“Well, it struck me that Cashdollar has been mentioned in three different killings.”
“Three? I mentioned one, for God’s sake.” Crayer backed up a step, gazing at me with a puzzled look on his face. “Ah, what I said. I meant nothin’. I think somebody took Cash too seriously and maybe shot the senator. But I didn’t really mean that the rev had him killed. Don’t ever get the idea I said that.”
“What about the girl?”
“That was a while ago. Like I said, I don’t remember much about it.”
“Skip was there — here. Right, pardner?” James jumped in.
“Yeah. I was. I met the girl.”
Crayer’s eyes got a little brighter. “Oh? You met the Washington girl?”
I studied him for a moment. He’d perked right up. “Yeah. Her name started with a C I think. Do you remember?” I waited for him to finish it for me. Instead, he shut down.
“No. It was a long time ago.”
“Cabrina. Cabrina Washington.”
He avoided my look. Instead he shook his head again. “I don’t know, okay?”
“I’ve got a friend who says she was Cashdollar’s underage girlfriend.”
Crayer gave me a brief look of recognition, then shrugged his shoulders. “A lot of craziness goes on in a place like this. Not all of it involves the Lord’s work, believe me.”
“So you don’t know if Cashdollar was ever implicated in her death? Or the death of the food vendor?”
He frowned and shook his head. “Hell, no. Why would you say such a thing? Listen, the vendor? It was accidental. I don’t know what you heard, but nobody was involved. A pure accident. And the girl? I told you, it was a long time ago.” The donut man stood up, adjusted his rain gear, and stepped down from the truck. “There’s nothin’ to that. Okay? I’ve got a couple of years on you, son. I don’t think you come into somebody’s home or business and start asking questions as if the person is a criminal. At least we don’t do that where I come from.” He stared at me. Almost a pleading in his eyes. Then he turned and started back toward the donut trailer. Almost as an afterthought he shouted over his shoulder, “Oh, and by the way, there’s still gonna be a game at Stan’s tonight and you’re invited.”
There was a pounding on the side of the truck and James stuck his head out the vented window.
“Can we get a couple of burgers?”
James gave me a frantic look. “Uh, sure. Let me get some meat on the grill. We just didn’t think with all this weather that — ”
“Hey,” the young man stared up at him, water streaming from his long blond hair and down his face. He motioned to the young pregnant girl by his side. “People still got to eat.”
CHAPTER TEN
“N ice guy, Bruce.” James was cleaning up the burger flipper, his big long fork, and wiping his hands on his apron. We’d sold about fifty sandwiches. Paid for the space, minus the cost of meat, peppers, onions, buns, plates, gas, potatoes, and, oh yeah — our time.
“Why? Because he invited you down to get your ass kicked again in poker? I thought he was evasive and not that nice at all. What he wanted to do was distance his comments about Senator Fred Long.”
“What do you mean, distance his comments?” James gave me a funny look.
“I brought up the murdered girl, and he immediately wanted to tell me that he hadn’t meant anything about his comments the other night. I mean, he practically accused Cashdollar of killing Fred Long.”
James continued to wipe his hands. A little soap would have helped. “Now that you mention it — ”
“So I’m thinking that’s one of the reasons he came over here.”
“What? To tell us the rev was not the killer?”
“Yeah. And he made a big deal of telling me that the vendor death was an accident.”
“Oh, come on. It came up, pardner, that’s all.”
“And when I asked him about Cabrina Washington, he said he didn’t remember much because it has been so long ago.”
“So?”
“And right away he remembers her last name. He says ‘Oh, you mean the Washington girl?’ Like it was on the tip of his tongue. I thought that was a little strange. And he doesn’t want to admit he was working the revival show back then. And finally, he almost warns me about asking too many questions. Did you hear that?”
“Maybe he was right, pard. You were coming down pretty hard on Cashdollar. Was he ever implicated and all that? Maybe it’s best to just drop it.”
“It was a question. That’s all it was. And I never even asked him what he meant when he said ‘I was there when Long was shot.’ What did that mean? Was he there, standing right there? Was he in D.C.?”
“Skip, what’s the last movie you and I saw?”
I stared at him for a moment, thinking. “What the hell does that have to do with the current conversation?”
“Just humor me. What was the last movie we saw, pard?”
“We rented Disturbia. And we were talking about it and — ”
“Yeah, kind of weak.”
“- and you decided to rent Rear Window, the Hitchcock movie. You said Disturbia was a really weak copycat movie of Rear Window.”
James smiled, shoving his utensils in a drawer beneath the stove. He latched the drawer, took off his apron, and sat down on an upside-down plastic bucket that previously contained thousands of pickles. “I like the fact that you’re one of only three people in the world that like pizza-flavored chips.”
Stupid quote, stupid movie. “ Disturbia had some weak quotes. I’ll give you that.”
“But Rear Window — I love that movie. Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelley.” For a moment he was lost in his James world.
“They’re trying to convince themselves that the lady has been murdered and Lisa says to Jeff, ‘What’s a logical explanation for a woman taking a trip with no luggage?’ ”
I had no idea where he was going with this scenario, but I did know Jeff’s next line.
“That she didn’t know she was going on a trip and where she was going she wouldn’t need any luggage.
“And Lisa says — ”
We both said it together. “Exactly.”
“What’s the point of this exercise, James?”
“I’ve got to get you to more comedies, son. You’re taking this conspiracy, this clue thing way too far. The guy is our neighbor. He’s just being friendly. Hell, you’re replaying Rear Window and trying to make somebody a killer. You’re spooked about a girl who died ten years ago and a senator who could have had hundreds of enemies. Come on, Skip. Take it easy, my friend.”
“I was there. The night Cabrina Washington was killed. Right here.”
“So?”
“You told me the story of Daron Styles and the food vendor. My God, James, a vendor, just like us, died. Right here.”
“Oh Christ. Give it up. Come on, amigo. They were stray moments. We aren’t a part of that scenerio.”
I nodded. “You’re right.”
“We’ll rent The Producers. The original, with Zero Mostel. We’ll drink some beer and laugh our asses off. Man, you are getting way too serious, amigo.”
I saw him approach the truck from the corner of my eye, his stomach preceding him. He was puffing on a big brown cigar and carried a beer bottle in his hand.
“Hey, boys.”
“Stan.” James nodded. Stan had quite a bit of James’s money from last night and I could tell from just the way he said “Stan” that James was thinking about getting that money back.
Our poker buddy leaned on the back of the truck, studying us. “Heard you went into the tent this
