‘When did you get it?’
‘The afternoon of the shooting.’
‘Where?’
‘Well, I told Cunweather that I wanted a gun and he said he’d get me one. He asked me where I was going to be later on. I told him I was going to be registered at the Perkins Hotel under the name of Donald Helforth. So he said he’d fix it up to deliver the gun to me there.’
‘And that’s where you got this gun?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who was with you in that hotel, Donald?’
‘Alma Hunter. She was registered with me. I think it was room 620.’
‘And who brought you the gun?’
‘A fellow by the name of Jerry Wegley. He was supposed to be a bell captain there in the hotel, but I think he was Cunweather’s man. I think Cunweather had planted him on the job.’
The sheriff said, ‘It’s going to help a lot if you can prove that, Donald.’
‘If I can prove what?’
‘That about the gun,’ he said. ‘The gun was hot. It had been used in a murder in Kansas City.’
‘In Kansas City?’
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘A couple of months ago.’
‘Good God!’ I said.
‘Can you prove that you got the gun from Jerry Wegley?’
‘Why, sure. Cunweather won’t deny he gave me the gun ― well, maybe he will, too, if it was that hot ― but maybe Cunweather didn’t know.’
‘He must have known it if it was his gun.’
‘Well, he had Jerry Wegley get it for me.’
‘We’d like to take your word for that,’ the sheriff said.
‘You don’t have to take my word for it. I can show where I was two months ago. I wasn’t anywhere near Kansas City — and I’ll tell you something else, when Wegley brought up that gun, he brought up a box of shells for it. I loaded the magazine, and shoved the box with the rest of the shells way in the back part of a bureau drawer in room 620 in the Perkins Hotel. You can search the room and find the shells.’
‘And you were registered as Donald Helforth there?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you didn’t give the gun to Alma Hunter?’
‘Hell no! I wanted the gun myself. She didn’t need a gun.
All she had to do was go to sleep. I was going to be on the job to see that nothing happened to her.’
The sheriff said, ‘Well, Donald, you’re out of the frying pang and into the fire. I’ll have to lock you up now and notify California that I’m holding you.’
‘I killed him in self-defense,’ I said.
‘He was running away, wasn’t he?’
‘I guess he was, but you know how those things are. You get pretty excited. I saw him start to run, and it was hard to see just what he was doing. I thought perhaps he was reaching for a. gun, and — I don’t know. I guess I just got excited.’
The sheriff said, ‘Come on, Donald. I’ll have to take you back down and put you in the jail. I’ll try and make you as comfortable as possible. I’ll telephone the officers in California and they’ll come and get you.’
‘Do I have to go back to California again?’
‘Sure.’
‘I don’t want to go across that strip of desert while it’s hot.’
‘I don’t blame you. They’ll probably make it at night.’
‘How about getting a lawyer?’ I asked.
‘What good would a lawyer do you?’
‘I don’t know. I’d like to talk with one.’
The sheriff said, ‘I tell you what, Donald. I think you’d better sign a waiver of extradition and go back to California and face the music. It will look better that way.’
I shook my head. ‘I sign nothing,’ I said.
‘All right, Donald. It’s your funeral. I’ll have to lock you up. This is a big thing, you know.’
Chapter 12
The bed in the jail was hard. The mattress was thin. The night had turned bitterly cold, as so frequently happens in the desert during the early spring. I lay shivering and waiting.
Somewhere a drunk was talking to himself, a thick-tongued soliloquy which ran on and on and on aimlessly, monotonously, and unintelligibly. An automobile thief in the next cell was snoring peacefully. I figured it must be midnight. I tried to think of how hot it had been coming across the desert. My thoughts couldn’t keep me warm. I thought of Alma.
I heard bolts in the jail door slide back, then I heard the sound of low voices and shuffling feet. Down in the office room, there was the scraping of chair legs along the cement floor. I could hear the scratching of matches and the hum of low-voiced conversation. A door closed and shut out all the noise.
Four or five minutes later, I heard steps coming down the long corridor. The jailer said, ‘Wake up, Lam. They want you downstairs.’
‘I want to sleep.’
‘Well, come on downstairs just the same.’
I got up out of bed. It had been too cold to take my clothes off. The jailer said, ‘Come on. Don’t keep them waiting. Shake a leg.’
I followed him down to the office. The district attorney, the sheriff, the deputy district attorney, a shorthand reporter, and two Los Angeles policemen were waiting in the room. A chair had been reserved for me facing a bright light. The sheriff said, ‘Sit down over in that chair, Donald.’
‘The light hurts my eyes.’
‘You’ll get accustomed to it after a minute. We want to be where we can see you.’
‘Well, you don’t need to put my eyes out looking at me.’
The sheriff said, ‘If you tell the truth, Donald, we won’t have to study your facial expressions to find out when you’re lying. If you keep on lying, we’re going to have to watch you more closely.’
‘What makes you think I haven’t told the truth?’
He laughed and said, ‘You’ve told just enough of the truth, Donald, to convince us that you know what we want to know; but you’ve stopped a long ways short of telling the truth.’
He moved the light a little so that the glare wasn’t directly in my eyes.
‘Now, Donald,’ the sheriff said. ‘These gentlemen are from Los Angeles. They’ve come all the way across the desert to hear your story. They know enough to know that you’ve been lying, but some of what you said is true. Now we want the rest of it.’
He talked with the fatherly tone one uses in dealing with a half idiot. Cops usually use that approach in talking with crooks — and the crooks usually fall for it.
I pretended to fall for it, too.
‘That’s all I know,’ I said sullenly. ‘What I told you today.’
The light switched up so that the glare struck me full in my aching eyes. The sheriff said, ‘I’m afraid, Donald, I’m going to have to go over this with you bit by bit, and watch your facial expressions.’
‘To hell with that stuff!’ I said. ‘That’s the old hooey. You’re giving me the third degree.’
‘No, we’re not giving you any third degree, Donald — that is, I’m not. But this is a serious matter, and we want to get the truth.’
‘What’s wrong with my story?’ I asked.
‘Everything,’ he said. ‘In the first place, you weren’t there in that room, Donald. Some of the things you said about Cunweather are true but not all of them. You didn’t shoot Morgan. The girl shot Morgan. You gave her the gun. She dropped the gun and ran out. She called you from the telephone booth downstairs. A tenant in the building gave her a dime with which to put through the call. Your landlady had to get you up out of bed― Now then, Donald, we want the truth.’
I said, ‘Oh, all right. Turn that damn light out of my eyes and I’ll tell you everything.’
The district attorney cleared his throat. ‘Take this,’ he said to the shorthand reporter. ‘Now, Donald, as I understand it, you’re going to make a voluntary statement or confession. This is the result of pour own volition. No promises or inducements have been made to you; nor have any threats been made. You’re going to make a statement simply because you want to tell the truth and make a clean breast of the entire situation. Is that right?’