The Sign of the Book (7 page)

McNamara was a widower who had lived in the county thirty years. “I eat down to the Paradise Café ever since Martha died,” he said. “We never had any children, so that's where I do my socializing, such as it is. You feel like grabbing some supper over there?”

“Sure.”

We sat in a corner booth and I learned that his wife had died two years ago. They had been together almost fifty years. I could sense some of his loss when he mentioned her, and maybe I could imagine the rest of it.

“I try to keep busy,” he said. “Sometimes I go a little stir-crazy, but most of the time I find enough work to do.”

Actually, he said, there wasn't much legal work in a small county like this. “The house keeps me busy. I work in Martha's garden and putz around. Funny, I never gave a damn about the garden till she was gone, and then it became more important than I'd have believed to keep those green sprouts coming. I feel good watching it bloom in the spring, kinda like she's still here. But there's no gardening this time of the year and now I miss it. I do keep my shingle hung out. If a legal dispute does come up, I usually get it. I'll travel if the case calls for that… over to Hinsdale County, up to Gunnison. That's rare, but I keep busy.”

He broke some bread. “For a while I thought of moving to Chicago. I was there on a visit to my sister when I met Martha. Christmas, 1939. Now my sister's long gone too. When Martha died, I thought maybe I'd move back there, but in the end what the hell would I do? I'm too old to get a job, even doing legal research, and I think the big city would be worse than living out here in the sticks. At least I know this kind of solitude: the other I can only imagine, but what I imagine is pretty excruciating.”

He laughed. “Hey, don't get the wrong idea. I don't feel sorry for myself. I've had a pretty good run at life. Where you staying tonight?”

“Hadn't thought about it.” I looked outside at the snowstorm. “I'd better start thinking right after we eat. I'd hate to have to sleep in my car.”

“Don't worry. There are only two places, the Paradise Hotel and a motel back out on the highway, but neither one of 'em ever fills up. I wouldn't wish those places on my worst enemy. The old sheriff used to sometimes let people sleep in the jail. I'd rather sleep there than in either of those fleabags.”

The waitress, a buxomy gal named Velma, poured some coffee and flirted with Parley. He watched her ass as she walked away and we smiled foxily at each other. You never get too old to look.

I paid our tab. “Put your money away, I'm on an expense account.”

Outside, he huddled into his coat. “You could stay with me if you want to,” he said almost shyly. “The room's warm and private, it's free, and the roof don't leak.”

“Well, that's generous of you. I wouldn't want to put you out.”

“Ah, hell, you'd be doin' me a favor. I'd like the sound of a voice in the house.”

“In that case you're on.”

“Now let's walk up the street and see if anybody saw your little run-in with Lennie this morning.”

 

His house was at the south edge of town, on a one-acre tract with trees and light underbrush and a clearing in the back that was probably the garden. The house had been built in the twenties and was still solid. “I don't have much to do to it,” he said. “I paint it every five years or so and I had it inspected in 1980, but it's solid as Gibraltar. I expect to be here for the duration, however long that is.”

Inside it was spotless, with the kind of spit-and-polish attention that made me stop at the door and take off my shoes. He's keeping it that way for her, I thought. He said, “Don't worry about it,” but I removed the shoes anyway. He fired up a big fireplace and I got the tour. “This place has always been too big,” he said. “Martha wanted it that way, in case her brothers came to visit. They did a few times, but now they're gone too.”

We walked back through a hallway and he turned on the lights as he went. “My only complaint about it these days is that it gets so god-awful dark in here. I never noticed that before, but now it can be depressing. So if you see a dark corner, feel free to turn on a light. Back here are the bedrooms.”

There were three rooms with beds. “You can have your pick,” he said. “My room is clear over on the other side of the house, so you can bump around, sing in the shower—you won't bother me a bit. We don't get TV down here. The signals just won't come in over these mountains, so I hope you brought a good book to read.”

I stashed my stuff in one of the bedrooms and joined him in the front room for a nightcap. We talked about my case against Lennie if I chose to bring one. Only two of the stores on that corner had still been open, but Parley had collected three names. “I'll talk to the others tomorrow.”

At Jenkins' Hardware the proprietor had not only seen it but had discussed it with a customer, who was also willing to talk. Lennie's tactics were well-known in the county. “I think we've got a chance not only to get it dismissed but also to cause Lennie some general embarrassment,” Parley said. “That's got to be worth doing.”

