So they went through the pink curtains and here was a small square back room, a round table, perhaps for cards, a gas-heater, calendar art on the walls. A nest for Kate herself in the comer, consisting of a shapeless easy chair, a basket of magazines, a radio, a manicure set.
'Sit do^vn,' said Kate cordially. She was fat. She wore a
rusty black dress and a long string of bright green beads. Her hair was dyed, black as a raven's wing. Her aging face was laden with peach-colored make-up. Her lids were painted blue. But her mouth was a wide curly mouth, and it smiled as if it were used to smiling. The eyes imder the blue hds were placid and kind.
'I came to ask you questions about Clinton McCauley?'
'Yeah?'
Johnny gave their names. They all sat down aroimd the
table. Kate said, 'Will you take something? Go ahead. On
>» me.
The girls declined with, thanks. But Johnny said, ''A beer? Thank you.'
'Sure thing. Hey, Jaime!''
Kate would have a beer to keep him company. She moved the glass on the table. 'Clinton McCauley,' she said. 'That poor guy.' Her voice was pleasing. Husky and yet kind. 'He never did no murder, you know. He got it, though. He's up at Q.'
'I know,'' said Johnny. 'I work for a writer, Miss Callahan. I'm looking for material.'
'Well,' Kate said, 'it's a long time. But I'll teU you what I know about it. I knew Clint pretty well. Family man. Wanted to take care of his family. That Christy, though, that he was married to, she don't want to leave a nice cozy spot. She don't mind sponging on the Bartees.'
'How did they get into the Bartee house?' asked Dorothy. 'I want to understand.'
'Oh, Dot,' Nan murmured.
'Well, he went to Spain. Fought in that war,' Kate said. 'Christy, she didn't hold out long after he was gone. She coulda stayed where he put her. Decent apartment, CUnt said, and enough money in the bank to last her, if she'd just go easy. But no, she spent it up and then she moves in wath her rich relatives.'
'Did you know Christy?' Johnny asked.
'Nope, I never even saw her. I don't get out much.' Kate touched her hair. It seemed obvious that she was an indoor plant. 'Well,' she continued, 'after Clint got out of Spain-he's wounded and out—lessee—in 1938, would it be? Well, Clint comes in here a lot. I felt sorry for him. He'd drink a few too many. Listen, who could blame him?' Kate paused.
' 'Course what he ought to have done, he oughta have gone and taken a job and said the—said she could fly a kite. But he didn't. Easy to say what he oughta have done.'
'Easy, now,' Johnny agreed.
'liie was just a kid, practically.' Kate was tolerant to the bottom of her heart. This was plain. 'Well, I guess you want to hear about the night she got killed. He was here, all right, that night. Finally left about 20 of 12 so as he could catch the last bus, see? He woulda got out there around midnight. I don't think he had time to kill anybody. That's what I say. Nobody listens to me, though.'
Johnny was struck with this. Time to kill? First, to quarrel and to be heard quarreling. Time to wake the old lady.
'You'd swear to the time he left here?'
'1 did swear,' Kate said. 'The bus driver wouldn't swear, I though. He left all kinds of leeway.'
(All gone into, years go.)
''Anyhow, fat lot of good, me swearing.' The wide mouth curled.
Dorothy was hstening hard. Nan sat round-eyed, listening in spite of herself.
(Johnny thought, This is good. Let her begin to get-'Ae idea McCauley didn't do.it. Her father.) ''Go on,' he said aloud.
'Well, so the next day, all I know is what I hear. She gets hit with a big old candlestick, and they catch Clint standing over her body with the thing that hit her in his hand.'
Dorothy gasped.
'TH[e says he found it lying on the red carpet in the hall,' said Johnny.
'Yeah, I know. But they didn't beheve him,' Kate sighed. 'Well, so they got Clint in jail. I don't go to see him. Didn't think they'd let me in. For all I knew then, he did do it. I felt bad, you know. But I couldn't help feeling this Christy brought it on herself.'
(Johnny winced. Her mother, he thought.)
'Well,' Kate continued, 'pretty soon, Mr. Marshall, that's Clint's lawyer, he comes around. What about this pin they found in Clint's pocket? O.K. Now—' Kate beat upon the table top with the back of her open hand. '1 gave him that pin two weeks before. I didn't give it to him to keep, see? But he had it and it was mine. I'd had that pin a million
years. Nathaniel Bartee gave it to me. Of course nobody believed that, either.'
Nan said with a fastidious mouth, 'Nathaniel Bartee?''
'Who was he?' asked Dorothy brightly. Dorothy had her hands clasped under her chin, elbows on the
