The woman glanced sharply in his direction and stiffened when she laid eyes on Archer.
Her gaze darted to the door, but he moved to checkmate her by crying out, “Got a seat for you right here.” He indicated the empty chair opposite him.
She vacillated in the doorway of the eatery and, finally, perhaps her hunger taking precedent over her good sense, she strode across the room and sat quickly in the seat he had indicated. She might have thought if she rushed this through, no one would notice that a parole officer was about to eat with a parolee, at least that was Archer’s observation.
She set her hat down on the table.
Archer had set his hat on his chairback. He slipped it on, then lifted it off, tipped it in her direction, and returned it to the chairback.
“Good to see you.”
“Um, yes.”
He passed her his menu.
She avoided looking at him and focused on the choices for dinner.
“You eat here a lot?” asked Archer. “I mean, I saw you the other time of course.”
“I eat here sometimes.”
She seemed to decide on her supper and set the menu down. When it appeared she could no longer avoid setting eyes on him, Crabtree lifted her gaze to his and said, “I heard about Hank Pittleman. They say he was murdered, in his room at the Derby Hotel.”
“He was.”
“Does that help you or hurt you?” she asked bluntly.
“I was sitting here thinking about that myself.”
“And what have you concluded?”
“That it’s not a simple answer one way or another.”
“I guess I can see that.”
He cocked his head. “Can you now?”
“The man who is owed the debt is dead. Is the debt still owed? Legally, yes. But pragmatically? And what if his widow isn’t aware of the liability? Men often don’t tell their wives anything about their business, believing, wrongly, that they won’t understand. Now Lucas Tuttle may decide he never has to pay it back. In which case, you probably won’t be compensated. But the upside might be that you won’t have to pay back the forty dollars to Pittleman’s estate.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself, ma’am. In fact, you show a right logical mind.”
“Are you sure you weren’t about to add, ‘For a girl’?”
He put a hand over his heart and held the other one up. “So help me God, I was not.”
She smiled at this.
“A man named Irving Shaw has already talked to me. Do you know him?”
“I know of him. He’s a lieutenant detective with the state police. Very highly respected.”
“Yeah, I imagine so. He asked a lot of questions.”
“Why did he question you?”
“I’m on the same floor as the dead man. Shaw wanted to know if I’d heard or seen anything.”
“And did you?”
“No. And I told him so.”
“I wonder who could have killed Pittleman?”
“From what I’ve learned about the man, that list might be pretty long.”
“As I said before, he owns a lot of property in town, including the Cat’s Meow.”
Archer lit up a cigarette and studied her, tapping his ash twice into the ashtray before speaking. “Speaking of the place, Dan Bullock’s back in jail, I take it, after coming after you with a knife when you were on your way home from there?”
To her credit, Crabtree didn’t even flinch. “So, you followed me?”
“I followed him because he was following you. I wouldn’t have let him hurt you. Turns out, you didn’t need me.” He glanced at her purse. “You got the snub-nose in there now?”
“In my line of work, I rarely go anywhere without it.”
“Why’d you choose that ‘line of work’ in the first place?”
She took a few moments to light her smoke, tapping her ash alongside his.
“It’s a job. And I do help people. The ones like Dickie Dill and Bullock are hopeless cases, I will freely admit that.” She paused and took a long draw on her Pall Mall. “But you’re not, Archer, not by a long shot, if I’m any judge.”
“How’s the story you’re writing coming?”
“Slowly. But I have a lot of material.”
“Where do you get that?”
“Life.”
“So, where’d you live before coming here?” he asked, bending his matchstick in half and depositing it in the black ashtray sitting between them.
In response, Crabtree waved the waitress over.
She stood next to the table, pad and pen in hand. She was in her fifties, tired and worn-out looking, with gray hair partially covered by the cap that was part of her uniform — a dark brown short-sleeved one-piece with a frilly, stained apron built into the front.
“What are you all having?” she said curtly.
Archer glanced at Crabtree, who said, “I’ll have the beef stew.”
“To drink?”
“Lemonade.”
She wrote this down and turned to Archer. “You, sir?”
“Steak rare, with the potatoes and green beans. And coffee to drink. Black. And for dessert, how about a slice of that coconut cream pie I see behind the glass over there.”
She wrote this down and departed.
Crabtree took another puff of her cigarette. “I was born and raised in Texas. I left when I was seventeen. When the war started, I worked building airplanes.”
“Really, which kind?” he said with interest.
“Quite a few actually. The last one I worked on was the B-29 bomber at a plant in Georgia.”
He nodded appreciatively. “The Superfortress, they called it. Seen them in the skies when I was over there. And didn’t one of them drop the A-bombs on the Japs?”
“Yes, I believe that’s right.”
“Building airplanes. That’s impressive, Miss Crabtree.”
“I wanted to do my part, as I’m sure you did.”
“You still have family in Texas?”
“No. I have no family left. None.” She stared down at the table.
He nodded, felt sorry for her obvious uncomfortableness, and decided to say no more for now. They waited in silence until their food came. They ate with only the occasional glance at each other. In the middle of it, Archer excused himself to use the washroom.
Later, when he’d finished off his steak and vegetables, he eyed the slice of pie the waitress had set off to the side of the table.
“I’d be honored if you’d split the pie with me,” he said.
“No, I really couldn’t,” said Crabtree, setting down her utensils.
“One bite of pie isn’t going to kill anybody.”
She sighed and looked unsure but reached for her fork.
“It is good,” she said as they ate away at it.
“Lot better than what they fed us in the war. It was either rotted or too hard for the teeth.”
“What did you do then?”
“Scrounged off the countryside.”
“You mean you stole from people?”
“I never stole from anybody. Lots of places were abandoned. If I put a hunk of bread or an apple or some raw carrots in my pocket, I don’t think anybody minded.”
Crabtree wiped her mouth with a cloth napkin. “Well, I’m just glad the war’s over.”
“You and me both.”
“Thank you for the pie. I should go now. I will pay my bill separately, of course.”
“Already paid the bill when I went to use the john.”
“Now why did you do that?”
“I knew if I’d offered, you wouldn’t let me, so...”
“It’s against the rules for me to—”
“You tell me how it’s wrong for a man to buy a woman a meal? I mean, you’re helping me out with all the parole stuff. This is a way of thanking you.”
“It’s my job. It’s what I’m paid to do. It is not done out of friendship or kindness.”