Brennan shrugged.
“Why’d you lie to John about it?”
“Because he’d tell you about it. Because he’d tell you about it and you’d go running after this poor guy and hound him in his… his, you know, hour of grief.”
“Hour of grief, hell. I’d find out he was a doper, you mean.”
“That wasn’t it at all.”
“Why didn’t you bust him? You aren’t exactly known for being soft on dopers around here.”
“I won’t claim I didn’t realize he was a user, but he was from out of town, and doing us a favor, and it was a delicate time for him and he was told if he’d stay clean while he was in town and leave by the next morning, there wouldn’t be no trouble.”
Lori came in from the living room, clearing dishes off the table in there, and started stacking them up by the sink. Brennan gave me eye signals to keep my voice down.
I said, “What about Janet Taber’s mother? Mrs. Ferris. And don’t say, ‘What about her?’”
“She was buried yesterday. So was her daughter.”
“Buried?”
“The girl’s husband paid to have them buried out at Greenwood Cemetery. Didn’t have funerals for them, but I understand he laid out quite a sum for having some real nice stones put up for them.”
“Nice stones. Phil Taber arranged all that?”
“He had a lot of money, and he was wearing a nice suit, and he seemed pretty straight, outside of that long hair and the pot smell on him. The nice suit didn’t fool me, though. I knew what he was. He needed a bath.”
“Are you looking into the mother’s death?”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is Mrs. Ferris was beaten half to death before she was burned up in that house.”
“That was the girl’s story. Told to you. That makes it hearsay by the time it’s reached my ears.”
“Don’t screw around with me, Brennan. A doctor up at the University Hospital told that to Janet. Check up there and you’ll find out.”
“Why should I? I don’t go nosing for trouble like some people I know. It comes my way, fine, I take care of it, otherwise I leave well enough. Believe you me, I got plenty on my hands just taking care of what comes my way.”
“My God. What about the house? It was arson, wasn’t it?”
“That isn’t the way the fire chief sees it. Chief Nelson and his people looked into it yesterday morning and traced it down to some old papers and rags and cans of old paint out on the back porch. The building was a firetrap, too, one of them old wooden jobs, must’ve been near fifty, hundred years old.”
“Brennan.”
“What?”
“Are you covering up for somebody?”
Brennan bit down on his cigarette and gave me that practiced slow look of his and said, “I’m gonna pretend like you didn’t say that.”
“Then I’ll have to say it again: are you covering up?”
“Before I break you in half, Mallory, how about you tell me just who I’d be covering up for?”
“Simon Norman, maybe. Stefan Norman? Both of ’em?”
“Come off it.”
“You come off it. It’s no secret the Normans controlled local politics for a long time, at least while Richard Norman was alive. Maybe they still do. Norman money, anyway.”
“Don’t you believe them fairy tales. You probably run across that shaggy dog about how old man Norman’s supposed to be back of all the businesses in town. That’s bull, all of it, bull.”
“I saw Phil Taber last night.”
“Good for you.”
“He had five thousand dollars in his billfold.”
“He did?” Brennan sat up, tried to cover his show of surprise by getting rid of his old cigarette and replacing it with a fresh one. “So what?”
“Where would Phil Taber get five thousand dollars?”
“How should I know? I don’t know anything about him. Yesterday was the first and last time I ever seen him and that was for about ten minutes.”
“The Normans could afford something like that, if they were buying him off. What would five thousand be to them? What did Phil Taber tell you in that ten minutes you spent with him? Outside of giving permission for the autopsy.”
“Nothing.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Who cares? Since when are you the cop?”
“Just trying to live up to your sterling example, Brennan.”
“All right, all right, he told me his wife and her mother didn’t get along. That his wife was kind of crazy, she was one of them split personality types, you know? She was all the time beating up on her kid, and on the mother, too.”
“And that’s why you’re not pursuing the angle about the mother being beaten up?”
“That’s as good a reason as any. You want a solution to the big mystery, don’t you? You feel you got to know the truth or you just can’t go on? Try this one out: the little Taber bitch beats her mother up, and then goes out to spend some time with a friend, and while she’s gone a fire starts up accidentally, so when she comes back the house is burning and her mother’s dying, trapped in there and beat up; the girl gets feeling low over what she done, and boozes it up and goes off the cliff.”
“No alcohol in the bloodstream, Brennan, remember?”
“Okay, so she was gonna go out drinking and had the bottle in the car with her. Still indicates the state of mind she was in, right? She was depressed and maybe a little suicidal and she drove off the cliff.”
“And that’s the way you see it?”
“No. I don’t see it no way. I see some dead people, some accident victims, nothing more, nothing less. No foul play apparent. No arson, either. Principal player dead. The end. Case closed.”
“You’re through investigating, then?”
“I never started.”
“She had a kid.”
“Who had a kid?”
“I told you about it before. Janet Taber had a kid. You just said she used to beat her kid, remember? He’s supposed to be in a clinic in the east waiting heart surgery. What about him?”
“He is his father’s concern.”
“Phil Taber, you mean.”
“That’s right. No worse off than a million other kids these days who gotta grow up with freaks for fathers.”
Lori came over from the sink, where she’d been rinsing off dishes, and said, “Mal? Can I talk to you for a moment?”
“Sure.” I looked at Brennan. “Excuse me, Sheriff.”
He puffed at his cigarette, said nothing.
Lori took me into the nursery, which was a small room about the size of a double closet, with blue plaster walls. The lights were off. Her little boy Jeff was sleeping in his crib, so she talked in whispers.
“Excuse me for eavesdropping,” she said, “but I heard what Brennan said about Janet. What he said Phil Taber said about Janet.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Look I was talking on the phone this morning, with Annie Coe, about Janet….”
“Who’s Annie Coe?”
“Annie Coe’s a girl about my age Janet was hanging around with these months since she moved back to town. She’s divorced and she and Janet had a lot in common. Anyway, she’s the friend Janet was with that night, the night of the fire and everything.”
“And?”
“I don’t need Annie’s word for it to tell you that story about Janet being a split personality is a crock. I knew Janet well enough to peg that one as phony. And what Annie told me backs up my opinion. Annie said Janet and her mother had grown very close these past months. Janet felt her mother had really come through in time of need, you know? And though I never met Mrs. Ferris, Janet’s mother, I know from what Annie said this morning that it’s very unlikely Janet could have beaten up on her.”
“Why’s that, Lori?”
“You were with Janet, you know what she looked like. She wasn’t big. She was almost petite. It must’ve been her father she took after, from what Annie said. What Annie said was, probably the only reason the beating and the fire didn’t kill Mrs. Ferris right away was her size. Only reason she lasted most the night was that she was a big, healthy, fleshy woman. Stood close to six-foot. It’d take somebody good size to beat up that lady….”