“You're sure taking a lot of trouble with this.”

“It's what I do. You can't let an asshole make a mockery of the law.”

“No,” I said.

“Does that mean you'll fight it?”

“Hey, how could I not fight it after all your hard work?”

“That's the ticket, boy, no pun intended. If the judge won't listen, I'll appeal the son of a bitch, I don't care if it is just a traffic dispute.” He laughed suddenly. “I'll get my friend Griff Edwards to do a piece on justice in Paradise for the
Paradise Mountaineer.
Embarrass the sons of bitches, that's language they understand.”

We talked about Mrs. Marshall. I asked how long he had known her and he said, “Just about as long as she's been here. Eight years or so. But long don't mean well. She and Marshall kept to themselves.”

“Didn't you tell me you knew her better than him?”

“When she first came here, she got talked into being on an old-town preservation committee. That's how she met Martha and that's how I met her. We had dinner once, the four of us, and whenever they went out of town, I'd drive up there and keep an eye on their place. That's about the extent of it.”

“Did they always have a big library like that?”

“If they did, they had it hidden. I guess the first time I saw those books was three or four years ago. And it's grown some since then.”

“Did either of 'em ever tell you what it was, where they got it?”

“No, but I didn't ask. Lots of people have books.”

“You mean you just said, wow, what a lot of books?”

“Something stupid like that. It was just a wall of books to me.”

“Did you get any feeling for how they were getting along back in the beginning?”

I didn't think he'd answer that, but he said, “Laura never struck me as a happy woman. I always liked her, but she was… private… if you know what I mean.”

“Secretive?”

“Don't read your own stuff into my words, son.
Private
means
private
: not that she had anything to hide, just stuff she'd rather keep to herself that wasn't anybody else's business anyway.”

He poured himself another shot, gestured to me, and I shook my head.

“Right from the start I sensed some tragedy in her life,” he said. “That wouldn't have anything to do with your friend the lawyer over in Denver, would it?”

“Could be.”

I sipped my brandy. “I'll be talking to Erin in the morning. I'll see if she'll tell us about it.”

“Just tell her I'm a curious old bastard. Got nothing to do anymore but poke around in other people's business.”

“Yeah, Parley, I'll be sure and tell her that.”

The big question was still there between us. At some point I asked it.

“So what do you think happened?”

“I don't know that, do I? I don't know much more than what you heard her say this afternoon. I told her a dozen times not to say anything…”

“Well, now that she has…”

He shrugged. “Could be any number of things. Maybe Marshall was a womanizer and she got tired of it. Maybe he abused her and she got tired of that. We know it wasn't for any big life insurance claim. The policies they had wouldn't amount to a hill of beans. So far she hasn't shown much willingness to talk about the two of them. I don't know if these things happened, but I will tell you that Laura never struck me as a woman who'd put up with much bullshit. That's why one day she walked out on the preservation committee, right between the crumpets and the tea. Too much bullshit, too many pissy little kingmakers more interested in having their way than getting things done. That seems to be the way of all committees, from the UN all the way out here to West Jesus, Colorado.”

He coughed and leaned forward, warming his hands. “There's another theory, I guess, but so far it's just my own intuition.” He grinned like an old fox. “Would you like to hear it?”

“Sure I would.”

“I don't think she killed him at all.”

“Then who did?” Erin said.

“He doesn't know, or isn't telling,” I said. “So far it's just a feeling he's got.”

I listened to the telephone noise while she mulled it over almost three hundred miles away. I was standing at a downtown Paradise pay phone, basking in the great Colorado autumn morning. The snow had stopped during the night, the sun had cast the valley in a brilliant glow, and all along the street I could hear the scrape of steel on pavement as people dug out and got ready for a new day.

It was Saturday and I had called Erin at home. She listened intently: there was no talk now of come on home or pack it in. I heard her sip her coffee and sniff. Her voice was thick, as if she was getting a cold.

“He doesn't know who did it,” she said at last. “He doesn't know who
might
have done it, or why, or why
she
might be covering up for someone. He doesn't know
her
all that well either. This is just some gut feeling he's got.”

This was not said sarcastically or to diminish anything the old man believed. It was just Erin, in her lawyer voice, putting some facts in order.

“Anything else?”

“I asked the same questions you just did,” I told her.

“And he had no reason at all for his hunch.”

“Nothing he was willing to put to words, let alone take into court.”

“Where were the kids when all this went on?”

