Free Labyrinth (The Nameless Detective) by Bill Pronzini Page A

and grabbed up the .38 and shot him. Revenge motive.”
    Eberhardt lit his pipe. “I don’t like it much,” he said between draws.
    Neither did I, but I said, “It is possible.”
    “Possible, but damned unlikely. Donleavy and the Brisbane police searched the Carding property; they’d have found the .32 if it was there.”
    “Carding could have got rid of it after shooting the girl.”
    “Okay, I’ll give you that point. But what’s the motive? Why would a man hate his son’s girlfriend enough to want her dead?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe he was the unbalanced one, not Jerry. Maybe his wife dying sent him around the bend.”
    “He’d still need a motive, crazy or not.”
    “Well, what kind of guy was he? What were his attitudes, prejudices, things like that?”
    “We’re still checking and so is Donleavy. But he seems to’ve been a pretty average sort. Worked as a carpenter and construction laborer, built the Brisbane house himself fifteen years ago, got along well with his neighbors. Devoted to his wife and had a good relationship with Jerry, who’s an only child; Klein says he was grieving deeply over the wife’s death and worried about the kid’s disappearance. His only vice appears to’ve been booze. He’d been arrested once for drunk driving and once for public drunkenness, and he was about half-smashed last night—a borderline alcoholic.” Eberhardt shrugged and wreathed himself in a cloud of pipe smoke. “There’s nothing in any of that to support your theory.”
    “No,” I said.
    “It just won’t wash. It doesn’t explain why Jerry disappeared from Bodega Bay, or why he wouldn’t have surfaced between Sunday and today. And how could he have known his old man was the one who killed Christine? Clairvoyance?”
    “Okay, Eb, it was just an idea.”
    “You got any others you want to hash out?”
    “No. I don’t suppose the neighbors noticed anything today, before Talbot and I showed up?”
    “Uh-uh. Donleavy and the Brisbane cops drew a blank.”
    I finished my beer, thought about getting another one, and decided against it; my stomach already felt bloated and gaseous. For a time I watched Eberhardt pollute the room with more acrid pipe smoke. It had a heavy smell and it made my nostrils itch. Give me cigarette smoke any day, I thought—good old cigarette smoke. Finally I stood and went over and opened one of the bay windows a little, to let in some fresh cold air.
    “Still bothers you, huh?” Eberhardt said when I came back.
    “What?”
    “Not being able to smoke yourself.”
    “Sometimes. Not too much anymore.”
    “You’re a hell of a lot better off. I wish I could quit.”
    “You could if you had something growing on a lung.”
    He made a face. “Yeah,” he said.
    I stifled a belch and sat down again. “You think it’s possible that the two murders are unrelated?”
    “Anything’s possible.”
    “But you don’t think so.”
    “Hell no. Jerry Carding’s girlfriend and father both get shot to death within two days of each other, and the kid himself drops out of sight; there’s got to be a connection somewhere.” He paused and tapped the stem of his pipe against his teeth. “There’s already one connection we know about,” he said.
    “Meaning me.”
    “Right. Your business card is in the girl’s purse; you’re working for the sister of the guy who accidentally killed Carding’s wife; and you find Carding’s body.”
    “That is coincidence, Eb. At least as far as I know.”
    “Maybe. Maybe not. First you heard of Victor Carding and the Talbot/Nichols clan was yesterday morning?”
    I nodded. “After I left you at Lake Merced.”
    “Any special reason why the Nichols woman picked you out of all the other private eyes in the book?”
    “She didn’t tell me if there was.”
    “What did she have to say about Carding?”
    “Just that he’d threatened her brother’s life after the accident, and tried to attack him, and she was afraid he might come after