I supposed it was the office, or maybe Amy checking up on me; she'd have to call early or wait until four when her school day was over. I went to the phone, trying to think of some dodge to get out of seeing her, and when I heard Joe Rothman's voice it kind of threw me.
"Know who it is, Lou?" he said. "Remember our late talk."
"Sure," I said. "About the-uh-building situation."
"I'd ask you to drop around tonight, but I have to take a little jaunt to San Angelo. Would you mind if I stopped by your house a few minutes?"
"Well," I said, "I guess you could. Is it something important?"
"A small thing, but important, Lou. A matter of a few words of reassurance."
"Well, maybe I could-"
"I'm sure you could, but I think I'd better see you," he said; and he clicked up the receiver.
I hung up my phone, and went back to my breakfast. It was still early. The chances were that no one would see him. Anyway, he wasn't a criminal, opinion in some quarters to the contrary.
He came about five minutes later. I offered him some breakfast, not putting much warmth into the invitation since I didn't want him hanging around; and he said, no, thanks, but sat down at the table with me.
"Well, Lou," he said, starting to roll a cigarette. "I imagine you know what I want to hear."
"I think so," I nodded. "Consider it said."
"The very discreet newspaper stories are correct in their hints? He tried to dish it out and got it thrown back at nim.
"That's the way it looks. I can't think of any other explanation."
"I couldn't help wondering," he said, moistening the paper of his cigarette. "I couldn't help wondering how a woman with her face caved in and her neck broken could score six bulls-eyes on a man, even one as large as the late unlamented Elmer Conway."
He looked up slowly until his eyes met mine. I shrugged. "Probably she didn't fire all the shots at one time. She was shooting him while he was punching her. Hell, she'd hardly stand there and take it until he got through, and then start shooting."
"It doesn't seem that she would, does it?" he nodded. "Yet from the smattering of information I can gather, she must have done exactly that. She was still alive after he died; and almost any one-well, two-of the bullets she put into him was enough to lay him low. Ergo, she must have acquired the broken neck et cetera, before she did her shooting."
I shook my head. I had to get my eyes away from his.
"You said you wanted reassurance," I said. "You- you-"
"The genuine article, Lou; no substitutes accepted. And I'm still waiting to get it."
"I don't know where you get off at questioning me," I said. "The sheriff and the county attorney are satisfied. That's all I care about."
"That's the way you see it, eh?"
"That's the way I see it."
"Well, I'll tell you how I see it. I get off questioning you because I'm involved in the matter. Not directly, perhaps, but-"
"But not indirectly, either."
"Exactly. I knew you had it in for the Conways; in fact, I did everything I could to set you against the old man. Morally-perhaps even legally-I share the responsibility for any untoward action you might take. At any rate, we'll say, I and the unions I head could be placed in a very unfavorable light."
"You said it," I said. "It's your own statement."
"But don't ride that horse too hard, Lou. I don't hold still for murder. Incidentally, what's the score as of to date? One or two?"
"She's dead. She died yesterday afternoon."
"I won't buy it, Lou-if it was murder. Your doing. I can't say offhand what I will do, but I won't let you ride. I couldn't. You'd wind up getting me into something even worse."
"Oh, hell," I said. "What are we-"
"The girl's dead, and Elmer's dead. So regardless of how funny things look-and this deal should have put the courthouse crowd into hysterics-they can't prove anything. If they knew what I know, about your having a motive-"
"For killing her? Why would I want to do that?"
"Well"-he began to slow down a little-"leave her out of it. Say that she was just an instrument for getting back at Conway. A piece of stage setting."
"You know that doesn't make sense," I said. "About the other, this so-called motive-I'd had it for six years; I'd known about Mike's accident that long. Why would I wait six years, and then all of a sudden decide to pull this? Beat some poor whore to a pulp just to get at Chester Conway's son. Now, tell me if that sounds logical. Just tell me, Joe."
Rothman frowned thoughtfully, his fingers drumming upon the table. "No," he said, slowly. "It doesn't sound logical. That's the trouble. The man who walked away from that job-if he walked away-"
"You know he didn't, Joe."
"So you say."
"So I say," I said. "So everyone says. You'd say so yourself, if you didn't know how I felt about the Conways. Put that out of your mind once, and what do you have? Why, just a double murder-two people getting in a brawl and killing each other-under kind of puzzling circumstances."
He smiled wryly. "I'd call that the understatement of the century, Lou."
"I can't tell you what happened," I said, "because I wasn't there. But I know there are flukes in murder the same as there are in anything else. A man crawls a mile with his brains blown out. A woman calls the police after she's shot through the heart. A man is hanged and poisoned and chopped up and shot, and he goes right on living. Don't ask me why those things are. I don't know. But I do know they happen, and so do you."
Rothman looked at me steadily. Then, his head jerked a little, nodding.
"I guess so, Lou," he said. "I guess you're clean, at least. I've been sitting here watching you, putting together everything I know about you, and I couldn't make it tally with the picture I've got of that guy. Screwy as things are, that would be even screwier. You don't fit the part, to coin a phrase."
"What do I say to that?" I said.
"Not a thing, Lou. I should be thanking you for lifting a considerable load from my mind. However, if you don't mind my going into your debt a little further…"
"Yes?"
"What's the lowdown, just for my own information? I'll concede that you didn't have a killing hate for Conway, but you did hate him. What are you trying to pull off?"
I'd been expecting that question since the night I'd talked to him. I had the answer all ready.
"The money was supposed to be a payoff to get her out of town. Conway was paying her to go away and leave Elmer alone. Actually-"
"— Elmer was going to leave with her, right?" Rothman got up and put on his hat. "Well, I can't find it in my heart to chide you for the stunt, despite its unfortunate outcome. I almost wish I'd thought of it."
"Aw," I said, "it wasn't nothing much. Just a matter of a will finding a way."
"Ooof!" he said. "What are Conway's feelings, by the way?"
"Well, I don't think he feels real good," I said.
"Probably something he ate," he nodded. "Don't you imagine? But watch that stuff, Lou. Watch it. Save it for those birds."
He left.
I got the newspapers out of the yard-yesterday afternoon's and this morning's-poured more coffee, and sat back down at the table.
As usual, the papers had given me all the breaks. Instead of making me look like a boob or a busybody, which they could have done easily enough, they had me down as a kind of combination J. Edgar Hoover-Lombroso, "the shrewd sheriff's sleuth whose unselfish intervention in the affair came to naught, due only to the unpredictable quirks of all-too-human behavior."