immediately Lavery was shot dead in his bathroom, the very night after I went down to talk to him. That’s about all there is to it, except why she went back to the house the next morning. That’s just one of those things that murderers seem to do. She said he had taken her money, but I don’t believe it. I think more likely she got to thinking he had some of his own hidden away, or that she had better edit the job with a cool head and make sure it was all in order and pointing the right way; or perhaps it was just what she said, and to take in the paper and the milk. Anything is possible. She went back and I found her there and she put on an act that left me with both feet in my mouth.”
Patton said: “Who killed her, son? I gather you don’t like Kingsley for that little job.”
I looked at Kingsley and said: “You didn’t talk to her on the phone, you said. What about Miss Fromsett? Did she think she was talking to your wife?”
Kingsley shook his head. “I doubt it. It would be pretty hard to fool her that way. All she said was that she seemed very changed and subdued. I had no suspicion then. I didn’t have any until I got up here. When I walked into this cabin last night, I felt there was something wrong. It was too clean and neat and orderly. Crystal didn’t leave things that way. There would have been clothes all over the bedroom, cigarette stubs all over the house, bottles and glasses all over the kitchen. There would have been unwashed dishes and ants and flies. I thought Bill’s wife might have cleaned up, and then I remembered that Bill’s wife wouldn’t have, not on that particular day. She had been too busy quarreling with Bill and being murdered, or committing suicide, whichever it was. I thought about all this in a confused sort of way, but I don’t claim I actually made anything of it.”
Patton got up from his chair and went out on the porch. He came back wiping his lips with his tan handkerchief. He sat down again, and eased himself over on his left hip, on account of the hip holster on the other side. He looked thoughtfully at Degarmo. Degarmo stood against the wall, hard and rigid, a stone man. His right hand still hung down at his side, with the fingers curled.
Patton said: “I still ain’t heard who killed Muriel. Is that part of the show or is that something that still has to be worked out?”
I said: “Somebody who thought she needed killing, somebody who had loved her and hated her, somebody who was too much of a cop to let her get away with any more murders, but not enough of a cop to pull her in and let the whole story come out. Somebody like Degarmo.”
40
Degarmo straightened away from the wall and smiled bleakly.
His right hand made a hard clean movement and was holding a gun. He held it with a lax wrist, so that it pointed down at the floor in front of him. He spoke to me without looking at me.
“I don’t think you have a gun,” he said. “Patton has a gun but I don’t think he can get it out fast enough to do him any good. Maybe you have a little evidence to go with that last guess. Or wouldn’t that be important enough for you to bother with?”
“A little evidence,” I said. “Not very much. But it will grow. Somebody stood behind that green curtain in the Granada for more than half an hour and stood as silently as only a cop on a stakeout knows how to stand. Somebody who had a blackjack. Somebody who knew I had been hit with one without looking at the back of my head. You told Shorty, remember? Somebody who knew the dead girl had been hit with one too, although it wouldn’t have showed and he wouldn’t have been likely at that time to have handled the body enough to find out. Somebody who stripped her and raked her body with scratches in the kind of sadistic hate a man like you might feel for a woman who had made a small private hell for him. Somebody who has blood and cuticle under his fingernails right now, plenty enough for a chemist to work on. I bet you won’t let Patton look at the fingernails of your right hand, Degarmo.”
Degarmo lifted the gun a little and smiled. A wide white smile.
“And just how did I know where to find her?” he asked.
“Almore saw her—coming out of, or going into Layery’s house. That’s what made him so nervous, that’s why he called you when he saw me hanging around. As to how exactly you trailed her to the apartment, I don’t know. I don’t see anything difficult about it. You could have hid out in Almore’s house and followed her, or followed Lavery. All that would be routine work for a copper.”
Degarmo nodded and stood silent for a moment, thinking. His face was grim, but his metallic blue eyes held a light that was almost amusement. The room was hot and heavy with a disaster that could no longer be mended. He seemed to feel it less than any of us.
“I want to get out of here,” he said at last. “Not very far maybe, but no hick cop is going to put the arm on me. Any objections?”
Patton said quietly: “Can’t be done, son. You know I got to take you. None of this ain’t proved, but I can’t just let you walk out.”
“You have a nice big belly, Patton. I’m a good shot. How do you figure to take me?”
“I been trying to figure,” Patton said and rumpled his hair under his pushed back hat. “I ain’t got very far with it. I don’t want no holes in my belly. But I can’t let you make a monkey of me in my own territory either.”
“Let him go,” I said. “He can’t get out of these mountains. That’s why I brought him up here.”
Patton said soberly: “Somebody might get hurt taking him. That wouldn’t be right. If it’s anybody, it’s got to be me.”
Degarmo grinned. “You’re a nice boy, Patton,” he said. “Look, I’ll put the gun back under my arm and we’ll start from scratch. I’m good enough for that too.”
He tucked the gun under his arm. He stood with his arms hanging, his chin pushed forward a little, watching. Patton chewed softly, with his pale eyes on Degarmo’s vivid eyes.
“I’m sitting down,” he complained. “I ain’t as fast as you anyways. I just don’t like to look yellow.” He looked at me sadly. “Why the hell did you have to bring this up here? It ain’t any part of my troubles. Now look at the jam I’m in.” He sounded hurt and confused and rather feeble.
Degarmo put his head back a little and laughed. While he was still laughing, his right hand jumped for his gun again.
I didn’t see Patton move at all. The room throbbed with the roar of his frontier Colt.
