The Expendable Man (27 page)

Hugh broke through his thoughts. “Did Fred bring her home in a car?”

Lora stopped talking and thought about it. “I don't think so. I didn't see any car. Of course they might have parked it down at the corner but I didn't hear any car. The first thing I heard was them laughing.” She explained, “They didn't have to have a car. We don't live far from town. Indio isn't big like Phoenix.”

Fred O. didn't have a car; he went over there with someone else, someone else who'd know about his trips.

Now Houston was asking, “Did Bonnie Lee tell you she was planning a trip to Phoenix?”

Lora confessed reluctantly, “No. But we hadn't had a chance to talk lately. She'd been running around with Inky Miller and that crowd.” Her nose expressed her distaste. “Inky says she wanted him to drive her to Phoenix to visit her aunt.”

The boy with the jalopy. And the aunt wasn't a lie of the moment, she'd been planned.

Lora recalled with pride, “She wouldn't have told me that. I knew she didn't know anyone in Phoenix. Except Fred.” Her voice became small, childlike. “Do you think it was Fred murdered her?” She didn't want it to be true. She didn't want her first touch with real romance to be spoiled.

“We think so,” Houston said gravely. “We don't know, but we think so.”

Her eyes darted to Hugh. Houston caught the implication. He asked, “Have you ever seen Dr. Densmore before tonight?”

“Oh no!” She was outraged at the question. “I never have.”

Houston nodded acceptance, then smiled. “I don't think we should keep Lora up any longer, Meg. She's staying at your house?”

Meg nodded.

“I'm sure it's been a long day for her. You'll bring her by the office tomorrow?”

He'd get a signed statement before he turned her loose.

“I'd planned it,” Meg said.

He turned the big smile again on Lora. “Maybe we could have lunch together?”

“I don't have to go back to school tomorrow?”

“I don't think we could get you there in time.”

The little girl grinned. “That's too bad, isn't it?”

Meg spoke good nights, Lora nodded. Skye went out with them to their car.

Ellen said, “If only she'd met him just once. Face to face.”

“If only she knew his full name,” Hugh echoed Houston's remark. “But there can't be many Fred O.'s who went to Indio two or three times a week, spent the night, and returned to Phoenix next day.” And he thought aloud, “He might not be in the Phoenix directory. Most truckers don't live in the city. If he's a trucker.”

“A bus driver,” Ellen offered.

“Or a railroad man.” Iris would have enjoyed that, the joke on her father. It had to be someone who didn't have a car in Indio. Or whose car or small truck would give away his identity.

Houston returned. “We'll start eliminating the Fred O.'s in the morning. The police may be doing it tonight. But we might get there first. We know more. Someone who had an Indio run at Christmas but no longer has it. She wouldn't have had to come to Phoenix if he was still available in Indio.”

Hugh said, “It might be he just stopped seeing her.”

“Not in Indio. Too small a town. She'd have found him there if he was still around.”

“He could have told her to meet him in Phoenix.”

“Not a chance. He wouldn't have had her come here to learn he was married. Too chancey. He wouldn't have wanted her on his hands here.” He figured it as he spoke. “She knew where to find him. Not his home, he'd never let her know that.”

Ellen said, “The bus station.” She repeated it. “A bus driver. She asked to be let off at the bus station.”

For a moment there was silence as they looked at each other, hoping. “It could be,” Houston said slowly. “It seems too easy but it would fit with his Indio schedule.” He took a deep breath. “Sometimes things do fall in line after you get a break.”

“Lora is a break?” Hugh asked. She seemed a tenuous one.

“She certainly is. After I get her signed statement in the morning, I don't care how much the police question her.” He was thinking of the trial, of his witness, the brilliant defense, the victory of good over evil. He wasn't afraid of the outcome. There might be minor setbacks but the triumph was already in his hand. Academically he might be aware that this triumph would be dust and ashes to Hugh. But he wasn't able to understand that public proclamation of Hugh's innocence would not be able to take away the stain of guilt. “You'll have a drink before you go?” He didn't wait for the answer but began pouring. After handing out the glasses, he sat down beside Ellen. “It's shaping nicely. I didn't expect things to move so fast. Once Fred O. is brought in—”

Hugh could no longer remain silent. “That's when it begins. When Fred O. talks.”

