Hillerman, Tony (9 page)

He took a deep breath and began dialing the number, asking himself as he did whether he should also call Jane Janoski. But what would he say? “Miss (or is it Mrs.?) Janoski. I thought you might like to know that John Cotton is still alive. I presume, as this call clearly tells you, that you give a damn one way or the other.” And what would Jane Janoski say? He was curious about that. Less about the words he would hear—which would be polite—than about the way they would be spoken. But not curious enough to be tempted. The burned hand doesn’t test the fire.

The telephone was ringing now. In a moment he would be—as gently as possible—making Mrs. William Robbins aware that her husband had been in an accident. He took another deep breath.

>8<

T
he policeman rang the doorbell at John Cotton’s apartment Saturday morning at almost exactly 8
A.M.
Cotton had slept until seven—an hour later than his workday rising time—and was sitting at his breakfast table over a third cup of coffee, reading the editorial page of the Twin Cities
Journal.
He had finished the
Capitol-Press,
working his way through it methodically in search of information useful to him. When he finished the
Journal,
he would find out about recovering his car, or what was left of it, and learn what the police knew about the accident. The 7
A.M.
newscast had reported that Whitey’s body had been recovered from the river and, a semi-trailer truck believed involved in the accident had been impounded by police.

The officer at the door was very young, very neat, and very officious. “Are you John Cotton?”

“That’s right,” Cotton said.

“Get dressed,” the officer said. “They want to talk to you downtown.”

On another morning, in another mood, Cotton might have been amused. This morning he wasn’t. The name on the officer’s badge was Endicott.

“Come in, Mr. Endicott, and pour yourself a cup of coffee and have a seat while I get some clothes. Do you have the warrant?”

“There’s no warrant,” Endicott said. He looked uncomfortable. “They just want to talk to you down at headquarters.”

“Who wants to talk to me?” Cotton asked.

Endicott obviously didn’t want to say.

“To hell with it then,” Cotton said. “Go back and tell them I’m busy and whoever it is can call me at the pressroom Monday and make an appointment.”

“It’s Captain Whan,” Endicott said. He looked even younger now. “He just told me to come and get you.”

Cotton’s irritation shifted from Endicott to Captain Whan. He handed the officer a cup of coffee and dialed the police number. Whan was in.

“I understand somebody down there wants to talk to me,” Cotton said. “What about?” Cotton enjoyed the long pause that followed the question.

“We’ll talk about it when you get here,” Whan said.

“I’ve got things to do today,” Cotton said. “I guess I’ll just skip it then.”

There was another pause.

“We want to talk to you about your car and about William Robbins,” Whan said.

“I want to talk to you about that, too,” Cotton said. “I’ll be right down.”

Cotton regretted his display of toughness all the way to the station with Endicott. He’d had no real reason to push the captain. It had been petty. If he needed information from Whan, as he might, he would pay for the pettiness.

Whan, now, was being pointedly polite. He told Cotton that Cotton’s car was in the police garage, that the right side had struck a pier and was caved in. Whan was a young man, perhaps five years younger than Cotton, with his hair cropped short, and dark, intelligent eyes set deep in a dark, intelligent face. He quickly established details of Cotton’s identity, the circumstances under which Robbins was driving his car, when Robbins had left the Hall home, and where he was going. The questions then became personal, centering on how well Cotton had known Robbins, what he knew of his life.

Cotton answered fully and freely, making restitution for his rudeness. Whan’s interrogation technique was efficient, Cotton noticed, wasting no time and allowing for no vagueness in answers. He wondered how well the captain would fare with a politician—someone like Ulrich when Ulrich had reasons not to be frank and candid.

The question now took a turn which puzzled Cotton, centering on Robbins’s family and social life.

“I’ll be blunt, Mr. Cotton,” Whan said. “Did Robbins, to your knowledge, have any girl friends?”

“As far as I know, he didn’t. I don’t think he did. He was an honorable man. I don’t think he would have cheated on his wife.” Cotton interrupted Whan’s next question. “Let’s save some more time, captain. You’ve got to have a reason to be asking questions like that one and there wouldn’t be a reason if you were sure it was an accident. Wasn’t it an accident? Do you have any reason to think it wasn’t?”

