"Oh, I don't suppose so, really. He owned one of those lots his father-in-law bought so long ago," the old doctor says. "He may have planned to build on it and settle down here to live out his sunset years in quiet. Hah! I could have told him a few things about that, couldn't I?" She opens the screen door and pauses to look back. At T. Hodges, really, so maybe she's teasing. "Then again, perhaps having lost dear, pretty Rose and feeling lonely, he came to renew acquaintance with Mary Beth, who is every bit as pretty. I suppose, if you like love stories, you're free to think that."
And with a bark of laughter, she marches off.
* * *
Tired as he is, he goes to see Stubbs. It's a long drive to San Luis, but he skipped last night, and it's not fair. The old man is lonesome as hell. Anyway, Bohannon misses him. If there's nothing to talk about, they play checkers or watch horse racing or bull riding on television. Tonight there is Steve Belcher to talk about, and Cedric Lubowitz. Stubbs regards Bohannon from his narrow bed with its shiny rails, where he is propped up with his wooden drawing kit and drawing pad beside him on the wash-faded quilt. When the pain isn't too bad, he can still draw.
He says reproachfully, "You ain't gonna help him?"
"Stable boy left me. No time, George."
"Oh, Kelly." Stubbs grunts. "Yeah, I know. He come by here real early yesterday. Says will I tell you. Gotta go home. Ma needs him. Runnin' her out of the mobile home park. Fightin' with the boyfriend."
"He could have left a note," Bohannon says.
"Nothin' to write with," Stubbs says. "Nothin' to write on."
"On the kitchen table," Bohannon says. "He knew that. Knew where I sleep, too. He could have wakened me and told me. He woke you."
Stubbs waves a gnarled hand. "Had to see me. Had one of my drawings. Took it down off the tackroom wall. Wanted it for his room at home. Wouldn't steal it. Offered me five bucks for it. I give it to him."
"How did he get in here so early?"
"It was warm." Stubbs nods at the window. "Come in there."
Bohannon says, "Didn't say anything about the killing, did he?"
Stubbs frowns. "How would he know about it?"
"Just asking," Bohannon says.
Stubbs squints at him, surprised. "You don't think he'd have killed this Lubo— what's his name. Why?"
"I'd like to ask him," Bohannon says.
"He'd need a gun," Stubbs says. "Where would he get it?"
"A Browning automatic. I don't know. Someone got hold of one. Threw it away after the shooting."
"And Belcher just picked it up?" Stubbs says.
"That's his story. I doubt they'll find a record of it. Bought on the street, most likely. And the tattoos suggest Kelly knows the streets."
"Ballistics report in already?" Stubbs's white, tufty eyebrows are raised. "They know it was the Browning?"
Bohannon shakes his head. "They can't find the bullet," he says. "But a paraffin test says Belcher shot the gun lately."
"Oh, hell," Stubbs says.
"He told Gerard it was to scare off a prowler," Bohannon says, "but he told me earlier it hadn't been fired."
"You see why you have to pitch in and help him?" Stubbs says. "The fool's his own worst enemy. Always has been."
"Not always," Bohannon says. "Once it was Uncle Sam."
"Just a minute." Stubbs massages his white beard stubble thoughtfully. "Could the prowler have been Kelly?"
Bohannon blinks surprise. "Well, I'll be damned," he says. "Good thinking, George. Why not?"
* * *
He swings into the ranch yard and in the headlights sees a brown sheriff's patrol car. Lights wink on top of it. Two doors stand open. Two people struggle beside it. He drives on hard toward them. One is T. Hodges, her helmet on the ground. The other is Kelly Larkin. He pushes T. Hodges backward so she falls. He turns and comes running directly at Bohannon's truck. From one wrist dangles a pair of handcuffs, glinting in the light. His shirt is torn down the back and slipping off his shoulders, showing his tattoos. Bohannon jams on the Gemmy's brakes, jumps down with a yell, and grabs the boy. Who twists and hits out with the handcuff-dangling fist. It knocks Bohannon's hat off.