Ellen denied him fiercely. “No, Hugh. The marshal won't believe his lies.”

“Why not? It's all so logical. He brings her to my doorstep. I say I turned her away and never saw her again. He'll say he left her there and never saw her again. Who is speaking the truth?”

Houston frowned. “There'll be evidence—”

“The evidence is against me. A witness? Not to murder.”

“There'll be evidence in his car, or the car he drove that night.”

There was a possibility that the scientists by some infinitesimal grain of matter could prove Fred guilty of murder. “But not of abortion,” Hugh said. “He will accuse me of the abortion. That will be his revenge because we led the police to him.” He said distinctly, “That's all the police are waiting for. Someone to confirm their suspicion.”

Skye attempted to speak with the assurance he had earlier but it was a failure. “Let's not borrow trouble. By the time Fred O. gets through lying to the police about everything else, they're not going to be so ready to accept his lies about you as you seem to think. If you didn't abort that girl—”

And still it was the if, even now Skye could have that doubt.

“—no one's going to prove you did.”

But who was going to prove he didn't? From a cell he couldn't prove it.

“There's one thing you should know.” Houston no longer attempted to hide his troubled frown. “That kid said it at the door. Around school they're saying that Bonnie Lee went to Phoenix with a Negro.”

Behind a set face, Hugh's reaction was held.

“She asked me if you were the one.”

His voice sounded strange. “What did you answer?”

“The truth. What else could I?” Houston tossed down the rest of his drink. “If only you could remember the license number of that jalopy. I could get those little bastards to tell the truth about your meeting with Bonnie Lee.”

“What good would it do?” Hugh asked wearily. “It wouldn't prove I'm not the abortionist.”

Not Inky or Guppy or Lora or the ones she spent the night with in Blythe could prove that.

Hugh and Ellen drove away in silence, over the winding deserted roads that led to town. The moon was high and white; each fence post, each clump of cactus was as distinctly outlined as by the sun. The mountains were moon-gray against the deep night sky. A dog barked from a distant house, the only reminder that they were not on another planet.

Hugh said, “Tomorrow I will be arrested.”

“This is morbid,” she began conversationally, but he cut her off.

“As soon as they talk to Fred O. Skye expects it. He knows he can't prevent it any longer. He's planning my defense.”

“He has to plan. What's a lawyer for if he doesn't? Isn't the best offense a strong defense?”

“He'll prove me innocent. When Skye gets through with Fred O., no jury will believe a word he says. But before that the headlines will scream: Dr. Densmore Accused of Abortion. That's what will be remembered, not that I was proved innocent. That's what will stick, my name and that vicious word.” He tried to keep the bile from his tongue. “It's all over once I'm arrested. No one wants a doctor with a dubious reputation.”

“Why don't you really wallow, Hugh?” she asked quietly. “Make that headline: Negro Doctor Accused.” There was anger in her now. “Skye is just as aware as you are of what an accusation can do to your professional life. That's why he's using his prestige, even going outside channels into his personal relationship with the marshal and the police chief and the press to keep you from being officially charged—”

“The press?”

“You don't believe they haven't been around because they don't know about you,” she scorned. “They agreed to keep your name out of it because of the circumstances. But they don't like it. If both the marshal and Skye weren't exerting pressure—”

“I'm sorry. I didn't know.” And Hugh wondered how often Ellen and Skye had been together, at lunch, cocktails, a swim, for her to know so much more than he did of what was going on. It was none of his business what she did with her spare time. He mocked himself, “No one ever tells me anything.”

“You're in good hands, Hugh,” she said firmly. “Skye can't make miracles but he can conjure wonders.”

