Deep Without Pity | Page 5

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 behind the door and pointed at the wallet still in my hand. "Does that mean I have to let you in?"
"No, ma'am. It just means--"
"Oh, Mother," came a friendly voice from inside. "Let him in." She shut the door and I heard the rattle of the chain being let off.
The inside of the house smelled faintly of incense. Furniture was sparse, consisting mainly of throw pillows, low tables, and those bedspreads from India that everyone used to have. Sitting on a divan, legs tucked up under her, was a small blonde who I took at first glance to be a little girl. Her eyes