A. Fair - Owls Don't Blink

“I crossed the street. I tried to look up to the window of my apartment. I couldn’t see anything. The shade was drawn.”

“Then what?”

“I started walking back toward town.”

“At what time?”

“It must have been just before two-thirty. When I had reached the corner, Marilyn Winton drove by. She was in a car with two other people — a man and a woman.”

“You know her?”

“Oh, I know who she is, and we speak when we meet in the hall. Her apartment is almost directly across from mine.”

“Then what did you do?”

“Went to one of the little hotels in the Quarter which isn’t too particular. I used an assumed name, because I thought Paul might try calling all the hotels.”

“And then what?”

“Shortly before nine I walked all the way down to the apartment. I wanted to get my purse, some of my toilet articles, grab a taxi, and go to work. There were a bunch of cars around the place, and a man who was standing at the curb told me a murder had been committed, said some lawyer had been found dead in a woman’s apartment, and the woman was missing. The police were looking for her.”

“And what did you do then?”

“Like a ninny, instead of making a clean breast of the situation and explaining it while it could have been explained, I got in a panic and dashed back to the hotel. I sent Edna a wire telling her to send money quickly, waiving identification and making the draft payable to that assumed name I’d registered under.”

“You wired?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t you try telephoning collect?”

“Yes.”

“Got her?”

“No. She didn’t answer.”

“She answered the wire?”

“That afternoon. I got the hotel to cash it and took a late train to Shreveport.”

The waiter came and cleared away the dishes, brought the ice cream and coffee.

“Can you trust Edna?” I asked.

“I used to think I could. Now I’m not so certain. She acted strangely.”

I said, “It helps Edna’s case a lot having Nostrander out of the way.”

“Yes. I can see that — now.”

“It might make a motive for murder.”

“You mean that she might have killed him?”

“The police might think so.”

“But she was in Shreveport.”

“Not when you telephoned.”

“Well — no, perhaps not.”

“It was late the next afternoon before she sent you the money?”

“Yes.”

We finished our ice cream, sat smoking cigarettes and sipping coffee. Neither of us said much. We were both thinking.

“What do I do next?” she asked.

“Got any money?”

“Some left from what Edna sent me. Tell me, Donald, what should I do? Should I go back to the police and tell my story?”

“Not yet, and not now.”

“Why?”

“It’s too late now. You’ve missed the boat.”

“Couldn’t I explain the—”

“Not now, you couldn’t.”

“Why?”

I said, “You didn’t murder him, did you?”

She looked as though I’d thrown something at her.

I said, “All right, someone did. That someone wouldn’t like anything better than to have the police blame things on you.”

“Well, can’t I do myself more good by being there to block that very thing?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why?”

“If you’re out of circulation for a while the real murderer will then try to make you the goat by planting evidence, making false statements, and things of that sort. Then you’ll have the chance to find out who this is. Reel out lots of rope and see if we can’t hang somebody.”

“Not me, I hope.”

I met her eyes, raised my coffee cup.

“I hope.”

I paid the check, inquired if there was a telephone booth in the restaurant, found there was, closeted myself in it, and called the airport at New Orleans.

“This is Detective Lam at Shreveport talking,” I said, and then so they wouldn’t start asking questions as to whether I was on the force at Shreveport or a private detective, I started talking fast. “On Wednesday noon you had a passenger for New York. That passenger turned right around at New York and came back to New Orleans. The name was Emory G. Hale.”

The voice at the other end of the line said, “Wait a minute and I’ll consult the records.”

I waited for a minute or so during which I could hear papers rustling; then the voice said, “That’s right. Emory G. Hale. New York and back.”

“You wouldn’t know what he looked like? I wouldn’t be able to get a description?”

“No. I don’t remember him. Just a minute.”

I heard him say, “Anyone remember selling a ticket to a man named Hale for New York on Wednesday? Shreveport police calling... No, I’m sorry we don’t have anyone who remembers him.”

“When you book a passenger, don’t you take his weight?”

“Yes.”

I said, “What did Hale weigh?”

“Just a minute. I have that right here. He weighed — let’s see — yes, here we are. He weighed a hundred and forty-six.”

I thanked him and hung up.

Emory G. Hale would have tipped the beam at something over two hundred pounds.

I came out of the telephone booth.

“What is it?” Roberta asked. “Bad news?”

“Want to go to California?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I said, “I think we can hire a car to take us to Fort Worth and a plane from Fort Worth will get us into Los Angeles tomorrow morning.”

“Why California?”

“Because this state is very, very hot so far as you’re concerned.”

“Won’t we attract attention?”

“Yes. The more the better.”

“What do you mean?”

I said, “People speculate about a couple whom they don’t know. The thing to do is make them know us. We get acquainted with everybody from the driver of the rented automobile to the passengers on the plane. We’re husband and wife. We left Los Angeles to come east on our honeymoon. We’ve just got a wire that your mother had a spell with her heart, and we’re rushing back to be with her. It’s an interrupted honeymoon. People will sympathize with us, remember us in that capacity. If the police teletype starts clicking out a description of you as being wanted for murder, no one will ever connect that description with the poor little bride who is so worried about her mother.”

“When do we start?” she asked.

I said, “As soon as I telephone for an automobile,” and went back into the telephone booth.

At daylight Sunday morning we were skimming over Arizona. Gradually the desert had ceased to be a vague, gray sea beneath us and had acquired form, substance, and color. The higher buttes thrust their rim rocks up at the plane, catching the first vague suggestion of light. Down below, the deeper canyons and gulches were filled with shadows. The stars pinpointed themselves into a bluish green oblivion. As we sped westward the roar of the twin motors echoed from the jagged rim rocks around the buttes below. The east assumed a rosy glow. The tops of the cliffs were bathed in champagne. We sped over the desert as though trying to flee from the sun. Then abruptly the sun shot over the horizon, and the bright rays pounced upon us. The fainter colors of dawn gave place to dazzling bits of brilliance where sun splashed against the eastern edges of the cliffs, accentuating the dark shadows. The sun climbed higher. We could see the shadow of the plane scudding along below us. Then we were over the Colorado River, and into California. The roar of the motors faded to the peculiar whining sound which precedes a landing, and we were down in a little desert stopping place where the airport lunch counter gave us steaming hot coffee and bacon and eggs while the plane was refueling.