The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living

by Martin Clark

  “What?” Evers pretended to be interested in some work, caught the bottom corner of a paper and lifted it up so he could see the sheet underneath. “What bad news?”

  “I have a good hunch about what happened to your wife.”

  “Oh?”

  “I think she was killed.”

  “I know that’s what you think. That’s why you’re here, even though I told you—several days ago—not to come.”

  “You know who my feelings tell me done it?” Loggins asked.

  “Has the law changed overnight? I thought we were still under the old system—you know, facts, evidence, reasonable doubt. I probably should’ve watched the news last night.”

  “I think I can prove who done it. Know I can. I think it was your brother.”

  “Shit. Good luck.” Evers snorted. “You have a new villain every day. Tomorrow it’ll be Professor Plum.”

  “I know he was up in the morning. I think that the call’s too obvious. And guess what else? I got a charge slip on the day she was killed from a gas station right outside Durham; it’s got your brother’s name on it and his license plate number. He was down there when she was killed.”

  “Wow. That’s really overwhelming.” Evers laughed at Loggins. “You’ll need a little more than that.”

  “White Caucasian hair at the farm, not Falstaf’s, and not William Reilly’s—he’s the college boy. Bet it’ll match your brother.”

  “I’ll bet it doesn’t. And what if it does?”

  “Carpet fiber from a very expensive Persian rug in Pascal’s car. Exactly like the rug at the farm.”

  “Could have been there a week or a month or a year. Could’ve come off my shoes or pants. Could’ve come off any of a hundred rugs. You and I both know that fiber analysis is one step above voodoo.”

  “One more thing.” Loggins’ voice had a bite in it. He was pleased with himself, almost excited. Evers stared at him. He was not going to ask the detective; that would dilute Loggins’ delight some. They sat there like stones, quiet and hard, until Loggins finally gave in. “Well, besides all that, he told me he done it. Signed a confession.”

  Evers stood up out of his chair and turned his back on the detective. The sky was blue and beautiful, and Evers could see that Joe Pendleton had propped open the door to the barber shop with a painted white brick. “Fuck you,” he said without turning around.

  “I reckon he done it.”

  “Fuck you, Detective. Get out of my office.”

  “I was just trying to be decent by lettin’ you know before we arrested him formally.”

  “You came here to gloat. Or to find something out.” Evers turned around. “Now leave.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s still a shitty case. What about the man who’d just fucked her? What about—”

  “It was Falstaf. He admitted it; tests confirmed it. But he’s got a real fine alibi. His story checks out.”

  “His alibi is that he was screwing the victim, then got drunk with his convict buddies later on. That’s ‘real fine?’” Evers stepped toward Loggins.

  “I didn’t come here for you to try my case, Mr. Wheeling. You ain’t judgin’ this one.” Loggins’ voice was strained. “I’m sorry about this,” he said, and walked to the door. “I don’t guess it’s much use askin’ you to tell me all you really know, is it?” he said without turning around, then walked out.

  Evers ran past his secretary and out into the hall. He reached for Loggins’ throat, but the policeman grabbed his wrist and twisted it. Their chests touched. “If you come back here,” Evers said, “I will charge you with trespassing.”

  “I might just charge you with assault, Judge. This time. Today.”

  “Right, Roy Rogers. I’m sure you’ll have a lot of luck with that.”

  After Loggins left, Evers called Pauletta at Sparkman, Roberts. While the phone was ringing, he thought about her sitting in her office surrounded by trees and high plants. The last time he was there, when he met Marvin Ross, pictures of Martin Luther King, Maya Angelou and Miles Davis were on all the walls, half-hidden behind rows of green leaves. The photographs were black-and-white, the frames silver.

  “Say that again,” Pauletta said after she came on the line and recognized Evers’ voice. He had started rattling away without telling her who it was. “You need to slow down some.”

  “My brother. Has a problem.” Evers made two sentences from one.

  “What’s that?”

  “It seems that he confessed to killing my wife, and that the police have a little bit of corroborating evidence. Fibers, a credit card receipt.”