“In their bedroom, asleep, way over on the other side of the house.”

“And the sounds of gunshots didn't wake them?”

“She says not.”

“You believe that?”

“I'm just telling you what she told McNamara.”

“A .38 makes a lot of noise,” Erin said.

“Tell me about it.” I touched my shoulder, where I had once been shot by one. “I guess it's possible. There are three big rooms and a hall between the kids' rooms and the front room where Marshall was shot. Maybe, if all the doors were closed.”

“I don't suppose you've seen any of the reports yet.”

“Not yet. Parley's got the CBI reports and other evidence the DA has.”

“What'd the CBI say, did he tell you that?”

“He's not ready to tell us that; not till we know we're either in or out. He did say it was two days before the CBI got out there.”

“Jesus! What was that all about?”

“They weren't called right away. A lot of the physical evidence—the bullets, the blood, some fibers, some hair—was collected by the Sheriff's Department and sent over to the lab in Montrose. Parley was pretty disgusted.”

“He should be.” I knew what she would ask next and she asked it. “How do you read him?”

“He's a solid old guy, sharp under all that folksy stuff. I wouldn't blow him off.”

“But you haven't really questioned her yet?”

“Just what I told you about yesterday.”

“No idea what the books might mean, if anything?”

“Not yet.”

A moment passed. I thought it could go either way. She was making a decision now, and maybe then I'd have my own decision to make. “You said he was into books. Even way back when you knew him.”

“Yeah, he was,” she said. “I told you about that, remember?… That night we met in your bookstore two years ago, I told you my first boyfriend was a book freak like you. But I guess, given the way it all turned out, I didn't know what he was into.” She sniffed. “Any reason to think the books might be part of it?”

“Nothing I can put my finger on. They might be a motive for something.”

I looked up and saw Lennie Walsh drive past. He turned in to the parking lot at the hall of justice and sat in his car, smoking and talking to himself.

“Go over and see her,” Erin said. “This time don't pull any punches. Ask her about the books and see if McNamara will confront her on this confession she's so eager to give him. Make an issue of it. Tell her if she lies, or evades your questions, you're out of there.”

“I guess I can do some form of that.”

“However you do it, let's get a straight story from her and see where we are.”

“One more thing. McNamara wants to know what happened between you two.”

“What for?”

“He says he's a nosy old bastard who likes to pry.”

“Ha. He asks good questions. That's one I would've asked as well.”

She thought about it, then said, “Go ahead and tell him they had an affair behind my back. See what he thinks of my conflict of interest.”

 

Again I was shown into the conference room on the second floor. “You'll have to wait for Parley,” said old Freeman, the custodian. “He's down talking to the sheriff about another matter and he doesn't want your lady questioned until he can be here.”

It was a half-hour wait. When Parley came in, he said, “They don't want to dismiss your ticket outright. I could have Christ and twenty-six disciples lined up to testify and he'd still want to take Lennie's side of it. They're all down there now hashing it over. Secretly I think the sheriff is pretty damned mad about it. Like I told you, this is not the first time Lennie's done this kinda thing.”

Another fifteen minutes passed before Mrs. Marshall was brought in. I couldn't tell from the sheriff's expression how the wind was blowing, but he didn't look happy. He escorted Laura to the same chair and left us there.

I watched Parley, waiting for his lead.

“Laura, we need to talk turkey, you and me.”

“Can Mr. Janeway stay?”

“It might be just as well, for right now, if it was just the two of us.”

“But he needs to be here,” she insisted. “So he can tell Erin what was said.”

He looked at me, clearly annoyed. “Dammit, Janeway, is this woman of yours gonna come down here or not?”

“She'll come,” Laura said, surprising us both. “I know she'll come.”

“I talked to her this morning,” I said. “She has not accepted your case, Mrs. Marshall, she certainly can't be considered your attorney at this point. And for what it's worth, I think she'd agree with the advice Parley is giving you.”

“This is not a question I'd normally ask,” Parley said. “Now I think you've got to tell me what really happened the day Bobby was killed.”

“I did tell you.”

“So far you've only said that you shot him.”

She nodded warily. “What else is there?”

“Was there something remotely like a reason? How'd your dress get torn?”

“It was a private matter between us.”

Parley rolled his eyes back and closed them.

“That won't make any difference anyway,” she said. “What happened is what's important, not why it happened.”

“Is that what you think? Well, missy, where's your law degree?”

