Vanish in an Instant (8 page)

“Did you see him on Sunday at all?”

“No, Sunday's my day off. I always go over to Chelsea to visit my sister and her kids. My sister and I had a little disagreement, nothing serious, but I left earlier than usual. I got home around 8:30. Earl's light was on, I saw it shining under the door when I went into the hall. I thought of dropping in on him a minute, I was upset and Earl always cheers me up. But when I stopped outside his door he was talking on the telephone so I went on up to my room.”

“How long did you pause there, in the hall?”

“Oh, half a minute, no longer.”

“And you heard him talking?”

“Yes.”

“But not necessarily on the phone.”

“I—no, not necessarily, but . . .”

“In fact, there may have been someone in here with him.”

“Well, I can't swear to it, of course, but I'm sure there wasn't anyone here. Earl never has company.”

“No girl friends?”

Mrs. Hearst frowned. “No,
none
. Of that I
am
sure. He doesn't bother with girls, young girls.”

“Was it a question of money?”

“No. Earl considers himself—well, deformed. He told me once that he couldn't expect any woman to go out with a freak like he was.” She rubbed her eyes with the corner of her apron. “He isn't a freak. It hurt me, his saying that. He
isn't
a freak. A lot of women would be glad to—to look after him, see that he got the proper rest and food and didn't go traipsing around in the cold without his galoshes and overcoat. A lot of women would be—would be . . .”

She hid her face in her apron, in silent grief. Watching her, Meecham wondered if the grief was for Loftus, or for all the women like herself who wanted a man to look after.

His eyes shifted to Cordwink. Cordwink's face was grim and the cigarette he was smoking was chewed at one end like a cigar. He opened his mouth, and Meecham thought he was going to say something to the woman. But the Sher­iff didn't speak. Instead, he went over and helped Mrs. Hearst out of the chair and guided her out into the hallway as if she were blind.

When he came back he slammed the door shut behind him and looked bitterly across the room at Meecham. “Okay, you got any smart cracks to make, Meecham?”

“No.”

“That's good, because I'm not in the mood to listen to any.” He closed the suitcase with a bang, picked it up and turned off the lights. “I'll drop you off at Barkeley's so you can pick up your car.”

“Thanks.”

Cordwink didn't speak again until he got into his car and pulled away from the curb.

“The fact is,” he said, “I'm a very emotional man where women are concerned.”

7

The light
of
morning coming in through the barred window was dingy, and along the corridor a cool damp wind blew, erratically, first one way and then the other.

Miss Jennings wore a heavy cardigan over her brown dress, and instead of piling her hair high on top of her head as usual, this morning she had let it hang to keep the draft off her neck. As Miss Jennings was in the habit of pointing out, to anyone who was interested and a great many who weren't, weather never bothered her, she rose above it. The clicking of her heels against the floor was overpoweringly cheerful, and she was humming, off-beat and off-key, but with a good deal of spirit.

Virginia pretended not to hear either the footsteps or the humming. She ignored Miss Jennings right up to the last moment; and then it was no longer possible to ig­nore her because Miss Jennings took her key-ring and slid it playfully and noisily across the bars of the cell like a child running a stick along an iron fence.

“Hi!” Miss Jennings always addressed her charges in a good loud voice, as if out of a conviction that imprison­ment, like age, impaired the hearing. “Well, you're all pret­tied up already. That's good, because someone wants to see you right away.”

“If it's that greasy little psychiatrist again tell him to go peddle his dreams.”

“Now, really. Now, is that any way to talk about nice Dr. Maguire? Besides it's not him—he. It's Mr. Meecham. He has a big surprise for you.”

“I wonder.”

“He has, too. Guess what it is.”

“I don't like guessing games.”

“Oh, don't be a little old spoilsport. Go on, guess.”

“I'm going home,” Virginia said.

“Yes! How about that now, aren't you happy? Aren't you surprised?”

“My mother sent me a message last night. So did Mee­cham.”

“Oh. Well, they couldn't have known for
sure
, though. The lab reports weren't in, the blood, and so forth.”

“What blood?”

“Why, he had blood all over his clothes, same as you had. They say he's a nice young man, no record or anything. What amazes me is the amount of blood in a person, it's simply amazing.”

“I'd rather not talk about it.”

“Well, all right,” Miss Jennings smiled, rising above the blood as she rose above the weather.

