'Writzmann,' John said. 'I get it. This is
'Before we could get back to the east side, just about the time it started to rain, Fontaine answered a call and took me down to Sixth and Livermore. And there, lying in front of the Idle Hour beneath the slogan Blue Rose, was William Writzmann. Oscar Writzmann's son.'
For once, John looked stupefied. He even forgot about his drink.
'Also known as Billy Ritz. He was a small-time coke dealer down around the St. Alwyn. He also had connections to some police officer in Millhaven. I think that policeman is Fee Bandolier, grown up. I think he murders people for pleasure and has been doing it for a long time.'
'And he can cover up these murders because he's a cop?'
'That's right.'
'So we have to find out who he is. We have to nail him.'
I began saying what I had to say. 'John, there's a way to look at things that makes everything I just told you irrelevant. William Writzmann and Bob Bandolier and the Green Woman would have nothing to do with the way your wife died.'
'You just lost me.'
'The reason none of that would matter is that you killed April.'
He started to say something, but stopped himself. He shook his head and tried to smile. I had just announced that the earth was flat, and if you went too far in any one direction you fell off. 'You're kidding me, I hope. But I have to tell you, it isn't funny.'
'Just suppose these things are true. You knew Barnett offered her a big new job in San Francisco. Alan knew about it, too, even though he was too mixed up to really remember anything about it.'
'Well, exactly,' John said. 'This is still supposed to be a joke, right?'
'If April was offered that kind of job, would you want her to take it? I think you would have been happier if she'd quit her job altogether. April's success always made you uneasy—you wanted her to stay the way she was when you first met her. Probably she did say that she was going to quit after a couple of years.'
'I told you that. She wasn't like the rest of those people at Barnett—it was a big joke to April.'
'She wasn't like them because she was so much better than they were. In the meantime, let's admit that you saw your own job disappearing. Alan only got through last year because you were holding his hand.'
'That's not true,' John said. 'You saw him at the funeral.'
'What he did that day was an astonishing act of love for his daughter, and I'll never forget it. But he knows he can't teach again. In fact, he told me he was worried about letting you down.'
'There are other jobs,' John said. 'And what does this make-believe have to do with April, anyhow?'
'You were Alan Brookner's right-hand man, but how much have you published? Can you get a professorship in another department?'
His body stiffened. 'If you think I'm going to listen to you trash my career, you're wrong.' He put his drink on the table and swiveled his entire body toward me.
'Listen to me for a minute. This is how the police will put things together. You resented and downplayed April's success, but you needed her. If someone like April can make eight hundred thousand dollars for her father, how much could she make for herself? A couple of million? Plenty of money to retire on.'
John made himself laugh. 'So I killed her for her money.'
'Here's the next step. The person I went to see downtown was Byron Dorian.'
John rocked back on the couch. Something was happening to his face that wasn't just a flush.
'Suppose April and Dorian saw each other a couple of times a week. They were interested in a lot of the same things. Suppose they had an affair. Maybe Dorian was thinking about going to California with her.' John's face darkened another shade, and he clamped his mouth shut. 'I'm pretty sure she was going to bring Alan along with her. I bet she had a couple of brochures squirreled away up in her office. That means the police have them now.'
John licked his lips. 'Did that pretentious little turd put you on this track? Did he say he slept with April?'
'He didn't have to. He's in love with her. They used to go to this secluded little spot in Flory Park. What do you suppose they did there?'
John opened his mouth and breathed in and out, so shocked he couldn't speak. Years ago, I thought, April had taken him there, too. John's face softened and lost all its definition. 'Are you almost done?'
'You couldn't stand it,' I said. 'You couldn't keep her, and you couldn't lose her, either. So you worked out a plan. You got her to take you somewhere in her car. You got her to park in a secluded place. As soon as she started talking, you beat her unconscious. Maybe you stabbed her after you beat her. Probably you thought you killed her. There must have been a lot of blood in the car. Then you drove to the St. Alwyn and carried her in through the back door and up the service steps to room 218. They don't have room service, the maids don't work at night, and almost everybody who lives there is about seventy years old. There's no one in those halls after midnight. You still have master keys. You knew the room would be empty. You put her on the bed and stabbed her again, and then you wrote BLUE ROSE on the wall.'
He was watching me with assumed indifference—I was explaining that the earth was flat all over again.
'Then you took the car to Alan's house and stashed it in his garage. You knew he'd never see it—Alan never even left his house. You cleaned up all the obvious bloodstains. As far as you knew, you could keep it there forever, and no one would ever find it. But then you got me here, in order to muddy the water by making sure everybody thought about the old Blue Rose murders. I started spending time with Alan, so the garage wasn't safe anymore. You had to move the Mercedes. What you did was find a friendly garage out of town, put it in for a general service and a good cleaning, and just left it there for a week.'
'Are we still talking about a hypothesis?'
'You tell me, John. I'd like to know the truth.'
'I suppose I killed Grant Hoffman. I suppose I went to the hospital and killed April.'
'You wouldn't be able to let her come out of her coma, would you?'
'And Grant?' He was still trying to look calm, but red-and-white blotches covered his face.
'You were setting up a pattern. You wanted me and the cops to think that Blue Rose was back to work. You picked a guy who would have remained unidentified forever if he hadn't been wearing your father-in-law's old sport jacket. Even when we saw the body, you still pretended he was a vagrant.'
John was rhythmically clenching and unclenching his jaws.
'It wouldn't be hard for me to think you just got me out here to use me.'
'You just turned into a liability—if you talk to anybody, you could convince them that all of this bullshit is real. Go upstairs and start packing, Tim. You're gone.'
He started to get up, and I said, 'What would happen if the police went to Purdum, John? Did you take her car to Purdum?'
'Damn you,' he said, and rushed at me.
He was on me before I could stop him. The odors of sweat and alcohol poured out of him. I punched him in the stomach, and he grunted and wrenched me away from the fireplace. His arms locked around my middle. It felt like he was trying to crush me to death. I hit the side of his head two or three times, and then I got my hands under his chin and tried to pry him off of me. We struggled back and forth, rocking between the fireplace and the couch. I shoved up on his meaty chin, and he released his arms and staggered back. I hit him once more in the belly.
John clutched his stomach and stepped backward, glaring at me.
'You killed her,' I managed to say.
He lunged toward me, and I put my hands on his shoulders and tried to push him aside. John rode in under me, clamped his right arm around my waist, and pulled me into his shoulder. His head was a boulder in my side. I grabbed the brass plaque off the mantel and pounded it into his neck. Ransom pushed me backward with all of his
