Murder Takes a Break (27 page)

D
ino had a little more trouble getting in the truck this time, but after a little maneuvering, I got him into a sitting position and fastened the seat belt around him.

I was about to shut the door when he said, "You took your pistol in there, didn't you?"

I admitted that I had.

"Why didn't you shoot her, then?"

"What would I have told Lattner?
 
That Big Al squeezed you a little too hard?"

"I wish I had a pistol," Dino said.
 
"I'd use it to shoot
you
."

He was only kidding, though.
 
I think.

We were almost to his house before he said anything else, and it wasn't anything that I'd expected.

"Was Big Al really crying?" he asked.

"I think so.
 
It surprised me, too."

"Yeah.
 
I would have bet she couldn't do it.
 
She really must have liked old Henry J."

"Two hearts beating as one," I said.

"I don't think that was it, exactly," Dino said.
 
"I think they understood each other, but that's about all."

I stopped the S-10 in front of his house and walked around to help him out.

"I can make it just fine," he said, pushing away the hand that I offered.

"I know that.
 
I was just making sure."

"Yeah.
 
I believe that like I believe Big Al didn't really want to hurt me."

He got out without my help, but it took him a while.
 
When he had both feet planted on the ground, I said, "You don't still think Big Al shot Henry J., do you?"

"Hell, no.
 
That was no act we saw back there.
 
I thought she was going to kill me, but there was nothing personal in it.
 
I was just there for her to take it out on."

"And you don't hold it against her?"

"If it hadn't been for me," he said, "we wouldn't have been at the Hurricane Club.
 
Besides, I don't blame her.
 
I was handy, and she needed to hurt somebody.
 
I might have done the same thing in her place."

"No, you wouldn't.
 
Your uncles, maybe, but not you."

"Yeah, well, you never know."

That was true.
 
You never really know about anyone, no matter how well you might think you know them.
 

We started slowly up the walk to Dino's front door.
 
He was walking a lot better now than he'd been back at Big Al's place.
 
So was I, for that matter.
 
In a week or so, we'd be as good as new.
 
Or so I liked to tell myself.

Dino opened his door and said, "If Big Al didn't kill Henry J. and take a shot at Sharon, who did?
 
Lattner?"

"I wouldn't put it past him.
 
He's mixed up in things some way or another.
 
But I have some other ideas, too."

"Are you going to tell me what they are?"

"I may have done too much of that already."

"Now what the hell does that mean?" Dino asked.

"Do you feel like hearing it?"

"Not out here.
 
Come on in."

We went inside.
 
Dino sat on his couch and reached for his remote control.
 
I beat him to it and pushed it aside.

"If I'm going to talk, I'm not going to compete with some screaming cretin on that TV set."

"Cretin?"

"You could look it up."

"Right.
 
And then I have to use it in a sentence.
 
Like
flippant
."

"You did real well with that one."

"Yeah.
 
Now tell me about those ideas of yours.
 
Or better yet, don't tell me.
 
Not yet.
 
I'm going to take a bunch of aspirin right now."

He got off the couch under his own power and shuffled off to find the aspirin.
 
I sat in a chair near the coffee table and waited for him to come back.
 
When he did, he didn't look any better, but then it takes a while for aspirin to do any good.
 
He sat back on the couch and looked at me.

"About those ideas of yours," he said.

"I don't have a lot of ideas," I told him, "but I do have a couple of questions."

"Questions?
 
What about?"

"About your old college pal Tack Kirbo."

"Tack?
 
What about him?"

"Is he still in town?" I asked.

It was something I should have thought of sooner, but it hadn't really occurred to me.
 
When I look for people these days, I don't give formal reports to my clients, and I'd simply assumed that the Kirbos had gone back home to wait for some word on what I'd found out.
 
Dino had guaranteed my fee, and there was no reason for the Kirbos to stick around.

But, as it turned out, they had.

"Sure they're here," Dino told me.
 
"They're right there at the Galvez."

"I had a feeling you were going to say that.
 
And because you did, I have another question.
 
Have you been talking to them?"

"Them?"

"Don't get legalistic on me Dino.
 
You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I guess I do."

He looked hopefully at the remote control.
 
I picked it up and held it in my hand.

"I'll let you have this just as soon as you answer the question."

"OK, OK.
 
I've talked to Tack a couple of times.
 
He's an old friend, after all."

"So what did you talk about?"

"Nothing much.
 
Just about how we were looking into things and that we'd run down a couple of leads."

"'We,'" I said.
 
"You told him 'we.'"

Dino tried to look innocent.
 
He wasn't very good at it, however.

"Sure I did.
 
We were working together part of the time, weren't we?"

"And so you told him about Big Al and Henry J."

"Why not?
 
You don't think Tack had anything to do with all this, do you?"

