Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
“Kill the baby and hit the junior,” the cameraman said.
“Kill the baby and hit the junior!” shouted the gaffer, waving his arms. The electricians working on the lights made the adjustments.
“And give me two more mini-brutes.”
“Two more mini-brutes!”
“Don’t just blast it in there, angle it. No, better yet, bounce it off Styrofoam.”
“We could fill with shiny boards.”
“No shiny boards,” the cameraman said. “Get it off foam!”
“Foam! Foam!” shouted the gaffer.
Perkins and I stood at the edge of the location and watched and listened.
It was a crazy scene—thirty minutes out of the city, up a desolate road and into the high desert, where the fake Old Tucson, along with 120 people and seven big trucks, were all baking in the sun.
All the Kodak and Coca-Cola signs had been taken down, and the crew had refurbished all the exteriors, which now looked authentic—or close enough.
The mountains loomed dramatically in the immediate background.
A dozen extras were milling around outside the fake saloon.
I understood now why Tom Franklin had been so unhappy, especially with the women.
They didn’t look like world-weary saloon girls.
They looked like college kids dressed up in petticoats for one of those souvenir photos.
This was not going to be a terrific scene.
Over on one of the benches, Clete Williams was sitting next to one of the dressed-up saloon girls.
“Let’s lose that ten-K,” the cameraman said. “You’re gonna be too hot.”
“Wanna gobo it off?”
“Just lose it.”
“Lose the ten-K!”
In front of the camera, Franklin, “the Jet-Propelled Elf,” was lining up Sally. I remembered that this was Sally’s first day of work. I looked over and saw Charles Mann standing to one side, chewing his fingernails. He seemed very nervous.
Sally wasn’t nervous at all. She was wearing a strapless corset with a plunging neckline, along with a skirt that probably wasn’t historically accurate, because it barely covered her ass.
“Now, Sally,” Franklin was saying, “when I say action, you come out of the saloon and just look up. But the important thing is that you don’t look at the camera. You look to the right side of it, where Clete will be. And then you give your line, ‘Wait.’”
“Wait,” Sally said, nodding. “Wait, wait.”
“Just once.”
“What?”
“Just one ‘wait.’”
“I know. I was practicing,” Sally said. “Wait.”
“Let’s rehearse it once,” Franklin said. “And remember: When you come out, you have to hit these little tape marks at your feet. Otherwise, you won’t be in focus.”
“Wait,” Sally said. “Wait.”
“The girl will go far,” Perkins said dryly. We walked over to Mann. “How is she doing?”
“What?”
“Sally, how is she doing?”
“Oh, Sally. She’s doing fine, I think.”
“You seem concerned.”
“No, no,” Mann said. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”
“Wait, wait, wait . . . wait, wait,” Sally said.
Down the dirt street, I saw a police car pull up, and Chief Corey lumbered out. I touched Perkins’s sleeve. He saw the cop, too, and nodded.
* * *
“No mystery here,” Corey said, looking at his notebook, squinting in the sun.
“Doc Weston did the autopsy and came out with this. Time of death is set between four to four thirty a.m. Cause of death is skull fracture and cerebral contusion”—he stumbled over the word—“and associated causes of respiratory depression are high narcotic content of blood and liver and high alcohol content of blood and liver.”
“You have exact figures?”
“We had ’em done at the university. Here it is. Blood point five milligrams per one hundred milliliters, liver one point five milligrams per the same thing, and—”
“May I see?” Perkins asked.
Corey surrendered the list. I looked over Perkins’s shoulder.
MORPHINE ESTIMATIONS
BLOOD | 0.5 MG PER 100 ML
LIVER | 1.5 MG PER 100 ML.
URINE | 2.0 MG PER 100 ML.
STOMACH NEGATIVE
ALCOHOL ESTIMATIONS
BLOOD | 80 MG PER 100 ML.
LIVER | 37 MG PER 100 ML.
URINE | 97 MG PER 100 ML.
STOMACH | 115 MG PER 100 ML.
BARBITURATE ESTIMATIONS
NONE DETECTED IN ANY SPECIMENS.
COCAINE ESTIMATIONS
NONE DETECTED IN ANY SPECIMENS.
NO BENZOIC ACID OR ECGONINE IN ANY SPECIMENS.
HIPPURIC ACID IN URINE: NEGATIVE.
Perkins tapped the list with a restless forefinger. “You found no traces of cocaine anywhere in the body,” he said. “Was there any substance in the nasal passage?”
“No,” Corey said.
“I see. What about the sock?”
“You were right,” Corey said grudgingly. “Traces of Camay soap and blood.”
“Good,” Perkins said. “Now one last question: Did anyone find any pipes in McDougall’s room?”
“Pipes? No.”
“Very good. Thank you for taking the time to come out here, Officer Corey.”
