“That’s right. He’s got some official business.”
I stepped out into the corridor. “This is a hell of a time for Westmore to leave.”
“He has a hell of a reason. Meyer’s waiting for him at the courthouse.” He hooked his thumbs in his belt and looked complacent. “I just arrested Meyer.”
“On what charge?”
“Murder. I went over to Meyer’s house last night and got his permission to look around. I let on I was searching for traces of his daughter. He made no objection, probably didn’t know what could be done with old bullet. There were plenty of old bullets in that shooting-gallery of his down in the basement. I dug some out of the boards where he pins the targets.
“Most of them were too beat up to be any use to me. A few were in pretty good shape, though – good enough for the comparison microscope. It took me until now to sort them out and make my case, but I made it. Some of the slugs in Meyer’s basement were fired from a .38 revolver. And the ones that were good enough to compare came from the same revolver as the murder slugs. That includes the one that killed Anne Meyer.”
“Are you sure?”
“I can prove it in court. Wait until you see my blown-up microphotos. I can prove it even if we never find the gun. You see, Meyer has a .38 revolver registered under his name. I asked him for it when I arrested him. He told me a cock-and-bull story, claimed he didn’t have it any more.”
“What was his story?”
“He said he lent it to his daughter last fall and never got it back. Of course he’s lying.”
“I thought so yesterday. Now I’m not so certain.”
“Sure he’s lying. He has to lie. He’s got no alibi for any of the shootings. He was by himself all day Sunday, when Annie got it, and he had plenty of chance to drive up to the lake. On Thursday afternoon, he claims his other daughter for an alibi. But she was right there in his house from five o’clock on, and he didn’t get home until after seven. He admits that himself, he claims he went for a drive when he left the yard. The same for the Kerrigan shooting. No alibi.”
“No motive, either.”
“He had a motive. Aquista and Kerrigan both went with Annie at one time or another.” His thin nose wrinkled, as if it detected an odor worse than iodoform. “And Meyer had some kind of an insane crush on his own daughter.”
“It’s a pretty story,” I said. “Did you tell it to the sheriff?”
For the first time Danelaw seemed uneasy. “I haven’t seen him. Anyway, I wouldn’t want to put him in the position of arresting his own father-in-law. I went over his head for once and laid it out for Westmore.”
“And Westmore bought it?”
“Sure he did. Don’t you?”
“I’ll take an option on it. But I want to do a little more shopping around. Meyer drives a Lincoln, doesn’t he?”
“That’s right. He has another car, too, an old Chewy he uses for transportation.”
“A green Chewy sedan?”
“Yeah. I’m going to work on those cars next shot out of the box. One of them must have been seen around the time and place of one of the shootings.”
“I can save you some trouble there. Talk to the prisoner inside. Ask him about the car Aquista drove away in on Thursday.”
Danelaw turned to the door. I went the other way.
Chapter 31
Hilda Church opened the front door and looked out shyly. In her quilted cotton housedress she might have been any pretty suburban chatelaine interrupted at her morning work. But there was a tight glazed look around her eyes and mouth. Her eyes were translucent and strange, a clear pale green like deep ocean water.
“Is your husband home, Mrs. Church?”
“No. I’m afraid he isn’t.”
“I’ll wait.”
“But I don’t know when he’ll be back.”
“It doesn’t matter. I have things to discuss with you.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t feel like talking to anyone. Not this morning.”
She tried to close the door. I held it open.
“You better let me come in.”
“No. Please. Brandon will be angry if he comes home and finds you.” She leaned her weight on the door. One side of her breast bulged around its edge. “Please let me close it. And go away. I’ll tell Brandon you called.”
“I’m coming in, Mrs. Church.”
I set my shoulder, against the door and forced it open. She retreated to the doorway of the living-room and stood in it, her arms stiff at her sides, her fingers working at the ends of them. She looked sideways at me, with a kind of fearful coquetry. The cord in the side of her neck was strung taut like a thin rope.
I moved toward her. She retreated farther, into the living-room. She walked with a queer cumbersomeness, as if her body was lagging far behind her thought. Stopping beside a bleached mahogany coffee table, she leaned over and moved a white clay ashtray a fraction of an inch, into the table’s mathematical center.
The ashtray, the table, the rug, everything in the room was clean. The white and black-iron furniture was bleakly new, and geometrically placed around the room. Through sliding glass doors I could see out into a white-walled patio blazing like an open furnace with flowers. A circular brick planter overflowed with masses of purple lobelia, in the middle of which a dwarf lemon tree held its wax blossoms up to the sun.
“What do you want with me?” she whispered.
The light reflected from the patio wall fell stark across her half-averted face. She looked so much like the dead woman in that instant that I couldn’t believe in her reality. Death had aged Anne Meyer and made them almost twins. Time jarred to a stop and reversed itself. The helpless pity I had felt for Anne went through me like a drug. Now I pitied the unreal woman who was standing with her head bowed over her immaculate coffee table.
She had acted beyond her power to imagine what she had done. I had to drive the truth home to her, give her back reality, and regain it for myself. I’d rather have shot her through the head.
“You killed your sister with your father’s gun. Do you want to talk about it now, Mrs. Church?”
She looked up at me. Through her tide-green eyes I could see the thoughts shifting across her mind like the shadows of unknown creatures. She said: “I loved my sister. I didn’t mean, I didn’t intend–”
“But you did.”
“It was an accident. The gun did. The gun went off in my hand. Anne looked at me. She didn’t say a word. She fell on the floor.”
“Why did you shoot her if you loved her?”
“It was Anne’s fault. She oughtn’t to have gone with him. I know how you men are, you’re like animals, you can’t help yourselves. The woman can help it, though. She shouldn’t have let him. She shouldn’t have led him on.
“I’ve done a great deal of thinking about it,” she said. “I’ve done nothing but think about it since it happened. I haven’t even taken time to sleep. I’ve spent the whole week thinking and cleaning house. I cleaned this house and then I cleaned Father’s house and then I came back here and cleaned this house again. I can’t seem to get it clean, but I did decide one thing, that it was Anne’s fault. You can’t blame Fath– you can’t blame Brandon for it, he’s a man.”
“I don’t understand how it happened, Mrs. Church. Do you remember?”
“Not very well. I’ve been thinking so much. My mind has been working so quickly, I haven’t had time to remember.”
“Did it happen on Sunday?”
“Sunday morning, early, at the lake. I went there to talk to Anne. All I intended to do was talk to her. She was always so thoughtless, she didn’t realize what she’d done to me. She needed someone to bring her to her senses. I couldn’t let it go on the way it had. I had to do something.”