features darkened, even as his anxiety rose. “Why’s that matter?”
“I can’t see how you would think it doesn’t matter, son.”
“I don’t know if I want to answer any more of your questions.”
“You don’t have a choice, Archer. The law is the law.”
“Yeah, folks keep telling me that. Okay, we were in bed together. Then she left.”
“So, you slept with the dead man’s mistress on the night Hank Pittleman was murdered right down the hall from your room?”
“She’s not his mistress.”
“Really, what is she then?”
“You’ll have to ask her.”
“Oh, I will, Archer. Rest assured.”
“Is that all?”
“No, it’s not, son. So, after you left Mr. Pittleman in his room, you never went back there?”
Archer pushed off the wall and gathered his wits. This fellow Shaw was poking him like a stick to a hornet’s nest. Only thing was, he was hitting all the bad spots, for Archer.
“Had no reason to.”
“So that’s a no, is it?”
“That’s a no,” Archer lied.
“Understand you were in the Army.”
“Who told you that?”
“I don’t need to tell you that and I’m not. You know your way around a gun and a knife then?”
“Look, I didn’t have nothing—”
“Were you in the military, Archer?” interrupted Shaw.
“Were you?”
“Okay, I’ll play your game just this one time. I was a pilot in the Army Air Forces. Ninety-three bombing sorties over Europe, then I took my wings to the Pacific and dropped a shitload of TNT on the Japs. Loved every minute of it and was scared to death every minute of it.”
Archer judged him in a new, more respectful light. “That’s impressive. Lot more complicated flying a plane than firing a rifle.”
“I think every man who put on the uniform was impressive. You?”
“Thirty-Fourth Infantry Division. Mostly in Italy, but we did work our way to Germany eventually. Though we fought more Germans in Italy than we did I-talians.”
“Then I think you maybe had it harder than me. That was some damn tough going, I heard. Lot of those GIs never came home from that campaign.”
“Sure seemed tough going to me at the time. I liked my foxhole as much as the next man. Only we never got to spend much time there. And the Germans had damn good aim when it came to shelling us when we were hunkered in the dirt.”
“You get shot up?”
“We all got shot up. You done with me now?”
Shaw put away his notebook and pencil and gave him a bemused look. “You know your way around a gun and a knife, and you were sleeping with the dead man’s whatever on the night that he died. And by your own admission you were drinking. And all night you were maybe fifty feet from where he was killed. And you have no alibi for the time he probably died.” He paused. “So not only am I not done with you, Archer, I’m just starting.” He closed the door to 615 and made a show of locking it.
That was the first time Archer noted the white dust coating the doorknob.
Shaw tipped his hat at Archer and added, “Do not try to leave Poca City, Mr. Archer. That would not be smart. It would make me very unhappy. And you even unhappier than me.”
He walked off leaving Archer feeling like he’d just been rolled over twice by a Panzer. He bent down and looked at the doorknob and the white dust coating it. He reached out to touch it but thought better of that notion and retreated down the hall.
Archer went back to his room, picked up the flask, and drained the contents. He wiped his mouth dry, went over to the one window, and looked out at Poca City. He watched as Shaw walked out of the hotel and then stopped. The blood slowly drained from Archer’s face as he saw the man Shaw was talking to. It was the front desk clerk Archer had queried about seeing Jackie. The man was gesticulating in the direction of the hotel, while Shaw pulled out his pencil and notebook and wrote it all down. Archer thought he could see the lawman’s triumphant look from up here.
Archer sat down on the bed and started to think things through.
None of this was looking particularly good for him. The money in his pocket, the residue from Pittleman’s advance, the papers he’d taken from the dead man, all felt like lumps of white-hot coal melting him away from the inside. He knew Shaw was probably going to see Jackie next, and what would she tell