  “Why would he kill your wife?” Pauletta asked.

  “Public service, maybe.”

  “Very funny. But did he say why?”

  “No. I haven’t talked to him yet. If he’s not in jail, I’ll get him to come up here to tell me about it. I was hoping you’d talk with him, too.”

  “I’d be glad to. Is he out on bond or what?”

  “He hasn’t been arrested, as far as I know. In fact, I haven’t been able to locate him for several days.”

  “Why would he do it? For you? I hope you didn’t encourage him.”

  “Encourage?” Evers snapped. “I think she killed herself or her boyfriend killed her. If you’re diplomatically asking about my involvement, I don’t have any. Is that what you’re getting at?”

  “So why did he do it?”

  “He didn’t. Not that I know.”

  “Confess, I mean. Why did he confess?” Pauletta was calm, and her words crisp and certain.

  “Well, maybe he didn’t. Maybe the cop just told me that to work on me a little. If he did confess, I have no idea why.”

  “Do you want me to drive down there?” Pauletta asked.

  “Yeah. Even if I can’t find him, I could use the company. He might not show up. I don’t know … but if, well, it would just be nice to see you. It’s kind of you to offer.”

  When Evers hung up, his secretary came in to tell him that Geneva Pullins had called earlier from Winston-Salem to let him know that Warren Dillon was being buried the next afternoon in High Point. “Call her back and tell her I can’t make it, okay?”

  “A couple of people in the sheriff’s office said that the state police were looking into some things. They found a bunch of money in Mr. Dillon’s motel in Florida, and it may be that he was mixed up in something illegal. Supposedly it was over two hundred thousand dollars. I heard that they think some of the money came from payoffs, him charging to let people go or let them get off in court. I don’t know if it’s true, but that’s what’s going around.”

  “I’m shocked,” Evers deadpanned.

  That night, at about six-thirty, Pauletta called Evers from a pay phone at the Hardee’s in Norton and asked for better directions to his apartment. He’d forgotten to tell her about a turn, and she couldn’t find where he lived. Evers told her to stay where she was and drove in the Datsun to meet her. He had found Henry, but Rudy and Pascal were still missing. Henry said that Pascal had bought two half gallons of El Toro tequila—“the cheapest kind they sell, the one with the bull on the front”—about a week ago and started planning a trip with Rudy. Henry had decided to ride with Evers to meet Pauletta; Prince Hal was worried and fidgety, and he kept changing the radio station and tapping his knuckles on the window. They met Pauletta at the Hardee’s parking lot, and the three of them went to the Norton Kountry Kafe for dinner.

  Evers had very little appetite. He picked up some Jell-O with fruit cocktail suspended inside it and a piece of chocolate pie from the buffet line. He glumly picked a grape out of the Jell-O and brushed the red gelatin from around it with his spoon. Pauletta and Henry started a conversation about basketball, and Evers left the table and went into the bathroom. A blind man was in there, standing at a commode and tapping it with his cane; he shuffled forward until his shins hit the bowl and then urinated, holding his cane under his arm while he was pissing.

 
; When Evers got back to the table, Pauletta and Henry were talking about Bill Russell. “White people liked Bill because he could defend Wilt Chamberlin, and Wilt was so ferocious and black and good,” Pauletta said, and looked at Evers.

  Henry laughed.

  “This is just terrible,” Evers said. “No one should have to go through this.” He was looking at the slick, greenish-brown grape he’d extracted from the Jell-O.

  “Don’t mope, Mr. Wheeling,” Pauletta responded. “Quit being a pussy.”

  Henry quickly looked away upon hearing the word “pussy.”

  “Imagine,” Evers suggested to Pauletta, “imagine time that has been assembled—rogue seconds bound into minute bundles—by a union of crabbed and sweating Gorgons, warlocks and doomsayers, this guild of hellish artisans, clucking and snorting and grunting over the hours of mischief being twisted into form by their furious labors and tiny, yellow-nailed hands. Or, better still, imagine … Ted Bundy hosting the Ted Mack Amateur Hour. Bad, bizarre times. That’s what this is like.”