"It's not impossible.
 
You couldn't have told him about Sharon, though, since we didn't know anything about that part of things."

"Well, . . . ."

"Well, what?
 
Oh, hell."
 
I'd forgotten for a second that he'd known all along that Sharon had been at the party.
 
"You don't mean you told him that she was at the beach house."

"It might have come up while we were talking."

"Either you told him or you didn't.
 
Which is it?"

"OK, I told him.
 
I didn't see any reason not to."

I couldn't really blame him.
 
I don't think I would have seen any reason not to, either.

"Kirbo might know more than we think he does about the whole mess," I said.
 
"He might even have had someone else working on this, for all we know.
 
And he might even have a reason for blaming Sharon for what happened to his son, now that he knows she was at the party."

Dino rubbed his face.
 
He looked a little ragged around the edges, and whatever good the shot had done him at first, Big Al's grip on his shoulder had canceled it out.

"You don't really believe that, do you?
 
That Tack would try to kill Sharon, I mean."

"You know him better than I do," I said.
 
"He's your old pal."

He thought about it for a minute and came to a conclusion he didn't really want to put into words.
 
He finally made himself do it, however.

"I think he might have done it if he was mad enough," he said.

I
t was nearly eleven o'clock by the time I got to the Galvez.
 
The Christmas tree was still in the lobby, but the bell ringers were gone, back to wherever they'd come from with happy memories of the holiday season in festive Galveston.
 

I wasn't feeling festive at all, and I was afraid that the Kirbos wouldn't be going home with pleasant memories.
 
When I called their room on the house phone, Janey Kirbo answered on the first ring.

I asked her if I could talk to her and her husband, but she said that might not be a good idea.
 
She asked if she could meet me in the lobby.

"Sure," I told her.
 
"I'll be on one of those couches in the front hall, looking out at the Gulf."

I couldn't really see the Gulf, but I sat on the couch anyway.
 
She arrived in about five minutes, which surprised me a little.
 
I thought people in Lubbock were the early-to-bed type, so I'd assumed she'd need a little time to get dressed.

She looked tired.
 
There were circles under her eyes, and her make-up could have used a refresher.
 
She sank to the couch and sighed.

"Trouble?" I said.

"No more than usual.
 
What did you want to talk to us about?"

"I really wanted to talk to your husband," I said.
 
"I had a few questions to ask him."

"Anything you could ask him, you can ask me.
 
I'm sure I can answer for him."

"I don't doubt that.
 
Where is he, by the way?"

"Do you really want to know?"

I told her that I really did.

"All right.
 
I hate to burden you with dirty little family secrets, but he's up in the room, passed out on the bed.
 
Fully clothed, of course, and snoring very loudly."

"He had a hard day, I take it," I said, thinking that all that shooting and running away had tired him out.

"It was no harder than any other day that he has.
 
He's not asleep, Mr. Smith.
 
He's passed out drunk."

I didn't know what to say to that, since it didn't exactly fit with my expectations.
 
So I didn't say anything at all, a tactic that's often proved useful in the past.
 
Sometimes other people will talk just to fill the vacuum.
 
That's what Janey Kirbo did.

"When you met us the other day," she said, "you must have noticed how much Tack liked his liquor."

I nodded.
 
"Lots of people do."

"With him, it's more than just liking.
 
It's an illness.
 
He's an alcoholic, but of course he won't admit it.
 
I've tried talking to him, but he insists that his drinking isn't a problem.
 
He says he has it under control."

"That's what he said about Randall, too."

"Well, he's wrong.
 
About himself, and about our son.
 
Randall was well on his way to becoming an alcoholic, too, if he wasn't one already."

"That's not what —"

She didn't give me a chance to finish the sentence.
 

"I know that's not what Tack said the other day.
 
But it's the truth.
 
Tack has been lying to himself for so long, he almost believes he's telling the truth.
 
But I know better.
 
So does he, somewhere deep down.
 
That just makes it harder, for both of us."

I remembered how she'd looked the day I met her.
 
I'd wondered then if there wasn't more to the story of Randall's disappearance than I was getting.
 
Now I knew that there was, and she was going to tell me about it.

"I'm never going to see my son again, am I, Mr. Smith?" she asked.

I didn't much want to tell her what I really thought, but I didn't think this was the time to lie to her.

"I'm afraid not," I said.
 
"I'm pretty sure something's happened to him.
 
Something bad."

"I'm sure, too.
 
I've been sure from the beginning, but there was no way I could convince Tack of that.
 
He kept telling me that Randall was a mature and responsible adult, that he knew how to handle himself, that he could control any situation he found himself in.
 
Maybe Tack believes that, along with everything else he believes.
 
But then he thinks
he's
a mature and responsible adult.
 
That should tell you something."