Ross Thomas - The Fourth Durango

“It’s lethal injection in my state,” Adair said.

“Okay,” Fork said. “Out of the needle room. But if that’d happened, I don’t think there’s a court in the land that’d lift a finger to keep the kids from being executed.”

“I’m afraid you’re right,” Adair said.

“And if Mr. Vines hadn’t found that half a million in your closet,” said B. D. Huckins, “I think it still could’ve worked.”

“I’m afraid that’s right, too,” Adair said.

“Anyway, it sure has a happy ending, doesn’t it?” Sid Fork said. “The two kids are acquitted. The state supreme court turns out to be honest after all, except for that little problem its chief justice had with the IRS. And when they finally got around to figuring out the ‘who profits?’ angle if the kids’d been executed, it turns out to be the wicked stepmother. That about it, Mr. Vines?”

“Just about.”

“Then tell me this,” Fork said. “Did they ever try and come up with the sucker who did the scut work? The one who zapped the old judge and his wife, then dressed up like a priest to stick that half a million bucks in the judge’s closet and maybe even messed with the tie rods on the stepmother’s Caddie?”

Before Vines could answer, B. D. Huckins looked at Adair and said, “What was the stepmother’s name?”

“Marie. Marie Jimson.”

“Before she was married-her maiden name?”

“Marie Contraire.”

Sid Fork’s face went almost white just before the blood raced up his neck and turned his ears a cardinal red. He jumped to his feet, pointed an accusatory finger at Huckins and roared, “Goddamnit, B. D.!”

The mayor gave him her sweetest smile. “I just wanted you to hear it in context from them and not from me.”

The red was fading to pink as Fork, still glowering, sat back down and said, “That was one shitty thing to pull.”

“Shut up and listen some more,” she said and turned to Adair again. “Because Sid wasn’t with us when we met with Parvis at Cousin Mary’s, I gave him a condensed version of what we talked about. Obviously, I left out a few details.”

“Like the stepmother’s maiden name,” Fork said.

She ignored him and shifted her gaze to Vines. “When you called earlier tonight, I was in some delicate political negotiations with the sheriff and that’s why I hung up on you. I apologize.”

“No need.”

“Later, Sid came up with some very important information, which is the real reason we’re here.”

She’s giving him all the credit for something, Vines thought as he looked at Fork. “What’d you turn up, Chief?”

It was not a modest smile that spread across Fork’s face. “This guy that B. D. and I knew a long time ago-the one who dresses up like a priest and a plumber and all-and who we knew as Teddy Smith or Jones?”

“The killer,” Vines said.

“Yeah. Him. Well, I found out his real name.”

“How?”

“From fingerprints he left on that pink van.”

“Stop milking it, Sid,” Huckins said.

His proud and happy smile still in place, Fork looked from Vines to Adair. “Well, the guy’s real name isn’t Smith or Jones-although that’s no big news. His real name’s Theodore Contraire.”

Fork watched with evident enjoyment as surprise rearranged the faces of Adair and Vines. It was Vines who recovered first and asked, “Her brother?”

Fork nodded. “Who else could she trust with something like that? According to his sheet, he has-or had, I guess-a sister three years older than him whose name was Marie Elena-like the old song-Contraire.”

“How long’s his sheet?” Vines said.

“Nine arrests and two convictions. He spent two years in Angola down in Louisiana and nine months in the L.A. county jail for aggravated assault.”

“What’d he give as his occupation-just out of curiosity?”

Fork grinned happily. “Actor.”

“Congratulations, Chief,” Adair said.

“Well, it took more charm than brains,” said Fork, trying to sound modest but not succeeding. “All I had to do was convince some guy to do something he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to do.”

Vines rose, went to the window, looked out, noticed the unmarked four-door sedan that was parked down the street and wondered whether it was the black detective or the too-tall one who was keeping the night watch. He turned from the window to B. D. Huckins.

“When you hung up on me,” he said, “I was calling to tell you your brother-in-law had phoned to say that the date and place of the switch are set. July fourth at Cousin Mary’s.”

Huckins nodded her approval. “Good. Merriman always closes on the fourth. What time?”

“Mansur didn’t say.”

“It’ll have to be in the afternoon.”

“Why?”

“Because Sid and I have to be in the parade in the morning.”

After he gave the pan a small flip, Jack Adair’s first omelette in eighteen monthsfolded over perfectly and Virginia Trice said, “Mine always falls apart right about now and I wind up with scrambled eggs.”

Adair glanced over his right shoulder to find her standing in the kitchen entrance, leaning against the doorjamb, her arms folded tightly against her chest, as if to keep the quivering at bay. Adair thought the smudges under her eyes were larger and darker than they had been that afternoon when she’d played reluctant landlady. Three-way exhaustion, he decided, confident of his diagnosis. Physical, mental and emotional.

“Better sit down and have some,” he said. “I got carried away and used six eggs.” Turning back to the gas stove, which he guessed was as at least as old as he, Adair asked, “Long day?”

“The longest,” she said and sat down at the pickled-pine kitchen table.

Adair moved a few steps to his right, keeping an eye on the omelette as he poured coffee from the Bunn automatic into a mug. He placed it on the table in front of her and went quickly back to the stove.

“Now comes the tricky part,” he said, “which’ll turn out to be either a breeze or a disaster.”

The omelette slid, as if trained, from pan onto plate. Adair quickly cut it in two, placing half on another plate, which he served to Virginia Trice along with silverware and a paper napkin. “Toast is in the oven,” he said.

“There’s a toaster over there by the can opener.”

“I know, but I like to do it in the oven under the broiler.”

He opened the old stove’s high door, used a pot holder to pull out the broiler grill and speared the four pieces of toast with a long-tined cooking fork. He served the toast on a plate along with a small open tub of margarine. “I couldn’t find any butter,” he said as he sat down across from her with his share of the omelette.

“We don’t use butter because Norm worried about his cholesterol,” she said, spreading margarine over a piece of toast. “But I guess he could’ve gone ahead and eaten all the butter he wanted, couldn’t he?”

“I guess.”

She tasted the omelette and said it was perfect. Adair said he thought it could use a little salt and pepper. She said she didn’t use much salt anymore. They ate in silence after that, Adair trying to think of something to say that didn’t sound like forced small talk. He was rescued from what was beginning to seem like an insurmountable task when Virginia Trice said, “When’s the last time you fucked a woman?”

Adair went on spreading margarine over his last small piece of toast. “Seventeen months and four days ago.”

“How long were you in Lompoc?”

“Fifteen months.”

“You didn’t have one final fling?”

Adair used knife and fork to pile the last bit of omelette on the last of his toast, vaguely pleased that they had come out even. He ate the final bite, swallowed and said, “My legal problems prior to incarceration were such that sex became a matter of supreme unimportance.”