Maigret at the Coroner's Page 5

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘What did you talk about during the ride?’

  ‘We didn’t talk.’

  ‘When the taxi stopped, didn’t you and O’Neil discuss anything?’

  ‘I don’t remember. No, sir.’

  O’Rourke must have been good at his job. Without much effort he had located the taxi-driver, whom they would doubtless see later testifying in turn.

  Of the three servicemen questioned so far, Pinky had been the most ill at ease.

  ‘Don’t you sleep in the same room as O’Neil? How long have you been roommates?’

  ‘About six months.’

  ‘Are you close friends?’

  ‘We always go out together.’

  When the attorney was asked if he had any questions for the witness, he had only one.

  ‘Was the car in which you returned to the base in good condition?’

  Pinky could not answer that particular question, either. He had not noticed the make of the car. He remembered only that it had been white or light-coloured.

  ‘Recess!’

  It was strange: for no apparent reason, Sergeant Ward was already looking less like a murderer. It was O’Neil, now, whom people considered as they went by. Perhaps he was perfectly innocent. Perhaps they all were. And they felt suspicion shifting from one to another of them. Perhaps they were even suspecting one another? What were they thinking, smoking their cigarettes outside and drinking their Coca-Colas?

  Although Maigret could have introduced himself to Mike O’Rourke, who would have clapped him on the shoulder and probably enlightened him on vital points, he found it more entertaining to watch the comings and goings of his colleague, who took advantage of the temporary recess to make a few telephone calls from a glassed-in office.

  When the inquest was about to resume, the attorney wound up missing and had to be sought throughout the building. Perhaps he’d had some phone calls to make as well?

  ‘Corporal Wo Lee.’

  He slipped into his seat on the stand; the microphone was positioned in front of his mouth. He spoke so softly that it was difficult to hear him even with amplification.

  The three previous witnesses had already taken their time with each answer. As for Wo Lee, he paused for so long that he seemed to have gone blank or have suddenly started thinking about something else.

  Were they, like a band of schoolboys who had been up to mischief, accusing one another of snitching?

  Maigret had to lean forwards and listen closely, because Wo Lee was hard to follow.

  ‘Tell us what happened on the …’

  His testimony was so slow that before they reached the departure for Nogales the coroner announced another recess. Three prisoners in blue uniforms were brought before him during the hiatus, men whom the police had arrested the day before and who had nothing to do with the current case.

  A Mexican with strong Indian features was accused of drunkenness and disturbance of the peace on the public thoroughfare.

  ‘Do you plead guilty?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Five dollars or five days. Next!’

  A bounced cheque.

  ‘You plead guilty? We’ll schedule your hearing for August 7. Bail is set at five hundred dollars.’

  Maigret went downstairs for a Coca-Cola, and two of the jurors gave him a smile as he went by. When he had to cross a patch of sunshine, he felt it burning his skin.

  When he returned, Wo Lee was already on the stand, answering a question that had just been put to him. Now there were people standing in front of the open door, but Maigret was pleased to see that no one had taken his empty seat.

  ‘Just when we were leaving the bar,’ Wo Lee was saying slowly, ‘we bought two bottles of whisky.’

  ‘What happened at the musician’s place?’

  ‘Bessie and Sergeant Mullins went into the kitchen. A bit later, Sergeant Ward went there too, and there was an argument.’

  ‘Between the two men, or between Ward and Bessie?’

  ‘I don’t know. Ward came back holding a bottle.’

  ‘Had both bottles been drunk?’

  ‘No. One had been left in the car.’

  ‘On the front or the back seat?’

  ‘On the back seat.’

  ‘On which side?’

  ‘On the left side.’

  ‘Who sat on the left side?’

  ‘Sergeant O’Neil.’

  ‘Did you observe him drinking during the drive?’

  ‘It was too dark for me to see him.’

  ‘During the evening, did Harold Mitchell seem angry at his sister?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Bessie’s brother, by the way, was now in uniform. In civvies the day before, wearing a shirt of a nasty violet, he had looked like the classic bad boy in films.

  Wearing clean, crisply pressed cotton duck trousers, he seemed more respectable. At one point during Wo Lee’s testimony, the musician, who had been outside, came to get Mitchell and murmured briefly to him out in the arcade. When Mitchell returned, he went over to Mike O’Rourke, who then spoke to the attorney, who in turn rose to address the bench.

  ‘Sergeant Mitchell requests that a witness be called as soon as possible.’

  Sergeant Mitchell had sat down where he had been the day before, next to Maigret. When the coroner turned towards him he rose to speak in a quavering voice.

  ‘There’s been talk that certain men on the train noticed a piece of rope around my sister’s wrist. I’d like them to testify here.’

  At a signal he sat down again; the coroner spoke to his bailiff, then resumed his interrogation.

