“So was...? No. No, that’s impossible.”
“He was watching Loftus because he was jealous of him. Hearst is a traveling man, away from home all week on business. He had time to hatch plenty of suspicions about his wife and Loftus, not without some justification. On Saturday night Mrs. Hearst left the house about 7:30, met Loftus out on the sidewalk on his way home after dinner downtown, and then went on to a hockey game. That’s her story, but Hearst didn’t believe it. He was pretty sure she intended to meet Loftus somewhere in the course of the evening. He could have followed his wife, of course. But Hearst is a lazy, half-hearted man; it was easier for him to stay right in the house and keep an eye on Loftus. I believe that’s what he did. He spied on Loftus and Loftus didn’t go out.”
“You have no proof of that.”
“No, it’s merely an opinion,” Meecham said. The word reminded him vividly of the scene between Lily Margolis and her cousin, Loesser, a few hours before: “I will not be quiet, George. I have a right to my opinion.” “Keep it an opinion, then.” “Very well. In my opinion, Virginia Barkeley killed my husband in a jealous rage!”
He said aloud, “We may never know the truth of what happened. Maybe there isn’t any whole truth about anything, just a lot of versions, of different colors and different flavors, like ice cream, and you pick the most palatable. Cigarette?”
“Not while I’m driving.”
Meecham lit one for himself, cupping his hands over the lighter so that its sudden glare wouldn’t distract Barkeley’s eyes from the road. The wind was slackening, and the flakes of snow had become larger, coagulating with moisture into thick fluffy whirls that clung stickily wherever they fell. The windshield wipers had lost their rhythm. They jerked, slowed, stopped, and went on in wild haste, like a hunted man.
Meecham spoke again. “As Carney put it, nothing seems sensible. Loftus was an intelligent young man with a conscience, yet he accepted money to confess to a murder he didn’t commit and fabricated enough circumstantial evidence to back it up — his bloodstained clothes, his knowledge of the inside of Margolis’ cottage, what kind of knife was used, where it was kept, the temperature of the room, the number of times Margolis was stabbed, and so on. He couldn’t have fabricated all that evidence without help.”
“Whose help?”
Meecham didn’t answer.
“You mean my wife’s help,” Barkeley said. “Don’t you?”
“It seems — logical.”
“But the blood on his clothes — how could Loftus have managed that? The Sheriff himself said that it wasn’t rubbed on, it was splattered there from a wound, a quart or more of the stuff.”
“That’s one of two things I hope to find out soon. Where did the blood come from and where did the money go?”
“You think my wife knows.”
“It’s very possible.”
“You might as well make that a definite opinion, Meecham. You seem to have opinions about everything.”
“I don’t pick them off trees,” Meecham said. “They’re flung into my lap.”
“No opinions about me yet?”
“None.”
“That’s odd. I had quite a time-honored motive, you know. My wife was Margolis’ mistress.”
“I don’t think she was.”
“Very polite of you to say so, anyway.”
“It’s not politeness. I’m taking Lily Margolis’ word for it. Margolis had a real love — that’s her phrase — but it wasn’t Virginia.”
“The degree of Virginia’s unfaithfulness hardly matters, does it?”
“I thought you’d be interested.”
“Yes, I am,” Barkeley said quietly. “I’m disappointed, too, that she didn’t get any happiness out of all the grief she’s given the rest of us. You’d think somebody would get something out of it. But no, Margolis is dead, and Virginia is running away, and I’m running after her, reluctantly and without hope. If I find her, what then? What then?” he repeated. “I just don’t know.”
Neither did Meecham. The next hour seemed as imponderable and remote as the next year.
They were passing through a small town identified by a sign over the railroad station door as Algonquin. A layer of fresh snow hid its ugliness like frosting on a soggy cake.
“Morrisburg is only another thirty miles,” Barkeley said. “We won’t catch them.”
“We might.”
“I don’t think so.”
He was wrong. Meecham spotted the bright yellow Frazer about a half-mile beyond Algonquin. Its hood was half- buried in a pile of snow left by a snow plough at the side of the road. A tow truck was parked in front of the Frazer, its red blinker going off and on like a buoy light to warn the approaching traffic.
Barkeley parked his car a few yards beyond the tow truck and Meecham got out and walked back.
A gray-haired angry-looking woman sat behind the wheel of the truck, her arms folded aggressively across her chest. A teen-aged boy in leather cap and windbreaker was busy with a shovel digging away the snow from the Frazer’s bumper.
“Need any help?” Meecham said.
The boy looked up and shook his head. “Nope.”
“A nasty thing to have happen to a new car like that.”
“Not much damage done. Didn’t hit nothing except snow.”
The woman in the truck cranked down the window and stuck her head out. “What’s he want, Billy?”
“Nothing.”
“He ain’t one of those insurance fellows?”
“How should I know?”
“Just think,” the woman said bitterly. “Just think, if your father’d stayed home tonight where he belongs. But no. Not him. He had to go and...”
“Oh, for heck’s sake, Mom, stop crabbing.”
The woman’s lips continued moving, but no one heard what she said because she’d closed the window again.
Meecham asked the boy, “Anyone hurt in the accident?”
“One of the women was riding up front and got her head bumped on the windshield. Nothing much.”
“Where are the people now?”
“They’re waiting for the car at my Dad’s place, about five hundred yards up the road. We got a garage and a hamburger stand.”
“Good. I’ll drop in.”
The boy resumed his shoveling and Meecham began walking back to the car.
The woman had opened the window of the truck again. “I bet it was one of those insurance fellows.”
“It don’t matter anyway.”
“It’s after eight. I missed Guest Star. Your father knows Wednesday’s the best night. And here I sit, in the middle of a snowstorm when I could be...”
The snow gradually covered her voice as it covers cat tracks.
21
The Hamburger stand was one large room built onto the front of an old brick farmhouse. It was equipped with three oilcloth-covered tables, a dozen chairs and a long wooden counter. At one end of the counter, facing the door, there was a small television set on a crude homemade shelf attached to the wall. A boxing match was on the screen showing two boxers, bodies close and heads together in a clinch. They looked as though they were sobbing on each other’s shoulders.
A waitress was languidly drying a pile of cups and saucers, her eyes glued to the screen.
Hearst sat at the counter alone. There was a sandwich and a cup of coffee in front of him, but he was too absorbed in the boxers to eat or drink. His face, like that of the waitress, had a curious stupor, as if they were both drugged by the motions on the screen. He didn’t turn his head, or even blink when the door opened and Meecham and Barkeley came in.
There was no sign of either Virginia or her mother.