"Stop it," he says. "Stand still, damn it, Kelly."
"Aw, let me go," the boy says. "I didn't do nothin'."
"Then don't fight," Bohannon says. "There. That's better." He calls to T. Hodges, whom his headlights shine on. "You all right?"
"Kelly…" she says in a menacing voice, and comes toward them.
"I'm sorry," the boy says, hangdog.
"I should think so." She is wiping dust off her helmet with her sleeve. "I was taking the cuffs off him. I told him I was sure I could trust him. And look what happened."
"We'll just put them back," Bohannon says, and clips the cuffs on him again. "There." He picks up his hat. "Now, let's go into the kitchen, sit down, have some coffee, and talk this over civilized. All right?"
"I don't know anything to talk about," Kelly says, stumbling along, Bohannon holding his arm. "This is crazy."
They step up onto the long covered walkway that is the ranch-house porch. Bohannon looks over Kelly's head at T. Hodges. "Is it crazy?"
"I don't think so," she says. "Not when you consider that his last name isn't Larkin—"
"It could be," Kelly says. "It was my mom's name."
Bohannon pulls open the kitchen screen door, they walk inside, and he hangs up his hat. The lamp on the table glows. "It's Belcher, right?"
Kelly stares. "How did you know?"
"Sit down," Bohannon says. He goes to the looming stove and picks up the speckled blue coffee pot. But T. Hodges comes and takes it out of his hand. "I'll do it," she says. "You talk to him."
"This is going to get you into a mess with Gerard," he says.
"We'll deal with Gerard later," she says.
Bohannon drops onto a chair at the table and, as he lights a cigarette, studies the sulking boy. "You didn't happen in on me by accident, looking for work. You found out your father was here, and you wanted to see him, talk to him."
"He left when I was four," Kelly says. "Walked out on my mom and me. Beat her up and walked out and never came back."
"Which broke your mother's heart?" Bohannon asks.
"Not exactly. She couldn't take it anymore. He was so mixed up and half out of his gourd from the war, all that killing, those nightmares, the way he'd scream and hide…" Tears shine in Kelly's eyes, and he drops his head and sniffles hard and wipes his nose with the back of one cuffed hand. "It wasn't his fault. I knew that. She knew it, too, but he wouldn't get help. The veterans, they're entitled to help, and he got some before they got married, but then he was happy, and it was all right for a while, but the horrors came back, you know? It started all over again. He couldn't keep a job, he started boozing all the time, throwing stuff, smashing stuff, hitting her—" The boy's voice breaks, and he shakes his head and looks at the floor.
"And you came to get him to come home?" Bohannon asks.
The boy nods, lifts his tear-shiny face. "It was years ago. And she needs him. She's always getting new men. And they're none of them any good. Highway trash. She's a waitress, works hard, they just take her money and lay around watching TV all day."
"You think he's cured now?" T. Hodges brings coffee mugs into the light and sets them down for the two men. "Kelly, he doesn't work, either. Lives off his disability check."
"Yeah." Kelly touches his coffee mug. "And hates everybody."
"You talked to him?" Bohannon says.
Kelly makes a face. "He wasn't happy to see me. It wasn't a good talk. Nothing like what I expected."
" 'Dreamed,' you mean." T. Hodges sits down with her own coffee in the circle of lamplight. "Kelly, some things just aren't meant to be."
Kelly blows steam off his coffee and gingerly tries it. "I wasn't giving up. I was going to take him back. I promised my mom. Take him back with me, and we'd be like we were in the seventies, a family. We had good times. He was okay then. Steady. Cheerful, even. A good dad. I really have missed him. Twenty years is a long time."
"Granted," Bohannon says. "So you tried talking to him again?"
"Three, four times. He ordered me off, told me to leave him the hell alone."
