Quartermain stood up again and glanced around the room and saw that there was a telephone on a stand near the polished-wood inner stairs. He shambled over there, his eyes sick and his mouth twisted into a thin grimace, and caught up the receiver and dialed a number. The summons: county investigators and, this time, a matron- and the crew, too, don't forget the crew, the clean-up boys, the necessary vultures who go to work when someone dies by violence. Come on out, boys and girl, the Tarrant’s are having a party on Del Lobos Canyon Road and you're the only others invited.
Quartermain said what had to be said and put down the handset and returned to the far sofa, stepping between where Mrs. Tarrant was sitting and a glass-topped coffee table that held two empty glasses and an empty gin bottle. He sat down next to her and touched her shoulder, shook her just a little. I thought for a moment that she was not going to come out of it, but then a tremor passed through her and her eyelids fluttered and her eyes took on a dull, vacuous awareness. But if she had been drunk when she shot her husband, she showed no signs of it now. She turned her head and looked at Quartermain without expression; he might have been a part of the furniture. Her mouth worked and she said, "I shot him, I killed him," in a voice that was steady and clear and as empty as the gin bottle.
He said, "Do you know who I am, Mrs. Tarrant? Can you understand me?"
"Yes," she said.
"Who am I?"
"Chief Quartermain."
He hesitated, and I knew why and felt some of his reluctance. It was time now for the ritual, the Miranda decision, the recitation of personal civil rights that is an absolute necessity before an individual about to be placed under arrest can be questioned in connection with a crime. You have the right to remain silent, you have the right not to answer police questions, you have the right to know that if you do answer police questions, your answers may be used as evidence against you, you have the right to consult with an attorney before or during police questioning, you have the right to have a lawyer appointed without cost and to consult with him before and during police questioning in the event you do not have the funds with which to hire counsel yourself. I listened to him saying that and looked at her sitting there, and the ritual was obscene-not because the Miranda decision itself was obscene or anything but perfectly just, but because with a thing like this, a drunken and irrational crime of passion, the enactment of the ritual is a cruel and bitter farce.
When he had finished, Quartermain asked her if she understood all of her rights as he had outlined them to her, and she said yes, she understood, not really understanding, not really caring, and he asked her if she was willing to answer questions without benefit of counsel and she said Yes, yes, and uncrossed her arms and put her face in her hands and began to cry. Quartermain looked over at me, helplessly, but I had nothing for him. I moved forward a little and my eyes strayed again to Tarrant and all that blood, and I thought: So much blood and so much dying in the last few days, and now it's over, there won't be any more blood or any more dying, not here, not for a while. The undercurrents have surfaced and the rumbling has stopped and the violence has consummated itself and the web has unraveled. It's over-or is it? For Walter Paige and for Brad Winestock and for Keith Tarrant, yes. But what about the others-what about Russ Dancer and Beverly Winestock and Bianca Tarrant and the Lomaxes and even Quartermain? Is it over for them, too? Is it really over for them?
Another tremor passed through Mrs. Tarrant, and it seemed to steady her somehow; she took her hands away from her face and sighed long and shuddering and looked at Quartermain again, waiting. Her face, sallow-white and streaked with mascara and greenish eyeshadow, was ghastly.
He asked, "Did you shoot your husband, Mrs. Tarrant?"
"Yes," she said. "I shot him. Yes."
"Why did you shoot him?"
"Because he… because he killed Walt"
"Walter Paige?"
"Yes."
"Are you certain of that?"
"He told me he did it. He said he did it for me, because he loved me, because he… loved…"
The words trailed off, and she began to slide her hands rigidly back and forth across her thighs; the emerald-green material of her suit pants made rhythmic rustling sounds that pulled at my nerves like the sounds of chalk squealing against a blackboard. Quartermain said, with a mixture of gentleness and infinite weariness, "You were the woman with Paige Saturday afternoon? The two of you were lovers?"
"Yes. We were lovers. We were lovers six years ago and then he went away without saying anything, just went away, and I thought I would go insane with wanting him. But after a while I got over him enough so that life had some purpose again, and Keith and I… we were doing nicely, Keith tried, he always did try. And then Walt came back. He called me one day two months ago and said he wanted to see me again, he said he still loved me and needed me and was sorry he'd gone away, and I met him in Monterey that weekend and it was… oh God, it was just like it was six years ago, it was better, I loved him so! We were going away together. The wife, he didn't tell me about her, he wanted to spare me, you see, but it wouldn't have mattered, Keith didn't matter, nothing mattered but Walt.
"I began to see him regularly at the Beachwood, every Saturday, coming through the rear entrance and along the beach because we didn't want to take the chance of my coming in the front way and someone seeing me and recognizing me. I was always very careful when I came out again, too. It was… I don't know, it was even more exciting that way…"
"But your husband found out, in spite of your precautions."
"Yes. Yes, Keith found out. He know about Walt and me six years ago, I had no idea he knew, I thought I had hidden it from him and I thought he was still friendly toward Walt and had no idea Walt had come back after all these years. That's why I didn't suspect Keith of Walt's murder, not at first. But then you told me today about Walt calling Keith five weeks ago, I don't know why Walt wanted to rent that store when we were going away together, and about Keith saying he didn't care for Walt, and I began thinking and thinking and suddenly I knew Keith had done it, even though you said you suspected someone else, I knew Keith was the one.
"After we came back from Monterey-he insisted we go even though I didn't want to-I started drinking and then I asked him if he had killed Walt, just like that. He denied it at first, but I kept on and on and he started drinking, too, and finally he admitted it, he told me he knew all about Walt and me and that I had been seeing Walt again because of the peculiar way I'd been acting, and he told me exactly how he had killed Walt and why he had killed him, and I… all at once I hated Keith, I hated him more than I've ever hated anyone or anything and I wanted him to be dead too.
"He was sitting over there on the other sofa, telling me how he had lied to you this morning, how he'd claimed to have given me an ultimatum and I chose him instead of Walt, my God! — he knew about us back then, but only just before Walt left, and Keith never said a word to me, not a word… sitting over there telling me how he would have to be very careful to stand by that he if you came to question us again and how lucky we were that you were so involved with Russ Dancer's book when it had nothing to do with his having killed Walt. He was very calm and oh so rational, talking like that with Walt's blood on his hands, and I couldn't stand it, I just couldn't stand it. Something seemed to snap inside me and I got up and went downstairs to Keith's study and got his gun and came up here and shot him while he was sitting there. I shot him and shot him and watched him die and I wasn't sorry but I… I don't know… I don't know…"