In the barn, behind the house, a power saw was screeching in sympathy. Mrs. Wrightson knocked on a side door. It was opened by a man in sawdust-sprinkled overalls. For the second time in five minutes, I felt a little short. Wrightson’s thick white hair nearly brushed the top of the doorframe. His eyes were deepset and gray, with a red smoldering in them like the ash of a burning cigar. They looked from me to his wife:
“Who is this, Esther?”
“Mr. Archer.”
“I told you not to send that letter.” He had a freshly cut length of white pine two-by-four in his hand. He smacked it into the palm of his other hand. “Another wasted trip.”
“You need help, Alex.”
He smiled without parting his lips. There was a three or four days’ beard around his mouth. She plucked at her withering throat as if his grizzled silence frightened her. Shifting to the offensive, she leaned towards him and sniffed with flaring nostrils.
“Alex. You’ve been drinking. You shouldn’t use the saw when you’ve been drinking.”
“Shouldn’t I?” He looked up into the sun.
She tugged at his shirtsleeve. “I didn’t mean to nag,” she said contritely. “What are you making, Alex?”
“A coffin,” he said to the sun. “I figured I’d need a custom job.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?” Her voice jangled out of control.
“If you don’t like my jokes, don’t listen. Go away. All the way to the edge of the world and jump off. And take your friend here with you. You don’t fit into my plans, either one of you.”
“Won’t you even talk to him, tell him the facts?”
“Why should I waste my breath? Nobody can do anything about it.” He looked at me. “So beat it, friend.”
He turned back into the workshop. His wife said, “Alex. You won’t – do anything to yourself?”
“Why should I bother?” he said. “It’s being done for me.”
He closed the door with his elbow. The power saw skirled and screeched. Mrs. Wrightson stood with her mouth open and her eyes closed. For an instant I had the illusion that she was making that noise.
The flag on the pole in front of the courthouse hung languid in the still air. It was a two-story concrete building with a flat roof. A columned porch masked its bleak facade. A few old men were lounging against the columns, smoking Bull Durham and spitting over the railing. They looked as if they’d been waiting a long time for something lucky or interesting to happen to them: a jury call or a political sinecure or a free drink.
The corridor had the grimy look and odor of public institutions where nobody lived. I found the sheriff’s office at the rear. The door was standing open, and I could see the big man behind the desk. He wore a black Stetson and a black gabardine shirt, and he was clipping the nails on his pudgy fingers with a pocket clipper. There were pictures of him on the walls, with deer he had killed, fish he had caught, a visiting governor with a man-eating movie smile.
I tapped on the pebbled glass panel. “Sheriff Stark?”
“That’s me.”
He leaned back in the swivel chair which his body overflowed, pushed the Stetson back from his forehead, and went on clipping his nails. I sat down opposite him without being invited. He showed no surprise. His eyes looked blandly out from under folded and overhanging lids. All his features, which were small for his size, were practically submerged in facial blubber.
“What’s the complaint?”
“No complaint. I just drove up from Los Angeles this morning.” I gave him my name, but not my occupation. “I’m a reporter.” I reported my income once a year.
“On one of the L.A. papers?”
“No, I’m a freelance. I specialize in true crime for the magazines.”
“Well. How about that?” He rose cumbrously and offered me his hand and tried to produce a hearty smile. His hand felt like cold Plasticine. His smile was narrow and cruel. “I can tell you right now you came to the right door. Some of my colleagues don’t believe in publicity, but I say it’s the lifeblood of public office. Roy Stark is a servant of the people and my motto is: let the people know.”
“I’ll go along with that.”
He twitched a thumb towards a photograph on the wall. It showed Stark and a hangdog Mexican in a leather arm-restrainer. “I got a real nice writeup on that one there. The Sepulveda case. The guy stabbed his common-law wife with a greased knife in the guts. He’s on the death row in San Quentin now. ‘Crime of Passion,’ they called it. They put that picture in, and a couple of others. I got a copy in the file if you want to look it over. I don’t remember the fellow’s name that wrote it, but he certainly could sling the language.”
“I’m interested in something more recent.”
“Murder? We got a nice juicy murder now.” He sounded like a butcher recommending a cut of meat. “Rigger from Oklahoma shot another Okie at one of these here barn dances. Said he insulted his girl. The killer’s upstairs in the jail if you want to take a look at him. He shot the feller’s face off with a sawed-off shotgun he happened to have in his car. Hell,” Stark added with enthusiasm, “we get plenty of good murders in these parts. The statistics say we have the highest homicide rate in the country. And Roy Stark sees that they pay the penalty. Roy Stark hates lawbreakers, you can tell ’em.”
He struck a heroic pose with his chins and stomach thrust out and his hand on the butt of his gun. It wasn’t very impressive. I guessed that he was a timid man who had hidden his smallness under layers of fat.
“What about this cop in town,” I said, “the one who got suspended for selling drugs?”
A shadow crossed his face. “Wrightson, you mean?”
“Is that the name? If you could give me a story on that, I might be able to use it. It’s a new twist.”
“Yeah,” but his enthusiasm had faded. He said without conviction, as though he was quoting an old political speech: “It’s a terrible thing to have happen, when an officer of the law breaks the public trust like that. I can’t stand a renegade cop myself. It casts a reflection on all of us when it happens.”
He sat down and picked up the clipper from his desk and went back to his nails.
“What was Wrightson peddling?”
“Heroin caps.”
“Where did he get them?”
Stark shrugged his massive shoulders. “He had it. He claims he took it in a raid, and maybe he did at that. He was the narcotics specialist for the city cops. Anyway, it’s not my baby. The Police Commission and the D.A. are handling it. Talk to them if you want. Only I got better stories than that on tap.” He added in a luring tone: “How about the one we had last spring that killed his poor old mother with an axe? Split her head like a cantaloupe. The killer tried to plead insanity, said he was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and President Wilson ordered him to do it, that she was a spy. But he didn’t fool the jury. We got him.” He made his clipper snick in the air. “Valley folks don’t hold with that psychological crap.”
“Who did Wrightson sell it to?” I said.
The sheriff’s eyes lost their blandness. “I wouldn’t know. There’s plenty of addicts in town, in the floating population. But why go into that? There’s nothing interesting in the Wrightson case. No drama, no thrills.”
“I kind of like it, though. And if Wrightson sold heroin to addicts, the Police Commission must have at least one witness.”
“Sure they got a witness.”