Whan’s intelligent eyes studied Cotton.

“It looks like an accident.”

“So why are you fishing around for someone with a motive?” Cotton said.

“We try not to overlook anything,” Whan said.

“I don’t think there’s anything to overlook,” Cotton said. “The statehouse is a gossipy place. A guy horses around, everybody chats about it. They chat about me, for example. But there was never any gossip about Whitey. I don’t think you’re going to find a vengeful husband. And I don’t think you’ll find any professional enemies. Whitey wasn’t as mean as some of us in the way he reported. And besides, all of us work with politicians. They’re pros. They know the rules. They know they’re going to get caught now and then and they know it’s part of the game— nothing personal. Nobody had any reason to kill Whitey Robbins. But I’d like to know why you think they might have.”

“I told you,” Whan said. “We’re just being careful.”

“You’ve got the truck now,” Cotton said. “Who was driving it?”

“We don’t have the driver.”

“A semi-trailer truck driver shouldn’t be hard to trace. Who’d he work for?”

Whan’s eyes were alert for reaction.

“The truck was stolen,” he said. He allowed himself a slight smile at Cotton’s expression. “Now let’s save some more time. You’re going to ask me why anyone would steal a semi-trailer truck because you’ve been a police reporter and you know there’s no way to fence it, or even to fence what you strip off of it, and because the thieves go for the late-model, sporty hardtops.”

“The thought occurred to me,” Cotton said.

“Or maybe it was teen-agers—some kids doing it on a dare,” Whan said. “Things like that happen. But it wasn’t.” Whan looked down at a note pad on his desk. “The makes we get on the driver from the witnesses put him from about twenty-five up to forty years old. He was wearing large sunglasses, had blond hair and a bushy mustache. A big man, bulky looking.”

“I’d like to see the investigation report,” Cotton said. “And the stolen-property report.”

“I’ll get copies made,” Whan said. “Couple of other small things. Maybe they mean nothing at all. The truck was abandoned down near the railroad yards in the industrial district—the sort of place nobody notices a parked truck very fast. I guess all that does is prove our driver was smart, or that he didn’t panic.”

“But it makes you think of advance planning,” Cotton said.

“Usually—almost routinely—when you pick up a stolen vehicle it’s been wiped. But some of the pros wear gloves and don’t have to bother. This guy wore gloves. So he didn’t need to wipe it, except where the ignition wiring was jumped. I guess he took the gloves off for that.”

“So you’re looking for a reason somebody would knock Robbins off a bridge on purpose,” Cotton said. “I’m sorry but I don’t know of any reason. I don’t think there was one. I think you’ve run into a coincidence.”

“You’re probably right,” Whan said. He fished out a cigarette and snapped his lighter.

Cotton examined Whan’s face, concentrating on not thinking of how he hungered for a smoke. He felt a respect for this policeman and a sharp, puzzled curiosity. Whan had told him a good deal more than he needed to tell him. He was sure the captain had a reason for this unorthodox exposure of police speculations.

Whan exhaled a cloud of smoke.

“Probably it was a coincidence,” Whan said. “That’s alternative one—an accident pure and simple. A stolen semi-trailer, a man who doesn’t know how to handle it, a mishap on a bridge. Alternative two is a premeditated homicide by someone who wanted to kill William Robbins.” Whan leaned forward and placed the cigarette carefully in the ashtray slot, his eyes on Cotton’s eyes.

“Have you thought about the third alternative?”

“What?” Cotton asked. He was genuinely puzzled.

“It was your car,” Whan said.

Cotton said nothing. He was thinking that Robbins and he were both tall and lanky, both blond.

“If nobody had a reason to kill Robbins, does someone have a reason to kill you?”

“Yeah,” Cotton said slowly. “I see what you mean. It’s an interesting idea.”

“Think about it,” Whan suggested.

Cotton thought about it. He thought about three National Guard officers indicted after his stories exposing falsification of travel expenses, about a state health director fired after his series on nepotism in the department, about a State Senator defeated for reelection in the wake of the
Tribune
series on conflicts of interest, about others injured, outraged or offended down through the years.

