Maigret at the Coroner's Read online

  The four were boys, in a word, great big boys of twenty or more, well muscled and solidly built but boys all the same, whom you might casually have taken for grown-ups.

  ‘How many glasses of beer did you have?’

  ‘About twenty.’

  ‘Who paid for the rounds?’

  This one remembered. In time – because he took his own sweet time to reply – he announced that Sergeant Ward had paid for two rounds, while he, O’Neil, had bought only one, and that Dan Mullins had covered all the rest.

  Maigret would have liked to have this witness all to himself in his office at Quai des Orfèvres and give him the third degree, just to see what he was made of.

  One thing he would have asked him, among others (because aside from Ward, they were none of them married), was: ‘Do you have a mistress?’

  O’Neil’s florid complexion suggested a person of hot-blooded sexual appetites. On the night in question there had been five of them for only one girl, and they were all, except for Wo Lee, rather drunk. In the darkness of the car, had not hands gone wandering?

  The coroner was not considering such things, or, if he was, they went unmentioned.

  ‘Who decided to go and end the night in Nogales?’

  ‘I don’t remember that exactly. I thought it was Ward.’

  ‘You didn’t hear Bessie suggest it?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Where were you all sitting in the car?’

  It was as if he hadn’t heard his comrade’s testimony, he took such pains to remember.

  ‘After a while, he had Bessie get in the back seat.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I guess he was jealous of Mullins.’

  ‘Did he have any reason to be more jealous of Mullins than of the others?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What happened when the car got past the airport?’

  ‘We pulled over.’

  ‘For what reason?’

  The witness studied the ceiling at even greater length, hesitated, finally said – with a quick glance at Ward, who was staring at him, ‘Because Bessie refused to go any farther.’

  He seemed to be saying: ‘I’m sorry, but it’s the truth, and I swore to tell the whole truth.’

  ‘Bessie didn’t want to continue on to Nogales?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What happened when you pulled over like that?’

  There was the expression again, which had to be service lingo: latrine duty.

  ‘Bessie went off on her own?’

  The wait was even longer than the previous times, and his gaze stayed fixed on the ceiling.

  ‘What I do remember is that when she came back, she was with Ward.’

  ‘Bessie came back?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘She got in the car again?’

  ‘Yes. The car made a U-turn and took the highway back to Tucson.’

  ‘At what moment did Bessie leave the car?’

  ‘At the second stop. Right after the U-turn, Bessie told Ward she wanted to talk to him.’

  ‘She was in the back, next to you?’

  ‘Yes. Sergeant Ward stopped the car. They both got out.’

  ‘In which direction did they go?’

  ‘Over towards the railway tracks.’

  ‘Were they gone a long time?’

  ‘Sergeant Ward returned after twenty, twenty-five minutes.’

  ‘You checked the time?’

  ‘I didn’t have a watch on.’

  ‘He returned alone?’

  ‘Yes. He said: “To hell with her! That’ll teach her!”’

  ‘What was he referring to?’

  ‘That I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘You found it perfectly natural to return to town and abandon a woman in the desert?’

  O’Neil did not reply.

  ‘What did you talk about along the way?’

  ‘We didn’t talk.’

  ‘Had you brought along anything to drink? Was there a bottle in the car?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘When Ward dropped you off in town, across from the bus station, did he tell you he was going back to look for Bessie?’

  ‘No. He didn’t say anything.’

  ‘You weren’t surprised that he didn’t drive you back to the base?’

  ‘I never thought about it.’

  ‘What did you do then, you and Corporal Van Fleet and Wo Lee?’

  ‘We took a taxi.’

  ‘What did you talk about then?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Who had decided to take the taxi?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘How long was it between the moment when Ward and Mullins left you and when you took the taxi?’

  ‘Three minutes, maybe … More like two.’

  They really were stubborn children, who obviously had something to hide yet refused to give anything away. But why go about the interrogation in that fashion anyway? Maigret squirmed on his seat. He all but raised his hand to ask a question as if he, too, were still a schoolboy.

  Suddenly spotting Harry Cole in the doorway, he blushed. How long had Cole been watching him with that satisfied smile? From the door his colleague made signs meaning: ‘I suppose you’d prefer to stay?’

  And in a little while, he went quietly away, leaving Maigret to his new passion.

  ‘Where did the taxi drop you off?’

  ‘At the place where we’d stopped the second time.’

  ‘At the precise spot?’

  ‘It was dark, so I can’t say that. We did try to remember the exact spot.’

  ‘What did you talk about on the drive out?’

  ‘We didn’t talk.’

  ‘And you sent the taxi away? How did you plan on getting back to town and then out to the base?’

  ‘By hitchhiking.’

  ‘What time was it?’

