The Paperback Show Murders by Robert Reginald Page B

for me by my house-frau, Wanessa. I’d have much to explain whenever I returned to home-base.
    â€œBut return I eventually did, after just three more years of wandering through the back plains of Gore—having a great time, carousing whenever I felt like it, getting plastered on fermented chickie-juice, and hanging out generally with the laddies.
    â€œThe truth is, I didn’t really like the company of girls all that much. Too many tea-parties and such, too much of ‘Do this’ and ‘Do that.’ Give me the free life anytime!
    â€œâ€˜Yeth, Mathter,’ my chickie-poo agreed.”
    â€”Buckets of Gore , by John Lang IV
    I picked a dive called Uncle Timo’s, a Mexican eatery located about a mile from the motel, and I ordered their molcajete , a stone pot filled with strips of nopales (cactus leaves), beef, bacon, chicken, shrimp, chorizo, onions, and much else; while Margie just worried a taco salad.
    I found a private booth off in one corner, underneath the TV, set to a loud Spanish-language channel, which I thought would drown out any of our conversation.
    â€œSo, what did you think of Lieutenant Pfisch’s conclusions?” I asked, trying to munch down a boiling-hot strip of nopal.
    â€œI think it’s probably the best solution we’re going to get,” she finally said. She had her eyes firmly planted in the center of her guacamole.
    â€œYeah, too bad it’s completely wrong,” I said.
    â€œWhat!?” She choked on a piece of onion, and drank down half of her iced tea before resurfacing.
    â€œI said: he got it all wrong.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œWell, for one thing, Brody didn’t kill Lissa Boaz. He was there during the evening, to be sure, but in his state of physical and mental deterioration, he couldn’t have hurt anyone, save by accident.”
    â€œUh, well, then, uh, who did?” she asked.
    â€œEither Gully or you,” I said. “Gully’s got the stronger physique, so I suspect it was her. But you could have done it as well: you were there, after all, and if she did it, I suspect you cleaned up the scene afterwards.”
    â€œBut…but…why would I do such a thing?”
    â€œBecause you wrote that godawful novel, and there was something—perhaps several somethings—that you didn’t want connected to you, or to the person to whom the book was inscribed,” I said.
    â€œBut you heard Lissa read the inscription out loud,” she said.
    â€œI heard what she said—directly to you, by the way—but that wasn’t the real inscription—which was, in fact, on the title page, as you well knew, having penned it yourself. No, the real inscription was written to your daughter, Gully, when she was an infant, so she’d know who her mother—and by inference, her father—was. Unfortunately, that father was also your father, and that was the secret that you couldn’t let become public knowledge.”
    â€œBut what about Brody?”
    â€œ You killed him, because he knew too much, and he was a danger to Gully. He’d gotten in over his head with his drinking and gambling and ill-temper, and you were afraid that in the end, he would harm her, physically or mentally. So, you arranged something on the stairwell. I don’t know what it was, and the police didn’t find it in any case—and Gully had no suspicions, so you were safe there. Does she know that you’re her mother, by the way?”
    I heard Margie sob just once, under her breath, just a little catch in her chest, and then she straightened herself up and looked me in the eye. “Yes, she knows—but not for long. I told her last year. We’re working things out as we go.”
    â€œWell, you’re both free and clear, and I’ll try to make sure it stays that way.”
    â€œWhat about Freddie the Cur? I didn’t have anything to do with that, and I was