Дональд Уэстлейк - Baby, Would I Lie?

The ritual was remorseless and nerve-racking, but at last the foreman, who had been doubled in the shadow jury by Juggs, the retired postal worker, rose and read from a small sheet of paper in his trembling hand: “We the jury find the defendant, Raymond Jones, guilty of murder in the first degree.”

“Poll the jury!” demanded Warren, over the sudden hubbub in court, because sometimes a juror, when forced to make the individual statement in public, face-to-face with the defendant, will back off from that most draconian of verdicts.

So they polled the jury, with Judge Quigley directing the jurors to look directly at the defendant when responding, and each and every one of them stared straight at Ray and announced, “Guilty of murder in the first degree.”

Then Ray was led off by state troopers. There would be no bail from here on. The Ray Jones Country Theater was closed until further notice.

Jack was off masterminding Trend ’s coverage of the court appearances of the Weekly Galaxy thirty-seven — not all the stringers and stray photographers had been gathered up in the dragnets of the law — so Sara did the packing for both of them. It would be a week or two before Ray Jones was sentenced, and she didn’t have to be here for that, or anything else in the interim. She had her story, even though there was something about it, just something about it, that didn’t satisfy.

Oh, she could write it; that wasn’t the problem. She could find the social meaning, the undercurrents, the linkages with the great world of thee and me; she could do all that without even raising a sweat. No, it was just...

Well, she didn’t know what it was just, except it was. Not entirely satisfying.

There was a little clock radio in the room and she had it tuned to a local country-music station while she packed, still drinking in local atmosphere. And she was glad she had, too, when she heard the announcer say, “Well, you probably know old Ray Jones went down today. Murder one. Sentencing in a week or two. Well, it just yet again goes to prove the old saying, Don’t drink and drive. We’re sorry about what happened to Ray, and we expect you are, too. Here’s a tune of Ray’s we haven’t been playing of late, because it somehow seemed just a mite too rowdy, the way things were going.”

Oh please, thought Sara, not “My Ideal.”

Not to worry: “But it’s one of my personal faves,” the announcer went on, “and I happen to know it’s a favorite of Ray’s, too, so I think he won’t mind if I play it now. It’s the song he wrote some years back for his onetime wife. It’s called ‘L.A. Lady,’ and I’m sure you remember it.”

On came the familiar guitars, drums, stringed instruments of half a dozen kinds, and then here was the familiar Ray Jones rasp, in an ironic ballad, an antilove song:

Oh my God, Sara thought, he didn’t do it!

The musical instruments did something mock-lush on their own for a while and then Ray sang the song through again. Sara listened closely, even more closely than before, and when it was over, she reached out and switched off the radio, then sat on the edge of the bed to think about it.

He didn’t do it. Ray Jones was innocent of murder, just as he’d said all along. Sara knew that as well as she knew anything. But she also knew she had no evidence, no proof, nothing that would persuade — well, persuade Jack, for instance.

All right. Pretend you’re explaining it to Jack. Marshal your arguments; gather your thoughts. Ready? Go.

Ray Jones had been married to Cherry. It was a difficult marriage and a nasty divorce, in which he also lost his daughters. What did he do? He wrote that song. He thumbed his nose at her.

Belle Hardwick got to him deeper than his ex-wife. Cherry? Belle Hardwick? There was nothing that woman could have done, nothing, to make Ray Jones do anything more than laugh her to scorn.

That’s why Sara’d had that dissatisfied feeling, that sense that something was wrong somewhere, out of place somewhere. Because it was.

How had it happened? How had Ray Jones wound up in the dock for that crime and been found guilty, maybe even to be executed for a murder he couldn’t possibly have committed?

Had somebody framed him? Cal? Was the best friend the actual murderer, working out years of silent envy and feelings of inferiority? In a mystery story, wouldn’t Cal be the least-obvious suspect?

Well, he’s still the least obvious, Sara thought. There’s no way on earth that Cal would—

The phone rang. She could just reach it from where she sat on the bed. Expecting to hear Jack’s voice, she picked it up and said, “Hello?”

“Sara?” It was Cal Denny.

“Cal!” Sara said. “I was just thinking about you!”

“Sara, I found something here.” He sounded worried, maybe bewildered, like he was out of his depth all of a sudden. “I don’t know what to do.”

“About what? Where?”

“Over to Ray’s place. He asked me to get him some stuff — you know, he’s gotta stay over there now. Toothbrush, stuff. Sara, I found something here!”

“What?”

“I don’t wanna— Listen, could you come over here?”

“To Ray’s house?”

“I’ll call the gate, tell them to let you through. You remember where the house is, don’t you?”

“Sure, but—”

“What are you driving?”

“A Buick Skylark.”

“What’s the license?”

“I don’t know; it’s a rental.”

“What color is it?”

“You know, that sort of brownish gray-blue. You know, it looks like a rental.”

“Okay, I’ll call the gate now. Could you come over, Sara? Is it okay?”

“Well— Isn’t this something you should show Warren? Or Jolie?”

“They wouldn’t like this, Sara,” Cal said. “That Ray was holding out on them, like.”

“I’ll be right over,” Sara said.

Cal was standing in the open doorway. Sara parked the rental Skylark behind Ray’s Jag, then walked over to Cal, who looked as worried in person as he’d sounded on the phone. “I sure appreciate this, Sara,” he said. “Come on in.”

Sara entered, looking around, seeing the place unchanged, as Cal shut the door and said, “Lemme show you where I found it.”

“Where you found what ?”

“I’ll show you,” he said, and led the way through the house, Sara following, Cal saying, “I was in the bedroom. Socks, shirts, he needs everything. He ties his socks up in pairs — you know, he’s always been neat, Ray — and I dropped a pair of socks on the floor and it rolled under the bureau.”

They entered Ray’s bedroom. Sara saw a crumpled piece of duct tape all mixed up with Saran Wrap on the carpeted floor. Pointing at the wide dresser opposite the bed, Cal said, “I went down on my knees, you know, and reached under, and I hit something.”