“I’ve got some enemies,” Cotton said. “I’ve hurt some people. But they’re politicians. They’re smart. They run risks and if they get caught they tend to be philosophic.” He stopped, thinking about it again, and feeling vaguely deprived that even the animosity he inspired was casual, impersonal. Or was there some sort of ironic justice that a man with no one to grieve for him had no one to hate him?

“No,” Cotton said. “You have to rule out your third alternative.”

“Why don’t you keep thinking about it?” Whan said. “And if you have any interesting thoughts, give me a call.”

It was almost noon when Cotton got back to his apartment. He had stopped at the police garage and inspected the soggy remains of the old Plymouth. It had been worth maybe $600, but he had driven it six years and he would miss it. He had called his insurance agent from the garage to arrange to file a claim. Finally he had taken a taxi home, riding glumly through the gray day. The coffee was strong but drinkable. He poured a cup, made a salami and lettuce sandwich, considering Whan’s line of questioning. The captain, he thought with wry amusement, considered him a possible murder victim on the hoof. The captain was taking advantage of a unique opportunity—interviewing the victim before the homicide. Except it made no sense.

At the table, he unfolded his copy of the accident report and read through it carefully. There had been two witnesses, a teenager crossing the bridge walkway and a woman who had pulled onto the bridge just as the accident happened. Their reports were about the same. The truck, identified by the boy, was a green cab-over diesel pulling an empty flatbed trailer. Cotton turned to the stolen property report:

ITEM
: 1970-model Mack diesel tractor, cab-over flatbed trailer attached. Dark green. Transportation Commission Tax No. 92772 in white on both doors. License LA3-8302.

TIME
: Noticed missing about 5
P.M.
, Friday, October 15. Last noticed on lot about 8
A.M.
, same date.

PLACE
: Equipment lot at 1100 Third Street.

OWNER
: Reevis-Smith, Constructors, Inc.

Cotton pursed his lips. Small world, he thought. Damned small. How many coincidences did that make? Two accidental deaths within a week. Both statehouse reporters. That was one. And the second reporter crowded off a bridge by a truck stolen from a company being investigated by the first reporter. That was two. Or maybe two and a half by the time you sorted it out.

He read the remarks. The equipment manager had missed the truck at closing time Friday when equipment check-in was verified. He had presumed a company driver was making some unauthorized use of it, or had taken it to the shop for a tune-up without filing a required report. He hadn’t realized it was stolen until Saturday morning.

Cotton checked the time. The theft hadn’t been reported until shortly before police had found the vehicle.

Outside, the dirty sky dragged down at the rooftop—a steady, cheerless drizzle. Cotton closed his eyes. Santa Fe would be a pattern of sun and shadow—clear blue sky over the La Bajada plateau and early snow clouds fighting with the wind to control the mountaintops. The air would be chilly, and the sun hot, and the forest of aspens above the Horse’s Head an ocean of gold. The ravens in the cottonwoods by St. Catherine’s Indian School would be raucous with autumn.

He opened his eyes and examined the grayness outside his window. He felt cold. Too much coincidence.

>9<

C
ongressman William Jennings Gavin died sometime in the small hours of Sunday morning. He managed the event as he usually did—to the maximum inconvenience of the working press. City editors, not warned by the customary ritual of preliminary illnesses, found the obituaries in their files hadn’t been updated for years. And the fraternity of political writers—not alerted to impending death by reassuring statements from press aides—were caught unprepared for morbid speculations required of them by any sudden vacuum in the political command.

It occurred to John Cotton, when the Sunday-morning call came from his state editor, that he had never given the slightest thought to the political effects if Congressman Gavin died. Bill Gavin didn’t seem to be the sort who would.

“You know what we want,” the state editor said. “Who Roark will appoint to replace him, and crap like that. We’ll hold your Monday column over until Tuesday.”

“Roark’s not going to talk about the appointment while the body’s still warm,” Cotton protested. “They never do that until after the funeral. All I can do is guess.”

“O.K., guess then,” the state editor growled. “The first time in twenty years the son-of-a-bitch broke any news on the
P.M.
cycle and then he does it on Sunday when we don’t have an edition.”