“You mean that’s all?”
“That’s all I need to know. I mean, I assume you’ve already questioned Clete Williams . . .”
Corey sneaked a quick look over at Clete, who was still sitting over in the corner, next to the same girl. “Of course. We’ve spoken to everyone who was—”
Perkins cut him off. “But you never did charge him.”
Corey cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. “We’re still in the process of our investigation.”
“And you have no other suspects.”
“I really can’t discuss that right now. You understand . . .”
“Oh, believe me, I do,” Perkins said. “I understand completely.”
Corey waited for some kind of elaboration on that, but Perkins wasn’t giving him any. It was an embarrassing and tense little moment out there in the sun. I was standing there trying not to be embarrassed and tense.
“I’ll be heading back to the station now,” Corey said, and then he turned on his heel and left us. Perkins watched him lumber all the way back to his police car, visibly sweating in the hot sun.
I looked over and saw that filming had stopped for a moment, and the crew was setting up the next shot. Clete was still in the same spot, with the same girl. “Can I ask you a question?” I asked Perkins.
“Of course.”
“Why haven’t you talked to Clete Williams yet?”
“Because I didn’t want to make the same mistake that Chief Corey made.”
“What mistake is that?”
He looked at me like he was a little disappointed I had to ask.
“Clete had a big fight with McDougall, and then McDougall ends up being killed just a few hours later. That made Williams the one and only suspect. Corey never even considered anyone else. The big problem with that is the fight is literally the only thing that implicates Williams. Beyond that, what do you have? There’s no evidence at all.
That’s why he never charged him. And never will. ”
“But what do you think? Evidence or no evidence, do you think Clete could have killed him?”
“I think it’s time to find out,” Perkins said, and then he walked over, at last, to talk to Clete Williams. Perkins sat down in a director’s chair, and the girl took off.
“I was wondering when you’d get around to me,” Clete said.
“Mr. Williams. If you have a moment—”
“I know what everybody is saying.”
“What’s that?”
“That I killed McDougall.”
“You haven’t heard me say it, have you?”
“I hated the little shit,” Clete said, “but I never hurt him.”
“You had a fight earlier in the evening . . .”
“I hit him once. That’s all. Didn’t even cut him.”
“He was drinking?” Perkins asked.
“Yeah.”
“And you?”
“Yeah. Some.”
“And afterward, you escorted him back to his room.”
“Yeah,” Clete said. “I found him in Brenda’s room screaming at her. I told him to move it. But I didn’t lay a finger on him then. I swear.”
“But then when you were out in the hall . . .”
“Out in the hall, he gave me a little crap, but I wouldn’t hit him again. He wasn’t worth it. We just stayed there arguing, and then Charles came along and said he’d take over, so I went to bed.”
“And you never saw him again?”
“That’s right.”
“You spent the night alone?”
“Well, I tell you,” Clete said. “When I got to my room, I found a little chick had wangled a room key out of the desk and was waiting there for me. So I didn’t spend the night alone.”
“The girl stayed all night?”
“Yeah.” His forty-eight-inch chest swelled at the recollection. “She did.”
“And she left the next morning?”
“Yeah. I told her to beat it around five o’clock. I had to get dressed and get going, you know.”
“You can give me her name, I assume.”
“I assume,” Clete said.
Now, all this was a big surprise to me. I had never heard Williams say anything about a girl in his room.
“You want her name?” Clete asked.
“Not now,” Perkins said mildly. “Tell me, during the rest of the night, did you hear any sounds next door? I believe your room is next to McDougall’s.”
“Listen, I was busy.”
“And you heard nothing?”
“You might say I wasn’t concentrating on next door.”
“I see. And the girl was with you from eleven or so until five in the morning?”
“That’s right,” Clete said, almost smug about it.
“Then I don’t see any reason to bother you further,” Perkins said, standing up and extending his hand.
Clete shook it, looking slightly surprised that the interview was over.
* * *
Perkins stood very still as he watched the next shot being set up.
He didn’t say a word. I had a dozen questions for him, and I was trying to be patient because it was obvious the man was deep in thought.
But just as my patience ran out and I was about to speak, I was interrupted by Claude.
“Jason,” he said, “did you know Paul Fox is here?”
“No,” I said. “Where?”
Claude jerked his thumb in the direction of the trailers, and sure enough, there was Paul Fox, talking with Mann.
I decided to amble over. Paul Fox was a thin man of about thirty-one, wearing wire-frame glasses and a tie-dyed shirt and jeans.
He was married to the actress Andrea Weston, and he reviewed movies for Newsweek.
“So it happens,” Paul Fox was saying, “is that the hero is having an existential crisis, and he takes it out on his brother—it’s sort of a Cain and Abel parody—and he murders his brother, and that’s the last reel.”
He paused, then asked, “What do you think?”