  “Don’t mope,” Pauletta said a second time. “You say some crazy, off-the-wall, weird things.”

  Evers sighed. “Things were just starting to get better.”

  “So you don’t know where they are, not at all?” Pauletta asked Henry.

  “Nope. They have a lot of tequila and some dope. Pascal was talking about getting on a train, taking a train trip, so they could drink and still travel and sleep. They took the Monopoly board, too. It sounded like a good trip. I would’ve gone, but if it lasted four or five days my wife would’ve killed me.” Henry stopped talking for a moment. He cut a piece of country-style steak and daubed it with mashed potatoes. “This isn’t much help, is it? What I’m telling you? I’m sorry. They didn’t say where they were going. I guess we could check the train station.” Henry put the piece of meat in his mouth.

  “Did Pascal ever mention the police, Henry?” Pauletta asked. “Did he tell you what was going on?”

  “No. I didn’t hear about it until Evers called me. Maybe he told Rudy, but I didn’t know about it. Evers said he’s in a fair amount of trouble.”

  “He is, from what I can tell.” Pauletta looked down at her plate for a few moments. “But you never know.”

  Henry agreed to drive to Pascal’s trailer and look around there. They all decided that he would go in—the door was never locked—and scout around for brochures and schedules, press the redial button on the phone, see what was missing and listen to the messages on Pascal’s machine. He promised to call Evers if Rudy and Pascal checked in or returned to the trailer. “It’s no big deal, the two of them leaving for a couple of days, Pauletta,” Henry pointed out. “They wander around and meander and drive and travel like this all the time. We all do. I hope you don’t read anything irregular into it.”

  “I understand,” Pauletta said. “I didn’t think that they were fleeing or hiding. Don’t worry.”

  Henry left for Pascal’s in the Datsun, and Evers and Pauletta drove in her car to Evers’ apartment. Evers put on a Count Basie CD, and they sat in his den and talked and watched the fish swim back and forth in the aquarium. Evers drank part of a beer, and he gave Pauletta a bottle of Coke which turned out to be flat and tasteless. They decided to call Ruth Esther. She was at home, and was happy to hear from them, but she hadn’t spoken to Pascal or seen him since leaving the trailer the morning after they’d all played Monopoly. Evers told her what had happened, and she sounded concerned. “I’ll call you if I hear from him,” she promised. “I hope he’s okay. Call me when you find out more, will you? Let me know what happens.”

  Evers assured her that he would phone her when he knew something.

  “Thanks,” Ruth Esther said. “I’m glad that you told me all this.”

  “Sure.” Evers hesitated. “May I ask you something?”

  “Certainly. Uh … hang on a second. Hang on. I think I hear a car out in my drive.” Ruth Esther put the phone down, and Evers heard two or three footsteps and a door opening. “No luck,” she said when she came back. “It was someone turning around in my yard. I live at the end of my street—it happens all the time.”

  “What kind of car?” Evers asked.

  “A white Suzuki. Looked like a bunch of teenagers in it.”

  “Oh.”

  “What did you want to ask me?” Ruth Esther wondered.

  “Did you see anything … I don’t know … out of the ordinary the night that you were at Pascal’s with us? Evidently, that’s when Jo Miller got killed. Do you recall anything strange?”

  “Well, I was with you guys until I went to bed. Then I talked to you a little when I came out to get on the sofa.”

  “Did you hear Pascal on the phone?”

  “No. Not that I can remember. You mean at night, while I was in the den?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No. Of course, I guess I could’ve slept through it. But I don’t think so.”

  “Around two-thirty, he was on the phone, right in the next room, in the kitchen.”

  “I didn’t hear anything. I left for a little while around then.”

  “You left to go home?”

  “No, I just went out for a minute,” Ruth Esther said. “I had to run an errand.”

  “You left and came back?” Evers asked. “In the middle of the night?”

  “Well, yes. I went to the Lowes. I saw it when I was coming in. It’s hard to believe that a small town like that would have enough business for an all-night grocery store.”

  “Huh.” Evers looked at Pauletta. “I didn’t know that.”

