"Come on, Cotton," Kendall said, "queens bet. You've got a pair of goddamned ladies."
"Dollar," Cotton said. A good enough story. But not a prize winner. And far from good enough to explain McDaniels's excitement. Maybe he had found a way to prove a link between Reevis-Smith and Singer. Maybe the bribing had been careless. But bribery was never careless. More likely this wasn't the story at all. Even if you could prove bribery this one wouldn't win the Pulitzer. More likely-much more likely-one of the other leads Mac's notes seemed to contain was the source of the hot one.
On the seventh card, he still had queens and sevens. They cost him fourteen dollars in total to Ulrich's small straight.
A little after eleven Cotton's luck improved. He bumped into a high straight with a well-concealed full house and took a forty-seven-dollar pot from Hall and then won two small draw pots. But the deck was generally cold and he had trouble keeping his mind on the action. The conversation drifted from ribald speculation about what Whitey might be doing in his long absence, to Roark's senatorial ambitions, to Ulrich's strategy for squeezing Roark's tax-reform bill through the house, to the extramarital affair apparently being conducted by the State Treasurer with one of his secretaries.
"I don't like to think ill of the dead," Garcia said. "But I wondered for a while there if old Merrill didn't have something like that going for him."
"I don't think Mac did any screwing around," Ulrich said. "Not like Cotton here, anyway. Not wholesale."
"Cotton doesn't enjoy it," Kendall said. "He's laying all the statehouse secretaries out of a sense of duty. He thinks it improves their efficiency."
"It's not that," Ulrich said. "He's doing it for his friends. Doesn't want us to worry that he might be impotent."
"I used to see Mac's car parked over at the Highway Maintenance Division office quite a bit," Garcia said. "The only story you get out of there is the once-a-year alibi about how come it took so long to get the snow off the highways."
"When was this?" Cotton asked.
"Week or ten days ago. I drive by the district office on my way to work, and there was old Mac's car. Three or four times. Figured maybe he had a girl out there."
"It's your bet, Cousin Garcia," Hall said. "Notice how chatty the son-of-a-bitch gets when he starts winning? Mac didn't cheat on his wife."
"Two white ones," Garcia said.
The phone rang.
"That'll be Whitey with some improbable excuse," Hall said. He folded his stud hand and went into the kitchen.
Ulrich raised the bet to four dollars, which surprised Cotton. The Speaker of the House had a queen, ten, three showing. And Garcia was betting an exposed pair of sevens. Cotton had a nine down, and had paired it on his fourth card.
"Either you're lying or you've been laying in the weeds," he said. "Which one?'
"I don't remember," Ulrich said. "I forget what I have in the hole. It was some sort of face card."
Cotton studied Ulrich's cards and then Ulrich's face. Neither told him anything.
"You've got three alternatives," Ulrich said. "You can call, or you can raise, or you can fold."
"Or I can cut my throat," Cotton said.
"John," Hall said, "you better take this call. My night city editor has a story about you being dead."
Cotton spun in the chair. Hall wasn't smiling.
"They're pulling your car out of the river," Hall said. "The driver wasn't in it but they got your name by checking back on the license tags."
"Whitey," Cotton thought. The phone felt cold on his ear.
"This is John Cotton."
"John, this is Glen Danley. We're about ready to kill you off in our final home edition. Was your car stolen or what?"
"Whitey Robbins borrowed it," Cotton said. "He's the capitol man for the Gazette. What happened?"
"All we have is a story that moved a little while back on the AP state wire. Just a minute. I'll read it to you."
Danley read in the steady, paced voice of a man practiced in dictating over the telephone.
"The car of John Cotton, widely read political columnist for the Twin Cities Tribune, plunged off a bridge into Rush River near the state capitol late Tuesday. Police were dragging the rain-swollen stream for the body of the driver.
"Witnesses said the driver was the only occupant. Police said the accident happened when a semi-trailer truck swerved in front of the car on the narrow, antiquated bridge and forced it through the railing. The truck did not stop and was sought by police.
"The identity of the driver was not immediately established. However, Cotton could not be located at his apartment or at his desk at the capitol and Police Captain James Archibald said, `We presume he was the victim.'
"Cotton, forty-one, had covered the state politics for the Tribune for nine years and his `At the Capitol' column had statewide readership.
"A native of Santa Fe, New Mexico, Cotton joined the Tribune staff after serving as police and general-assignment reporter on the Denver Post.
"That's it," Danley said. "I didn't know you used to be on the Post."
"I was," Cotton said. He felt numb.
"Who do you say had your car?"
"It was Whitey Robbins. He's the capitol man for the Gazette."
"Robbins," Danley said. "Like the bird?"
"Two b's and an s on the end," Cotton said.
"How about the first name?"
"William," Cotton said.
"Age and address?"
