“I graduated in ’46, from the San Francisco Mortuary College,” he added cheerfully, cutting meat off a bone. He said it as if he were looking forward to the class reunion.
Miss Selff had been a nurse since 1945, only it wasn’t “Miss.”
“Actually,” she said, “it’s Mrs. Selff. My husband was a pilot, Army Air Force.”
I drank some ice water; those green chiles were getting to me. “What does he do now, Mrs. Selff?”
“His B-17 went down over Dresden.”
“I’m sorry.” That was a tough break: only a handful of planes were shot down in the devastating raid on the so-called Florence of Germany. “Do you have any children, Mrs. Selff?”
“No. We didn’t have much time together-just one leave.”
She looked like she might start crying again, so I dropped the subject.
The mortician, however, picked it up. “After the tragedy, Maria decided to dedicate herself to her husband’s memory, and stay in the service.” He beamed at her. “I really admire her for that.”
This, understandably, seemed to embarrass her.
She pushed her barely touched bowl of soup away and leaned forward, the big blue eyes wide enough to dive into. “Is it possible, Mr. Heller, that we could talk more privately than this?”
“I’ve arranged a suite for that very purpose, Mrs. Selff. But I would like to interview you separately.”
Dennis frowned. “Why? Our stories kinda dovetail, you know.”
“That’s the problem.” I sipped my ice water. “I really need to hear your stories independently. It’s not good investigatory technique to allow interview subjects to interact…. The result can be a collaboration that doesn’t truly represent what either party saw.”
“I’d really like to get away from this public area,” she said, scooting her chair away, wadding her napkin and tossing it on the table, with an air of finality. “I don’t want to be seen.”
I got the room key out of my pocket. “Why don’t you go ahead to the suite, and wait there? I can interview Glenn downstairs, in the bar.”
She worked up a tiny smile, but on those luscious lips it was monumental; I wasn’t quite in love with her yet-at this point I’d only steal for her: we were hours away from murder. “Could you walk me to the suite, Mr. Heller? I’d feel more at ease.”
“Certainly.”
The mortician started to rise, but the Selff woman gave me a quick, narrow-eyed glance that sent a message: she wanted to speak to me, alone.
“Glenn,” I said, with a familiarity generally reserved for close friends, “why don’t you settle up the bill for me-just charge it to my room, Suite 101. Then go on down to the bar and find us a nice private booth.”
“Sure,” he said, but he obviously sensed something. “See you in a little bit, Maria.”
She smiled and nodded to him, rather stiffly.
Then she and I were on our way to the suite, moving together down a wide empty hallway. We’d walked silently for maybe a minute when Maria planted her tiny black-pump-shod feet on the carpet and swiveled toward me, clasping her hands tight before her like she was trying to keep a lightning bug from escaping. Her voice trembled as she said, “I need your help.”
“Name it.”
Her eyes tensed. “Glenn … he’s a problem.”
“How so?”
She sighed and her bosom strained at the embroidered bodice and, as I tried not to pass out, she looked away from me and began walking again, slower; I tagged along.
“We were dating,” she said, “back in ’47, at the time of … you know, at the time of all this … strangeness. We’d just gone together a few weeks, a month at most, and then when the strangeness began, I … I told Glenn it was better we didn’t see each other.”
“And not just because of the ‘strangeness,’ I take it.”
She nodded, smirking with chagrin. “I’m afraid I used that as an excuse to break it off with Glenn. He was moving way too fast … I’d only just started dating again … after Steve died, for the longest time, I …”
“I understand.”
“Anyway, now, almost two years later, against my better judgment, I agree to talk about what happened, and suddenly it’s thrown Glenn and me back together-I allowed him to drive me down here.”
“I see. And he’s trying to rekindle a spark you never felt.”
She stopped again, looking up at me with an expression that was not without compassion. “Yes. Glenn’s a nice man, but he thinks ‘no’ is a three-letter word.”
“Nice men usually spell better than that.”
The expression darkened, she shook her head and began walking again, more quickly now. “I don’t want to ride home with him tonight. I don’t trust him.”
“Hey, you wouldn’t catch me dead, riding with a mortician.”
That made her smile, just a little; she started walking again. Did I mention she smelled of Evening in Paris perfume, ever so delicately?
She was saying, “I’m enough of a nervous wreck without having to worry about those clammy mortician hands of his…. Would you drive me back to Roswell?”
“Tonight?”
“No, tomorrow morning…. I’ll get a room or something.”
Normally a letch like me would take this as an opening; but something wasn’t right about it, and I said so. “I thought you didn’t want to be seen with me. That was the whole point of meeting away from town-”
“I left my car in a parking lot at Bottomless Lake, southeast of Roswell. That’s where Glenn picked me up. You can drop me there. No one will see.”
“You should have just come separately …”
Abruptly she stopped, and clutched my arm: a tiny hand with surprising power. “I needed to talk to him about what happened; I needed to try and make him understand how dangerous this is. I need to do that with you, too, Mr. Heller.”
Then she let go of my arm and began to walk again, slowly, saying nothing.
Soon we were at the door to Suite 101. I asked, “Do you want me to tell Glenn you’re not going back with him?”
She beamed at me and it was like watching one of those speeded-up movies where they show flowers blooming. “Will you handle it, Mr. Heller? I’d be very grateful.”
That voice … she talked like Dinah Shore sang….
“Sure,” I said. “Which is a four-letter word, by the way … but don’t worry about it.”
That got another little smile out of her, and she handed me my key, and I unlocked the door for her, and she slipped into the suite, the first pretty girl who ever figured my hotel room was a safe haven from wolves.
In the basement of the hotel was the Western-themed Red Dog Saloon, with timbered fake-adobe walls, an intricately carved mahogany bar and wanted posters of Billy the Kid, Jesse James and Black Jack Ketchum. A bartender in a red vest and a barmaid in a dancehall dress were entertaining a handful of couples sipping beers or cocktails at tables and booths. This seemed to be-in the off-season, anyway-a place for couples, not necessarily married ones, to get quietly away.
Glenn sat in a back booth, sipping a glass of beer. I slid in across from him.
“She’s a little high-strung,” I said, arching an eyebrow.
“No kiddin’! She was weird all the way down here. You know, we used to go out, a little, you know-date? Hell, I know that’s over but I don’t see any reason we shouldn’t be civil to each other.”
“She wasn’t civil?”
“More like sullen. She’s really got herself worked up over this.” He sighed. “Not that I blame her. If she saw what she says she saw, it’d give anybody a permanent case of the willies.”
“Glenn-is it all right, me using your first name?”
“Sure. You go by Nathan or Nate?”
“Make it Nate. Glenn, you don’t share Mrs. Selff’s fears about reprisals?”
The heavy eyebrows lifted. “Well, hell, Nate, maybe she’s right-there were all kinds of threats and even some strongarm tactics …”
“By the military?”
“So they say, and I witnessed a little of it, myself. Anyway, there was enough of that nonsense that I can see Maria bein’ spooked. But that was almost two years ago, and-speaking for myself-there’s been nothin’ since.”