A Swell-Looking Babe (17 page)

"You're telling me what they think?" Kossmeyer leaned forward grimly. "Save it. I heard enough already to make me sick… You left the house at approximately ten-fifteen. Aside from what anyone might say, you had to leave at about that time to get to the hotel and into your uniform by eleven. Between eleven and eleven-thirty, according to a sworn statement of the medical examiner, your farther died. In other words, he was in very bad shape, near the point of death, when you left the house. Now" – the attorney suddenly smacked a fist in his palm-"now, Rhodes. Perhaps you can tell me this. You say you didn't want your father to the, and yet he was dying before you left for work. He might easily have been saved by prompt medical attention. So I ask you, Rhodes" – smack – "I demand to know, Rhodes" – smack, smack-"why you did not intervene to save his life? Why, instead, you walked callously out of the house and left this helpless old man to the!"

Dusty licked his lips. He stared at Kossmeyer, staring beyond this moment and into the one that must certainly succeed it… The courtroom. The coldly knowing eyes. The thundered question, Why, Rhodes? Why didn't you, Rhodes? And the smacking fist, the hammering fist, building a gallows.

She was hearing all this. Unless he could say something, think of something, she would have to believe it…

"I- – I didn't know," he said. "I didn't see him before I left."

"Oh." Kossmeyer appeared crestfallen. "Well! He was in his room, huh? He had his door closed and you didn't want to disturb him?"

"Y-yes! Yes, that's right."

"Uh-hah. I see! But if the door was closed, how did you know he was in the room?"

"Well, I- I could kind of hear him, you know." "Yes? how do you mean you could hear him?"

"I – I mean, I-"

Kossmeyer was grinning again. Suddenly, briefly, Dusty's terror became cold fury.

"To hell with you! I haven't done anything! I don't have to answer your questions!"

"Sure, you don't," Kossmeyer said. "We can let the county attorney ask 'em. That's one of his boys I got out in the car."

"Well I…" The county attorney. Kossmeyer and the county attorney. They'd had to take lies for truth, and now they would make. truth into lies. He'd set the rules for the game, and now… "I spoke to him," he said. "I called goodnight to him!"

"Oh?" Kossmeyer was puzzled, he was astonished. "Then you weren't afraid of disturbing him? You knew he was awake?"

"Yes! I mean, well, I wasn't sure. I just called to him softly, and- and-"

"And he answered you? He said good night, son, or something of the kind? I'd say he must have. Otherwise, since you say you could hear him, he was audible to you through a closed door – otherwise, you'd have been alarmed. You'd have looked in on him."

"Well…?"

Dusty started to shake his head. He changed the shake to a nod. "Y-yes. He answered me."

"What did he say?"

"W-what…? Well, just goodnight. Goodnight, Bill."

"Now, I wonder," said Kossmeyer. "Now, I wonder if you couldn't be mistaken. The man was right at death's doorstep. He was in the throes of alcoholic coma. And yet, when you addressed him, he replied to you. He responded in such a way that-"

"All right, then! I guess – maybe I didn't tell him good night! I didn't speak to him! I just heard him in mere, I knew he was all right and-"

"But he wasn't all right!"

"Well I – I mean, it sounded like he was. I could hear him snoring-"

"You could?" Kossmeyer's astonishment was grotesque. "I know any number of doctors who will be very surprised at that statement. They'll tell you that anything resembling somnolence would have been impossible at the time in question. His physical suffering would have been too great, his mental state too chaotic…"

Was it true or not? Must it have been that way, and no other? He didn't know. Only Kossmeyer knew, and the game had no rules.

"I'll tell you what you heard, Rhodes. I'll show you…"

"N-No! Don't!"

"Yes," said Kossmeyer. "He'd been poisoned. He was in agony, out of his mind, and-"

His face sagged. Its lines became aged and gentle, and then they tightened, and the folds of skin swelled outward. He swallowed. His neck veins stood out like ropes. A thin stream of spittle streaked down from the twisted mourn, and he gasped and mere was a rattle in his throat – a sound overlaid by other sounds. Mumbled, muttered, crazily jumbled yet hideously meaningful. And the gasping rattle, the rattle and the choking. The choking…

Dusty closed his eyes. The sounds stopped, and he opened them again. Kossmeyer was standing. He jerked his head toward the door.

"You made one mistake, Rhodes! One big mistake. You didn't figure on having to tangle with me."

"But I didn't! I m-mean, you know I didn't kill him! I didn't know about the whiskey or the insurance policy-"

"You'll have a chance to prove it. Come on!"

"Come-? W-where?"

Not that it mattered now. For he had heard it at last, the terrible sound he had been waiting to hear. The closing of a door. Softly but firmly. Finally.

Shutting him out of her life forever.

"Where?" said Kossmeyer. "did you say where, Rhodes?"

Kossmeyer's legs were very close together; they seemed fastened together. And his hands were behind him, as though pinioned. His head sagged against his chest, drooped on a neck that was suddenly, apparently, an elongated rail of flesh. And gently, as a light breeze rustled the curtains, his body swayed.

He was hanging.

He was hanging.

In the quiet, "summer-bright room, Dusty saw himself hanged.

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20/10/2007

LRS to LRF parser v.0.9; Mikhail Sharonov, 2006; msh-tools.com/ebook/