A Bullet for Cinderella (8 page)

“Your name Howard?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Police. Come on along.”

“What for?”

“Lieutenant wants to talk to you.”

I went along. They put me in a police sedan and drove about eight blocks and turned into an enclosed courtyard through a gray stone arch. Other cars were parked there. They took me through a door that was one of several opening onto the courtyard. We went up wide wooden stairs that were badly worn to the second floor. It was an old building with an institutional smell of dust, carbolic, and urine. We went by open doors. One door opened onto a big file room with fluorescent lights and gray steel filing cases. Some men played cards in another room. I could hear the metallic gabbling voice of some sort of communication system.

We turned into a small office where a thin, bald man
sat behind a desk that faced the door. His face was young, with a swarthy Indian harshness about it, black brows. His hands were large. He looked tall. A small wooden sign on his desk said
Det. Lt. Stephen D. Prine
. The office had cracked buff plaster walls. Books and pamphlets were piled in disorder in a glass-front bookcase. A smallish man with white hair and a red whisky face sat half behind Lieutenant Prine, on the small gilded radiator in front of the single window.

One of the men behind me gave me an unnecessary push that made me thump my knee against the front of the desk and almost lose my balance. Prine looked at me with complete coldness.

“This is that Howard,” one of the men behind me said.

“Okay.” The door behind me closed. I glanced back and saw that the man in uniform had left. The big man in the gray suit leaned against the closed door. “Empty your pockets onto the desk,” Prine said. “Everything.”

“But—”

“Empty your pockets.” There was no threat in the words. Cold, bored command.

I put everything on the desk. Wallet, change, pen and pencil, notebook, cigarettes, lighter, penknife, folder of traveler’s checks. Prine reached a big hand over and separated the items into two piles, notebook, wallet, and checks in one pile that he pulled toward him.

“Put the rest of that stuff back in your pockets.”

“Could I ask why—”

“Shut up.”

I stood in uncomfortable silence while he went through my wallet. He looked carefully at every card and piece of paper, at the photograph of Charlotte, at the reduced Photostat of my discharge laminated in plastic. He went through the notebook and then examined the traveler’s checks.

“Now answer some questions.” He opened a desk drawer, flipped a switch, and said, “April 20, seven-ten p.m., interrogation by Lieutenant Prine of suspect picked
up by Hillis and Brubaker in vicinity of Hillston Inn. What is your full name?”

“Talbert Owen Howard.”

“Speak a little louder. Age and place of birth.”

“Twenty-nine. Bakersfield, California.”

“Home address.”

“None at the present time.”

“What was your last address?”

“Eighteen Norwalk Road, San Diego.”

“Are you employed?”

“No.”

“When were you last employed and by who?”

“Up until two and a half weeks ago. By the Guaranty Federated Insurance Company. I had a debit. Health and life. I was fired.”

“For what reason?”

“I wasn’t producing.”

“How long did you work for them?”

“Four years all together. Three and a half before the Korean war. The rest of it since I got back.”

“Are you married? Have you ever been married?”

“No.”

“Parents living?”

“No.”

“Brothers or sisters?”

“One sister. Older than I am. She lives in Perth, Australia. She was a Wave and she married an Aussie during the war.”

“Do you have any criminal record?”

“N—No.”

“You don’t seem sure.”

“I don’t know if you’d call it a criminal record. It was when I was in school. One of those student riots. Disturbing the peace and resisting an officer.”

“Were you booked and mugged and fingerprinted and found guilty?”

“Yes. I paid a fine and spent three days in jail.”

“Then you have a criminal record. How long have you been in Hillston?”

“I arrived here—Wednesday night. Two days.”

“What is your local address?”

“The Sunset Motel.”

“On this vehicle registration, do you own the vehicle free and clear?”

“Yes.”

“You have a little over a thousand dollars. Where did you get it?”

“I earned it. I saved it. I’m getting a little sick of all this. It’s beginning to make me sore.”

“Why did you come to Hillston?”

“Do I have to have a reason?”

