The Accident

FORTY-SEVEN

Shortly after they left, the phone rang.

“Mr. Garber, Detective Julie Stryker here.” The woman investigating Theo Stamos’s murder. “I have a question for you. Why might Theo Stamos have been writing a letter to you?”

“A letter?”

“That’s right.”

“Was it threatening? I’d told him he couldn’t work for me anymore. You found a letter like that?”

“It was shoved under some papers on the kitchen table. Looks like he was making notes about what to say to you in a letter, or maybe on the phone. Getting his thoughts in order.”

“What did the notes say?”

“He appears to have been trying to draft some sort of apology, maybe even a confession. Can you think of anything he might want to confess to you?”

“I told you about that house he wired for me that burned down.”

“There was an incident between the two of you the other day. I spoke to a Hank Simmons. Mr. Stamos was doing some work for him.”

“Yes.” I had a feeling she might find out about that sooner or later. “I confronted him with some news. I’d just heard from the fire department that electrical parts he’d installed were no good. It was what caused the fire.”

“You didn’t mention this earlier.” Stryker didn’t sound pleased.

“I told you about the electrical parts.”

“According to Mr. Simmons, you cut some… rubber testicles off Mr. Stamos’s truck?”

“Yes,” I said.

A pause, then, “I can’t say I blame you there.”

Talking to her, I realized, was probably unwise. Hang up and call Edwin, I thought. I really might need a lawyer. Was my confrontation with Theo about to make me into a murder suspect? After all, I’d been up there, too, to his trailer. I’d found the body. Was Stryker thinking I had something to do with his murder?

But if she considered me a suspect, would she be interviewing me over the phone? Wouldn’t there have been a police car parked out front, waiting for my return?

And of course, they did have Doug in custody.

“So is that what the apology’s about?” I asked. “The fire?”

“Hard to say. At the top of the page is your name, and under that some words. Let me read you what he wrote. Keep in mind, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Just phrases jotted down in very messy handwriting. And he wasn’t much of a speller, either. Let’s see here… Okay. ‘Mr. Garber, you judged me, not fair’ and ‘sorry about Wilson.’ Who’s Wilson?”

“It was the Wilson house that burned down.”

“Okay. Then, ‘just trying to make a living’ and ‘thought parts up to’ and it looks like c, o, maybe a b, and-”

“Probably ‘code.’ The parts were up to code, he thought.”

“And ‘can’t cover it up anymore.’ Does that make sense?”

“No,” I said.

“And then the last thing scribbled down is ‘sorry about your wife.’ Why would Theo Stamos be sorry about your wife, Mr. Garber?”

I felt chilled. “Is there anything else?”

“That’s it. What’s he got to be sorry for where your wife is concerned? Is she there? Would you be able to put her on?”

“My wife’s dead.” I heard the bleakness in my voice.

“Oh,” said Stryker. “When did she pass away?”

“Three weeks ago.”

“That recently.”

“Yes.”

“Had she been ill?”

“No. Her car got hit in a traffic accident. She was killed.”

I could sense her interest growing. “Was Mr. Stamos at fault in that accident? Would that be why he was sorry?”

“I don’t know why he would say that. He wasn’t driving the other car.”

“So he wasn’t involved in the accident?”

“No… no,” I said.

“You seemed to hesitate there.”

“No,” I repeated. What the hell did it mean? Why had Theo written that? Of course, plenty of people had said something along those lines to me in the past weeks. Sorry about Sheila. But it was out of context here. It didn’t make sense.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “Now I have a question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“Are you sure about Doug? Do you really think he killed Theo?”

“We charged him, Mr. Garber. There’s your answer.”

“What about the gun you found in the car? I’ll bet, even if it’s the gun that killed Theo, that Doug’s fingerprints aren’t on it.”

A pause. “What makes you say that?”

“I haven’t been there for Doug lately. But I am now. I don’t think he did it. He hasn’t got it in him to kill somebody.”

“Then who did?” she asked. When I couldn’t think of an answer, she sighed. Then she said, “Well, if you come to some conclusion, give me a call.”

There was a banging on the front door.

“Betsy,” I said, in surprise, as I opened it.

She stood there on the porch, a hand on one hip, looking like she wanted to punch my lights out. There was a car idling at the curb, her mother behind the wheel.

“I came for Doug’s truck,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

“The police got my car, they took it to some crime lab or something, and I need wheels. I want Doug’s truck.”

“Come by tomorrow,” I told her. “When I’m at the office.”

“I got a set of keys for his truck, but I don’t have a key for the gate. Give me that and I can go get it.”

“Betsy, I’m not giving you the keys to anything. Your mother can drive you around until tomorrow.”

“If you don’t trust me and think I’m going to run off with all your precious little power tools, then come on down and unlock the place so I can get the truck. Won’t take five minutes.”

