Craig Smith - Cold Rain

‘So what’s the point?’

‘Right now Dalton is sure I’m guilty. Come four o’clock he’s going to have to admit to himself that just maybe he’s wrong.’

‘You seem pretty confident.’

‘I’ve got nothing left to lose.’

Molly smiled. ‘You think they’ve got a setting on that machine for lying used car salesmen?’

‘Everyone knows when a used car salesmen is lying, Molly. They’re just like lawyers: their lips move. That’s why Tubs was the best. Tubs never lied. The man didn’t sell cars, he sold his own uncompromising honesty, and he taught me to do the same.’

‘But you lie all the time, David!’

‘Tubs made a big deal about keeping his word and never telling a lie, but it had nothing to do with honesty. He thought it did, but in the end it was just a sales technique. I got it up to here with never telling a lie.’ I settled my fingers just below my jaw. ‘I wanted to be honest without making a big deal out of it. I mean stories are fun! You make something up and people enjoy it! But I don’t break my promises, Molly.

I don’t back away from admitting mistakes. I don’t cheat people. I’m not perfect, I don’t mean that, but when I tell a wild-ass story everyone knows it’s a story!’

‘But they don’t, David. You’re so sincere about things that people think what you’re saying is the truth. Half of Lucy’s friends think there was a mass murder at our house ten years ago.’

I smiled. ‘Only half?’

‘Randy Winston asked me if we had gotten the farm from Chrysler stock you inherited. I asked him where he heard that, and guess where he got it?’

‘Okay. I get enthusiastic. But I don’t lie to you or Lucy about the things that count. You know that.’

‘You didn’t lie about Denise Conway?’

‘I broke your heart once, Molly. I swore to you I’d never do it again, and I never have.’

‘Nothing happened?’

‘Nothing at all. The whole thing was Buddy Elder’s game, just like Johnna Masterson disappearing while he’s driving Lucy around in the middle of the night.

He decided to ruin us. The diary was the catalyst to everything, and that’s all it was.’

When Molly didn’t respond, I took my eyes off the road for a second. Her face was set and brittle. I thought she was about to tell me what a liar I was, but suddenly tears welled up in her eyes.

I pulled to the side of the road, and for a long time we just sat there holding each other.

At three o’clock I was back at the sheriff’s office. The examination took about an hour-and-a-half. We went through a number of warm-up questions in which I lied and told the truth at the examiner’s whim. By the time we got to matters relating to Buddy Elder, Johnna Masterson, and Denise Conway I was relaxed. Actually, I didn’t care. I had finally passed the only test that mattered.

When it was finished, I found Molly and Lucy waiting for me in an interview room. Lucy was impatient to know the results. Molly was different. She already knew how I had done and simply wanted to go home and get on with our lives, if that was possible. When Kip Dalton walked in about thirty minutes later, he had the look of a man who just can’t believe what he’s seen. ‘You ever take one of those things before, Professor?’

‘Are you trying to tell me I passed?’

‘You knocked it out of the ballpark.’

‘We need to talk about anything else?’

Kip glanced at Lucy but shook his head. ‘For now I’ve got what I need.’

Molly, Lucy, and I were already at the door when I stopped, as though remembering to ask something of no great importance. Tubs called it his Colombo Close, after the TV detective who always had just one more question. The pitch finished, the decisions all apparently made, he would come back at the point folks thought they were free of him. Detective Jacobs had worked it masterfully against me at the farm.

‘I’ve got a question for you,’ I said.

Kip Dalton appeared mildly curious, nothing more.

‘The sheriff’s department looked at the deaths of Walt and Barbara Beery?’

Dalton frowned slightly. ‘We did. The case is closed.

Why do you ask?’

‘You were involved in the investigation?’

‘I was lead investigator.’

‘As I understand it, Walt used a knife. Is that correct?’

Dalton didn’t react overtly, but tipped his head so slightly I might have imagined it. Yes.

‘Did you have a problem with the blood splatter?’

Splatter, I knew from various researches into murder over the years, resulted when blood initially exited a wound. Police used it to determine the position of the victim and killer. Crime scenes without splatter frequently indicated staging. If Walt Beery had stabbed Barbara in the back there ought to have been distinctive streaks and droplets of blood on his clothing from the initial wound. I was betting no such splatter existed.

Kip Dalton said nothing. Even his eyes were inscrutable. ‘You want to tell me what you’re getting at, Dr Albo?’

‘Just a question. You don’t want to answer it, that’s fine.’

‘What kind of problem are you talking about?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Like it wasn’t there.’

‘You were a friend of Walt Beery’s, weren’t you?’ he said after a moment.

‘I got drunk with Walt more times than I care to think about. The man didn’t have a mean bone in his body, Detective. Suicide? Possible. But I’ll tell you something. He’d have gone off alone to take care of it. He wouldn’t have hurt Barbara for the world.’

‘We never want to believe the worst in the people we know, Dr Albo.’

‘Take another look at the blood splatter, Detective.

That’s all I’m saying.’

‘Mrs Beery’s blood was all over Dr Beery’s shirt.’

‘I don’t doubt it for a minute, but splatter’s something else altogether, isn’t it? You can’t fake splatter.’

Dalton was calculating my possible source, not even thinking about the splatter. ‘Where did you get your information, if you don’t mind my asking?’

‘About blood splatter?’

Kip shook his head irritably. ‘About there not being any.’

I smiled, my theory confirmed. ‘I started from the premise that Walt didn’t do it. From there, I just worked through it.’

I was fairly sure Dalton assumed I was lying to protect my source, but he didn’t accuse me of it. What he said was this: ‘The kid and his wife had a solid alibi.’

I gave the detective the look I used to deliver when it was time to sign a contract, followed by a glance toward my wayward stepdaughter. ‘Sure is a lot of that going around these days.’

That evening Lucy helped me in the barn because I asked her to, but she wasn’t comfortable being alone with me.

‘Everything okay?’ I asked her.

She answered without much enthusiasm. Everything was fine.

‘You sorry you made the decision you did?’

Lucy slammed the lid of the feed barrel. ‘Drop it, will you?’

‘What’s the matter with you?’

‘Just drop it!’

In the house I told Molly, ‘I’m not sure Lucy is happy with her decision.’

Molly asked me what I was talking about. I tried to describe her daughter’s mood in the barn. Molly listened distractedly, not especially worried. ‘She’s seventeen, David. Anything could be bothering her.’

‘I expect Doc and Olga had just about this same conversation eighteen years ago.’

‘That was different.’

‘No argument there. For one thing Luke didn’t poison your dogs.’

‘Lucy was with Buddy that night.’

‘You’re sure about that?’

‘I asked her about it. They were at a party.’

‘Then it was Roger. It doesn’t really matter. First the dogs, then Johnna. Both times he had Lucy right beside him.’