“I’m not blaming you for anything, Mr. Stack.”
“Stan. You call me Stan like everybody, Mrs. Foley. What happened here that night, she got interested in your husband and so she picked him up, and they left together about one o’clock. About Shirley, she could come in here twenty times, maybe, arrive alone and leave alone, and the next time there would be somebody catch her eye and she would have a date. That’s the way she was. She wasn’t exactly a hooker — excuse the expression, Mrs. Foley. I mean, maybe she’d take presents or something; but it wasn’t any kind of business proposition, you know what I mean? I wouldn’t have anything going on like that in my place.”
“I understand.”
“She was sort of a nutty kid, Mrs. Foley. Ross just never could settle her down. Sometimes even when he was home, ten minutes after he’d fall asleep, she’d be dressed and on her way down the road. She liked a lot of people around, a lot of laughs and music. It’s hard to believe she got killed like that. She was real alive.”
“Wasn’t she with some brothers named Marlow that night?”
“She sat with them part of the while, yes.”
“Were they still here when she left with my husband?”
“No. They’d been gone a long time. I think they took off right after T. J. took off. In fact. I’m sure they did. I remember hearing that old truck of theirs go clattering out of the lot.”
“Were many people here when my husband left?”
“A half dozen, maybe.”
“And my husband drove right out with her?”
“Lady, he took off like a bat out of hell, excuse the expression. He sprayed gravel against the side of the building, and those tires really screamed when he came onto the highway and turned left.”
“After Mr. Arlington left, Shirley Mannix joined my husband at the bar. Is that right?”
“She sat with him forty, forty-five minutes or so, talking together, so quiet I couldn’t hear anything said. About one o’clock he picked up his change and left a good tip, and she grinned around and said, ‘Good night, all.’ and hung onto his arm and out they went.”
“He can’t remember any of that.”
“That’s what T. J. told me on the phone.”
“Thank you for answering all my questions. Mr. Stack.”
“Everybody just calls me Stan. Anything else you want to know, you come around anytime, but I guess we’ve about covered everything.”
“I appreciate your kindness.”
“I hardly remember anybody not dating Shirley once she put her mind to it. Until she began to get just a little bit heavy, she was the best-looking woman in the county. She liked things lively — playing tricks on people, laughing one minute and getting mad as a boiled owl the next minute... They say that car rolled across her and flattened her right into the ground.”
Jane Ann arrived back home at five thirty. She and Irene had dinner with the three children a little after six. Then, in spite of Skipper’s loud indignation, she put him to bed, while Linda and Tess went out to play in the yard in the long summer twilight. She got back to the kitchen in time to help Irene with the last of the dishes.
“You look exhausted,” Irene said.
“It was a long day.”
“Did you learn anything?” Irene asked.
“Nothing that will help very much. Johnny has to remember more. Just a little bit more.”
“I really don’t see how you could expect to accomplish anything. Not after experts went up there and found out what happened.”
Jane Ann whirled on her sister, her eyes ablaze. “Experts on what? Experts on Johnny? Experts on Johnny and me and what we have? I went there looking for the little things they’d miss, Irene.”
“You don’t have to shout at me, dear.”
“Why do you want me to give up on this? I did find a few little things that don’t quite fit. Would three weak drinks make Johnny scratch off in the car like some school kid? He always used the seat belt. The belts weren’t used. I learned just enough to know that I have to go back up there again. And look for more.”
Irene put her hands on Jane Ann’s shoulders. “I just don’t want you to be hurt.”
“I’m sorry, Irene. But I am hurt. It hurts to have anybody believe something that’s wrong. Can’t you understand that? It has to be wrong.”
“But everything points to—”
Jane Ann measured a tiny space with thumb and forefinger. “Maybe, before I went up there, there was one tiny little doubt this big, so tiny I didn’t even know I had any doubt at all. But now it’s gone, if it ever existed, Irene. It all just — just doesn’t feel right. Do you know what it was like to me? Like one of those plays where the lines aren’t quite right. So you can’t really believe what the actors say. They try to be very sincere and very plausible, but you just can’t quite believe them.”
“I guess I can’t stop you, can I?”
“Nobody can stop me, Irene. Nobody can stop us.”
“All I can do is wish you luck, then — love and luck.”
At the hospital she told him exactly what he had done that night, as far as she had been able to check it out, warning him not to confuse her account with any fragments of memory he could dredge up.
He held his clenched fist against his forehead and spoke slowly. “Yes. Yes, we did go back to the office. Wait. I can remember following his car, those red tail-lights in the rain.”
“And you parked behind the Mountaineer.”
After a few moments he shook his head. “The Mountaineer is a blank, honey. I was never there.”
She went off and borrowed pencil and paper, and came back and drew a rough sketch of the interior. “Here is the bar. The tables are over here. This is the rear hallway to the back door to the parking lot. Jukebox here.”
“Nothing,” he said forlornly.
She took a deep breath. “Let’s try the other kind of memories. Fifteen people there. They would be laughing and talking. Jukebox music, probably loud. A dark, plump, pretty young woman in bright clothes, wearing a lot of bracelets and probably a lot of perfume. A loud, deep laugh.”
He stared at her. “Dear Lord,” he whispered.
“What, darling? What is it?”
“That laugh. I can remember that laugh, in the night. Dark. Raining a little. I... I was kissing a girl. Quite short. Jane Ann, I’m sorry. I’m terribly sorry.”
“Were you in the car kissing her?”
“No. Outdoors in the dark. By a door or something. A window, maybe. Jane Ann, I think we’d better quit all this.”
“No! Look at what I’ve drawn here. She was dancing alone in front of the jukebox. You were on one of these stools. You were looking at her. You were turned around looking at her and she was looking back at you.”
He closed his eyes. “Red pants,” he said. “Shiny red pants. And a red and white blouse, striped. And a red ribbon in her hair, but there were three different shades of red.” He frowned without opening his eyes. “Wooden floor, loud music. The drinks were weak. She said something to me. She asked me something.”
“But you can remember the Mountaineer now?”
“Not too clearly. In pieces, sort of.”
“She stopped you and asked you something. Can you remember?”
“I’m trying. I can almost see her face when she was asking me. I’ll keep trying to remember, honey. And... please forgive me.”
“For what?”
He stared at her, and then his eyes became shiny. “Stanch gal,” he said in a husky tone. “I’m not worth all that. I messed everything up.”