They had reached the motel but neither made a move to get out of the car.

She continued, gently now, “If it should happen, don't worry about your family. They'll hear the whole story from me before they can get a garbled account.”

“From you and from Edward.”

“Dr. Edward knows?”

He had spoken without thinking. “Yes. I've talked to him. I had to.”

She didn't seem to wonder why. She only murmured, “Good,” as if it were a relief to her that someone in the family shared the knowledge of events. In the interval of silence, each with his own thoughts, the insistence of sound was audible. She said, “I believe that's my phone.”

He too had recognized the faint bell. “Answer it!” He was out of the car as he spoke and running lightly from the drive onto the sidewalk and toward Van Buren. When he reached the corner he could see without pausing that in the dispensary across the street there was no one but the clerk, seated behind the counter, a magazine in hand. He chose to turn right toward the service station with the convenient telephone kiosk. But he was halted as a car turned into the main driveway leading to the motel office. For that moment his view ahead was blocked. When the car had passed, he remained rooted where he was. The police prowl car had materialized in that interval. It was stopped near a car at the station curb, a dark unrecognizable sedan. One of the officers was bending to the driver's window, another stood on the corner, not far from the phone booth, talking to two youths. Hugh was too far from the corner to distinguish faces or the make of the car.

He turned and retreated into the motel drive, taking the nearest crosswalk through the green to Ellen's room.

She responded to his knock. “There was no one on the line.”

“No.” He couldn't contain his disappointment. “The prowl car was there first.”

“You think it was Fred O.?”

“Who else?”

“You don't need to go looking for him any longer,” she said. “You don't have to take that chance. The police will have him by tomorrow.”

She was right. But he had an uncontrollable urge to confront the man in the act of telephoning. With all his theorizing about non-violence, what he wanted was to smash Fred O.'s dirty words down his dirty throat. He said wryly, “The Lord helps those who help themselves.”

She countered, “They also serve who only stand and wait.” She stepped back from the doorway. “Come in for a cigarette. Until you cool off.”

“Not tonight.” He made the refusal less blunt. “I'll be underfoot as usual tomorrow. Until our friends arrive—”

What had been banter, by some transubstantiation suddenly was not. If either had spoken in that moment, if either had moved so much as a finger. . . He remembered her laughter, counterpart to Skye Houston's. He kept his hands rigid against his thighs. He managed to make the good-bye casual. “I'll see you in the morning,” and she echoed, “Good night.”

The palms of his hands were wet. When he was in the car, he rubbed them dry on his coat sleeves, and he was all right again. It was too late to try to find Jopher's home tonight. Particularly with the prowl car active.

He couldn't sleep in the morning. By seven he was dressed, by seven-thirty he heard his grandmother rackety in the kitchen below. He went downstairs. His grandfather was bringing in the newspaper from the front porch.

“You're up bright and early.” He smiled. “Would you like to see the paper?”

Hugh's fingers itched but he said, “Thanks, I'll read it later.” He might betray his uncommon interest. “Any particular news?” he asked as the old man unfolded it.

His grandfather sat down in the easy chair and looked over the headlines. “Nothing startling. They haven't found that girl's killer yet.” No suspicion. Merely the comment of any other man or woman in Phoenix. “Terrible thing that.”

“Yes,” Hugh agreed. Fred O. hadn't been identified by the prowl officers. You couldn't arrest a man for making a phone call late at night. Hugh went on to the kitchen and visited with his grandmother.

“You going to bring your girl to dinner tonight?” she queried.

“She can't make it tonight.” He dared not until he found out what was going to happen to him.

She fussed a bit because she liked to sputter but she didn't insist. It was only out of her hospitality that she was urging the invitation, she was too old to enjoy cooking all day in this heat.

After breakfast it was still too early to go to Ellen's. His mother would be up, she'd be turning to worry if she didn't see more of him. He excused himself. “If Ellen calls, tell her I'm on my way over, will you? I'm going to Stacy's first.” That should take care of any calls today.