I saw two things in her face: a flash of anger and an immediate look of regret. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I know I'm making it harder for you.”

“It can't get too much harder than impossible. You'd better come to realize a few things, and right now's not a minute too soon. You're in a bad spot.”

“I know that. I know it. What would happen if I just plead guilty and throw myself on the mercy of the court?”

“You could do that. Without any mitigating circumstances, and based on what I know of this judge here, you might get out in time to see your great-grandchildren graduate from college. That's
if
you get out at all, and
if
he doesn't fit you for a hot seat at Cañon City.”

“They won't execute me.”

“Probably not. This state doesn't have any stomach for its own death penalty statute. The point is, they
could;
that old man downstairs could put you on death row, where you might sit for years before some other old man commuted it to life. Or he could give you life without possibility of parole right out of the gate. Do you know how difficult it can be to even get something like that reconsidered, let alone overturned? Whatever your reason is for not talking about it now, that'll look pale as the years pass. You can trust me on this, Laura, if you don't believe anything else I tell you: the day will come when you'll wish to God you had listened to good advice when you heard it. Then it'll be too late. The very best you can expect to do is twenty years of damned hard time. That's what I want you to think about.”

“What do you think I've been doing? If there was anything I could tell you…”

“You can start by telling me why you shot him. And don't keep saying it's a private matter. When you shoot somebody dead, there's nothing private about it anymore.”

“What difference does it make if you can't use it anyway?”

“Is that what you're saying? There may be mitigating circumstances but you won't let me use them even if I know what they are. Is that what you're telling me?”

“I didn't say there were mitigating circumstances, you did. That's different from the reason why, isn't it?”

“Don't do this to yourself, Laura. Don't play games with your lawyer.”

“I just can't get into it,” she said, and the room passed into a long, deadly silence.

“Let's try it once more,” Parley said. “Look in my face here, not at the floor. I'm your lawyer. That means you can talk to me and nothing you say will ever get out of this room without your permission. If you've got second thoughts about having another party present, Mr. Janeway will leave us in private. This will stay between us. But you've got to tell me what happened.”

“I just can't get into it. How many times have I got to say that?”

“Goddammit, you are into it, you're up to your pretty neck into it. Don't look down, look at me and tell me who you're protecting.”

“No one.
No
one! Why would you even ask that? I told you I did it.”

“I don't believe you. I think you're protecting somebody. Who could that be, Laura? Was it one of the kids?”

Her eyes opened wide. “Don't say that! Don't even
think
that!”

She looked at me and said, “I want another lawyer.”

She looked at Parley. “Why won't you do what I want? It's my life, isn't it?”

“Did Bobby abuse you in some way?”

“No!”

“Did he abuse the kids?”

“
No!
Stop this! Stop it, I want another lawyer.”

“Well, that's certainly your right. But any lawyer worth a damn will ask these same questions. This stuff won't just go away, Laura. And the truth has a way of getting out, no matter what you want.”

“I've told you the truth.”

“Yeah, well, I don't think so. You're lying right now, I can see it in your face. And I can't think of anybody you'd lie for except the kids.”

She shook her head.

“Was it Jerry?”

The room turned suddenly hot. Her face was flushed.

“Was it Jerry, Laura? Did Jerry shoot Bobby?”

“You must be mad. He's a child. For God's sake, he's only eleven years old!”

“How old do you have to be to pick up a gun?”

“I'm not listening to this. I want to see Erin.”

“Well, I'll do my best to get her here. Maybe she can talk sense to you.”

He looked to me, I thought for support. I said, “He's right, Mrs. Marshall. Erin would ask exactly the same questions.”

“If Jerry did this, you've got to tell me,” Parley said.

“Stop saying that!”

“As I was
about
to say, he's a minor. That would make it an entirely different ball game with its own set of rules. With a kid that young, they look at treatment rather than punishment. If the circumstances—”

“Mr. McNamara,” she said icily, “I think I'm going to ask you to leave.”

“I might as well leave, for all the good I'm doing you. If you come to your senses, you call me.”

He pressed the buzzer and stood near the door. I pushed back my chair. But suddenly Mrs. Marshall reached over to me and said, “Can you stay?”

“You'd better ask your lawyer. Parley?”

“What have we got to lose? Talk some sense to her. Get her to listen.”

The sheriff arrived. Parley said, “Mr. Janeway will remain for a while and talk to Mrs. Marshall as Ms. D'Angelo's representative. Attorney privilege still applies.”