Death Claims by Joseph Hansen Page B

friend." 
    "I'd thought of him the same way," Ingalls said. "But my wife was ill—had been ill for years. Until last spring my daughter lived here and helped me look after her. But when she married, I had most of it to do alone. It was a progressive circulatory ailment. Before it ended, it involved several amputations. Julia grew more and more dependent. I was less and less able to get away. I could hire women to help out, but not full-time. Professors aren't paid fortunes, you know, Mr. Brandstetter. And the operations, the hospitalizations were expensive. Ah, well"—he moved a hand impatiently—"you're not concerned with my personal woes." His eyes shifted for a gray second toward the front door, the porch. "And as you no doubt have guessed, they're ended now. I didn't call the rental people right away. Julia died ten days ago." He held up a quick hand, shut his eyes, shook his head. "No, no. Don't condole. It was inevitable. I was prepared, as prepared as one ever can be. In any case"—he drew a breath and let it out—"I simply wasn't able to get away to visit John Oats in the hospital." 
    "But you managed it when he phoned. Why?" 
    Ingalls frowned, smoothed a brushy gray eyebrow with a finger, eyeing Dave. "I don't quite understand this interview. Your position or mine. Am I being accused of something? Ought I to call an attorney?" 
    "I don't know why you'd think that," Dave said. "John Oats became addicted to morphine in the hospital and failed to break the habit. He had no money, but he was buying the drug. Illegally. Expensively. I wondered if he tried to borrow money from you." 
    Ingalls didn't answer right away, but the wariness went out of him. He relaxed. "Yes." His smile was sorrowful, but not a failed attempt this time. "That was what he wanted." 
    "Did he get it?" 
    "He said he needed five hundred dollars. I couldn't manage that. I went to the College bursar and drew a hundred in advance salary. I gave him that." 
    "Did he tell you what it was for?" 
    "I didn't ask," Ingalls said. 
    Dave got to his feet, smiled. "So April was wrong. He had a friend, after all." He turned away. There was a muffled twang from a spring in Ingall's chair. He went with Dave to the door, swung it open for him. On the porch, Dave asked, "How long had you known him?" 
    The light from the yard glanced green off Ingall's naked scalp. He wrinkled his forehead. "Years. 1957? Yes, that's right. I'd published some papers on Thomas Wolfe in scholarly journals. I got a letter from Oats and Norwood, from John. He had a manuscript in Wolfe's handwriting. Was I interested?" His smile at Dave was admonitory. "That, you see, explains why a reader in Los Collados began patronizing a bookshop a hundred miles up the coast in El Molino. Of course I went at once, very excited. When I saw the manuscript—notebooks, actually—I was even more excited. They were the missing eighteen thousand words of the journal Wolfe kept of his trip through the national parks in the West just before his death. Only about twelve thousand words had ever been found, but he'd told several people in letters that he had thirty to fifty thousand words written." 
    "You don't have to tell me the rest," Dave said. "I saw your book"—he jerked his head—"on the shelf in there. Handsome book. Must have earned you quite a reputation." 
    "It's the kind of thing a scholar prays will happen to him, but never believes can. You understand now that if I'd had five hundred dollars, I'd have given it to John. Gladly." 
    "I understand that," Dave said. 
    As he climbed the steep stairs to the street, a mockingbird in one of the shaggy pepper trees spilled song, spilled joy. His hand on the gate at the top, Dave glanced back down. Ingalls stood on the porch edge, peering up, but not at him. He was trying to locate the bird. He looked as if the sound gave him pain.

13
    T HE MEDALLION BUILDING on Wilshire was a sleek tower of glass and steel. On its tenth floor Dave used a