“Tomorrow,” I repeated. “It’s been a long day and I have things I have to do.”

“Oh, really,” she jeered, hands on both hips now. “It’s been a bad day for you. First I lose my home, and the day after that my husband gets arrested for murder. But you’ve had a bad day.”

I sighed. “You want to come in?”

She weighed the offer, then, without saying anything, stepped into the house.

“Tell me how Doug is,” I said.

“How he is? How the fuck do you think he would be? He’s in jail.”

“Betsy, I’m really asking here. How is he?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.”

“They won’t let you see him?”

She didn’t like the question, looked off to the side. “I haven’t exactly had a chance. But they’ve probably got him locked up where I couldn’t see him anyway.” She looked, briefly, at her hands, which appeared to be trembling ever so slightly. “God, I’m a nervous wreck.” She shoved her hands into the front pockets of her skintight jeans.

“Have you got him a lawyer?”

She laughed. “A lawyer? Are you kidding me? How the hell am I supposed to afford a lawyer?”

“Can’t you get a court-appointed one?”

“Yeah, right. And how good would one of those be?”

I thought about the money between the studs in my study. I could hire a lawyer for Doug with that.

“Besides,” Betsy added, “I’ve had stuff to do.”

“Getting the truck? That’s your number one priority?”

“I need wheels. My mom needs her car back.”

“Have you written him off, Betsy? Is that it? You don’t care what happens to Doug?”

“Of course I care. But they’ve got him. They wouldn’t have charged him if they didn’t have the goods on him, that’s what my mom says. I mean, I guess they know he was there, up at Theo’s trailer. There’s the gun in the car, and they say it was the one that shot him. What more do they need? I have to tell you, I didn’t even know he had a gun.” She gave her head a shake. “You think you know someone.”

“I didn’t know you were this cold, Betsy.”

“I just want a decent life,” she spat. “I deserve better than this. That makes me some kind of criminal?”

“Doug said to me one time, like he was making a joke, that he wondered if you had some money tucked away someplace. Why would he say that?”

“If I had some secret stash, would I be living with my mom and begging you to let me get at my husband’s piece-of-shit pickup truck?”

“That’s not an answer, Betsy. Is Doug right? Do you have some money stashed away? I noticed those stacks of bills in your kitchen didn’t stop you from going out shopping. You still had some money somewhere even as your cards were probably getting canceled.”

“I can’t believe you. I really can’t. You think I’m turning tricks or something?”

“No,” I said, although I thought it was an interesting thing to say, given what I’d found out about Ann Slocum.

She shook her head angrily. “Okay, so sometimes, my mom helps me out. She gives me a little something here and there.”

“Betsy, level with me here.”

“Okay, look, she may not look like she’s living the high life, but there was some money, she had this uncle a couple of years back, there was about eighty thou after his house was sold. She was the only relative left, so she got it all.”

“And Doug didn’t know about this?”

“Hell, no. I’m not crazy. Mom snuck me some once in a while, when we were short, or if we couldn’t pay the minimums on the Visas.” She laughed. “If all those different banks wanted to keep sending us credit cards, it seemed wrong not to use them. I’m not one to be ungrateful.”

“This has lost you a house, Betsy.”

The hands came out of the pockets and went back on the hips. “When did you start thinking you were so much better than everybody else? Is it something you’re born with, or do you develop the attitude over time?”

“What were you doing when Doug went out to Theo’s place?”

“Huh?” she said. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m just asking, Betsy. What were you doing while Doug was out?”

“I didn’t even know he’d gone until I got up in the morning and my car was gone. What do you mean, what was I doing? I was sleeping.”

“You ever been up to Theo’s place?”

“What? No. Why would I have been there?”

“How did you know he lived in a trailer?”

“What?”

“Just a minute ago, you mentioned Theo’s place was a trailer. How did you know that?”

“What the hell are you getting at? I guess the cops must have told me, I don’t know. What’s wrong with you? And are you going to let me get that truck or not?”

“Drop by tomorrow,” I said. “If I’m not there, Sally might be. Or KF. Someone will help you out. But right now, we’re closed.”

I showed her out the door and closed it behind her.

Something was bothering me. I kept thinking about what Doug had said, how he and Betsy didn’t even sleep together when they were at her mother’s house. When Doug left the house to go see Theo, for all he knew, Betsy wasn’t even home at the time.

She could have been anywhere.

I wasn’t sure where I was going with this, why I was suspecting Betsy of… something. It must have had to do with her apparent lack of concern for what had happened to Doug. She hadn’t even been to see him since his arrest. She seemed content to accept the police version of events.

Like Darren Slocum, Betsy Pinder wasn’t interested in challenging the facts. She was okay with things just the way they were.