Part 10 (1/2)
He opened the car door and sat sideways on the seat and looked up at me. ”Pride is so G.o.dd.a.m.ned wickedly expensive. I have been waiting here, thinking about pride.”
”Sir?”
”Three sons. Jerry was the only one who went into the service and the only one who died. The other two are doing fine. I retired early. Heart murmur. The second star was a going-away present. Bought a little grove in California. Take care of the trees. Gardening. Golf. Bridge. Am I boring you?”
”No, sir.”
”I'm boring myself. Somebody has to get stuck with listening. They paved a road near my place. I went and watched them every day. Isn't that fascinating? Old fart watching the big yellow machines. Made myself agreeable. Asked questions. Never saw such a crowd of f.u.c.kups, pouring money down the sewer. Found a couple of my retired NCOs and officers, as bored as I was. All put some money in the pot. Rented equipment after we bid low on a culvert. Made out. Ploughed it back in. Every one of those other six old farts have taken at least two million out of it. And I kept fifty percent of everything. Seven corporations. Factory structures in Taiwan. Flood control in Brazil. Bridges in Tanzania. Pipe lines in Louisiana. Shrewd old b.a.s.t.a.r.d, right? Wrong. Just bored doing nothing. Horse sense and energy and being fair. Nothing more. There's a Christ-awful shortage of horse sense in the world. Always has been. Ask me where the pride comes in. Go ahead. Ask me.”
”Where does the pride come in, General?”
”Me beginning to make money hand over fist, and Jerry's widow with two little girls. I had to travel a lot, leaving Bess alone. Lots of room in that house, and if there wasn't, I could build more onto it. No, she was too proud. She wanted to make her own way. Raise Jerry's kids without help from anybody. Bess wanted to come down here and visit her and talk her into it and bring her back. She was sure she could. So my pride got in the way. If the d.a.m.ned girl wants to act like that, let her. Jane's pride and my pride. Send too big a check along with the Christmas stuff, and she'd send it right back. Oh s.h.i.+t, isn't pride wonderful? She stayed right here in this half-a.s.s place leading a half-a.s.s life, when if she'd wanted to spend a thousand dollars a day of my money, it would have tickled but not pinched. So she's gone down the drain after a lot of scruffy little years, and the youngest girl has gone sour. For what? There's no meaning to it at all. None.” He put his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands.
I gave him ten seconds and then said, ”Are you waiting for them in there?”
He looked at me as if he had forgotten who I was. ”Oh, they're supposed to be finis.h.i.+ng up. I can go in when they're through, they told me.” He patted his s.h.i.+rt pocket. ”Linda is over at the hotel with Bess. I've got a list of things. I don't want that little girl to have to come back here even one more time. She had one look. This was her home. She shouldn't remember it like the way it is now.”
I excused myself and went up the steps and pushed the buzzer. I told my story to a fat young man with a guardsman moustache. He took me back through litter and ruin to a bedroom where two technicians were working in a perfume stink, patiently dusting the larger fragments of gla.s.s. A large man sat on the bed, murmuring into the bedside extension. He had a big head and golden locks and a great big face and jaw, with fleshy, regular features. He hung up and stared at me with a look of total, vapid stupidity. It did not change as I went through my little account for the third time.
He said, ”My name is Goodbread, and so far I'm making the file on this one. What I hope, McGee, is that you are one of the kinks we get now and then, they kill somebody and come back and say they just happened to know that somebody and how are you boys making out catching the killer, heh?”
”Sorry I can't help you that way.”
He favored me with a long, stupid stare. ”I might anyway have Arn run you down and check you through everybody's computer file.”
”There's somebody you could ask.”
”The mayor?”
”Captain Matty Lamarr.”
”Your first name again? Travis? Stand easy.” He phoned again. He had a very soft telephone voice. He held the phone in such a way that half his big hand formed a cup around the mouthpiece. I guess he was getting the home number. The captain was a few years past pulling Sunday duty. He held the bar down, then dialed again. Big swift nimble fingers. He spoke, waited a time, then spoke again. Listened a long time. And another question. More listening. Expression of grat.i.tude. Hung up.
”The captain didn't say you are his favorite people.”
”He's not one of mine, but we got along all right one time.”
”He says there's no use asking you what kind of an angle you are working.”
”If any.”
”He says he thinks you stay inside the law, just inside, most of the time.”
”I try, Lieutenant.”
”Sergeant. And he said you answer questions right, or you clam up, and you can be a help if you want to be.”
”I liked the woman. I didn't know her well, but I liked her.”
”The captain says that the only handle he could find to use on you was that you don't want your name in the paper.”
”There's a point where that handle breaks right off, Sergeant.”
His long stare was lethargic, his eyes sleepy. ”So let me know if you feel anything starting to give, McGee.”
”Can I suggest something to you?”
”You go ahead, and then I'll tell you if you should have.”
”The woman's father-in-law is waiting out at the curb in a rented car. He wants to pick up some things for the older daughter.”
”And?”
”If you know who you are keeping waiting, okay. But I read an article about him in a magazine a couple of months ago. That is Major General Samuel Horace Lawson, and Lawson International is listed on the big board, and in his line of work I would guess that he gives a bundle to both political parties, and if he gets annoyed enough, he is going to-”
”Arn!” Sergeant Goodbread roared. The fat young one with the guardsman moustache came in almost at a run, his eyes round.
”Arn, fill me on that guy you talked to out front.”
”Uh... he's related. Lawson. Old folks. He just wants to get some stuff out of here when we're through. For the daughter. Why? He'll keep.”
”Did he call himself General Lawson?”
”Sure. But you know how many old generals we've got around this state...”
Sergeant Goodbread went out and brought the general into the house, apologizing for the delay. He helped Lawson with the list of items and had Arn carry them out to the Olds. Goodbread talked for about ten minutes to Lawson in the living room. I could hear the voices but not the words. The air conditioner was too loud. I sat on the bed. The technicians kept going listlessly through the broken gla.s.s looking for clean fresh prints. Or even fresh smudges. Many many police officers have worked in criminal investigation until retirement without ever working on a case where a fingerprint made one d.a.m.ned bit of difference one way or the other. A skilled man knows a fresh print or smudge the instant he brings it out by the way the natural oil from the skin responds.
Lawson left. Goodbread came to the doorway and beckoned me into the living room. A chair and the end of the couch had been cleared off. A plastic tape box crunched under his heel and some brown stereo tape caught around his ankle. He motioned me toward the couch, and he bent and plucked the tape off his ankle before he sat in the chair. He took a stenopad out and opened it and put it on his heavy thigh and said, ”Description of Judith Lawson, please.”
I shut my eyes for a moment and rebuilt her, head to toe. I started to give it to him slowly, but I saw he was using some form of speedwriting or shorthand, so I delivered it more quickly. I gave him the conversation as I remembered it, not word for word, but reasonably close.
He closed the pad and said, ”Thanks for your cooperation.”
”Can I ask some questions?”
”What for?”
”I want to waste your time with my idle curiosity, Sergeant. Like I wasted your time telling you about General Lawson.”
”He mentioned... Captain Lamarr mentioned you get kind of smarta.s.s.”
”Is the reconstruction that she came home and found persons unknown busting up this place?”
”No way to check it, but she was wearing street clothes, and her purse was found beside the body. Without a dime in it.”
”And where was the body?”