. And she was in kind of a shocked condition. I would appreciate it if you would do what you can and let me know.”
I gave him my phone number aboard the Flush. He said he would give it a try, but not right now, not on a Saturday night. There was too much action going on among the lower classes, such as cops, he said. Meyer slept on. I walked to the restaurant and had a bowl of chowder and a hot dog. A leggy sixteen-year-old girl with blond hair black at the roots, wearing a quarter pound of eye makeup, gave me the fixed challenging stare of the seasoned hooker while she ate her strawberry cone. There’s no VD any more. Now it is all STD, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, and there are a lot more of them than there used to be, and a lot more people have them than used to, and some of them are resistant to all known antibiotics. I walked back through the hot night, thinking sad bad thoughts.
Nineteen
WHEN WE finally got into Lauderdale, late on Sunday afternoon, after bad flight connections, I took a long hot shower and then phoned Annie. She sounded cross and overworked. The comptroller was down from Chicago. There were conferences about updating the computer system.
“Try me tomorrow,” she said. “I don’t know what tomorrow will be like, but it won’t be any worse than today. Any luck on your quest?”
“Quest? Nice word for a series of blind alleys. I got kicked in the ear. Otherwise fine. Take care of yourself. Happy computing.”
When I tried her on Monday on her private line, I got a solemn and heavy masculine voice saying, “Eden Beach, Howard Pine speaking.”
“May I speak to Anne Renzetti, please?”
“I’m the new manager. Perhaps I can help you.”
“This is personal, thanks.”
“Oh. She flew back up to Chicago this morning out of Fort Meyers with the comptroller. I would say she’ll probably be back Wednesday. But it might be Thursday. I can give you a number where-”