Deep Without Pity | Page 5

Bill. They used me for muscle while I finished my
college, and let me do my required two years of investigating when I
got out. With my license in hand I proceeded to starve for a year in a
Northern California full of private eyes and impoverished kids. It was
1971 and the magic that was Berkeley was dead, along with the magic
of most everything else.
I moved back to Austin and found some of it again. The kids were here,
and it was a wide-open, all-night sort of town. The work wasn't much
better, but I made do with odd jobs here 'and there. I made friends, and
I found out that I'd been under pressure for a lot more years than I'd
known. And now it was all coming back.
I drove down 11th to the Courthouse Annex where the Commissioners
had their offices. I had nothing particular in mind by visiting the place,
but it was close enough to be worth the effort. I found a tree to park
under and went inside. The withered smell of the place wrinkled my
nose.
King's office was locked with an air of permanence. I tried the door and
it echoed hollowly down the hall. The next one over was open, though,
and said Hoyt Crabtree, County Commissioner, so I went in. A drab,
middle aged woman looked up from her typing and gave me an
encouraging smile.
"Do you have a key to next door by any chance?" I asked her. "I'm
working for Jeff King..." I let the sentence hang as if it explained
everything.

"Oh yes. Jeff was such a nice boy. How is he?"
"Fine," I assured her. I sat on the edge of a table and tried to look
cheerful and harmless.
"I'm afraid I don't have a key," she said. "Was it important? I could call
the janitor..."
I waved my hand. The janitor would doubtless want more credentials
than I could offer him. "Not really. Did you know Jason King very
well?"
"Oh yes, both him and that dreadful secretary." "Dreadful?"
"Yes. I can't understand why someone would tell lies like that just to
get a fine man like Mr. King in trouble."
"You think she was lying, then?"
She wrinkled her nose. "Pshaw. I'm sure of it. He hadn't the slightest
interest in her. I don't think she would have lasted another week, even if
that awful scandal business hadn't come up. He was forever having to
ask me to help out in getting his work done. I swear he only kept her on
as long as he did out of pity."
A huge man stuck his head out of the back office, then lumbered into
view. He must have been six foot six and weighed over two fifty. "Oh,
Mr. Crabtree," she piped, "this nice young man is a friend of Jeff
King's." I didn't try to correct her.
"Daniel Sloane," I said as he shook my hand, a broad smile on his face
and his eyes utterly vacant. He had graying hair that looked like a stack
of hay, and when he spoke he sounded like the pedal notes on a pipe
organ.
"Pleased to meet you," he boomed, his eyes already wandering around
the room. "Terrible thing about Jason, I could hardly believe it." He
was headed out the door and hardly seemed conscious of the fact that I

was in front of him. He shuffled forward and I backed out of the way,
but then he was coming at me again. "Knew him for years," he said,
and I found myself standing outside his office. He shook my hand
again, and said, "Give my sympathies to the family if you see them,
pleasure meeting you." The door closed gently in my face.
It took me a minute, but I calmed down enough to shrug and walk away.
I imagined that Crabtree had been having a lot of trouble with reporters
and rubbernecks. I sympathized with his position. I still wanted to drop
a grenade down his shirt.
Charlene Desmond's house sat up on a hill overlooking Pease Park and
Shoal Creek. It had been a luxury neighborhood years ago, and now
was full of college students, like everywhere else in Austin. The place
looked deserted but I knocked anyway. After two or three tries, the
door opened back on the chain and a woman's voice said, "What do you
want?"
I showed her my license and said, "I'm looking for Charlene Desmond."
I could see just a little of her face, wrinkled, wearing too much makeup,
topped off by salt and pepper hair.
"She's not in."
"Are you a relative?"
"I'm her mother."
"I'd like to ask you a few questions, if I may."
One finger came out from