She unlocked the cell door and Virginia stepped out into the corridor. She was pale, and the skin around her eyes looked blue, as if bruised by pressing thumbs.

“My, my,” Miss Jennings said. “You don't look one bit happy. ‘Fess up now, you're sorry to be leaving us.”

“Oh, sure.”

“You've been treated well, haven't you?”

“Great. Just great. I'll recommend the place to all my friends.”

Miss Jennings was still wearing her smile but it sagged in places like a worn-out dress. “You're a sarcastic little snip, aren't you?”

“So?”

“You think you're so goddam smart all the time. All the time making smart talk. Oh, I heard your remarks about me to Mr. Meecham yesterday.”

“I knew you were too good to be true, Jennings.”

There was a thin line of white around the edges of Miss Jennings' mouth. “I know you and your type. Jeering all the time, jeering at decent hardworking respectable peo­ple. I hate you. You hear that? I just hate you!”

“Oh, can it,” Virginia said. “Who cares?”

“And I'm sorry you're leaving. I hope you'll be back, next time for keeps.” She unlocked the door into the main corridor and the keys on the big key-ring clanked vi­ciously. “You can go from here by yourself.”

“Thanks.”

“The girls that come in here and go out again, I always try to give them a nice send-off. But you, I wouldn't even say good-bye to you. I think you're a cold, bad, nasty woman and to hell with you.”

She shut the door between them with a decisive bang. All the way down the corridor Virginia could hear the clanking of metal against metal. It sounded as though Miss Jennings was slamming her keys against a wall in time to some rhythm of rage in her heart.

I'm not
, Virginia thought,
I'm not a cold nasty woman.

The door of the Sheriff's office was open, and Meecham was waiting for her inside, with a brief case under his arm. Cordwink was there too, hunched over a desk that was strewn with papers. On a bench along the wall sat a white-faced young man in a gray prison uniform. The young man was staring at Virginia with a curious kind of intensity. She had an uneasy feeling that there was some silent communi­cation in that glance, that he was trying to say something to her, or ask her something.

No introductions were made, no greetings exchanged. Not a word was spoken until Cordwink said, in his low heavy voice, “Do you recognize this man, Mrs. Barkeley?”

“Not by name. I think I've seen him before, though.”

“Where?”

“I don't remember. Anywhere—on the street or at Paul's office or in a bar. I get around quite a few places.”

“It was in a bar,” Loftus said, very quickly. “Sam's—Sat­urday night, you talked to me . . .”

“Keep out of this, Loftus.”

Cordwink slapped the desk to emphasize the order. Lof­tus blinked nervously, but he went right on talking: “I'm only trying to help, Mr. Cordwink. What difference does it make if she remembers me? I've admitted fifty times that I killed Margolis. All these questions and interviews and tests—they aren't going to change anything.” He turned to Virginia. “I asked Mr. Meecham to tell you but now I can tell you myself. I'm sorry about your having to stay in jail for a couple of days like this.”

“That's—all right.” Under the glaring ceiling lights her face was as white as Loftus', and the half-circles under her eyes made her look old and tired and hard. She whirled suddenly and faced Meecham. “I—couldn't we get out of here? I want to get
out
of here.”

“All right,” Meecham said. “That suit you, Cord­wink?”

“It has to.” Cordwink stood up. “The papers are all signed, nothing's stopping you, the door's open, go on.”

“What about your suitcase, Virginia?”

“To hell with the suitcase,” Virginia said harshly. “I just want to get out of here.”

Her departure was as wordless as her entrance. No one said good-bye, see you again, glad to have met you. Virginia walked out of the door and down the corridor so rapidly that Meecham had to hurry to catch up with her. Even when she reached the main door she didn't stop to put on her coat. She just held it around her shoulders as she went out, and the arms of the coat flopped back and forth in the rising wind, making silly boneless little gestures.

The sidewalk was dirty with slush and on the road the cars swished by with splatters of mud. Even the wind was dirty. Somewhere, in the north of Canada, it had started out
fresh, but it had picked up dirt on its journey, smoke and dust and particles of soot.

They stood in silence, side by side, at the intersection un­til the light turned green. Then they crossed the road to the parking lot where Meecham had left his car.

The car was locked. With only a slight hesitation Mee­cham unlocked his own door first and got in the car. Then he leaned across the seat and unlocked the other door for Virginia. The little amenities of politeness seemed as in­appropriate and futile here as they had in the Sheriff's office.