  ‘Around three thirty.’

  ‘You didn’t see Ward’s car anywhere? You never saw either him or Dan Mullins?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  O’Neil avoided looking at Ward, whose gaze never left him, and when their eyes did meet, the witness seemed to apologize, like a man obliged to do his duty.

  ‘What did the three of you do, once you got out of the taxi?’

  ‘We went in the direction of Nogales, then came back towards Tucson walking beside the railway tracks.’

  ‘It never occurred to you to search for her on the other side of the highway?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did you walk for a long time?’

  ‘Maybe an hour.’

  ‘Without seeing anyone?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Without talking?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘We hailed a passing car that dropped us off at the base.’

  ‘Can you tell me what make of car it was?’

  ‘No, sir, but I believe it was a ’46 Chevrolet.’

  ‘Did you speak to the driver?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘What did you do when you got back to the base?’

  ‘We went off to bed. At six a.m. we got busy on our aircraft.’

  Maigret was seething. He felt like shaking the little judge and saying: ‘Haven’t you ever grill
ed a witness in your life? Or are you avoiding all the vital questions on purpose?’

  ‘When did you learn that Bessie Mitchell was dead?’

  ‘When her brother told me about it, towards five that afternoon.’

  ‘What precisely did he tell you?’

  ‘That they’d found Bessie dead on the tracks, and there was going to be an inquest.’

  ‘Who was present during that conversation?’

  ‘Wo Lee was with me in the room. He said: “I know what happened.” Mitchell began to question him. And Wo Lee just told him: “I’ll talk only to the sheriff.”’

  It was just past five o’clock, and with the same abruptness as before the coroner adjourned the session by reciting offhandedly, while collecting the papers scattered across his desk, ‘Tomorrow, nine thirty. Not here, but in Courtroom Two, one floor up.’

  Everyone was leaving. The five Air Force men gathered outside under the arcade, still without exchanging a word, and an officer led them across the patio.

  Waiting there in gaberdine trousers and a white shirt, Harry Cole looked like an athletic young man in a cheerful mood.

  ‘Did you find that interesting, Julius? What would you say to a glass of beer?’

  They went outside into instant heat and a thick glare where even sounds were deadened. The five or so tall buildings in Tucson stood out against the sky. People were driving off in their cars, even the Indian, who was opening the door of an old car with its bonnet tied down by twine. Maigret discovered that he had a wooden leg.

  ‘I bet you have something to ask me, Julius …’

  They were entering the cool interior of an air-conditioned saloon where other gaberdine trousers and white shirts and bottles of beer were lined up all along the bar. There were also cowboys, real ones, with their high-heeled boots, broad-brimmed hats and blue jeans tight across their thighs.

  ‘You’re right. If we can postpone our visit to Nogales, I’d like to attend the next session of the inquest tomorrow.’

  ‘Cheers! … No other questions?’

  ‘Lots. I’ll ask them as they come to mind. Are there any prostitutes around here?’

  ‘Not in the sense you’d mean. In certain states in America, yes. They’re illegal in Arizona.’

  ‘Bessie Mitchell?’

  ‘That’s the replacement.’

  ‘Erna Bolton as well?’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘How many servicemen are on the base?’

  ‘Five or six thousand … I’ve never thought about it.’

  ‘Most are unmarried?’

  ‘About three-quarters of them.’

  ‘How do they manage?’

  ‘The best they can. It’s not that easy.’

  His smile, which rarely left him, was genuine. He certainly respected, perhaps even rather admired Maigret, whom he knew by reputation. Still, it did amuse him to see a Frenchman wrestling with problems so completely foreign to him.

  ‘Myself, I’m from the East,’ he announced, not without a touch of pride. ‘New England. Here, you see, it’s still a little like frontier life. I could have you meet a few old-timers who shot it out with the Apaches at the turn of the century and who sometimes formed an impromptu court to hang a horse or livestock rustler.’

  Within the next half-hour they each had three bottles of beer, and Harry Cole reached a decision.

  ‘Whisky time!’

  Later on they drove off in the direction of Nogales; going through Tucson, Maigret was as disconcerted by the city as he had been in the courtroom. With a population of more than a hundred thousand, it was no small town.

  And yet, outside the city centre and its business district with five or six twenty-storey buildings rising into the sky like towers, Tuscon looked like a house development

  – or, rather, like a series of them one beside the other, some richer, others poorer, developments full of trim single-storey houses, all equally new.

  Further along, streets were no longer paved. For great stretches there was nothing but sand and a few cacti. They drove past the airport, and suddenly the desert was everywhere, with the mountains violet in the distance.

  ‘Here is about where it happened. Do you want to get out? Keep an eye open for rattlesnakes.’

  ‘Are there any?’

