Free A Killing in Zion by Andrew Hunt Page A

describing it vividly. Talking through it distracted me, made me forget about the scrapbook and my father. My vocal cords grew raw from all the talking, and I reached a point at which I was too exhausted to speak. I leaned back against the hard wood of my chair, threw my arms up into a stretch, and yawned.
    â€œThanks for telling me about it,” said Clara. “Want to go to bed? You have to get up for work in a few hours.”
    â€œI appreciate you reminding me,” I said, coming out of my yawn. Rising from my chair, I lifted my ice-cream bowl to put it in the sink.
    â€œLeave it,” she said. “I’ll wash it in the morning.”
    I set it down and reached for the scrapbook.
    â€œLeave that, too. Sometimes I wish you’d burn it.”
    How to respond to that comment? I didn’t. Instead, I said, “We need more ice cream.”
    â€œI’ll pick some up tomorrow,” she said. “Good news. Keeley’s has brought back that South Seas Island coconut kind you loved so much last year.”
    Hand in hand, we headed to the bedroom, and she closed the door, letting darkness swallow us. Without even bothering to remove a stitch of my clothing, I belly-flopped onto the bed, my head barely touching the bottom of the pillow. Somewhere in the haze of fading into unconsciousness, Clara spoke, but I was too exhausted to acknowledge her words. “Don’t you want to change into your pajamas?” Slumber seized me at that point, carrying me into a land of dreams.

 
    Six
    Police Chief William Cowley kept me waiting in the anteroom of his office, on a velvet armchair, one of several facing a long desk. There, a Betty Boop–ish secretary in a floral dress typed slavishly whenever some three-piece big shot passed through the room, only to switch back to filing her nails when the coast was clear. Her desk nameplate identified her as INEZ SPOONER , and from time to time, she’d stop her emery board to blow on her nails and glance at me. Somewhere behind her desk, a radio played a forlorn tune performed by the unmistakable birdlike voice of Annette Hanshaw. I sat there, right ankle propped on left knee, reading—but not really reading—an issue of Popular Mechanics from last fall that I had pulled off a stack of magazines on an end table. The cover showed a futuristic art deco speed train racing across the countryside. On the chair next to me sat a stack of cream-colored file folders and a small box containing photographic slides that I had brought over for this morning’s meeting.
    â€œI recognize you,” said Inez Spooner. “You’re that Overtson fella, the one that busted the Running Board Bandit.”
    I looked up from the magazine. “Oveson.”
    â€œBegging your pardon?”
    I said it slowly. “O-vuh-son. No R , no T .”
    â€œOh yeah, Oveson,” she said. “I remember your face from the papers. Real crackerjack, the way you nabbed him. Serves him right, stickin’ up decent people.”
    â€œThat’s nice of you to say. Thank you.”
    â€œYou sounded keen on the radio,” she said. “It makes your voice lower.”
    â€œOh, that? That was an actor playing me.”
    Her face brightened for the first time. “Which actor?”
    â€œLyle Talbot.”
    Her eyes went saucer wide. “ The Lyle Talbot? From Fog Over Frisco ?”
    â€œThe same.”
    â€œGee, that’s swell! Did you get his autograph, by any chance?”
    I hesitated, as if about to make a grave confession. “I forgot.”
    â€œNow how on earth could you forget something like that?”
    Chief Cowley’s office doors opened at the right time. I dreaded the prospect of being interrogated over my failure to obtain Lyle Talbot’s autograph. An older woman with platinum curls, wire-rimmed spectacles, and a maroon collared crepe dress poked her head out and her eyes scanned the room, stopping at me.