  ‘What happened when the car pulled over about a mile past the airport?’

  Once more, in a different accent, the words ‘latrine duty’ automatically brought a smile to people’s lips, as if the term had become a running gag.

  ‘Did you see Bessie walk away from the car?’

  ‘Yes. She went off with Sergeant Mullins.’

  Now it was his back everyone stared at, and Ward seemed less and less like a murderer.

  ‘Were they gone a long time? Where was Ward during this period?’

  ‘He was one of the first to return to the car. Then Bessie got in as well, and we had to wait a few minutes for Mullins.’

  ‘How long were Bessie and Mullins together?’

  ‘Maybe ten minutes.’

  ‘Had it already been decided not to continue on to Nogales?’

  ‘No. It was when we were setting out again that Bessie said she’d had enough and wanted to go home.’

  ‘Did Ward turn around without any argument?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Tell us what happened next. You had nothing to drink all that evening, correct?’

  ‘Only Coca-Cola. After a hundred yards, Bessie asked him to pull over again.’

  ‘Did she say anything else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Who got out of the car with her?’

  ‘No one, at first. She walked off on her own. Then Dan Mullins got out.’

  ‘You’re sure it was Mullins?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Was he gone a long time?’

  ‘At least ten minutes. Maybe more.’

  ‘Did he head for the railway tracks?’

  ‘Yes. Then Sergeant Ward got out, on the left side, and walked all around the car. He came back almost immediately because we could hear Mullins’ footsteps.’

  ‘Did the two men exchange words
?’

  ‘No. We drove off. Sergeant O’Neil, Van Fleet and I, we got out in front of the bus station.’

  ‘Who suggested going back out on the highway?’

  ‘Sergeant O’Neil.’

  ‘Were you asked not to go along with them?’

  ‘Not exactly. O’Neil just wondered if I wasn’t too tired and wouldn’t rather return to the base.’

  ‘What was said in the taxi?’

  ‘Van Fleet and O’Neil talked quietly. I was in front with the driver and didn’t listen.’

  ‘Who showed the driver where to stop?’

  ‘O’Neil.’

  ‘Was it the first or the second spot where the car had pulled over?’

  ‘I can’t say. It was still dark.’

  ‘Wasn’t there some kind of discussion at that time?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Wasn’t there any talk about perhaps having the taxi wait?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  They had not discussed that. They had come to look for the girl abandoned in the desert and they were not keeping the taxi to take her back to town.

  ‘You never encountered or passed other cars along the highway?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘What did you do after the taxi left?’

  ‘We walked towards Nogales and then, after about a mile, we turned around.’

  ‘Together?’

  ‘Going out, yes. Coming back, I walked along the edge of the highway. Sergeant O’Neil and Pinky were farther out in the desert.’

  ‘On the side with the railway tracks?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘How long did all this walking take?’

  ‘About an hour.’

  ‘And for an hour, you saw no one? None of you heard any train? What colour was the car that brought you back to town?’

  ‘A light yellow.’

  The attorney rose once more to ask the ritual question he found so mysteriously important.

  ‘Did you notice whether the car showed any traces of a recent accident?’

  ‘No, sir. I got in on the right-hand side.’

  ‘And O’Neil?’

  ‘He did, too. It was a sedan. He got in the front seat, and I was in the back. Pinky walked around to the other side.’

  ‘Was the bottle of whisky still with you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was it in the taxi?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I don’t believe so.’

  ‘The following day, when Harold Mitchell told you that his sister had been killed, you said you knew what had happened, but that you’d speak only in the presence of the sheriff.’

  Maigret saw Mitchell’s hand grip his knee hard.

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Didn’t you speak to him?’

  ‘I told him: “The sheriff will question us, and I’ll tell him what I know.”’

  That was obviously not the same thing, and next to Maigret Mitchell gestured nervously in anger and chagrin.

  Was Wo Lee lying? Out of the four witnesses heard so far, who was lying?

  ‘Recess! The hearing will continue downstairs, in the justice of the peace’s room, at one thirty.’

  Harry Cole had promised to be there but was not, and Maigret caught sight of him a little later, getting out of his car across from the county courthouse. He was as fresh-faced and alert as he had been the previous day, with the same seemingly inexhaustible good humour. It was the serene cheerfulness of a man who has no nightmares, who feels at peace with himself and everyone else.

  They were almost all of them like that, and it definitely got Maigret’s back up.

  It made him think of clothing that was too neat, too clean, too well pressed. It was like their houses, as immaculate as clinics, so impersonal that there was no particular reason to sit in one place rather than another.

  Basically, he suspected them of harbouring the anxieties every human being feels and of adopting this light-hearted façade out of a sense of propriety.

