Both Lanigan and Jennings immediately became alert. Lanigan said. "All right, beat it, will you. Rabbi. I'm going to be busy for a while."
"How about Stanley?" "Oh, take him with you."
29
THE QUESTIONING WENT ON FOR HOURS. WHEN LANIGAN AND Jennings arrived at the Jordon house. McLure was already there and had already begun the interrogation, and Billy was sobbing and blubbering. McLure broke off long enough to nod the two men over to a far corner to get them current with the situation.
"He pretends he didn't know about the murder until he got here,” he said, "but I'm sure he's the one, and it's only a question of time before I get him to admit it."
"You ever hear of Miranda?" asked Lanigan coldly.
Instantly McLure was wide-eyed innocence. "I haven't accused him. I'm just questioning him as a witness—just for information."
"Then why's he crying?"
"He feels bad about the death of Jordon—he says."
"What was Jordon to him? Did he say?"
"Says he was just a friend of his mother's." McLure's eyes sparkled with eagerness. "And do you know who his mother is? Hester Grimes, she's his mother."
"Who's Hester Grimes?" asked Jennings.
"Oh, you must have seen her on TV, she's a nightclub singer and entertainer. You see her on a lot of these talk shows."
"Where is she?" asked Lanigan. "How do we get in touch with her?"
"She's on tour in Europe. What I got out of him so far is—"
"Never mind. I'll talk to him myself. If he changes his story, you can question him, but otherwise I'd appreciate it if you just sat quiet." Lanigan went over to the boy and sat down beside him. "I'm Chief Lanigan of the police department here. Billy."
"Yeah, I've seen you around."
"I'd like you to tell me what happened." Lanigan went on. "This terrible thing that happened last night, we've got to investigate it. You understand that, don't you?"
Billy nodded.
"Now, Mr. Jordon was killed with the gun that you brought home. Suppose you tell me about that. Did Mr. Gore ask you to take the gun with you?"
"Oh no, he asked me if I'd care to ride shotgun while he took the Peter Archer silver into Boston, but I knew he only meant that I'd be riding beside him. But I thought, what if someone—well, you know, that stuff is pretty valuable, and what could I do? I mean. I'm not one of these big, hefty guys, and Mr. Gore isn't either. So I thought, if we should get stopped—well, I didn't know about the special law here in Massachusetts. I knew you had to have a license, but I figured Mr. Gore must have one, since he's president of the bank and is into handgun shooting and all, and I'd be with him all the time, and, of course, if nothing happened, I'd just put it back and who'd know."
Lanigan did not badger him and he did not try to confuse him, but he was persistent. "Well, how soon after you were locked in did you leave?"
"Oh, right away." "How right away?"
For the first time. Billy grinned. "Well, when he said he was locking me in, I thought, Oh yeah? and I headed for the window."
"All right, and where'd you go?"
"I went away from there as fast as I could. I went down the back driveway that we don't use anymore, out to Elm Street."
"Why did you go down there? Were you afraid you might be seen if you went down the regular driveway?"
"That's right. I thought Mr. Gore might be coming out, and I didn't want to see him."
"Why not?"
"Well, it was embarrassing. I was good and sore. See. Mr. Jordon had locked me in my room before, and I'd always sneaked out. I didn't mind that. It was like a game we played. See, that was his way of telling me I'd done something wrong. It never bothered me much. I'd just sneak out, and he knew it. It was like a game between the two of us. But he shouldn't have done it in front of Mr. Gore. See. Mr. Gore is my boss, and he's like a friend to me, and here Mr. Jordon was treating me like a little kid. It was awfully embarrassing, so I didn't want to see Mr. Gore. I'd be—well—embarrassed, and I was wondering if I could even go back to the bank."
"So then what did you do?"
"Well, I didn't know what to do, because I sure wasn't going to come back until late, maybe not till midnight. But I don't know anybody in Barnard's Crossing, and there's nothing to do there anyway. So there's a bunch of people waiting for a bus, and just then it came along, so I got on it."
"Anybody you recognized on the bus?" asked Lanigan casually.
Billy shook his head. "No. I didn't see anybody I knew."
"I should think being a teller at the bank you'd recognize a lot of people." suggested Jennings. "And even if you didn't know them, they'd know you and maybe say hello."
Billy shook his head again. "We're in North Barnard's Crossing. Down this end of town everybody banks at the Deposit and Trust."
"What were you planning on doing in Boston?" asked Lanigan.
Billy shrugged his shoulders. "Just hang around and then take a late bus back. But I got to thinking. Mr. Jordon played me a dirty trick, so maybe I could pay him back one. So when I got to Boston. I went to the big bus station and took a bus to New York. See. I figured he'd know if I didn't get back that night, and he'd get worried, and it would serve him right."
"I guess you didn't like him very much," suggested McLure.
Billy looked surprised. "Sure I liked him. Why wouldn't I like him?" His eyes began to tear. "He'd bring me stuff, you know, presents, whenever he came to visit us, from the time I was a little kid, and he invited me to stay with him, didn't he? I remember once, when I'd been here maybe a couple of weeks. I got sick. It was this twenty-four-hour bug. But Mr. Jordon kept coming into my room practically all night to see how I was."
"All right." said Lanigan, "let's get back to your travels. I don't suppose you met anyone you knew on the New York bus?"
Billy shook his head.
"What bus was it, by the way?"
"It was a Greyhound. I took the nine o'clock, they leave every hour, actually, it was eight-fifty-five."
"What did you do in New York?" asked Jennings.
"Well, it was pretty late when I got in, or rather pretty early in the morning. So I had a bite in the terminal, and then I thought maybe I'd go home. But then I thought the doorman would ask me all kinds of questions, we're kind of friendly, me and the doorman. So then I thought maybe I'd hang around the city, or go to one of those all-night movies in Times Square. See, if I went to my house in the morning, or during the day, it wouldn't be so, you know, funny, and the doorman who is on days I'm not so friendly with, so he wouldn't be apt to ask me any questions. But I figured those all-night movie houses in Times Square, there's apt to be a bunch of drunks in those places. So I didn't know what to do, and just sitting there in the terminal trying to make up my mind, I fell asleep."
"I should think you would have slept on the bus," said Jennings. "I always do."
"I tried but couldn't." said the young man. "I was like upset, maybe I did doze off and on. But later in the terminal building. I passed right out. When I woke up, it was morning, and I was stiff and felt kind of grubby. So I washed in the men's room and I bought a comb at one of the stores in the terminal"—he fished in his jacket pocket and brought forth a comb—"see, here it is. Souvenir of New York, it says, then I had some breakfast, and then I took a bus downtown and just walked around."
"Why didn't you go home?" asked Lanigan.
"Well, see. I started worrying about Mr. Jordon. I thought he'd be terribly upset wondering what had happened to me if he found out I hadn't come home to sleep, and what with him having a weak heart and all. So I went back to the terminal and took a bus back to Boston, then I took a bus back to Barnard's Crossing, and I got off at the Elm Street stop, the same as where I had taken the bus when I left. It was pretty dark by then, so I came up the back way, planning on sneaking into my room. But when I got to the house, I could see something wasn't right, the door of my room was open and I could see into the living room, and then I saw a cop—er—policeman, and I knew something was wrong. I thought maybe Mr. Jordon had called the police when he'd found I wasn't there, and my window was all the way down and locked. So while I was trying to push the latch over, a policeman nabbed me, and then I found out what happened, and I've been thinking that if I hadn't sneaked out, then nothing might have happened."