Cotton's numbness was changing gradually to anger. Whitey Robbins was somewhere in the mud at the bottom of Rush River.
"I don't know," he said, and hung up.
He dialed the AP number. From the next room, from the poker table, low voices. Hall had told them. The mourning for Whitey Robbins had begun.
"Associated Press."
"This is John Cotton. You better get a kill out on the story about my car in the river. Whitey Robbins was using it."
"He was? Oh. Damn, John. I'm sorry about that. I mean I'm sorry we did that to you. You know how..."
Cotton cut him off. "Have they found the body yet? And when did it happen?"
"We got out carbon on the fatal from the Capitol-Press about nine-thirty," the voice said. "And then Addington called us from the police station about ten thirty and updated it about the car being registered in your name and more details."
"Have they recovered his body?"
"Not when we checked." The voice paused. "It's R-o-b-b-i-n-s, isn't it?-the guy with the Gazette. What's his first name?"
"William," Cotton said, and hung up.
He stared at the phone. The story would have made the 11 P.M. newscasts. There must be somebody he should call to assure that he was not at this moment drowned under a polluted river. But there was no one. There was literally no one-he realized bleakly-who would have heard of his death with shock and grief and sorrow. Once, Charley Graff would have mourned him-feeling the same stunning agony of loss that he had felt when the nurse emerged from the intensive-care room and told him and his mother that his father was dead. Twenty-seven years ago, but Cotton remembered the feeling exactly. Remembered how he had felt, and how his mother had looked-bloodless and withdrawn, her sight turned inward, her eyes not seeing him. His mother had mourned, she and her bottle. But who, now, would mourn for him? He thought about it, his hand still on the telephone receiver. Leroy Hall would feel a certain sadness, he knew. Hall would miss the competition and the endless banter and the careful, guarded friendship. And Ulrich would be genuinely sorrowful for a while, and Junior Garcia, and perhaps Kendall, who was, under the cynicism, a sentimental man. The others in the newsroom would simply be shocked, sorry it happened, reminded unpleasantly of their own fragile mortality. And some of the women might miss him-a little-for a while.
And who would mourn Whitey? Cotton picked up the telephone book and began sorting grimly through it for the William Robbins number. Sometime tonight that telephone would be ringing and Whitey's wife would answer and a polic
e desk sergeant would invite her down to the morgue to identify what had been her husband. He couldn't save her the pain, but at least he could soften the shock.
He took a deep breath and began dialing the number, asking himself as he did whether he should also call Jane Janoski. But what would he say? "Miss (or is it Mrs.?) Janoski. I thought you might like to know that John Cotton is still alive. I presume, as this call clearly tells you, that you give a damn one way or the other." And what would Jane Janoski say? He was curious about that. Less about the words he would hear-which would be polite-than about the way they would be spoken. But not curious enough to be tempted. The burned hand doesn't test the fire.
The telephone was ringing now. In a moment he would be-as gently as possible-making Mrs. William Robbins aware that her husband had been in an accident. He took another deep breath.
8
The policeman rang the doorbell at John Cotton's apartment Saturday morning at almost exactly 8 A.M. Cotton had slept until seven-an hour later than his workday rising time-and was sitting at his breakfast table over a third cup of coffee, reading the editorial page of the Twin Cities Journal. He had finished the Capitol-Press, working his way through it methodically in search of information useful to him. When he finished the Journal, he would find out about recovering his car, or what was left of it, and learn what the police knew about the accident. The 7 A.M. newscast had reported that Whitey's body had been recovered from the river and, a semi-trailer truck believed involved in the accident had been impounded by police.
The officer at the door was very young, very neat, and very officious. "Are you John Cotton?"
"That's right," Cotton said.
"Get dressed," the officer said. "They want to talk to you downtown."
On another morning, in another mood, Cotton might have been amused. This morning he wasn't. The name on the officer's badge was Endicott.
"Come in, Mr. Endicott, and pour yourself a cup of coffee and have a seat while I get some clothes. Do you have the warrant?"
"There's no warrant," Endicott said. He looked uncomfortable. "They just want to talk to you down at headquarters."
"Who wants to talk to me?" Cotton asked.
Endicott obviously didn't want to say.
"To hell with it then," Cotton said. "Go back and tell them I'm busy and whoever it is can call me at the pressroom Monday and make an appointment."
"It's Captain Whan," Endicott said. He looked even younger now. "He just told me to come and get you."
Cotton's irritation shifted from Endicott to Captain Whan. He handed the officer a cup of coffee and dialed the police number. Whan was in.
"I understand somebody down there wants to talk to me," Cotton said. "What about?" Cotton enjoyed the long pause that followed the question.
"We'll talk about it when you get here," Whan said.
"I've got things to do today," Cotton said. "I guess I'll just skip it then."
There was another pause.
"We want to talk to you about your car and about William Robbins," Whan said.
