The Judge was in Cliffie’s office, all right. He was crouching in his desk chair, doing everything but covering his face with his arms, while she shouted at him and blew Gauloise smoke in his face. Not even his crisp khaki uniform and all the framed photos of him holding various types of rifles, shotguns, howitzers, could make him look in control of this moment.
“The idea of arresting one of this town’s most upstanding citizens-and my best friend-is ridiculous. You know and I know, Cliffie, that this is just one more of your little games to embarrass me as the only intelligent representative of law and order in this town!”
Oh, she was blistering. Oh, she was bombastic. Oh, she was absolutely right.
What sort of reason would Cliffie have for arresting poor Sara Hall? And she did all this in a white shirt, dark slacks, and a blue suede car coat that cost a lot more than my ragtop.
“You always have to arrest somebody, don’t you, and it’s always the wrong person, isn’t it?” she concluded.
Which is what I asked him as soon as the Judge saw me and gave me the floor. “You had to arrest somebody, didn’t you, Cliffie? You just can’t let a few days pass without throwing somebody in that pigsty of a jail of yours, can you?”
“We clean it once a week. And we clean it good.”
“Yeah, but the drunks puke in it every night,”
I said.
“I don’t want to coddle prisoners the way you two do. The smell of puke’ll be an incentive to stay out of jail.”
The Judge looked at me and said, “He’s medieval.”
“And moronic.”
“And malevolent.”
“And malignant.”
“And a lot of other M words,” she sneered, “if we just had time to go through them all.”
With “malevolent” and “malignant”
Cliffie’s face had gone blank. He was still trying to figure out what they meant.
“I’m holding her on a charge of first-degree murder,” he said, sitting up straight, trying to convince us, and himself, that he was back in control.
“You’re forgetting something, Cliffie,” I said.
“What?”
“She’s the judge with jurisdiction in this case.” I pointed to the Judge.
“Yeah? Big deal.”
“It is a big deal, Cliffie,” I said.
“She can set bail.”
“And I’m setting bail right now,” the Judge interjected. “Ten dollars.”
“That’s crazy! Nobody sets a ten-dollar bail in a murder case.”
“I do,” Judge Whitney said.
“I’m gonna file a motion,” he said.
“What sort of motion?” I said.
“To the state Supreme Court.”
Actually, they’d probably not only hear his motion but also agree with him that a ten-dollar bail was ridiculous.
“Do you have a fin on you?” Judge Whitney said. Sometimes, she tries to sound like Barbara Stanwyck.
“I think you mean a sawbuck.”
“A sawbuck. Do you have one?”
I nodded and got out my wallet. Have you ever noticed how rich people never seem to carry cash?
Could that possibly account for how they got rich in the first place?
I slapped it down on Cliffie’s desk.
“I hereby grant this bail,” Judge
Whitney said. “Now go get Sara.”
“You gotta fill out forms.”
“You’ll have your forms in the morning. Now go get Sara.”
“Stash!”
Stash was the night deputy.
“Why’d you arrest her, Cliffie?” I said.
“Don’t call me Cliffie or I’ll arrest you.”
“You didn’t have anything on her.”
“The hell I didn’t.”
“Oh? Like what?”
“Like a tip to look in her garage. And guess what I found there?”
Stash, a guy with a ducktail haircut that was greasier than Jerry Lee Lewis’, peeked in and said, “Uh-huh.”
“Stash, go get the Hall broad and bring her here.”
He finger-popped Cliffie and said, “Gotcha, Chief.”
“The Hall broad,” the Judge said under her breath.
“So what did you find?” I asked after Stash and his very loud heel-clips disappeared to the back and the jail.
“I found a can of strychnine just where the caller said it would be.”
“Was the caller a man or woman?”
“I don’t have to tell you squat.”
“Man or woman, Cliffie?”
He grinned. “Well, it was one or the other.”
“Moronic,” the Judge said.
“No, we used that word already.”
“Mediocre, then.”
I smiled. “That’s almost a compliment for somebody like Cliffie.”
Stash and his heel clips were back. A disheveled Sara Hall fell into the arms of her friend the Judge and the Judge, without once looking back at Cliffie or saying good-bye to me, left with Sara in tow. On the other side of the door, Sara glanced back at me and I knew then that she knew I’d broken my word to her and told the Judge about Dierdre’s pregnancy.
It wasn’t a hateful glance, just a weary one.
I’d betrayed her and she’d never trust me again.
I suppose in the cosmic scheme of things it didn’t matter a whole hell of a lot. But I certainly felt ashamed of myself, and sad that she’d never again count me as a friend.
“Ten dollars,” Cliffie said. “I can’t believe it.”
“Hell, Cliffie,” I said, watching him again, “she could’ve made it five.”
A weeping Dierdre was led into the long dining room ten minutes after we arrived at Judge Whitney’s. The Judge ordered breakfast for everybody and then we all sat down with cigarettes and coffee-the Judge, of course, drinking brandy-fffigure out exactly what to do next.
“Was it your rat strychnine he found?” I asked Sara.
“I’d never seen it before.”
“Did he present you with a search warrant?”
“Yes.”
“Where were you while all this was going on?” I asked Dierdre.
“Being sick,” she said. “I’m still sick.”
She touched her stomach. “The baby.”
“Did Cliffie dust for fingerprints?”
“Not that I saw. He came to the front door and pounded and pounded till I woke up. He left his emergency lights on. Which woke up all the neighbors, of course. It was very embarrassing.”
“So then he led you out to the garage?”
“Yes. Then he started looking around.”
“And he found the poison.”
She nodded. Then: “I’m picturing it now.
He just picked it up. He couldn’t have looked for fingerprints.”
“Good old Cliffie.”
The staff didn’t look all that happy about being awakened in the middle of the night to feed us. I was thinking I’d have to train my inherited cats to cook. Then any time I wanted something to eat-We ate and didn’t talk much while we did so. I had scrambled eggs, toast, orange juice, and more coffee. I felt vaguely entitled to renew my membership in the human race. I still needed a shave and a shower but the food was doing wondrous things for my brain and attitude.
“Did you ever threaten to kill Muldaur?” I said when we got rolling again.
“No.”
“Did you ever threaten to kill Courtney?”
“Several times.”
“Did anybody hear you?”
“His wife. And probably the housekeeper.”
“His wife? Did she say anything to you?”
Sara Hall hesitated. “I’m trying to remember. She’d had to hear us arguing. I heard steps on the floor outside the door. A dead spot in the wood. You know how older houses are. I got the impression she was listening.”
“So she may have heard everything you said about Dierdre?”
“Yes.”
Even though I’d gone over this with Mrs.
Courtney, hearing it from Sara gave it all more emotion. What kind of impact would it have on a woman when she first learned that her husband had gotten a teenage girl pregnant? And him a minister, no less.
“Did you see anybody around your yard lately? Any strange faces?”
“No,” she said. “Honey?”
Dierdre was barely hanging on. Any moment now she’d be racing to the john again. “No. But then I wouldn’t have noticed, anyway, Mom. I’ve been too busy puking.”
“There’s no reason to talk that way at a dinner table,” the Judge said.