So far, except for his car in the carport and the sporty one parked behind it, Bill’s story checked out.
I turned off the flash and went out the back way and used my tricks to close the door and lock the screen. I didn’t put the ribbon back up. I didn’t think it would matter.
I drove away, feeling scared and confused.
9
I went to a Stop and Rob, as a friend of mine calls them, bought a carton of cigarettes, a lighter, a couple large styrofoam containers of coffee and some snack food, then went to the same hamburger joint as before, got another burger and fries and drove over to Sleepy Time Tourist Courts.
There were quite a few seedy looking characters hanging about the lot, and I patted the revolver in my coat pocket just to let it know I cared, got the stuff for Bill and went up to his room.
I knocked. The curtain inside the window to my right moved slightly and dropped. A moment later, the door opened. Bill, still dressed in his towel, let me in.
“I hope you brought some clothes,” he said. “I got the others soaking in the tub, and I don’t think that blood is going to come out.”
“I brought some,” I said. “Cigarettes and a lot of other junk too. Enough to get you through tonight and tomorrow. I’ve got some money here too, you need it. Whatever was left from a fifty I busted for this stuff.”
He took the clothes out of the bag and shook them. “Man, you actually wear plaid flannel shirts?”
“Just to bar mitzvahs.”
“Nobody’s gonna call you Mr. Fashion. Look at these pants, all covered in paint.”
“I didn’t bring this stuff so you could go on a date. You want, you can keep wearing that towel.”
“This’ll do. Once in a while, I like to have the common man look. Goddamn, these shorts have Santa Clauses on them.”
“Your grandma gave those to me. She thought they were just cute as a bug.”
“I bet they turn Beverly on.”
“The sex and compliments never stop. But, I’ll sacrifice and give them to you.”
I unpacked the rest of the stuff, went and got ice again at the ice machine. The ice didn’t look any better than before, and this time there was a slick, handsome, black guy and an attractive bu vGodda Tht pale-looking white woman with irritated nostrils standing by it.
They seemed pretty put out that I’d come for ice. The black guy was telling the white gal she wasn’t just another bitch to him. She looked about as interested in all this as the ice machine was. She snuffled all the time he talked.
I went back and gave Bill the ice and he sat on the bed and drank his soft drink and ate the burger. I camped in the chair by the table and opened one of the containers of coffee and sipped it.
I said, “After I talk to a lawyer I know, we go in Monday and turn you in. I think we should do it through him instead of going to the police first. If the cops have you pegged for this, they might get you to talk a way you wouldn’t normally talk. They might find some flaws in your story.”
“It happened just like I told you, Uncle Hank. There aren’t any flaws.”
“Well, there’s one or two.”
“What do you mean?”
“You went to your house after all this took place, and there weren’t any cars in the carport, right?”
“What are you getting at?”
“Where is your car?”
“I told you. Dave’s.”
“All right. And Dave’s car was at the University parking lot?”
“Look, I don’t get what you’re saying…”
“Your car was in the carport when I drove by there earlier. There was another car there too. I don’t know what kind it was. I didn’t look that close. It looked like something foreign. Black and sporty. I guessed it would be Dave’s car.”
“That sounds right,” Bill said. “But how did it get there?”
“That’s what I’m wondering.”
“Maybe you had the wrong place?”
“I know your car, and the house is a crime scene setup. I went in the back way using the lift-and-push system you told me about on the door. The house is as you described it.”
“The bodies?”
“Gone. That would be normal. The cops had them taken to the morgue after they photographed the hell out of the place. Dusted for fingerprints. That kind of stuff.”
“Maybe the cops brought the cars there.”
“That’s what worries me. You saw when the cops came up, and your car and Dave’s weren’t there then. So why would they bring them there later? Maybe yours I can explain. They went over to the apartment complex and found it and just wanted to get it out of the lot. Figured it would be out of the way at your place. That’s stretching it some, since I actually think they’d haul it to the police compound, but it’s possible. But why would they bring Dave’s car there too?”
“I don’t know.”
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“Something about that hurts my head,” I said. “I thought at first the killers brought the cars there, so as to make it look like you drove there and Dave followed with the others, and you jumped them.”
“But if that was the plan, they were late,” Bill said.
“Exactly. The fuzz had already been there and done their thing, and this Fat Boy and his partner would know that, since they decided to set you up to get themselves off the hook. They had to be the ones called the cops. They were watching all along, just waiting for you to get there so they could fasten on the frame. Real tidy. So why would they do something stupid like bring the cars around later?”
“Why didn’t they just go ahead and kill me at the house, Uncle Hank?”
“I’ve thought about that too. It’s a nice frame they’ve got you in, all right, but you could tell your story, and fantastic as it is, seems to me it might worry the killers a bit.”
“Yeah,” Bill said. “I been sitting here thinking about that, and I been thinking something else that ought to worry Fat Boy and Cobra Man. How could I handle that whole bunch by myself? Kill Dave in the kitchen, get the other three in the bedroom, tie them up and do what I’m supposed to have done? I guess it’s possible, but it seems unlikely. Strikes me as there’s enough there for the cops to suspicion a frame.”
“Let’s add something else to all this,” I said. “Cops have got a fugitive on the run-meaning you-wouldn’t they post someone at your house for a time, waiting for you to come back?”
“I guess they would.”
“That didn’t occur to me when I went over there. I thought of it driving over here. Had I thought of it before, I wouldn’t have gone in, especially carrying a gun, which I was. I put it in my pocket in case Fat Boy or Cobra Man were there, not that I really expected them to be, but I’m getting scared enough with all this to consider the possibility. But if there had been cops, and they’d caught me with a gun, I’d be in on this frame tight as you.”
Bill dropped his towel and began putting on the clothes I had brought. He slipped into the Santa Claus boxer shorts, pulled on the pants and zipped them up. “I don’t know. More I think about all this, more off center everything is. Could it be the Imperial City police are just stupid?”
“It’s a consideration entertained by many,” I said, “but in this case, I don’t think they’re that stupid. And they’ve got a new Chief. Guy’s supposed to be a real go getter, had plenty of experience. He’s solved all kinds of old cases here in the short time he’s been Chief. But a deal like that, taking the cars over after the fact, letting a fugitive know someone has been there, not posting a guard, it doesn’t show much judgment… You sure you’ve told me everything?”
“Swear to God, Uncle Hank, I’m telling this straight as an arrow.”
“All right. I’ll get the number here, call you tomorrow night. Just to check on you. Let’s see, it’s Jack Frame