Meecham laid his brief case on the seat between them and started the car and switched on the heater. A cold blast of air gushed noisily from the heater.

Virginia reached over and turned the heater off again. “It makes too much noise.”

“All right.”

“Well, I did what you told me to. Didn't I?”

“More or less.”

“I said that he looked familiar, that I'd seen him before. Isn't that what you meant in the note you sent me last night?”

Meecham nodded.

“It's not true though. I've never seen him before, not in Sam's or any other bar or any other place.”

“You had quite a few memory lapses on Saturday night.”

“I remember talking to someone at Sam's but it wasn't this man. I'd have remembered him because he looks like Willett before Willett began to get fat.”

“Willett?”

“My older brother. When you meet someone who looks like your own brother, you don't forget him, do you?”

“I haven't got a brother.”

“You know what I mean. Don't be so damned annoy­ing, Meecham.”

“
Me
, annoying.” He turned left at the next intersection. The driver of the car behind him began to sound his horn furiously.

“You didn't make a signal,” Virginia said. “If conversa­tion interferes with your driving . . .”

“Your conversation interferes with my thinking,” Mee­cham said acidly. “You forget some things, you remember some things. The things you're supposed to remember you forget, and the things you're supposed to forget you re­member.”

“I can't help that.”

“Look, you just got out of jail ten minutes ago. Do you want to talk yourself right back in?”

“I thought you were my lawyer. Aren't you supposed to be able to tell everything to your lawyer?”

“Theoretically, yes. But let's get one point straight. What you told me just now—and very positively—was that you never saw Loftus before in your life. You may believe that, but I don't. The evidence is against it. The fact that you'd been drinking heavily all evening makes your memory un­reliable anyway. Then there's Loftus' own statement, and his report of some of your remarks to him. Loftus claims that you said among other things, God, this place stinks. One of the bartenders at Sam's overheard it, and identified you as the woman who said it. He has a half-interest in the place, and I think you hurt his feelings. Well, are you still sure you never saw Loftus in your life until this morn­ing?”

“I'm positive.”

“I know one definition of positive—being wrong at the top of your voice.”

“All right, I may be wrong.” She sounded depressed, listless. “It doesn't matter much anyway, does it? When is Claude going to be buried?”

“This afternoon.” It was the first time he had heard her use Margolis' first name or indicate in any way that she had been interested in him.

“I wouldn't go to his funeral even if I could. I hate dead people.” She huddled, shivering, inside the big plaid coat. “I remember once when I was at school, the mother of one of my friends died, and I went home with the girl to cheer her up. Her mother was at the undertaker's, they hadn't quite finished—fixing her up. The girl combed her mother's hair and fixed her glasses. The damned glasses kept slipping down that dead face, the girl kept putting them in place again. It was ghastly; I almost screamed. Do you have a cigarette?”

“Here.”

“Thanks. Shall I light one for you, too?”

“All right.”

She lit two cigarettes and gave him one. “Tell me, Mee­cham, are you on the level?”

“Ask a stupid question and you get a stupid answer. Sure, I am.”

“I don't think it's so stupid. You must get lots of oppor­tunities and meet lots of funny people.”

“I do, indeed,” Meecham said dryly.

“Speaking of mothers, how much is my mother paying you?”

“For what?”

“She
is
paying you?”

“She offered to. I haven't sent her a bill.”

“How much are you going to bill her for?”

“I haven't thought about it.”

“Well, think now. How much?”

“What is this anyway?” Meecham said, turning his head briefly to look at her. “What's up?”

“She owns quite a bit of real estate back home. Two apartment houses in Pasadena and one in Westwood, and so on.”

“Why tell me?”

“So that you'd know she could afford to pay—oh, quite a lot.”

“I'm supposed to bill her for quite a lot, eh?”

“She can afford it, I tell you.”

“Then when Christmas comes around in a couple of weeks I send you a nice little present, is that it?”

“Sort of.”

“It sounds nasty,” Meecham said. “And you sound nasty.”

“It sounds worse than it is. I like my mother. I'm not trying to chisel her on anything. I can get money from her any time, only I hate to ask her. She always has to know why and what for. This way it would be the same money actually, only I wouldn't have to answer any questions.”

“It still sounds nasty. What do you want the money for?”