“Jay Shelby. Joan’s husband,” Jay said. Rice peered at him with no change of expression.
“Want something?”
“Is there a Mrs. Christianson in there?” Dockerty asked.
“Yes. She’s here. Why?”
“Can we see her?”
“Come on in, if you want.”
They followed him down a hall, into a den. The decor was overpoweringly Western. Remington prints. Wooden hooves on the chairs. Upholstery of black-and-white cowhide. Branding irons hanging on one wall. A vast fireplace with the mounted head of a Brahman bull over it. The big room made Rice, in his cheap shiny blue suit, look more shrunken and out of place than ever. Several doors opened off the high-ceilinged room. Ellen sat in one of the grotesque chairs. She seemed very still. There was a puffed purpling bruise on her left cheek.
Jay went to her. “What happened?”
She gave him a thin, even smile. “I tripped. Clumsy, wasn’t it.”
“Why didn’t you come back?” Jay asked.
Her eyes met his and moved away. “Mr. Rice asked me to come out for a drink. I’m sorry. I forgot about you.”
“I don’t believe that,” Jay said heavily.
“You can see she’s okay,” Rice said. “We’re having a quiet drink. Now why don’t you run along?”
“I think I’ll stay a while,” Dockerty said. He picked a chair.
“Nice place you got here, Rice,” Goddard said. “Restful. I’m staying, too.”
Jay moved back from Ellen. He stood near the door. He couldn’t understand her actions. They had to be based on fear. Rikerd had been quick with his hands. Too quick. There was a long silence in the room. Rice spat in the fireplace and sat down. He moved slowly and carried himself curiously, hands held out from his sides. There was nothing restful in the silence.
“Where’s Rikerd?” Dockerty snapped.
Rice jumped. “I... I don’t know. He went out. A date, maybe.”
“You never have him working at any gambling place because then we’d have to fingerprint him. Isn’t that right? You know he was in Joliet, don’t you?”
“He never mentioned it,” Rice said.
“Don’t you check on the people you employ?”
“I’m a good judge of human nature.”
The silence came again. Dockerty was sprawled in the chair, thumbs hooked in his belt.
“How come you didn’t tell me that Joan Shelby spent her little holiday right here in this house, Rice?”
Rice stared at him. “She didn’t. I’m telling you the truth.” He squared his shoulders. “You have no right to come in here and try to push me around, Dockerty. I can—”
“Get me fired? Take away my badge? You’re a big man, aren’t you?”
“At the moment,” Goddard said, with a sweet smile.
The sense of strain was curious. Jay saw that Ellen sat too still. He sensed he should break through that reserve. He said, “I talked to Amparo.”
Her eyes flicked toward him and then away. She did not answer.
“I got the same reaction you did,” he continued. “The hair tint. The nail polish. Just enough similarity in build and the shape of the face. She could have done it. Easily. But why?”
“I don’t know what in the world you’re talking about,” Ellen said quietly.
“All that I can see,” Jay continued relentlessly. “All but the why of it. Would that name have anything to do with the why? That name she wrote? Lisa Tasher? Who is that?”
Goddard heaved himself out of the chair and went over to a desk in the corner of the room. He found a pencil and paper and said. “Spell that for me, Shelby.” Jay spelled it, and Goddard wrote it down. He grinned at Dockerty. “Come here. Dock. Show you something.”
The two men went over to the desk, Dockerty casually, Rice cautiously.
Goddard said, “Ever play anagrams? Look here. I’ll print another name right under it. Sheila Star. Then cross out the letters. Works, doesn’t it?”
Jay saw Rice take the pencil. “Wouldn’t this work, too?” And he printed something on the paper, stepped back, his posture strangely rigid. Dockerty looked at the thing he had written, said, “I see what you mean.”
Dockerty, with soft creak of leather, moved over toward Ellen Christianson. Jay watched him, puzzled. Dockerty bent over the girl, one hand on the arm of the heavy chair. And with a sudden wrench he yanked the chair over, spilling the girl out so she rolled toward the fireplace. But even before the thud of the heavy chair hitting the rug, Dockerty had spun toward the door to the left of the fireplace, gun miraculously in his hand, crouched tensely.
“Rikerd!” he called sharply. “Out!”
Jay saw then the way the door stood ajar, saw the blackness of the room beyond. The shot had a ringing, metallic sound, making Jay remember, absurdly, a Fourth of July long ago when they had set off the cherry bombs in an old oil drum. He stood frozen and saw Gerald Rice wrench around in a clown dance, flapping his arms as he jiggled backward on his heels, banging his hips against the desk so that both feet flew up, and dropping heavily in a sitting position, an expert comic who had just been thumped with a bladder. Even as he danced back, before he fell, there were three much heavier explosions, thick-chested, big-muscled, and authoritative. Dockerty followed up his own shots by kicking the door open and running headlong into the dark room beyond. There was a sound of smashing glass and ripping wood, and a delayed tinkling as glass fell. Then another shot flattened by the open air. And Dockerty’s voice, thinned by distance, yelling, “Stop! Stop, Rikerd!”
Goddard sat behind one of the heavy chairs like a fat, wary child. Ellen knelt by the fireplace. Rice sat in front of the desk, knees pulled up, palms flat against his chest, eyes closed, mouth shaped into a quinine bitterness. Goddard grunted slowly to his feet as Jay went to Ellen. She stood up shakily, and he held her in his arms. She was trembling and sobbing and shuddering all at once.
Her teeth were chattering as she said. “He said to s-send you away or he would k-kill both of us and—”
“It’s okay now,” he said, and holding her, he looked down over her shoulder at the top of the desk, and he saw where Goddard had printed Lisa Tasher and Sheila Star, and where Rice had scrawled “Rikerd gun behind girl.”
Goddard had moved cautiously through the open door into the dark room. His voice had a hollow sound as he called. “Both gone through the window, it seems.” Following his words, there was another distant shot. There was a curious finality to the sound of that single shot. The other shots had been questions. This was an answer.
“Help me,” Rice said in a dry and ancient whisper.
Goddard came back. He squatted on his heels in front of Rice. He gently pulled the man’s hands away, parted the suit coat. There was blood on the white shirt. It tore easily, as though it were very old, had been washed many times. Rice kept his eyes squeezed tightly shut. Jay could see the small angry bullet hole. It was high on the right side of the chest, just in from the shoulder, an inch below the collarbone. Though probably very painful, it was certainly not serious.
“How bad is it?” Rice whispered.
Goddard flashed Jay a warning glance and then said, “It’s bad, fella. I don’t think you’ve got much time left.”
“Get a doctor.”
“What was Sheila holding over your head, Jerry? Old records?”
“Duplicate books. In my... handwriting. I gave them to her... to burn three years ago. Fool... trusting her.”
“She put them in a lock box?”
“Yes... back East. Then... moved them to a Reno bank. Bragged about it. Said... a lawyer had a letter to... to you people to mail if anything... happened to her. Found out the name she used. Lisa Tasher. Rikerd found out for me. When is the... doctor coming?”