“Oh, so that’s it,” Hurley said.
“You were watching the Parrish house, right?”
“That’s right, and somebody was in that house, and I wasn’t going in till they got out. So what is this? Was it a cop inside that house? Did a cop get killed inside that house?”
“You seem to know an awful lot about what was inside that house or not inside it,” Bloom said.
“I know a plant when I see one, and this was a plant. I see a guy peeking around the window shade, I don’t have to be a genius to know it’s a plant. So it was a cop in there, hull? And he got cooled, right? Well, it wasn’t me who did it. It wasn’t Billy, either.”
“Why were you watching the house?” Rawles asked.
Same question. When a thief didn’t answer a question, there was a reason. Thieves were as good as movie stars at not answering questions. You asked a famous actress, “Is it true you’ll be leaving Dynasty next year?” she answered, “The weather in Southern California is so beautiful.” You asked a thief, “What are you doing with these burglars’ tools in your hand?” he answered, “My mother has angina pectoris.” Movie stars and thieves were identical in the way they handled questions they didn’t want to answer. All a cop or a reporter could do was ask the same question all over again.
“Why were you watching the house?”
This time from Bloom.
Ask it often enough, maybe come Christmas you’d get a straight answer.
“First tell me was a cop killed inside there,” Hurley said.
“Yes,” Bloom said.
Rawles looked at him.
Bloom shrugged.
The shrug said, “Let’s play it straight, see what we get from him.”
Rawles grimaced.
The grimace said, “He’s a fuckin’ thief, we’ll get lies from him no matter how we play it.”
Hurley nodded.
“So I was right,” he said. “A cop did get killed inside that house.”
“Yes,” Bloom said.
Rawles sighed and shook his head.
“When was this?” Hurley asked.
“All of a sudden he’s the cop!” Rawles said angrily. “He’s the one asking questions.”
“It was last night,” Bloom said.
“For Christ’s sake, Morrie…”
“I was nowhere near the Parrish house last night,” Hurley said.
“Then where were you?”
“Home in bed with my girlfriend. Who by the way is pregnant.”
“We send lots of guys to jail who have pregnant girlfriends,” Rawles said.
“No kidding?”
“In case you expected us to break into tears or anything.”
“No, I didn’t expect that, don’t worry.”
“What’s her name? Bloom asked.
“Helen Abbott. Call her right this minute, go ahead. She’s back at the motel, she doesn’t know why you picked up me and Billy. Ask her where I was last night, whatever time the cop got killed, go ahead, ask her. Pick up the phone and ask her. She’ll tell you I was home in bed with her.”
“What time was this?”
“Was what?”
“That you were with her. From what time to what time?”
“All night.”
“From what time to what time?”
“What time did the cop get killed?”
“Answer the fucking question,” Rawles shouted.
“Listen, you,” Hurley said, “I’m answering these questions voluntarily, you don’t have to…”
“From what time to what time?” Rawles said.
“We got back from supper it must’ve been nine o’clock. We watched some television and went to sleep. Billy was in the same room, in the other bed. You ask him where we were all last night, he’ll tell you. Ask them both. There wasn’t any one of us anywhere near that Parrish house last night.”
“What time did you go to breakfast this morning?” Bloom asked.
“Around eight o’clock.”
“All three of you?”
“All three of us.”
“Where’d you go?”
“Burger King.”
“Why were you watching the Parrish house?”
Fourth time around.
“Helen’s grandmother says she doesn’t believe us,” Hurley said.
Which was the same as saying “The weather in Southern California is so beautiful.” Or “My mother has angina pectoris.”
Both cops looked at him.
“Which is bullshit, of course,” Hurley said.
“Just what I was thinking,” Rawles said.
“I mean, her saying she doesn’t believe us. She knows we’re telling the truth.”
“About what?”
“That Helen is her granddaughter. The point is, we need proof.”
“Proof,” Bloom said.
“Yeah.”
“Of what?”
“That she’s the granddaughter.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Which the baby pictures would prove,” Hurley said.
“Uh-huh.”
“We think maybe they’re inside the Parrish house. Which is why we were watching the house. But we weren’t going in there when we knew there was somebody already in there.”
“What baby pictures?” Rawles asked.
“Helen’s. Her pictures when she was a baby. With her mother, you know? Helen and her mother.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Pictures of them both together. So the grandmother can’t say this girl nursing the baby isn’t her daughter. Because she is. I mean, there’s her picture, her face. Which means Helen is telling the truth. Which the grandmother knows anyway. But that’s the proof we needed. The pictures. And we thought they were inside that house. Which is why we were watching the house.”
“But you didn’t go inside there, huh?” Bloom asked.
“No way,” Hurley said. “With somebody sitting it? No way.”
The cops looked at each other.
“What do you think?” Bloom asked.
“It’s dumb enough to be true,” Rawles said.
Vacuum cleaner going now.
The housekeeper was in the living room.
Toots’s mind raced like sixty. Carpet here in the master bedroom, extending clear into the closet. Meant she’d be vacuuming in here, too. Maybe she wouldn’t open the closet door. But suppose she did? Hang up something that came back from the cleaner’s, put away a pair of shoes or a robe someone had left under a chair or draped over it, any number of reasons she might come into this closet and find a frizzied, twenty-six-year-old blonde wetting her pants. Had to get out of here before she came in. But how?
The telephone rang.
On the shelf above her head, there was a tiny click. The sound of the ringing phone had triggered the mechanism. The recorder reels began whirring. The vacuum cleaner suddenly stopped.
“Coming!” the housekeeper yelled to the phone.
Toots was out of the closet in a wink.
Slithering herself cautiously and minutely around the door-jamb, a snake or a roach couldn’t have done it better, one eye and a nose showing, part of her chin maybe, housekeeper’s fat ass swinging down the carpeted corridor toward the wall phone over the kitchen’s passthrough counter. Toots stepped into the corridor. Housekeeper reaching for the phone. Don’t turn this way, Toots thought, and tried to orient herself. Open door to a second bedroom across the hall, street side of the house. The garage would be…
“Hello?”
A glance toward the kitchen. Housekeeper leaning on the counter, big fat ass mooning the dining room.
“Yes, this is the Summerville residence.”
The garage would be near the kitchen. No way to get to the garage without passing Brunnhilde.