Part 33 (1/2)
Irritated, Grigsby said, ”You think I won't?”
O'Conner's face went blank and he held out his hands. ”What do I know?”
Grigsby reached for his drink, nearly stopped himself once more, and then s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and tossed back what was left of the whiskey. Why the h.e.l.l try to prove anything to O'Conner. ”How's the book going?”
O'Conner, watching Grigsby drink, had been smiling. Now he frowned, puzzled. ”What?”
”The book you're writin' about Wilde.”
”Oh.” The reporter nodded. ”Good. d.a.m.n good, I think. I've already written a couple of chapters. Taken a lot of notes. I think it's really going to turn things around for me.”
He sounded convincing, maybe because he had convinced himself. But Grigsby remembered what he'd seen in the reporter's notebook, the only thing he'd seen in the reporter's notebook: O. Wilde.
Oscar Wilde.
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde.
He said nothing. Lying about some book you were supposed to be writing wasn't against the law.
Neither was self-deception. If it had been, probably everyone in the world would be in jail.
Grigsby felt sour and sad and used up. The night had started off so G.o.dd.a.m.n well. The telegram had lifted his spirits by suggesting an ulterior motive for O'Conner's joining the tour. And in fact there had been an ulterior motive; it just hadn't involved killing hookers.
Of course, the whole story could be a pa.s.sel of lies. Tomorrow Grigsby would talk to Vail. And send a telegram to San Francisco to check up on the rest of it.
And even if the story turned out to be true, that didn't mean that O'Conner was off the hook. Maybe his wife's death had unbalanced him; maybe he'd decided to start taking revenge against the world by cutting up women.
But Grigsby was discouraged. He'd traveled from possibilities to likelihoods and back again to possibilities. And O'Conner depressed him. Grigsby felt both sorry for the reporter and angry at him. He wanted to grab him by the s.h.i.+rt front and shake some sense into him. But he knew that self-pity was as unshakable as self-esteem, maybe more so. There was nothing he could do for the man; and nothing, right now, he could do about him. Besides, it was nearly twelve o'clock and Mathilde would be waiting. ”I'm gonna check up on all this,” he told the reporter.
O'Conner nodded. ”Like I said, it's all on record.”
”Telegrams?” said Mathilde.
Propped up against the pillows, they both lay naked on the bed, each holding a gla.s.s of calvados. Grigsby was smoking.
”I sent a bunch of telegrams to the cities Wilde stopped in before he got to San Francisco. And I sent others to cities where he didn't stop, out West here. Askin' if any ... uh, prost.i.tutes got themselves killed.”
”Yes? And?”
”None, so far.”
”Which would mean?”
”Which'd mean that so far the only killin's are the ones I already know about. San Francisco, El Paso, Leavenworth, and Denver.”
”So. This suggests that the killer, he is indeed one of us. But also-no?-that he must be Mr. O'Conner. It cannot be Wolfgang, and Mr. O'Conner joined with the tour in San Francisco.”
Grigsby shook his head. ”Nope. See, I haven't heard yet from all the cities I sent the telegrams to. One problem, see, with the cities that Wilde didn't visit, is I'm tryin' to prove that something didn't happen in any of 'em. That's generally a pretty tough row to hoe. You're always gonna have your element of doubt. And second, this fella coulda come all the way from New York to San Francis...o...b..fore he decided to start cuttin' up women.”
”So he could, then, be Mr. Vail.”
”Yeah. Or even Henry.”
”Henri?” She smiled, her eyebrows furrowed in surprise. ”You suspect Henri?”
”I gotta suspect everyone till I know different.” Grigsby sipped at his apple brandy. ”But, fact is, I can't really picture Henry. I reckon he's a little too slow on the uptake to pull off a thing like this.”
” Ah.” She set her gla.s.s on the bed table and then rolled herself over to face Grigsby. ”You still believe that some other person could not be responsible? Someone not traveling with us?”
”Be a pretty big coincidence.”
And yet Doc Holliday, for example, had been in all four cities at the same time as Wilde and the tour.
But Doc was a gambler before he was anything else, even before he was a gunman-he was a gunman, mostly, so he could protect himself and his winnings. And it made sense to Grigsby that Doc had followed the tour in order to light onto some high-stakes games.
It made sense, but naturally it didn't have to be the truth.
Problem here was that Doc was a wild card. Unreadable, a mystery. There was no way to know what went on inside his head. That was why Doc had winnings to protect.
So the story about the games might be pure bushwah.
But if it was, why would Doc invent it? And in the six years that he'd been floating through Colorado, no hookers had got themselves cut up, that Grigsby knew of.
Suppose Doc had gone off the beam for some reason? Suppose he'd gone crazy? Suppose ...
Nope. Doc was strange, maybe, but as far as Grigsby could tell, he wasn't crazy.
It had to be someone on the tour.
But who? Didn't seem like any of them were crazy either.
The more Grigsby learned, the less he knew. The more he thought about it, the more tangled the whole thing became.
Mathilde said, ”If you are convinced that one of these men is responsible, why do you not a.s.sign some people to watch each of them?”
Grigsby smiled. ”I got one deputy workin' for me, Mathilde. Just the one. No way the two of us could cover all of 'em.”
”But what about here? Could you not ask the police of this town to a.s.sist you?”
”I don't get along real well with the sheriff here.” Tim Drucker, the county sheriff, was a friend of Greaves's.
Grigsby sucked on the cigarette, exhaled a long slow sigh of pale blue smoke.
Mathilde said, ”You are troubled tonight, Bohb.”
”Just frustrated, I reckon.”
”Tell me something.” She put the tip of her finger against his chin.
”What's that?”