I glanced into the kitchenette. On the sinkboard a half-eaten hamburger with pink insides reposed on a paper plate. The dusty bland eyes of a cockroach regarded me from behind the remains of the hamburger. He was almost big enough to have eaten the other half. I didn’t shoot him.
Back in the main room, the fat woman was lowering herself onto the bed. The springs groaned under her. Her voice was like a continuation of the sound:
“I didn’t know if he came back or not, or if he was coming back. He must be, though. He left his bag and his car, and they didn’t check out.”
“Who’s with him?”
“His wife.” She couldn’t say it without a peculiar look. “Anyway, they registered as man and wife. I wondered if there was something funny at the time. But what can you do when you’re in die cabin business? Ask to see their marriage license and the results of their Wassermann test?” Her smile was rough and wry, like her wit. “What is he wanted for?”
“Suspicion of murder.”
“Too bad,” she said without turning a hair. “He looks like a decent boy. Maybe with her he was stepping out of his weight class. What did he do, kill her husband or something like that?”
“Something like that. When did they check in?”
“She came in last night around six, said her husband was joining her later. He got in around eleven or so.”
“What name did she give you?”
“Smith. Mr. and Mrs. Smith.”
“Did they walk away from here?”
“No, this older man came asking for them – for her. He had a car – new blue Chevvie.”
“What did he look like?”
“Older man with a moustache.” She fingered her upper lip. “More of an Adolphe Menjou type moustache than a Charlie Chaplin. A nice-looking man, even with those great big glasses. He treated her nice enough, too, considering the provocation.”
“Provocation?”
She looked down at the twisted sheets, the mashed pillows. She took one of the pillows into her lap and began to plump it up. “He’s her husband, isn’t he?”
“No. I’m trying to find out who he is.”
“So who got themselves killed?”
“Her daughter.”
The woman’s mouth drooped in sympathy. “No wonder she looks so sad. I know what sadness is. I lost a husband in World War Two. That’s when I started eating. I went right on even after I married Spurling.”
She placed one hand on her breast. Her fingers were pale and speckled like breakfast sausages. All of her flesh was lardlike: if you poked it the hole would stay. Some of it had run like candle wax down her ankles and over her shoes.
“Getting back to the man with the moustache, Mrs. Spurling, what did he say when he came here asking for her?”
“Just was she here, and he described her – big blonde, platinum blonde, in a purple dress. I told him she was here. He knocked on this here door and they let him in and then they had a pow-wow. It went on for fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“What was said?”
“I couldn’t hear – just their voices. But it was quite a pow-wow. I guess she didn’t want to go with him, she wanted to stay here with her little red-headed friend. I saw her hanging back when he marched her out to his car.”
“Did she resist him?”
“She didn’t fight him, if that’s what you mean. But she was putting up an argument. The three of them were still arguing when they drove away. Funny thing is, the red-head appeared to be arguing against her.”
“Was the man taking them into custody, do you think?”
“It didn’t look like that to me. Is that what you’re planning to do?”
“Yes. The boy should be coming back for his car. I’ll wait here for him, if it’s all right with you.”
“No fireworks.”
“I don’t expect any.”
She got up, and the bed groaned in relief. In her slow mind, two thoughts came together with an impact which made the flesh of her face quiver: “My God, you mean he killed the blondie’s little girl?”
“That’s what I want to ask him, Mrs. Spurling.”
“And she spent the night with him? What kind of woman is she?”
“That’s what I want to ask her.”
I closed the door behind her and turned off the light. After a while my eyes got used to the green twilight, and I could see the cockroaches coming out like a small guerrilla army.
They retreated, as if they had outlying scouts, when Bobby came back to the cabin. I heard his footsteps on the path, and was waiting at the door when he came in. He saw the gun in my hand and went still. He had blue rings under his eyes, as if the night and the morning had drained his youth.
“Sit down, Bobby. We’ll talk.”
His feet arranged themselves to run. He couldn’t decide where to run to.
“Come in and sit down and hurry up about it.”
“Yes sir,” he said to the gun.
I turned on the light and frisked him. He shuddered as if my touch was contagious. Almost in reflex, regardless of the gun, he threw a short right uppercut at my chin. I caught it in my left hand and pushed him backwards. He took two tanglefooted steps and fell sideways across the bed. He wasn’t hurt, but he made no attempt to get up. I said:
“Your mother has changed her story, Bobby. You have no alibi. We know you went to San Francisco with Phoebe.”
He was silent, his face half-hidden in the tangled sheets. From the corner of his head one wide green eye watched me.
“You don’t deny it, do you?”
“No. But Mother didn’t know I went with Phoebe. I let on I was going to school early, and Phoebe picked me up at the edge of the campus.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“It’s everybody’s business now,” I said.
“All right.” His voice rose defiantly. “We were going to get married. After she saw her father off, we were going to drive to Reno and get married. We were old enough, it’s no crime.”
“Getting married is no crime. But you never did get married.”
“It wasn’t my fault. I wanted to. It was Phoebe who changed her mind. She ran into a family situation. Don’t ask me what it was because I don’t know. I gave up and took a bus home.”
“From San Francisco?”
“Yes.”
“You’re lying. That same night, or early next morning, you were seen driving Phoebe’s car through a place on the coast named Medicine Stone. You know the place. The car was found yesterday, where you pushed it over the cliff. Her body was in it. And your feet are wet, boy, all the way up to your neck.”
He didn’t move or speak. He lay still as catatonia under the weight of my accusation.
“Why did you have to kill Phoebe? You were supposed to be in love with her.”
He raised himself on his arms and turned to face me, not quite squarely:
“You don’t understand anything about what happened.”
“Enlighten me.”
“A man doesn’t have to incriminate himself.”
“You’re a man?”
He stared up at the ceiling light, fingering his sad pink moustache. “I’m doing my best to be one.”
“You don’t prove manhood by killing girls.”
He brought his gaze down to my level. His eyes were bleak and dubious for twenty-one. “I didn’t kill her. I didn’t kill anyone. But I’m willing to take the consequence for what I did do.”
“What did you do?”
“I drove the car down to Medicine Stone, like you said. I shoved it over the bluff and walked out to the highway and caught a bus.”