“Yes. You need a reason.”

“I knew Timmy Warden in prison camp. And I knew others there that didn’t come back. I’m going to write a book about them. There’s my notes. You have them there.”

“Why didn’t you tell George Warden that?”

“I didn’t know how he’d take it.”

“You didn’t tell Fitzmartin, either?”

“He has no reason to know my business.”

“But you went out there to see him. And you were both in the same camp with Timmy Warden. It would seem natural to tell him.”

“I don’t care how it seems. I didn’t tell him.”

“If a man came to town with a cooked-up story about writing a book, it would give him a chance to nose around, wouldn’t it?”

“I guess it would.”

“What else have you written?”

“Nothing else.”

“Are you familiar with the state laws and local ordinances covering private investigators?”

I stared at him blankly. “No.”

“Are you licensed in any state?”

“No. I don’t know what—”

“If you were licensed, it would be necessary for you to find out whether this state has any reciprocal agreement. If so, you would merely have to make a courtesy call and announce your presence in this county and give the name of your employer.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Do you know a woman named Rose Fulton?”

“No. I’ve never heard of her.”

“Were you employed by Rose Fulton to come to Hillston?”

“No. I told you I never heard of her.”

“We were advised a month ago that Rose Fulton had hired an investigator to come here on an undercover assignment. We’ve been looking for the man. He would be the third one she’s sent here. The first two made a botch of their job. There was no job here for them in the first place. Rose Fulton is a persistent and misguided woman. The case, if there was any case, was completely investigated by this department. Part of our job is to keep citizens of Hillston from being annoyed and persecuted by people who have no business here. Is that clear to you?”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about. I really don’t.”

He looked at me for what seemed a long time. Then he said, “End of interrogation witnessed by Brubaker and Sparkman. Copies for file. Prine.” He clicked the switch and closed the desk drawer. He leaned back in his chair and yawned, then pushed my wallet, checks, and notebook toward me. “It’s just this, Howard. We get damned tired of characters nosing around here. The implication is that we didn’t do our job. The hell we didn’t. This Rose Fulton is the wife of the guy who ran off with George Warden’s wife, Eloise.”

“That name Fulton sounded familiar, but I didn’t know why.”

“It happened nearly two years ago. The first inquiry came from the company Fulton worked for. We did some hard work on it. Fulton was in town for three days. He was registered at the Hillston Inn. He stayed there every time he was in town. On the last night he was here, Friday night, he had dinner at the hotel with Eloise Warden. She waited in the lobby and he checked out. They got in his car. They drove to the Warden house. Eloise went in. Fulton waited out in the car. It was the evening
of the eleventh of April. A neighbor saw him waiting and saw her come out to the car with a big suitcase. They drove off. George Warden hadn’t reported it to us. He knew what the score was when he got back to town and saw the things she’d taken. It was an open and shut situation. It happens all the time. But Rose Fulton can’t bring herself to believe that her dear husband would take off with another woman. So she keeps sicking these investigators on us. You could be the third. I don’t think so. No proof. Just a hunch. She thinks something happened to him here. We know nothing happened to him here. I’ve lost patience, so this time we’re making it tough. You can go. If I happen to be wrong, if you happen to be hired by that crazy dame, you better keep right on going, friend. We’ve got a small force here, but we know our business.”

The big middle-aged man moved away from the door to let me out. There was no offer of a ride back to where they had picked me up. I walked. The walk wasn’t long enough. By the time I got to the Inn I was still sore at Prine and company. I could grudgingly admit that maybe he thought he had cause to swing his weight around. But I didn’t like being picked up like that. And it had irritated me to have to tell them I had no job, no permanent residence. I wasn’t certain what legal right they had to take that sort of a statement from me.

I had a drink at the dark bar at the end of the cocktail lounge at the Inn. Business was light. I nursed my drink and wondered how they had picked me up so quickly. I guessed it was from the motel register. I’d had to write down the make of my car and the license number. They’d known who I’d talked to and what had been said. It was a small city and they acted like men who made a business of knowing what was going on.

