“Really?”
“Yes. He also said that Sanchez would be arresting you soon.”
“Arresting me for what?”
“He didn’t say, but what else could it be but those murders?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Preston. You know more about all of this than I do. Did you speak up?”
Preston stared straight at me. “No,” he said.
I waited him out.
“As a matter of fact,” he continued, “I didn’t tell you all of it. You see, Ida didn’t just come down to my office to tell me about Holland threatening her.”
“No?” I glanced at the envelopes on his lap.
“She gave me these two letters. One of them is from her saying that Holland was crazy and that she was afraid he would kill her. The other one is a letter that Holland wrote to her.”
The letters sat there on the vice principal’s knee. I looked at them while he stared at me.
“You read’em?” I asked finally.
He nodded. “The one from him is crazy.”
“Uh-huh. Well? What do you want me to do about that?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about what you could do. It’s just that Idabell said that she’d call me soon. But she hasn’t called.”
“So? Take the letters and go to the police.” It seemed simple to me.
“I can’t. It would jeopardize my job and my marriage. I already told the police that I didn’t know anything.”
“Well,” I said, “you really don’t know anything. Holland’s dead. He might have had something to do with her not calling you but more probably she killed him.”
“I don’t believe that for a moment. Idabell couldn’t kill anybody.”
That was the second vote for Idabell’s inability to kill.
“So what do you want from me, Bill?”
“I can’t handle these letters. I’d just get in trouble, I know it.”
He was probably right.
“So,” he said, “why don’t I give them to you?”
“Why me?”
“You can tell the police, if they arrest you, that she gave you the letters and was afraid for her life. You didn’t know her husband or her brother-in-law and so you didn’t put the bodies together with the body in the garden. That way, later on, when they started to ask questions, you were afraid, you see, and then you finally decided that it would be best to give them the letters. That way they won’t suspect you.”
“I thought you said you didn’t know what to do?” I asked. “Why don’t you give them the letters? Or better yet — put’em in a big envelope and send them to the police.”
“Will you do it?” he blurted.
I wanted to say yes. I wanted to read those letters. But I wavered. I didn’t want to be impulsive.
“What are you trying to do?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” Again, the rough innocence of the man made him hard to doubt.
But I tried anyway.
“What I mean,” I said, “is that you could be using me here.”
“How?”
“Somebody has already called the school, and the police, blaming me for the break-ins. Maybe if I take those letters you run to Sanchez and tell him that I know more than I’m tellin’.”
“Is that what you think?” Preston was astonished. “I’m not trying to get you in trouble. These letters show that whatever trouble there is is in that family. I want the police to know the truth, but I’m trying to stay out of trouble myself.”
He held the letters out to me.
I strummed my lips with my right hand and then reached.
“Thank you,” Preston said.
Then he put out his hand. I shook it. Why not?
32
I didn’t know about Bill Preston. Maybe he was honestly too afraid to handle those letters. Maybe he thought that they might get lost in the mails or misunderstood by a self-confident Sanchez.
Maybe he killed Idabell and he knew that the postmark would be after her death.
None of that mattered though. I wanted to read those letters and so I took them.
I bolted the fire door, intending to burn the letters if anyone tried to break in on me.
Then I sat down to read. The first letter was in the lovely hand of Idabell Turner. The words were barely contained by the blue lines of the classroom essay paper. It was dated on the morning we made love.
To the Police, the Public Prosecutor, and the Criminal Courts of the state of California:
I. Idabell Turner/Gasteau, do hereby state that my husband, Holland Bonaparte Gasteau, has threatened my life and that I am in such fear of him that I am fleeing my home, my job, and any friends that know both me and my husband. I leave this letter, and a letter from him to me, in case Holland finds me and murders me without a witness to point at him.
Holland’s letter was also handwritten, printed actually. The script was larger than in the note I’d found in his wallet but there was still that angry slashing slant to his words. He’d used such force with his ballpoint that the paper was torn in spots.
I am a man Idabell
Not a henpecked thing for you and your friends to mock. It’s me who you have to support and stand behind. Not your girlfriends and not that damn dog.
You will do what I tell you to do. And you will be at home waiting for me even if I don’t come back all night or all weekend. And if I do come back at three in the morning and you’re not there then I will come out after you with my pistol. And if I find you with another man I will kill him too.
I’m writing you this letter instead of talking because I love you and I don’t want to hurt you. Because you might get me mad and then I’ll have to hurt you and I don’t want that. So I want you to read this letter and hear everything I have to say before you give me any of your mouth. Because all I want to hear from you is — Yes Holly.
I’ll be home later on. You better be here.
The letter wasn’t signed but I was sure that it was genuine. I was also sure that he’d meant every word. He loved his wife; he wanted her to happily be his slave; he would kill her if she didn’t accept her role.
Idabell had waited a month too long to run away. She should have done it on the night she got that letter. The minute the pistol appeared on that page it was bound to go off.
I folded the letters and put them in my pocket. There was no reason to give them to the police. They didn’t prove a thing that would help me.
I had completely forgotten about Ace when he caught up with me on my way to the parking lot and Mouse’s car.
“Mr. Rawlins,” he called from far off. “Mr. Rawlins.”
I watched the small man approach me across the blacktop. He took the baseball cap from his head when he reached me.
“Mr. Rawlins, I have something to talk to you about.”
“Is it important, Ace? I got things on my mind.”
“I think so.”
“What, then?”
“Newgate called me to his office yesterday. When I went there he was with that Sergeant Sanchez fellah. They, uh, they started asking all kinds of questions about you, Mr. Rawlins. They wanted me to be a Benedict Arnold and give you away. Sanchez wondered if there was anything I could tell him about you.”
“Like what?”
“If you stole something, maybe. If you broke the rules with some of the children.”
“Naw.” I believed it but I didn’t want to.
“Yes, sir. But I told them that I didn’t know a thing except that you were the best boss I ever had.” There was passion in his voice that I’d never heard from him before.
“Well thanks, Ace, uh, thank you.”
“But I mean it, Mr. Rawlins. I’ve worked for a lotta people down here in Los Angeles. And up until you I didn’t have much use for them. The way they put a hand on your shoulder and pat you like you weren’t no more than a dog. The way they tell you things like they knew it all and you were just stupid. But I like you, Mr. Rawlins, because you make it a good place and when people get harsh you don’t come down on me even if I did something wrong. Like that time I left the window in the electric shop open. All you told Mr. Sutton was that it was a mistake. You told him that you allow for mistakes.”