“All right. Keep it quiet.” They went out and bolted the door again. Andy was almost jumping. “He’s the man. He’s the man at that house, the one with the tan Ford. How’d you find him?”
“You’re sure, now? You’re absolutely sure?”
“Hell, yes—I mean—sure I’m sure. I’ll swear to it on a stack of Bibles. I wouldn’t ever forget that man.”
“Would you be willing to swear to it in court?”
“Any time! You just let me get into court and I’ll swear it any time.”
They sent the boy home, and Wilks clapped Fellows on the back. “How about that, Freddie, boy? How about that? You going to call Merrill?”
Sergeant Gorman cocked his head. “Ssh. What’s that?”
They listened. Through the steel door came the faint sound of hollering. Fellows went over and pushed back the bolts and he and Wilks returned through the corridor to where Burchard gripped the steel bars and shouted.
“AH right,” Fellows said. “Quiet down, Burchard. You can talk to a lawyer in the morning.”
“Listen,” Burchard was saying. “Listen to me. Who was that kid?”
“You don’t recognize him?”
“Who was he? I’ve got a right to know.”
Fellows shook his head. “I don’t know what rights you do have, Mr. Burchard, you being a prisoner. But I guess we can tell you. He’s one of the witnesses we’ve got who laid eyes on the man called Campbell.”
“Is he claiming I’m Campbell?”
“He’s swearing to it, if you want to know.”
“That’s not true. Who is he? Where did he claim he saw me? Where does he get the idea I’m Campbell?”
“He delivered groceries to you, Mr. Burchard. Friday the thirteenth of last month to be exact. At two Highland Road.”
Burchard sagged. He said, “Oh, my God.”
“And then some, mister. Now you keep quiet in here.”
“Listen. Listen, Chief. I want to talk.”
They got Ed Lewis in to take down the statement since he was the shorthand man on the force, and when he arrived, they brought Clyde Burchard into the chiefs office, seating him at the end of the table there, back by the cabinets. Wilks and Lewis sat opposite each other on either side of the table and the chief, swinging his desk chair around sat at the head. When Lewis was ready, he said, “All right, Mr. Burchard. You want to make a statement.”
Burchard swallowed. “I do.” He wet his lips. “First off, I want to say I’m innocent. I want to get that down on the record.”
“All right. Mr. Lewis has that down. I hope you have more than that.”
Burchard nodded. He said, “I guess some of the things I told you back at my place weren’t exactly the truth.” No one answered him. He looked into sets of steadily staring eyes. “All right. I—you came at me so fast I—” He had his jacket on now and slapped the pockets. “In that envelope you’ve got with all my things there’s a notebook. I want you to look at it.”
Fellows left without a word and came back with the sealed manila envelope Gorman had locked in the safe. He broke it open, dumped the contents.
“That’s it,” Burchard said, pointing to a worn brown dime-store pocket notebook.
Fellows didn’t pick it up right away. “What is it?”
“My record book. I told you I didn’t have one, but I did. That’s a complete list of my calls, addresses of all the houses.”
Fellows still didn’t touch it. “What’s that mean to us?”
“Read what it says for Friday the thirteenth.”
The chief finally picked it up and thumbed through the pages, pausing to read with a blank face. He put it down open in front of him and said, “What’s this supposed to prove?”
“Don’t you see it there? Two Highland Road, Stockton?”
“I saw it. With an asterisk beside it.”
“Well, don’t you see? I made a call there. That’s how the delivery boy saw me. I was there trying to sell the woman a vacuum cleaner.”
“And you pay for the groceries and you come out of the house in your shirt sleeves and park your car in the drive? And when you’re asked about it you lie and say you never went near the place? Is that what we’re supposed to believe?”
“It’s the truth.”
Fellows bent over the page again. “You told me your method of selling is to saturate a neighborhood. This is the only call you’ve got anywhere near that neighborhood, Mr. Burchard. Since it’s the last entry on that day and there are blank lines after it, I’d guess a more likely explanation is that you wrote that in some other time to cover yourself.”
“I can explain all that,” Burchard said desperately. “You see that asterisk beside the name? You know what that means?”
“No.”
“It means the lady is willing.”
Fellows was silent as he turned through the other pages in the book. “I count four other asterisks, Mr. Burchard. Are you trying to tell me those ladies are also willing?”
He nodded. “But please don’t let it get in the papers. Those women are married.”
Fellows closed the notebook and tossed it onto the desk behind him. “So far, Mr. Burchard, I don’t see that you’ve explained anything.”
Burchard spread his hands. “Look, this is what happened. You came in and asked me about that house and that woman and I lied about not knowing her because, hell, I can’t go around letting it be known that some of the people I call on don’t mind a little play on the side. I’ve .got that sentence on my record and the moment I’m asked about me and some woman, especially some married woman, I'm going to play dumb. That’s the whole trouble. Once I said I didn’t know her, I was stuck with it. I kept getting in deeper. Well, I don’t want to admit anything like this, but what you’re pegging me for isn’t fooling around, it’s murder. You can do what you want to me for making plays, but I’m not getting sent
