Robert Alter - Carny kill

"Some politician's son?" I suggested.

"Near enough," Ferris admitted in a grumble. "The DA's nephew. Jesus," he added.

"I think you called me a liar," I reminded him.

"You're goddam right I did, smart ass. We've done a little enquiing on the wire since I last talked to you. Why'd you hold back on me about you and Mrs. Cochrane?"

"A sin of omission isn't a lie," I said. "You didn't ask me about my past marital mistakes."

"Jesus," he said. "Carny people. Never volunteer anything, huh? Look, Thaxton. If you had admitted to me that she used to be your wife you could just as well have told me that she also used to be a pro knife-thrower. And you goddam well could have told me that the shiv we found in Cochrane was one of hers!"

I said nothing. I dug out a cigarette and rolled it between my fingers. Ferris thumbnailed a match and held it out to me.

"You aren't as simple-minded as you make out, Thaxton," he said. "What's the first thing a dick looks for in a murder case?"

I shrugged. "Motive?"

"Bet your sweet butt! First and last. And now here's another toughy for you. What one outstanding person has the motive in this case?"

"How would I know? Am I God?"

Ferris looked at me. He looked sick. He said Jesus again.

"Thaxton-be good to me, huh. I'm working for the city. I'm working on a salary for a pension. I have the commissioner and the DA on my back. I don't have all day to play patty-cake."

"Look," I said, "if you mean that May inherits the gold, say so. I don't know. I haven't been shown Cochrane's will."

"Well, I have!" He didn't quite shout it at me.

"What's wrong? Did he leave you out of it?"

Ferris ignored my funny. He hunched over the table. "Your ex-wife picks up the full packet. Got any idea what it's worth?"

"Should be a fair sized bundle."

"Yeah. I'll drop you a little hint. This place grossed thirty mill last year."

Now it was my turn to say it. "Jesus," I said.

"You like the motive? It catches your eye?"

"Eye, ear and nose too. Money has a nice smell. But that doesn't prove she killed him."

"Come on," he said. "Come on."

"No, I'm serious. Maybe she loved her husband."

"Ummm, sure. A cool, sexy article like that. And him only twentyfive years older than her. Sure, nuts about him."

"Well, maybe she simply liked him then. He was a likable guy."

"Why sweat it?" Ferris asked. "You can't ignore that knife. It was hers. And here's another little item for your consideration. My boys found a jade earring on the mudbank where Cochrane's body was. Guess who owns the matching earring."

"My ex-wife?"

"Your ex-wife. And another point. She was here on the lot the night he was murdered. She claims she was up in her suite asleep, but she has no witnesses."

"I should hope not," I said, but my mind was on something not so flippant. It looked bad for May. It had looked bad for her right from the time I found her knife in her husband. The thing was though, it was starting to look a little _too bad_. Or too much. And I got the feeling that maybe Ferris was thinking the same thing. He didn't really look as pleased with his case as he should have.

"It's a nice little case," I said.

He didn't say anything. He watched me with a somber expression. So I went on and said what I thought might be in both our minds.

"Beautiful, hard-hearted ex-knife-thrower marries kindly rich old coot. Whole world shakes its head knowingly. Gold digger strikes lush pocket. Everybody says so. Nobody likes bitchy wife except maybe rich old husband and a few young lovers. Rich old husband gets murdered with knife that so obviously belongs to gold-digging wife that it runs out and bites you in the leg to attract attention. Wife's jade earring is found near corpse. Wife was in locality at time of murder. Wife can't produce alibi."

I lit another cigarette. "Strike you the same way it does me?"

Ferris tucked in his mouth and looked unhappy.

"All right," he said. "So it has the smell of a frame."

"The framework is downright stinking when you start to push at it. Sure-as soon as I saw the body and the weapon I put two and two together and what they made wants to be the widow queen of Neverland. But then I had another look at that knife. The blow that killed Cochrane was a downward thrust. A knife-thrower strikes from a distance. He or she doesn't stab. True, a knife's a woman's weapon, but a woman will usually give it to you in the back, won't she. Cochrane was a pretty tough old Irishman. I don't think May could have stabbed him from the front, unless he'd been asleep, and then the angle's still wrong."

Ferris lit a cigarette. He said nothing.

"And here's another weak beam in the frame," I said. "Aside from the fact that there's no valid reason why the body should have been moved from the Admiral Benbow to the Swamp Ride-how the hell would a woman haul a big heavy body like that? Even if she had used one of those boats, how did she get the stiff from the tearoom to the Swamp Ride dock? And why in God's name would she leave that shiv in him when it practically stands up and shouts 'This murder weapon belongs to May Cochrane!' ".

Ferris studied the ashy tip on his cigarette.

"Maybe she had help with moving the body."

I had an idea what was coming next. He looked at me.

"Funny," he said, "when you think about the timing. You show up, Cochrane gives you a job, you go see his wife- yeah, I know about your little visit with your ex-wife-and a few hours later Cochrane gets kified and your ex-wife ends up with the gold."

"If you'd checked back far enough," I said, "you'd have found out that May divorced me because she hated my guts. It was coincidence I ended up at her present husband's lot. It wasn't planned that way."

He didn't really want to smoke his cigarette. He mashed it out.

"I did check back far enough," he said quietly. "And I turned up an interesting little item with your name on it."

This time I damn well knew what was coming next. It was my little blue ribbon that followed me wherever I went.

"Teenage rape is a messy item in any man's language." His voice was casual, very casual. I let out my breath.

"All right," I said. "You want to hear what happened, or you just want to build a case against me out of a lot of fiveyear-old hysteria reports?"

"You tell me."

"This hot little thing used to come on the lot every night when I was spieling for my wife with Brody's carny," I told him. "When I say hot, I mean kayriced almighty she made you think of instant bedroom. She'd hang around my bally stand and give me the eye while I was making with the words. Whenever I'd have a lull, I'd shoot the breeze with her. You know, playful sex-talk that tells you whether you're going to be in or not. I was in.

"May and I hadn't been getting on for a couple of years. It had turned into a marriage in name only. In short, I wasn't getting my share. So I was ripe when this little sexpot gave me a tumble. She went for me. Funny thing is, I went for her. I don't mean just her body. I liked her.

"We went to a hotel. Everything was fine. We went again. I think she was in love with me, or thought she was. I-"

"Back up a minute," Ferris interrupted. "You knew her age when you took her to the motel?"

"Let me tell it my way, huh? I like to do it story style. No, I didn't know her age. She told me she was nineteen and she looked it. But I figured her for eighteen just to be on the safe side. The truth was she was only seventeen and I was on the bad news side. But I didn't find it out until after the world turned over. You see, we had started to talk about me getting a divorce and us getting married." I blew my breath again.

"Then her old lady found out. Jesus. It was something. The old lady is having a screaming fit. The old man is trying to get at me with a stick. The local law is trying to hold him back and give me a roughing up at the same time. Brody is yelling he'll have me blacklisted on every lot in the land. My wife is calling me all the nice names she'd picked from her whory mother. The seventeen-year-old is bawling. Nobody will listen to me. Nobody will let me explain. I'm standing there like a bewildered asshole."