Swan Dive

was setting himself when I heard Nurse Sheilah’s voice from inside call, ”Who is it, Dad?”
    He yelled to her but kept his attention on me. ”Just some salesman who’s gonna need new teeth.”
    I shifted my rear leg for balance and reached for my identification, saying, ”Your daughter knows me, Mr. Kelley. I’m a private investigator.”
    Sheilah came up behind him. Her eyes were bleary, her nose so red it looked windburned. She said, ”What do you want now?”
    Kelley wedged himself between her and me. ”You’re the guy the cops wanted. The one who killed Marsh and the hooker.”
    ”Mr. Kelley, I didn’t kill them. But I was involved, and I want to know why. Now we can stand here like this till the leaves turn, or we can talk quietly inside. Your choice.”
    Kelley wanted to try a punch, but his daughter slid her hand inside his free arm and then tightened her fingers over his bicep. ”Dad, it’d be easier if we just let him in for a while.”
    ”We got a lot of packing to do yet. I wanna be clear of here before the traffic starts.”
    ”C’mon.”
    ”I don’t wanna be sitting on four ninety-five all day.”
    ”Dad, please.”
    Kelley let go of the door and shook his daughter off as I came in and followed them down into the sunken living room. It looked disordered, but not as though somebody was packing. More like somebody had only half straightened things after a wild party.
    Kelley stayed standing, ready to brawl. Sheilah crumpled into a chair. ” Roy ’s dead. What can you possibly want with me now?”
    I sat too, in order to appear less confrontational. ”Ms. Kelley, I know you’ve been through a lot, and I haven’t made it any easier so far. But somebody mugged me, then used my gun in the killings, and I intend to find out who.”
    ”I don’t know anything about that.”
    ”Maybe if—”
    ”Sheilah said she don’t know anything. My daughter says that, it’s true.”
    ”Maybe your daughter’s a little scared.”
    Sheilah tensed, then tried to feign with a head shake. ”I don’t have anything to be scared of.”
    ”The room looks ransacked. Were you here when they did it?”
    ”She already told you, she don’t know anything. Why don’t you just—”
    ”Dad, please.” Sheilah raked her hair with her fingers. ”Look, Mr....”
    ”Cuddy, John Cuddy.”
    ”Mr. Cuddy, Roy was into some bad stuff, with very bad people out of Boston .”
    ”Sheil, for chrissake, you don’t have to be—”
    ”Dad, stop! Please?”
    Kelley glowered, folding his arms across his chest. ”Like I was saying, Roy was in with people. But I wasn’t. I never had any part of it, and Ï sure don’t want to be part of it now.”
    ”Like it or not, Ms. Kelley, you are part of it. Or at least they think you are. Did they get what they came for?”
    ”How the hell would she know that?”
    ”Dad!” She turned back to me. ”Mr. Cuddy, I don’t know. I got here a few hours ago, and it was all tom apart. I ran out right away and called my dad from a pay phone. He drove down, and we came back in. I tried to pull things together again, so she... Roy ’s wife wouldn’t think I’ve been trying to get away with something.”
    ”She’d better not, or I’ll—”
    ”Anyway, I can’t see that anything’s gone except the videotape things.”
    I looked around the room. The television and VCRs were still where I’d remembered seeing them. ”You mean from the bedroom?”
    ”No, no. Not the playback stuff. The camera Roy had. He was... crazy for the stuff. Camera case, tripod. All that’s gone.”
    It didn’t add up. A burglar should have taken all the portable, fenceable equipment. Even conceding a more particular searcher, why take the camera?
    Kelley rocked a little, heel to toe. ”Those all your questions?”
    ”No. Ms. Kelley, when was the last time you saw Roy ?”
    ”She already told all this to the cops.”
    ”I last, Jesus, I last saw him Sunday night, when I got home from work. We... went to sleep.”
    ”You didn’t see him yesterday morning?”
    ”No, I was still asleep. He was gone by the time I woke up.”
    ”What else did you do yesterday?”
    ”It was my day off, you know? I got up, drove some errands and so on. I went—”
    ”Lookit, she had dinner with me last night at home. In Tullbury, awright? She wasn’t anywhere near that hotel. She didn’t have anything to do with it.”
    ”Mr. Kelley, the cops said they called your daughter at this house.”
    ”I was just