The Ferguson Affair

chapter 4

I GOT IN TOUCH with Wills and a Deputy District Attorney named Joe Reach. We convened with Ella Barker in the interrogation room on the first floor of the courthouse. Ella went through her story again. It was recorded on stenotype and wire by an elderly court reporter named Ed Gellhorn.

There are some quite honest people who make poor witnesses because they can’t tell the same story twice with any degree of conviction. Ella’s story hadn’t been too plausible in the first place. The second time around, told in surges of hysterical assurance with stretches of dismal self-doubt in between, it sounded like something she was making up as she went along. Wills and Reach didn’t believe her. To make matters worse, they assumed that I didn’t, either.

Wills kept bringing up the name Donato, trying to make her admit that she knew the wanted man. Reach kept insisting that she had been fully aware of Gaines’s activities, and probably accessory to them. You didn’t shack up with a guy-

I stopped him there. “That’s enough, Joe. Miss Barker has made a full and voluntary statement. You’re trying to twist it around into a confession.”

“Any twisting that’s being done, I think I know who’s doing it.”

“What’s this about a blonde woman?” Wills put in. “This one you said you saw at Gaines’s place in the canyon.”

“I saw her, all right,” Ella said.

“Can you describe her?”

She looked around the circle of male faces, half despairing.

“I said, can you describe her?”

“Give her a chance to collect her thoughts, Lieutenant.”

Wills turned on me. “You don’t have to think to describe a subject, not if you’re telling the truth.”

“Why would I lie about her?” Ella said.

“Just in case she never existed, for instance. If she existed, describe her to us.”

“I’m trying to. She was very good-looking. Not so fresh, if you know what I mean, and not a natural blonde, I don’t think, but very good-looking. You ever go to the movies?”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“You ever see this new actress they have, name of Holly May? The woman that Larry was smooching with looked like Holly May.”

Wills and Reach exchanged incredulous glances. Reach said: “What would a movie actress be doing with riffraff like him?”

“I didn’t say it was her. I said it looked like her.”

“You’re certain she existed?”

I got angry at this point, told Ella to say no more, and left the room. Wills and Reach followed me into the anteroom.

“You’re making a mistake,” the Lieutenant said. “This is a murder case now. That little client of yours is dipping her tootsies into very hot water. You better lay out all your cards on the table.”

Joe Reach nodded agreement. “You owe it to your client to instruct her to tell the whole truth. I know what it means when a witness starts picking faces off of movie screens. I’ve had a lot more experience-”

“It hasn’t done you much good. You don’t know the truth when you hear it.”

“Don’t I? Let her bring that story into court, we’ll punch it full of holes like wet tissue.”

“The hell you will!”

Wills laid a restraining hand on my shoulder. “Come on, now, don’t blow your top. Don’t be a hothead all your life. Learn something.”

“She’s conning you,” Reach said. “You just haven’t got the humility to admit it.”

I was blind mad by this time, loaded with hot and cold running adrenalin. I turned on my heel and walked out. Neither of them followed me this time.

The public telephone booth in the corridor stopped me like a sentry box. I stepped inside and phoned home.

“I knew it was you,” Sally said, “as soon as I heard the phone ring. Now do you believe in ESP?”

“If you’re so strong on extra-sensory perception, what am I calling about?”

“Don’t tell me you’re not coming home for dinner?”

I sidestepped that question. “You go to a lot of movies. Did you ever hear of an actress named Holly May?”

“Naturally I have. Everybody has.”

“I haven’t.”

“That’s because you’re fixated on your work. If you took me to the movies more often, you’d know what’s going on in the world. Not that she’s in the movies any more. She decided to get out of the rat-race before it wrecked her emotional health. That’s a direct quote.”

“Have you been reading movie magazines again?”

“No. She told me herself.”

“You know Holly May?”

“I met her.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I tried to last night, but you weren’t listening. I ran into her in the clinic Monday afternoon. She wanted to know what time it was, and I told her. Then I asked her if she wasn’t Holly May. She admitted that she was, but she said she didn’t want it spread around. She’s trying to stay as incognito as possible.”

“What’s she doing in town?”

“I gather she’s living quietly here with her husband. I only talked to her for a couple of minutes, and then Dr. Trench took me. Dr. Trench said I was in wonderful shape for a woman in her ninth month.”

“Good. Did she mention her husband’s name?”

“No, but I read it in the columns last summer when she got married. I think she married a Canadian oilman. Let’s see, it was some Scotch name-something like Ballantine. Anyway, she seems to have done all right for herself. She was dripping with mink and things.”

“What kind of a woman is she?”

“She seemed nice and down-to-earth for a movie actress. She asked me how long I had to go and such. She’s a stunning creature, but it doesn’t seem to have gone to her head. Why?”

“Nothing special. Her name came up. I had no idea that she was living in town.”

“A lot of people live here that you never hear about.” Sally’s voice changed gears, with a faint ominous clash. “There is, for instance, the unknown housewife whose specialty is leg of lamb. She sits in her modest home awaiting recognition-”

“Are you fixing a leg of lamb?”

“It’s already fixed. With mint jelly. I know it’s an extravagance, Bill, but I wanted to make you something special for a change. I spend so much time dreaming lately, I haven’t been doing my duty by you. You will be home for dinner, won’t you?”

“As soon as I can make it. Keep it warm.”

“But you can’t keep a leg of lamb warm. It dries out.”

“I enjoy it that way. Like pemmican.”

Sally hung up on me, and there I was again with the adrenalin singing in my veins. I decided to walk it off. Something that was not ESP pushed me down the long slope of Main Street to the lower town.