  ‘Sometimes they turn up even in the city.’

  The railway tracks were a single line running about fifty metres from the highway.

  ‘I think there are four or five trains every twenty-four hours. Sure you don’t want to go and have a drink in Mexico? Nogales is right nearby.’

  A hundred kilometres away! In the end, however, they drove there in less than an hour.

  A small town with a fence cutting across the two main streets. Men in uniforms. Harry Cole spoke to them and a moment later he was plunging with Julius into a sudden bustle of people on narrow, littered streets bathed in a surprising bronze glow.

  ‘We’ll start at the Caves Bar, even though it is a mite too early.’

  Half-naked urchins pestered them, eager to shine their shoes, and shopkeepers tried to detain them at the threshold of every souvenir store.

  ‘As you can see, it’s a carnival. When folks from Tucson or even Phoenix or farther away want to have fun, they come here.’

  In the immense bar, they really did see nothing but Americans.

  ‘You think Bessie Mitchell was killed?’ asked Maigret.

  ‘All I know is that she’s dead.’

  ‘Accidentally?’

  ‘I have to say that it has nothing to do with me: it isn’t a federal crime, and I deal only with them. Everything else is taken care of by the county police.’

  In other words, the sheriff and his deputies. That was really what most bewildered Maigret, much more than the baroque and odorous funfair into which he had plunged.

  In charge of the county police, the sheriff was in no way a public servant promoted through the ranks or by examinations, but a citizen elected much as a municipal councillor was in Paris. His previous occupation was of no importance. He put himself forward as a candidate and campaigned for the job.

  Once elected, he chose his own deputies – his ‘inspectors’ – as he pleased: the fellows Maigret had seen with big revolvers and cartridge-studded belts.

  ‘That’s not all!’ added Harry Cole with a touch of irony. ‘Besides the appointed deputy sheriffs, there are all the others …’

  ‘Like me?’ joked Maigret, thinking of the silver badge he had received.

  ‘I’m talking about the sheriff’s friends, influential in his election, who get the same badge. For example, just about every rancher is a deputy sheriff. Don’t think they take this lightly. A few weeks ago, a car stolen by a dangerous escaped convict was travelling between Tucson and Nogales. The sheriff of Tucson alerted a rancher who lives about halfway along that route and who then called two or three neighbours, livestock ranchers like himself. They were all deputy sheriffs. They set up a roadblock with their vehicles, and when the stolen car attempted to get past, they shot out its tyres, then made a show of firing at the driver, whom they wound up capturing with a lasso. What do you think of that?’

  Maigret had not yet had as many drinks as the witnesses on the stand had put away, but it was beginning to tell on him, and he muttered with some difficulty, ‘In France, the locals would have tried to stop the police instead.’

  He was not sure exactly when they got back to Tucson …

  • • •

  Still in tow behind Cole, he had walked into t
he Penguin Bar towards midnight, although he was a little hazy on that point. There was a long counter of dark polished wood, with bottles of many colours on the shelves behind it. As in every bar, a soft light made the white shirts gleam.

  In the place of honour at the back was a jukebox – imposing, big-bellied, chrome-plated – near a machine into which a middle-aged man fed coins for an hour, all in the hope of winning a free game by trying to drop small nickel-plated balls into holes.

  Lit up on this pinball machine were naively drawn images of women in bathing suits. There was a completely naked woman in the style of La Vie Parisienne on a calendar over the bar.

  Real women of flesh and blood, however, were hard to find. Only two or three sat at tables secluded by partitions about five feet high. These women were with companions. The couples sat motionless, hand in hand, before their glasses of beer and whisky, listening with vague smiles to the music streaming endlessly from the jukebox.

  ‘Well, isn’t this fun!’ exclaimed Maigret with a grating laugh.

  Cole irritated him, he could not have said why. Perhaps it was the man’s unshakable self-confidence that rubbed him the wrong way.

  He was a simple field agent of the FBI and he drove a big car with one hand, letting go of the wheel to light his cigarette at more than 100 kilometres an hour! He knew everyone. Everyone knew him. Whether he was here in the United States or in Mexico, he would tap people on the shoulder and they would turn around to exclaim affectionately: ‘Hello, Harry!’

  Cole would introduce Maigret, and they would shake his hand as if they had known him for ever, without wondering what he might be doing there.

  ‘Have a drink!’

  It didn’t matter whether it was good or bad, as long as it was a drink. All along the counter here, men were stapled to their barstools and never moved except to lift a finger from time to time, a gesture the bartender knew by heart. A few Air Force non-coms were drinking along with the others. Perhaps the service had simple airmen, but Maigret had not yet seen one of them.

  ‘If I understand correctly, they return to their base at any hour they please?’