4
At one time she must have been pink and firm and cheaply pretty, a sexpot joyously ready for a tumble. But the years had caught up with her. Her overblown breasts had grown soft and lifeless, her heavy hips supported a thickening middle, and she was getting jowly. She was wearing a flowered wrapper and curlers in her straw-bleached hair, and there was a patina of cold cream on her fat cheeks when she answered Tully’s knock on the motel-room door.
She looked at him impudently. “Yes? What is it?”
“Are you Miss Maudie Blake?”
She nodded.
“My name is David Tully. I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes.”
“What about?” She was taking automatic inventory, noting the cut of his clothes, the beige Imperial he had parked nearby. If his surname meant anything to her, he could not detect it.
“May I come in?” Tully asked.
“You a cop?”
“No, Miss Blake.”
“A girl never knows,” she said, poking at her hair. “You don’t look like one. What is this, a sales pitch?”
“I’m not selling anything. I’m the husband of the woman named Ruth.”
Her eyes closed to slits.
“I know you’ve made a statement to the police. You don’t have to talk to me, Miss Blake. But I’d appreciate it if you would.”
He could see her weighing the possibilities, ready for instant retreat or advance. There was an animal cunning about her. He felt his pulse begin to accelerate. His instinct had been right.
“I guess I got a minute, Mr. Tully. Come in.”
She stood aside and he entered the motel room. The air was clogged with heavy perfume and powder. The place was close and hot, like an incubator, and it was cluttered with magazines, newspapers and odds and ends of apparel.
The Blake woman shut the door, waddled to the messy dressing table, picked up a pack of cigarettes and lit one. She did not ask him to sit down, or sit down herself. He waited.
“Mr. Tully,” she said suddenly. “You ought to know I can’t change my story now.”
Tully said to himself, Easy, boy, easy. You’ve got a bite on your line. “You think that’s why I came here?”
She made a vague gesture with her dimpled hands. “Why else? I figured this Ruth babe for a chippie. Now that I see the kind of husband she’s got, I get a different picture. Class. A bored dame with everything, including round heels.” She clucked, shaking her synthetic locks. “It’s too bad. How do broads like that hook guys like you?” The fat blonde cocked her head at him. “Just for laughs, how much were you going to offer me?”
“Miss Blake,” Tully began, “I don’t think you understand—”
“Only thing is, it’s too late.” She sighed. “You should have beat the cops here. I’m stuck with what I told them.”
“And what you told them was the absolute truth?”
“Sure it was.” She looked at him steadily. Too steadily?
“Did you actually see the woman?”
“No. I didn’t even know he had a woman in there till I heard her say something. These walls are like tissue paper. After that I listened, just for kicks.”
“You heard him call her by name, I understand.” He had to hold on to himself with all his strength.
“I sure did.”
“How many times?”
“Oh, once or twice.”
“Then isn’t it possible you made a mistake?”
Her wrapper rustled as she undulated toward him. She came close enough for her various odors to sicken him.
“You’re really gone on this wife of yours, ain’t you, Mr. Tully? I wish I could say I’m not sure, but how could I make a mistake? He said her name loud and clear.”
Tully managed to back off without offending her. Why did I have to come here? he thought.
“You want a drink, Mr. Tully?” the woman asked sympathetically. “You look like you could use one.”
“No, thanks.”
She shook her head. “What a dope, playing around when she has a husband like you. Have they found her yet?”
“No. I mean I don’t know. I don’t suppose so.”
“Maybe she can explain things when they do.”
And maybe she can’t. “What time did you hear them in there?” Already it was becoming easier to couple them verbally.
Maudie Blake shrugged, everything jiggling. “Earlier part of the evening. I wasn’t watching the time.”
“Is there anyone else who might have heard them?”
“I guess not. His room’s on the end of the row. No room on the other side.”
“And you were able to hear him call the woman by name,” Tully said. “How is it you didn’t hear the shot?”
“I went out before that, I guess — before she let Cranny have it.”
He turned to go, his shoulders at a defeated slope. But then he stopped and turned slowly around.
“Cranny,” Tully said. “You just called him Cranny. You knew him!” He was all over her in an instant, digging his big fingers deep into her floppy arms, glaring down at her. “In fact, you know a hell of a lot more about this than you’ve let on! Suppose you start telling the truth—”
“Whoa, buster,” the woman said. She had gone a little pale around the edges of the cold cream, but her voice was cool and unperturbed. “I could have you up for assault. Calm down, Mr. Tully. You can bruise me any time you want, but not with that look in your eye. Take your hands off me.”
“All right!” He almost flung her from him in his frustration. “Then you explain why you called him Cranny.”
“I must have heard one of the cops call him that.” She actually came close to him again and patted his cheek. “I know, she really gave you the knee. You’ll get over it. You in the phone book?”
“What?” Tully said, trying to shake his head clear.
“I said you in the phone book.”
“Of course. Why?”
“I thought you might have an unlisted number — you look well-heeled enough.”
“Why did you ask?”
“Oh, so I could get in touch. In case I thought of something... No, I can’t right now,” she added hastily, seeing his expression. “But you know how it is. Sometimes a person remembers... later.”
Tully said tiredly, “Maybe Lieutenant Smith could jog your memory right now, Miss Blake.”
“I doubt it,” Maudie Blake said, smiling. “I’d just have to tell him the same thing over and over. But I like you, Mr. Tully. And I’m going to set my mind to work real hard to see if I can think of anything else.”
Tully stood beside the Imperial immobilized between despair and hope. Some of the Blake woman’s statements had had a horribly truthful ring. And yet... He kept shaking his head.
After a while he trudged across the parking strip to the office of the motel. Behind the desk was the dried-up old cutthroat who had given him Maudie Blake’s room number. The old man was reading the evening Call.
“What’s it this time?” he grunted, not looking up.
“Sorry to bother you again,” Tully said. “But I’d like to know when Miss Blake checked in.”
“You would, would you?”
“Yes.” Tully began to feel the rumble of anger again. A little more of this and I’ll blow like a volcano, he thought.
“Can’t give out information ’bout our guests.”
“A dollar bought me her room number.” Tully fished in his wallet and flung two dollar bills on the desk. “When did she check in?”
The old man lowered his newspaper, looked around cautiously, and clawed the two bills out of sight. “Look, mister,” he said in a low voice, “this place has been crawlin’ with cops. They told me to keep my trap shut. I’ll do it this one more time, but that’s it.” He scuttled over to a card file and went through it fast. “The tenth. That would be four days ago. Now beat it, mister, will you?”