Just as I ordered the second drink I saw a big man come in and stand at the other end of the bar. He looked like the man I had seen in the blue sedan. But I couldn’t be certain. I had forgotten him and the effect he had had on Fitzmartin. He became aware of my interest. He turned and gave me a long look and turned back to the drink the bartender put in front of him. He had moved
his head slowly when he turned to look at me. His eyes were in shadow. I had a sudden instinctive premonition of danger. Fitz was danger, but a known quantity. I did not know this man or where he fitted in. I did not want to attempt to ask him. He finished his drink quickly and left. I looked down into my drink and saw myself lying dead, sprawled, cold. It was a fantasy that had been with me in the prison camp and later. You think of your own death. You try to imagine how it will be—to just cease, abruptly, eternally. It is a chilling thought, and once you have started it, it is difficult to shake off.

The depression stayed with me the rest of the evening. Thoughts of Ruth, of the new emphasis she had brought into my life, did little to relieve the blackness and the hint of fear. My mission in Hillston seemed pointless. It was part of running away from myself. There was no chance of finding the money and even if there was and I did find it, I couldn’t imagine it changing anything. Somehow I had become a misfit in my world, in my time. I had been jolted out of one comfortable rut, and there seemed to be no other place where I could fit. Other than Charlotte—and, too optimistically, Ruth—I could think of no one who gave a special damn whether I lived or died.

After the light was out I lay in darkness and surrendered myself to the great waves of bathos and self-pity. I wondered what would become of me. I wondered how soon I would be dead. I wondered how many other lonely beds there would be, and where they would be. Finally I fell asleep.

S
aturday morning was dreary, with damp winds, low, scudding clouds, lights on in the stores. I couldn’t get a better line on the Cooper girl until the administration
office at the high school opened on Monday. The few leads had faded away into nothing. I wondered what I would do with the day.

After buying some blades and some tooth paste, I drove around for a while and finally faced the fact that I was trying to think of a good excuse to see Ruth Stamm. I went without an excuse. She was in the reception office at the animal hospital. She gave me a quick, warm smile as I walked in. A woman sat holding a small shivering dog, waiting her turn. There was a boy with a Siamese cat on a leash. The cat, dainty and arrogant, purposefully ignored the shivering dog.

Ruth, smiling, asked in a low voice, “More questions?”

“No questions. Just general depression.”

“Wrong kind of hospital, Tal.”

“But the right kind of personnel.”

“Need some kind of therapy?”

“Something like that.”

She looked at her watch. “Come back at twelve. We close at noon on Saturday. I’ll feed you and we’ll cook up something to do.”

The day was not as dreary when I drove away. I returned at twelve. I went up to the house with her, and the three of us ate in the big kitchen. Dr. Buck Stamm was a skilled storyteller. Apparently every misfortune that could happen to a veterinary had happened to him. He reviled his profession, and his own stupidity in getting into it in the first place. After a cigar he went off to make farm calls. I helped Ruth with a few dishes.

“How about a plain old tour of the surrounding country,” she suggested. “There are parts that are very nice.”

“Then dinner tonight and a movie or something?”

“Sold. It’s Saturday night.”

She changed to slacks and a tweed jacket over a yellow sweater and we took my car. She gave me the directions. We took small back roads. It was pretty country, with rolling hills and spines of rock that stuck out of the hills. In the city the day had been gloomy. Out in the country it was no better, but the breeze seemed moist with spring. The new leaves were a pale green. She sat slouched in the
seat with one knee up against the glove compartment and pointed out the farms, told me about the people, told me about the history of the area.

At her suggestion I took a back road that led to a place called Highland Lake. She told me when to slow down. When we came to a dirt road we turned right. A mile down the slippery, muddy road was a sign that said
B. Stamm
. I went cautiously down an overgrown drive through the woods until we came to a small cabin with a big porch overlooking a small lake less than a mile long and half as wide. I could see other cabins in the trees along the lake shore.