"I want to talk to you about that, too," Cotton said. "I'll be right down."
Cotton regretted his display of toughness all the way to the station with Endicott. He'd had no real reason to push the captain. It had been petty. If he needed information from Whan, as he might, he would pay for the pettiness.
Whan, now, was being pointedly polite. He told Cotton that Cotton's car was in the police garage, that the right side had struck a pier and was caved in. Whan was a young man, perhaps five years younger than Cotton, with his hair cropped short, and dark, intelligent eyes set deep in a dark, intelligent face. He quickly established details of Cotton's identity, the circumstances under which Robbins was driving his car, when Robbins had left the Hall home, and where he was going. The questions then became personal, centering on how well Cotton had known Robbins, what he knew of his life.
Cotton answered fully and freely, making restitution for his rudeness. Whan's interrogation technique was efficient, Cotton noticed, wasting no time and allowing for no vagueness in answers. He wondered how well the captain would fare with a politician-someone like Ulrich when Ulrich had reasons not to be frank and candid.
The question now took a turn which puzzled Cotton, centering on Robbins's family and social life.
"I'll be blunt, Mr. Cotton," Whan said. "Did Robbins, to your knowledge, have any girl friends?"
"As far as I know, he didn't. I don't think he did. He was an honorable man. I don't think he would have cheated on his wife." Cotton interrupted Whan's next question. "Let's save some more time, captain. You've got to have a reason to be asking questions like that one and there wouldn't be a reason if you were sure it was an accident. Wasn't it an accident? Do you have any reason to think it wasn't?"
Whan's intelligent eyes studied Cotton.
"It looks like an accident."
"So why are you fishing around for someone with a motive?" Cotton said.
"We try not to overlook anything," Whan said.
"I don't think there's anything to overlook," Cotton said. "The statehouse is a gossipy place. A guy horses around, everybody chats about it. They chat about me, for example. But there was never any gossip about Whitey. I don't think you're going to find a vengeful husband. And I don't think you'll find any professional enemies. Whitey wasn't as mean as some of us in the way he reported. And besides, all of us work with politicians. They're pros. They know the rules. They know they're going to get caught now and then and they know it's part of the game- nothing personal. Nobody had any reason to kill Whitey Robbins. But I'd like to know why you think they might have."
"I told you," Whan said. "We're just being careful."
"You've got the truck now," Cotton said. "Who was driving it?"
"We don't have the driver."
"A semi-trailer truck driver shouldn't be hard to trace. Who'd he work for?"
Whan's eyes were alert for reaction.
"The truck was stolen," he said. He allowed himself a slight smile at Cotton's expression. "Now let's save some more time. You're going to ask me why anyone would steal a semi-trailer truck because you've been a police reporter and you know there's no way to fence it, or even to fence what you strip off of it, and because the thieves go for the late-model, sporty hardtops."
"The thought occurred to me," Cotton said.
"Or maybe it was teen-agers-some kids doing it on a dare," Whan said. "Things like that happen. But it wasn't." Whan looked down at a note pad on his desk. "The makes we get on the driver from the witnesses put him from about twenty-five up to forty years old. He was wearing large sunglasses, had blond hair and a bushy mustache. A big man, bulky looking."
"I'd like to see the investigation report," Cotton said. "And the stolen-property report."
"I'll get copies made," Whan said. "Couple of other small things. Maybe they mean nothing at all. The truck was abandoned down near the railroad yards in the industrial district-the sort of place nobody notices a parked truck very fast. I guess all that does is prove our driver was smart, or that he didn't panic."
"But it makes you think of advance planning," Cotton said.
"Usually-almost routinely-when you pick up a stolen vehicle it's been wiped. But some of the pros wear gloves and don't have to bother. This guy wore gloves. So he didn't need to wipe it, except where the ignition wiring was jumped. I guess he took the gloves off for that."
"So you're looking for a reason somebody would knock Robbins off a bridge on purpose," Cotton said. "I'm sorry but I don't know of any reason. I don't think there was one. I think you've run into a coincidence."
"You're probably right," Whan said. He fished out a cigarette and snapped his lighter.
Cotton examined Whan's face, concentrating on not thinking of how he hungered for a smoke. He felt a respect for this policeman and a sharp, puzzled curiosity. Whan had told him a good deal more than he needed to tell him. He was sure the captain had a reason for this unorthodox ex
posure of police speculations.
Whan exhaled a cloud of smoke.
"Probably it was a coincidence," Whan said. "That's alternative one-an accident pure and simple. A stolen semi-trailer, a man who doesn't know how to handle it, a mishap on a bridge. Alternative two is a premeditated homicide by someone who wanted to kill William Robbins." Whan leaned forward and placed the cigarette carefully in the ashtray slot, his eyes on Cotton's eyes.
Tony Hillerman - The Fly on the Wall Page 7