T. Hodges hasn't done this for a long time, but now she reaches for Bohannon's Camels on the tabletop and lights one. In the slow-moving smoke that circles the lamp, she says, "And night before last?"
"I couldn't sleep. I kept arguing with him in my head. Yeah, I went up there." Kelly doesn't look at her or at Bohannon. His voice is almost too low to be heard. "He took a shot at me."
"You sure he saw you, knew who you were?"
"Well, hell, how do I know?" Kelly says. "Think I stayed around to find out? He had a gun. You don't know how fast you can run till somebody shoots at you."
"Uh-huh," Bohannon says. "And what did you stumble over?"
"What?" Kelly sits very straight, eyes wide. "What?"
"You were running scared, and you didn't watch where you were going, and you stumbled over the body of a man down on the road."
"Hell," Kelly says. "How did you know?"
"Your hands are scraped and scabby from falling on pavement," Bohannon says.
"And I'm afraid," T. Hodges says, "the thought that jumped into your mind was that your father had killed that man, and that he'd changed more than you'd thought in those twenty years, and you were suddenly very much afraid of him."
"And didn't want to stay anywhere near him anymore," Bohannon says. "You were on your way. Which is why you didn't take time even to write me a note."
"I stopped to see Stubbs," Kelly says defensively.
"Sixty-five miles down the road," Bohannon agrees. "And George didn't describe it as a long visit."
"What will they do to my dad?" Kelly asks anxiously.
"You love him in spite of everything," T. Hodges marvels.
"Don't worry about him," Bohannon says. "I don't think he killed the man. But it would help if I knew who did."
T. Hodges puts out her cigarette. "You didn't see anyone around there? An expensive car, maybe?"
Kelly laughs, but there's no humor in it. "I was so scared I didn't see nothin'. Man, I was outta there. I mean, we're talkin' roadrunner here." They watch him without comment, and he pauses and blinks to himself seriously. "Wait. No. You're right. There was a car. Other side of the road. Mercedes. Parked wrong way."
"No driver?" Bohannon says.
"Not that I saw." Kelly turns pale. "The killer, you mean?"
"The killer, I mean," Bohannon says.
* * *
For a long time, he didn't want and didn't keep a phone by the bed, but when Stubbs got to the wheel-chair stage, it helped to have it there in case of emergencies. After Stubbs went to the nursing home, Bohannon just kept the phone. And now it rings. Early morning. He's overslept. He groans, gropes out, gets the receiver, and mumbles "Bohannon" into it.
"The gun was the proud possession of the deceased," Gerard says. "Cedric Lubowitz. But the only fingerprints on it were Steve Belcher's."
"The good news," Bohannon croaks, "and the bad news all in one package?"
"No, the bad news is I know all about Teresa's activities last night, and she is on leave till this case is over with. I'm holding Kelly for at least seventy-two hours. The provenance of the gun suggests he could have been the killer. Motive, robbery. The vic's wallet hasn't turned up."
"Kelly got money on him?"
"Not very much," Gerard says. "You should pay your help better."
"I'd have thought a man like Lubowitz would keep a couple hundred bucks cash on him." Bohannon throws off the blankets and sits on the edge of the bed. "Well, since you haven't got the wallet, that means it wasn't in the camper. And that clears Steve, anyway." He reaches to get a cigarette from his shirt which hangs on a painted straw-bottom Mexican chair. "Of course, you checked to see whether the killer threw the wallet away along the roadside."
"That's what the citizens pay me for," Gerard says. "Me, not you, Hack. Will you stay out of this now?"
"I keep trying," Bohannon says. "Don't worry. I haven't got time. Not with my stable hand in jail." And he hangs up.
* * *
"He didn't tell you about Lubowitz's car?" T. Hodges says. She is at the stove cooking breakfast for him again. Earlier, she cleaned out the box stalls, fed, watered, and groomed the horses while he slept. Now she puts plates of ham and eggs and fried mush on the table. "They found it at the Tides Motel on the beach where he was staying."
