Suspects by Thomas Berger Page B

grief drained the supply of energy needed for misrepresentation. But it was also true that one of the worst times was when the emotion was being faked. It would take a while before they could decide about Howland.
    Howland took his hands off his dry face. Between shattering sobs, he proceeded to admit he had invented the story of going to L.A. for business or in fact for any other purpose. He had not been out of his home county since leaving 1143 the morning before. But the lie had been fabricated to delude his now dead wife, certainly not the police. The truth was that he and a lady friend had been at the Starry Night, one of those motels specializing in facilities for romantic trysts, the rooms of which featured hot tubs, water beds, erotic videos on closed-circuit TV, and bottles of pink champagne. Moody and LeBeau remembered the place as where, some years earlier, a transvestite was beaten to death by a man who picked him up at a bar. When the victim’s body was found next day, a faint growth of beard had pushed through the heavy makeup on his cheeks: whiskers take a while to learn the game is finished forever. The killer, a manual-arts teacher at the public high school, turned himself in by late afternoon. He said what enraged him was being taken by surprise, that he had nothing in general against the type.
    â€œI believe that,” Moody said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have sodomized the body after killing the individual, would you?”
    â€œWhat I figured,” the husky teacher said, “was I was out an awful lot of money, adding up the drinks, the expensive room, and what I gave this, uh, person, and I still hadn’t gotten what I went there for, so I had something coming.”
    Howland finally began actually to weep tears. He sat down or rather fell onto the sofa, where he continued to sob. “The cop wouldn’t tell me what happened. I kept asking to talk to Donna, but he wouldn’t put her on. I thought, well, maybe it’s a burglary or something.”
    â€œYou weren’t that worried,” LeBeau said coldly.
    â€œI’ll tell you what worried me,” cried Howland. “You don’t know Donna. If she knew I was with somebody else—look, maybe she’d rather be dead.” His eyes became wild. “You think I’m kidding?”
    â€œIs that why you killed her?”
    Howland’s expression immediately turned bland. It was a remarkably rapid transition, but Moody had seen its like on people who proved guiltless. Howland proceeded to loosen the knot of his necktie. Then he ripped his shirt at the top button—the cloth tore, the button remained. The shirt was probably ruined, as Moody did not fail to notice and, considering his own meager wardrobe, to deplore.
    â€œI know how it might sound at a time like this,” Howland said.
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to mean?” It was LeBeau.
    â€œSee, if this hadn’t happened, it would have been just sex. It looks so bad now because while I was—well, you know, in bed and so on with someone else.… But look”—his eyes flared wildly again—“I wouldn’t have been home in any case. I would have been calling on customers or doing paperwork in the office. I’m never home before past six.”
    â€œWho could have done a thing like this?” asked Moody.
    â€œNobody!” Howland shouted. “Everybody loved Donna.” He sank to the couch. “And my little girl.”
    Moody leaned toward Howland and said, “Take your best guess, Larry.”
    Howland was moaning softly into the hands over his face. After a moment his thick fingers parted to make a fence through the interstices of which he peeped at the carpet. “I could never get her to keep the door locked. Maybe the front door, okay, but never the back. It was just too much trouble when you were running in and out, she said. I should have insisted more, but I could never argue