I rose halfway from my seat and shook his hand. “How are you, Pearl? Are you joining us?”
“Could.” He pulled out a chair and took a seat, signaling to Daisy to bring him a beer. “You fellas want anything?”
Cherie shook her head. Rick ordered another beer.
“How about you?” Pearl said to me.
“I’m fine.”
He held up two fingers and Daisy began to fill a jar from the dispenser hose at the bar. Pearl turned back to me. “They catch Bailey yet?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“Heard Royce had him a heart attack.”
“An attack of some kind. I’m not sure what it was. He’s in the hospital now, but I haven’t really talked to him.”
“Fella’s not long for this world.”
“Which is why I hope to wrap this thing up,” I said. “I was just asking Rick about the night he saw Jean Timberlake.”
“Sorry to interrupt. You go right ahead.”
“Not much to tell,” Rick said uncomfortably. “I drove by and spotted the two of ‘em getting out of Bailey’s truck. They looked drunk to me.”
“They were staggering?”
“Well, not that, but hanging on to each other.”
“And that was midnight?”
Rick made a visual reference to his father, who had turned at Daisy’s approach. “Could have been a little after that, but right around there.” Daisy put the two beers on the table and went back to the bar.
“You see any cars passing? Anybody else on the street?”
“Nuh-unh.”
“Bailey says it was ten o’clock. I’m puzzled by the discrepancy.”
Pearl intervened. “Coroner put the time of death close to midnight. Naturally, Bailey’d like everybody to believe he was home in bed by then.”
I glanced at Rick. He should have been home in bed himself. “You were how old, seventeen at the time?”
“Who, me? I’se a junior in high school.”
“You’d been out on a date?”
“I’d been at my grammaw’s and I was on my way home. She’d had a stroke and Dad wanted me to stay with her till the visiting nurse got there.” Rick lit another cigarette.
Cherie’s face was expressionless, except for an occasional flicker of the mouth-meaning what? She checked her nails and decided to give herself a manicure with her teeth.
“Which was when?”
“Ten after twelve. Something like that.”
Pearl spoke up again. “Nurse on -the early shift called in sick so I had Rick sit in till the other one got there.”
“I take it your grandmother lived in the neighborhood.”
“Why all the questions?” Rick asked,
“Because you’re the only witness who can actually put him at the scene.”
“Of course he was there. He admits that himself. I saw the two of ‘em get out of his truck.”
“It couldn’t have been somebody else?”
“I know Bailey. I’ve known him all my life. He wasn’t any farther away than here to there. The two of ‘em drove down to the beach and he parked and they got out and went down the steps.” Rick’s eyes strayed back to his father’s face. He was lying through his teeth.
“Excuse me,” Cherie said. “Does anybody mind if I bug out? I got a headache.”
“You go on home, baby,” Pearl said. “We’ll be there in a bit.”
“Nice meeting you,” she said to me briefly, as she got up. She didn’t bother to say anything to Rick. Pearl watched her departure, clearly fond of her.
I caught Rick’s eye again. “Did you see anybody coming in or out of the motel?” I knew I was being persistent, but I figured this might be the only chance I’d get to question him. His father’s presence probably didn’t help, but what was I going to do? “No.”
“Nothing out of the ordinary?”
“I already told you that. It was just regular. Normal.”
Pearl spoke up. “You’ve about exhausted the subject, haven’t you?”
“Looks like it,” I said. “I keep hoping I’ll pick up a lead.”
“It’d be nothin’ more than damn luck after all this time.”
“Sometimes I can make luck,” I said.
Pearl leaned forward, thrusting his double chins at me. “I’ll tell you something. You’re never going to get anywhere with this. It’s no point. Bailey’s confessed and, by God, it’s gonna stick. Royce don’t want to believe he’s guilty and I can understand that. He’s near dead and he doesn’t want to go to his grave with a cloud hanging over him. I feel sorry for the old fool, but that doesn’t change the facts.”
“How do we even know what the facts are at this point?” I said. “She died seventeen years ago. Bailey disappeared the year after that.”
“My point exactly,” Pearl said. “This is old news. A dead horse. Bailey admitted he was guilty. He could’ve been out by now instead of starting all over. Look at him. He’s taken off again. Who knows where, doing who knows what. We might any of us be in danger. We don’t know what’s going through his head.”
“Pearl, I don’t want to argue with you, but I won’t give up.”
“Then you’re a bigger fool than he is.”
I’d just about had my fill of argumentative old men. Who asked him? “I appreciate your assessment. I’ll keep that in mind.” I glanced at my watch. “I better get back.”
Neither Rick nor Pearl seemed sorry to see me go. I could feel their eyes on me as I left the place, giving me the kind of look that makes you want to step up your pace a bit.
I walked the two blocks to the motel. It was just after ten, and two black-and-whites were parked side by side across the street. Two young cops were leaning on the fenders, coffee cups in hand while their radio kept up a running account of what was going on in town. I kept thinking about Rick. I knew he was lying, but I had no idea why. Unless he killed her himself. Maybe he’d made sexual advances and she’d laughed him off. Or maybe he’d just been trying to look important at the time, the last man who’d seen Jean Timberlake alive. It was bound to lend him status in a community the size of Floral Beach.
I took my keys out as I went up the outside stairs. It was dark on the second-floor landing, but I caught a whisper of cigarette smoke. I stopped.
There was someone standing in the shadow of the vending machine across from my room. I reached for the penlight in my handbag and flicked it on.
Cherie.
“What are you doing here?” She stepped out of the dark, the dim glow of the flashlight washing her face with white. “I’m sick of Rick’s b.s.”
I moved to my door and unlocked it, glancing back at her. “You want to come in and talk?”
“I better not. If he gets home and I’m out, he’ll want to know where I’ve been.”
“He’s been lying, hasn’t he?”
“It wasn’t midnight when he saw them. It was closer to ten. He was on his way to see me. He knew if his Daddy found out he’d left his granny by herself, he’d get the crap beat outta him.”
“So what happened then, he left and went back?”
“Right. He got back by the time the visiting nurse showed up for her shift. Later, when it turned out Jean Timberlake had been murdered, he said he saw her and Bailey. He just blurted it out before he realized how much trouble he’d be in. So then he had to make the time different so he wouldn’t get his ass whipped.”
“And Pearl still doesn’t know?”
“I’m not sure about that. He’s real protective of Rick, so maybe he suspects. It didn’t seem like it mattered, once Bailey pleaded guilty. He said he killed her, so nobody really cared what time it was.”
“Did Rick tell you what really happened?”
“Well, he did see ‘em get out of the truck and go down to the beach. He told me that at the time, but Bailey really could have gone back to his room and passed out like he claimed.”
“Why are you telling me?”
“It’s no skin off my butt. I’m leaving him anyway, first chance I get.”
“You never told anyone else?”
“With Bailey gone all those years, who was I going to tell? Rick made me swear I’d keep my mouth shut and I’ve done it, but I can’t stand listening to any more bull. I want my conscience clear and then I’m heading out.”
“Where will you go if you leave Floral Beach?”
She shrugged. “Los Angeles. San Francisco. I got a hundred bucks for the bus and I’ll just see how far it goes.”
“Is there any chance Rick could have been involved with her?”
“I don’t think he killed her, if that’s what you mean. I wouldn’t stick with him if I thought he did that. Anyway, the cops know he lied about the time and they never cared.”