Deep Without Pity | Page 2

watch his step. One mistake and he was a scapegoat, both for the
sheriff and the people at the capitol. The smile slid quietly off his face
and the burned-in wrinkles came back.
McCarthy pulled up in front of a big two-story house. Ahead of us the
road ended in a white painted barricade, then fell off a cliff into the lake.
There were three or four cars already at the house, including a brown
sheriff's car and an ambulance, its multi-colored lights still turning
silently. We walked up the flagstones to the house, and it seemed to
lean out over us. The upper story sat on a row of colonial-type columns,
and the contrast they made with the ranch styling of the rest of the
house set my teeth on edge.
The ambulance attendants passed us with a stretcher, and Winslow
lifted the sheet for a quick look. The bullet had come through the back
of the head, at close range. The face was almost completely gone.
Winslow dropped the sheet and nodded, and they carried the body
away.

The sound of voices led us upstairs. Inside, the house seemed to be
trying to live down its nouveau-riche exterior. The carpets were thick,
running to subdued colors and patterns. The upstairs hall was hardwood
paneled, with brass light fixtures and framed lithographs on the walls. I
recognized a Matisse and a Picasso.
When we got to the door of the study everyone looked up for a minute,
then went back to popping flashbulbs, dusting prints and taking
measurements. Chalk marks near the door showed where King had
fallen, and a rusty stain disfigured the carpet. In the background I could
see an English-style library arrangement with leatherbound books and
heavy furniture.
A middle-aged cop in uniform who I knew by sight but not by name
made his way over to us. He pointed out a heavy set Chicano in white
ducks who was wandering around with a look of profound misery.
"That's the houseboy," he said. "Name's Chico. He found the body.
Yesterday was his day off, so he can't pin down a specific time for the
killing."
"How did he find it?" Winslow asked.
"Came up to see if King wanted dinner, and saw him. He's only been
here about an hour."
"Did you find the gun?" I asked.
He showed us a Colt long barrel .38, and the spot near the body where
it had been found. "Houseboy positively identifies it as King's own
gun."
I stepped over a small grey man with a magnifying glass and looked at
King's desk. In the center of it was a big loose-leaf scrapbook, the kind
that ties together with a silken cord. It was open to an article on the
Korean War. I flipped through it casually, recognizing photographs of
King, his wife, and various others at various ages. Beside it was a desk
pad, and the words "green Chevy" and a phone number were written on
it, surrounded by the short crisp lines of a compulsive doodler. I

memorized the number, just to have something to do.
On the corner of the desk, as if it had been put aside, was a steel
construction handbook. I looked through it, too, but failed to make any
sense of it. A few pages were marked, but it would have taken an
expert to tell me what that meant. Under it was a mimeo sheet with the
heading "County Bond Proposal." The only other object was a cigarette
lighter which I was afraid to touch because of fingerprints. It was
standing on end, and from behind the desk I could make out an insignia
of some sort, a lightning bolt and the word "Thundermugs."
I looked up to see Winslow at the door. "They've got Mrs. King
downstairs," he said to me. "I'll be with her for a while." I nodded and
went to the window.
Filmy curtains fluttered in the wind, and it seemed cooler to be up
above the lake. I was only in the way in the study, and I had no
professional interest in the case. So I fought my way back to the door
and went downstairs and into the backyard.
The lawn gave out at a six-foot hurricane fence that surrounded the
house. I walked down to the gate and let myself out onto the top of the
cliff.
I had started sweating as soon as I stepped outside, and the water
looked cool and inviting below me. It looked to be about a fifty-foot
drop, almost perfectly straight down to the water. I followed the line of
the cliff for a while, and found a path that wound its way down to a
shelf just above the water. It was covered with a coarse river gravel