Shirley Murphy - The Cat, the Devil, and Lee Fontana

When Becky spoke at last, her voice was muffled against him. “They told me nothing. Sergeant Trevis only told me the charges.” She took a step back, her hands on his shoulders, looking up at him. He reached to gently touch the smudges under her eyes. The look in her dark eyes told him she knew more about what had happened than she wanted to say, that she didn’t want to talk in front of Trevis. If a man had been killed last night, no matter what the circumstances, by now it would be all over town.

She said, “I called Mama’s attorney. I know he’s an estate attorney, that he doesn’t do this kind of work, but he gave me a couple of names. I’ve made appointments with both.

“And they did tell me,” she said, “that you were drunk. When Sergeant Trevis told me that,” she said, glancing up, “I asked Dr. Bates if he would come and talk with you. I know you weren’t drinking, I thought maybe some kind of drug. Has he been here yet?”

Morgan shook his head. As for an attorney, Morgan had never had need of one, and there were only a few lawyers in their small town, two with reputations that he and Becky didn’t like. He couldn’t think who would handle charges like this, someone they could trust. Becky’s dark eyes hadn’t left him, she looked at him a long time then pressed against him again, holding him tight. “Someone has to tell you what happened,” she said. “It isn’t fair for you not to know.”

Trevis moved to the table beside them. “As soon as you’re questioned, Morgan, we’ll lay it out for you.”

Morgan nodded. That made sense, so he couldn’t make up some story to fit whatever had occurred. Trevis moved again, as if to separate them, but then he let them be.

“It’s some kind of mix-up,” Becky said. “We’ll find out the truth.” She looked up at Trevis. “The police will find out, they’re our friends, Morgan, they’ll find out, they’ll make it all right again.”

Morgan wished he could believe that. “You went looking for me last night, you borrowed a car, you and Sammie . . .”

“When you didn’t come home, I went to the shop, before I took Sammie to Mama’s, she wasn’t feeling well. The shop was locked up tight, the new mechanic was gone. I didn’t know where he lived, and the operator had no phone number for an Albert Weiss.”

She held Morgan away, letting her anger center on the mechanic. “Yesterday when you left, when you weren’t back by closing time, did he just go on working? Didn’t he wonder where you were, didn’t he worry when you weren’t back to close out the cash register and lock up? Why didn’t he call the house? At five o’clock he just locked up and went home? How ironic. You hired Albert because he was calm and didn’t get ruffled, because he didn’t fuss about things. He was calm, all right,” she said bitterly. “He didn’t wonder—because he didn’t care.”

Morgan could say nothing. She was right. That was Albert’s way, he was a silent man, not the least interested in others’ business, focused solely on the cars he repaired.

“Where did he think you’d gone! And then this morning he just—he just opened the shop and got to work?” she said incredulously. “He might be a good mechanic, but his brain stops there. He could have come over to the house last night to see if you were all right, see if you’d come home.” Her voice broke, she took a minute to get control. “You could have died out there last night, died in the car, all alone.”

“You just kept driving,” he said, “driving around looking for me?”

“I drove all over Rome and then out around the farms, over on the Berry campus. At last I called the station, talked with Officer Regan. He told me the patrols would keep an eye out, he said he was sure you’d turn up, that it was too soon to file a missing report. I drove down every back road, some of them twice, but I didn’t see the car. Later, when Jimson found you, he said it was parked way back among the trees, that it was easy to miss.” The muscles in her jaw were clenched. “Parked out near lovers’ hollow,” she said, and it didn’t occur to him until that moment that she might have thought, last night, that he was with another woman.

But Becky knew there wasn’t anyone else, there was no woman in the world he’d look at except her. Holding her close to him, needing her steadiness, he tried to tell her what he could remember, tried to bring the fractured scenes from yesterday clearer, tried to make sense of them. Trevis stood intently listening. Morgan knew he would write it all down the moment Becky left, that Morgan’s words would be compared with the formal questioning that he would soon face. The police had to know, early last night, about the robbery and murder, but of course it would be policy not to mention it to Becky. Morgan had no idea whether they thought, at that point, the two events might be connected. Both cases were police business, and the officers kept conjecture to themselves.

Morgan told Becky how Falon had wanted him to look at his car, that he hadn’t wanted to go, told her what Falon had said about her mother’s property out on the Dixie Highway. Slowly, talking it out, he was able to put those moments together more clearly—until the moment when everything went hazy and the afternoon fell apart into a wavering and senseless haze.

“When Falon spilled his Coke, I wiped up the spill and then pulled into Robert’s gas station to get some wet paper towels. I came out, finished my Coke while I was cleaning the seat. I remember the Coke tasted kind of funny, but I didn’t pay much attention. When I had the seat pretty clean, and dried off, we headed for the Graystone Apartments, I remember that. I’d driven a couple of blocks when the street started to look fuzzy, the cars and buildings blurred, the distances all warped. I remember pulling over, dizzy and sick. After that, nothing’s very clear. Everything looked strange, twisted and unreal.”

“You drank all your Coke?”

He nodded. “Falon handed it to me, I drank what was left in the bottle, tucked the bottle in the side pocket so it wouldn’t drip on the floor. I drove until things began to reel, then I pulled over.”

Becky looked up at Sergeant Trevis. “Have you picked up Brad Falon?”

Trevis’s face went closed, his look ungiving. “We questioned him.” Trevis searched Morgan’s face, and turned to glance at the door. “I shouldn’t tell you this much, until after you’re interviewed.”

Morgan waited. He didn’t see what difference it could make, as long as he told the truth.

“Falon said he was with his girlfriend from one-thirty yesterday afternoon until this morning.” Trevis looked more kindly, with perhaps a touch of regret. “We talked with her, she swore Falon was there in her apartment. At this point,” he said, “we haven’t enough to bring him in.”

“What girlfriend?” Becky said.

“That’s all I can say,” Trevis said.

Neither Becky nor Morgan had heard anything about what women Falon might be seeing; they’d had no reason to know or to care. But now, from the look in Becky’s eyes, Morgan knew she meant to find out. He wanted to say, Be careful. But she would do that, he let only his look warn her: Take care, Falon can be vicious . He said, “What did you tell Sammie?”

“That you worked late, got home late, had to get up real early to fix a special car.”

He smiled. “Did she believe you?”

“She might not have, except she was so disoriented herself. She has a cold or the flu, something . . . Dr. Bates came out, to Mother’s. He said the usual, keep Sammie warm, lots of liquids and rest, half an aspirin every four hours. She doesn’t have a fever, and she isn’t coughing, she’s just very dull, so sleepy she can hardly stay awake.”