  Even the five airmen, in his opinion, were not showing the proper concern. Each remained locked inside himself, yet you never sensed the uneasiness of people who, rightly or wrongly, are suspected of a crime.

  The spectators seemed completely unaffected. No one, apparently, spared a thought for the girl who had died on the railway tracks. It was more like a kind of game, and only the reporter from the Star saw fit to add some sensational headlines.

  ‘Did you sleep well, Julius?’

  If only they would stop calling him that! The worst part was that they weren’t doing it on purpose, they meant no harm at all.

  ‘Have you solved the problem? Is it a crime, a suicide, or an accident?’

  Entering the bar on the street corner as if it were home, Maigret recognized several spectators, including two jurors.

  ‘Have a drink! You had a case rather like this in France, didn’t you? A judge found dead on some railway tracks. What was his name again?’

  ‘Prince!’ grumbled Maigret testily.

  And that struck him, because in that case as well there had been some rope found around the man’s wrists.

  ‘How did it end?’

  ‘It hasn’t.’

  ‘Do you have your own idea about that?’

  He did, but he preferred not to mention it, because his opinion on the subject had brought him enough trouble, along with attacks from certain quarters of the press.

  ‘Did you have a chat with Mike? You’ve met him, haven’t you? He’s the chief deputy sheriff and takes personal charge of important cases. Do you want me to introduce you?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘In that case, let’s go have some steak and onions, and I’ll drop you off at the courthouse when it’s time.’

  ‘You’re not following the case at all?’

  ‘I told you, it has nothing to do with me.’

  ‘And it doesn’t interest you, either?’

  ‘One can’t take an interest in everything, right? If I do Mike O’Rourke’s job, who’ll do mine? Tomorrow or the next day, maybe, I’m going to finally get my hands on $20,000 worth of drugs that turned up around here a week ago.’

  ‘How did you find that out?’

  ‘Through our agents in Mexico. I even know who sold the shipment, for how much, on what day. I know when it crossed the border at Nogales. I think I know what truck brought it to Tucson, too. After that, I’m just guessing.’

  The waitress at the cafeteria, a buxom blonde of about twenty, was pretty and blooming with youth.

  ‘Hello, Doll!’ Cole called out to her.

  And added to Maigret: ‘She’s a student at the university. She’s hoping to get a scholarship to go and finish her studies in Paris.’

  Why did Maigret feel the need to be vulgar?

  What was this mood that came over him whenever he found himself with Harry Cole?

  ‘What if someone pinched her derrière?’ he asked, thinking of the waitresses in the little bistros of France.

  His colleague seemed surprised and gave him a long look, as if seriously considering his question.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he finally admitted. ‘Maybe you could give it a try? Doll!’

  Did he really expect Maigret to reach out while the young woman leaned over them, her white uniform taut over her firm flesh?

  • • •

  ‘Sergeant Mullins!’

  Another bachelor. The only one of the airmen who was married and had children was Ward.

  Wasn�
��t it Dan Mullins, now, who appeared to be the villain?

  ‘Tell us what happened on the night of the …’

  Maigret preferred the smaller room to the one upstairs, even though this one was hotter. It was cosier. And Ezekiel, who felt more at home here, was much more picturesque.

  He was the exam monitor. The coroner was the teacher, and the attorney, a school inspector.

  Perhaps they were going to decide at last to ask the essential questions? Sergeant Ward had admitted that he was jealous of his friend Mullins, the one he had found with Bessie in the musician’s kitchen.

  Well, once again, it was not to be.

  Five men and one girl had spent the better part of a night together. All, except for Wo Lee, had been keyed up by their drinking. Four of the five men were single, and Maigret now knew how limited their options were for sexual satisfaction. As for Ward, who was the possessive type, he seemed to have had Bessie under his skin.

  Not one word! Still the same old questions, which the coroner himself seemed to find so unimportant that he asked them while gazing elsewhere, at the ceiling, mostly. Was he even listening to the replies?

  Only Mike O’Rourke, the county’s Maigret, was taking notes and showing interest in the case. Seated behind Maigret, the black woman breast-fed her baby. A little girl and a fat woman, both black, had joined her entourage. If the inquest went on for a long time, the whole tribe would fill up the courtroom.

  ‘Had you met Bessie before?’

  ‘Once, sir.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘I was with Ward when he met her for the first time, at the drive-in. I left them when they went off in the car at around three in the morning.’

  ‘Did you know that Sergeant Ward intended to get a divorce in order to marry her?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  That was the end of that line of questioning.

  ‘What happened when the car pulled over a little way past the airport?’

  ‘We all got out. I went off by myself for latrine –’

  – duty: that much they all knew! It was becoming an obsessive image, those five men and one girl, scattered around the car, expelling all the liquid they had imbibed that night.