  “I wonder how come you wouldn’t? The store’s right there on the way to Pascal’s, and it has a banner, with big red letters, saying that it’s open twenty-four hours.”

  “I mean I didn’t know that you’d left that night,” Evers explained.

  “Oh.” Ruth Esther was quiet.

  “Why did you go to Lowes?”

  “I needed some saline solution for my contacts. They were hurtin’ my eyes. They’re extended-wear, but I think all the smoke bothered me and messed them up. And I’m not used to drinking and staying up as long as we did.”

  “Most people carry that sort of thing with them,” Evers said. He looked at Pauletta again and pointed at the receiver.

  “I didn’t plan on staying with you guys that night, and I usually don’t have a problem.”

  Evers motioned to Pauletta, and she changed seats, sat down beside him and put her ear on the phone so her head touched Evers’. “How long were you gone?”

  “Thirty minutes or so, I guess. Are you askin’ me all this because you think it might help Pascal? Is that why? Or are you trying to get at somethin’ else?”

  “Certainly, I … I … there’s no way you know much that would help, I don’t guess. You don’t know anything about this, do you? About what happened?” He turned the receiver so Pauletta could hear better.

  “Well, I’d be glad to tell the police or whoever that he was there with us until, what was it, like one in the morning? And he was there when I left that morning at about seven-thirty. I looked in on him. And you, too. And after you and I switched that night and I got on the couch, I never heard him come out or come by. And I don’t sleep very deep. And—listen—I just thought about this. Think about this, okay? When I left, I drove Pascal’s car to Lowes. One of your buddies—Rudy, right?—had left his fancy Packard behind my car when he got back from the store. They went out to go get candy and beer between games, remember? The Packard was still there when I left and when I got back. Henry and Rudy must’ve ridden in Henry’s car when they went home. The Packard was there when I left and still there when I got back. So was my vehicle and so was yours. I took Pascal’s big old Lincoln, since it was the easiest to get out. So no cars were ever gone. That ought to help. I could tell that.” She sounded pleased.

  “That still leaves a few hours, I guess. After you got back.” Evers was facing his aquarium, and he noticed that the fish were unusuall
y still in the water, not moving or swimming very much at all.

  “Ask her about the store,” Pauletta whispered, “who she saw, how she paid.”

  “So you were gone for, what, say half an hour?” Evers asked Ruth Esther.

  “More or less. Probably closer to an hour.”

  “Oh.”

  “There was no one in the store, and I stayed a few extra minutes and talked to the little girl runnin’ the cash register. It seemed like a lonely job, so we talked for a while. Lilly. Her name was Lilly. She said she knew Pascal, that her dad had done some work on his trailer and that she’d seen you in the store with him.”

  “I don’t think I know her,” Evers interrupted. “Pascal probably does. He knows most of the folks in the grocery stores and convenience stores around there—anywhere alcohol is sold.”

  “Well, she knew him. The store was getting ready to throw away some bunches of flowers, and this girl, Lilly, gave me a couple. Some were pretty bad off and brown, but I got a good arrangement out of the two bunches she gave me. Took the best ones from both and put them together.”

  “So I guess you didn’t drive to Durham and shoot Jo Miller in the head with a twenty-two caliber pistol?”

  Pauletta frowned at Evers and pushed him in the side with her elbow.

  Ruth Esther made a strange noise, a short, second-long “hummm,” a single burst out of her throat, close to a groan. “Lord, no. Lord. I can’t imagine doing something like that. If I were going to kill your wife, Judge Wheeling, I certainly wouldn’t want to shoot her with a gun.”

  “Right. I was just—”

  “You were just trying to help your brother and figure things out. There’s nothin’ wrong with that.”

  Evers said good night to Ruth Esther, thanked her for her help and hung up the phone.

  Evers finally got Pascal on the phone the next day. “Are you on heroin or something?” It was about five in the afternoon, and Evers thought that his brother sounded groggy and slow.

  “No. Uh-uh. Just nappin’.” Pascal sniffed.

  “I’m not talking about that. Did you talk to that simpleton policeman?”