“How does that work?” I asked. “You find a dead man in your own room but don’t know how he got killed?”
“It’s the truth.”
I shook my head.
“You look tired,” she said, sympathy blending in with her words.
“How’d Haffernon get to your room?”
“I called him.”
“When?”
“Right after I met you. I called him and told him that I wanted to get rid of the bonds. I asked him would he buy them off me for face value.”
“And what about the letter?”
“He’d get that too.”
“When was this meeting supposed to happen?”
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W a lt e r M o s l e y
“Today. This afternoon.”
“So how does he show up dead on your floor yesterday?”
“After the last time I talked to you I realized that Haffernon could just send that man in the snakeskin jacket to kill me and take the bonds, so I went to Raphael and asked him to take the bonds to your friend.”
“Why?”
“Because even though I hardly know you, you seem to be the most trustworthy person I’ve met, and anyway . . .” Her words trailed off as better judgment took the wheel.
“Anyway what?”
“I figured that you wouldn’t know what to do with the bonds and so I didn’t have to worry about you cashing them.”
That made me laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
I told her about Jackson Blue, that he was willing at that moment to cash them in. I could see the surprise on her face.
“My Uncle Thor once told me that for every one thing you learn you forget something else,” I said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That while they were teaching you all’a that smart white world knowledge at Berkeley you were forgetting where you came from and how we survived all these years. We might’a acted stupid but you know you moved so far away that you startin’ to think the act is true.”
Cinnamon smiled. The smile became a grin.
“Tell me exactly what happened with Haffernon,” I said.
“It’s like I said. I called him and made an appointment for him to meet me at the motel —”
“At what time?”
2 6 8
C i n n a m o n K i s s
“Today at four,” she said. “Then I got nervous and went to give the bonds to Raphael to give to your friend —”
“What time was that?”
“Right after I talked to you. I got back by about five. That’s when I saw him on the floor. He’d been early, real early.”
“But who could have killed him if you didn’t?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “It wasn’t me. But when I talked to him he said that he wasn’t the only interested party, that what Axel planned to do would sink many innocent people.”
I thought about the bullet that killed Haffernon. It had entered at the base of the skull and gone out through the top. He was a tall man. In all probability either a very short man or a woman had done him in.
“Did you give your real name at the motel?”
“No. I didn’t. I called myself Mary Lornen. That’s the names of two people I knew up north.”
Proof is a funny thing. For policemen and for lawyers it depends on tangible evidence: fingerprints, eyewitnesses, irrefut-able logic, or self-incrimination. But for me evidence is like morning mist over a complex terrain. You see the landscape and then it’s gone. And all you can do is try to remember and watch your step.
The fact that Philomena had delivered those bonds to Primo meant something. It gave me doubts about her guilt. While I was having these thoughts Philomena moved across the couch.
“Kiss me,” she commanded.
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