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WHEN OSCAR SAW ME ENTER his shop, he turned off the blowtorch and raised his mask so it rested on his head like an odd hat. “Mr. Farwell, I’m Margaretta Stilson. I know what Lila Beale did, and I want to help.”
“I already talked to Chief Neuencamp,” he said gruffly. “I don’t need anybody else sticking—”
“Oscar, the chief doesn’t know you moved Steve’s body. Yet.”
He turned away, his expression angry. “You don’t know nothing.”
“I know enough. That picture hanging up over there? You took that from Steve Deline’s corpse. You cut the photo in half to get him out.”
His forehead furrowed, and his voice fell to a mutter. “She’s my girl, not his.”
“Oscar, the man was murdered.”
“I didn’t kill anybody. That woman did it. I didn’t even know her name until the chief said it.”
“Lila Beale. You didn’t want to help her, but she forced you to.”
“She’s crazy!” He threw up his hands. “She came here and started telling me Deline deserved to die and I’d never get with Frannie until he did. She said she’d do it, but I had to give her an alibi. I told her I would never do nothing like that.” His chin set. “That’s it.”
“No, Oscar, that isn’t it. You thought that was the end of it, but Lila was more determined than you imagined.” He scowled at the ground but said nothing, so I went on. “You didn’t have a choice. She tricked you into doing what she wanted.”
“Yeah.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” His chin softened; in fact, it wobbled a little. “You aren’t a killer. She is.”
The assurance, delivered in my softest tone, broke the dam of his resistance. Slowly, the words came, each one stretched with emotion. “That night when I came out of the bar, my truck was parked in a different spot, way over in a dark corner. When I got up to it, Deline was sprawled out in the bed.”
“Dead?”
Oscar shuddered. “His head was all squashed in. One of my pipe wrenches was beside him, bloody and—” Finishing the description of that image was beyond him.
“She knew you’d have to dispose of the body if she left it there. I’ll bet she even told you what to do.”
He nodded. “She lined the bed with a tarp, so it was—” He paused as the image came back to him. “There wasn’t much mess in my truck. I drove downtown, found an alley with no lights, and dumped him on the ground. When I got home, I buried the tarp and the wrench out back.”
“Nobody saw anything?”
“There was a guy out on the street, but he left. I don’t think he knew I was down there.”
Not a guy, I thought. Barbara Ann. What would Oscar have done if she’d come into the alley to investigate?
“I can’t believe anyone would do what Lila did and expect you to go along with it. And I can’t believe you did it.”
He seemed to have trouble with that himself. “The night she was here, she said something I didn’t get at the time. She said, ‘What if somebody made it look like you did it? You’d have to protect yourself then, right?’ When I saw the dead body in my truck, I knew she killed him, but it was my pipe wrench laying there covered in blood. I guess she figured if she framed me, I’d do what she said.” He paused. “She needed an alibi. That’s all that mattered to her.”
“Did you consider telling the police what happened?”
Oscar’s smile showed how naïve he thought that question was. “How am I supposed to make them believe some woman I never saw before killed a guy I didn’t like and tried to blame me? They’d want to know who the woman was and why she would have killed him.”
“And you didn’t have a clue.”
He nodded. “They’d say I did it because he took Frannie away from me.”
“But you had an alibi for the time of the murder.”
Oscar shook his head as if I were being stubborn. “I didn’t know that then. He could have been dead ten minutes for all I knew.”
“You still should have told the truth.”
“Right.” He made his voice sound dorky. ‘Officers, I swear this 98-pound girl came to my house and tried to get me to help her kill this guy. I said no, so she did it herself and left the body in my pickup.’” He made a noise of disgust. “Sounds like somebody had a few too many boilermakers.”
“But you made it harder for them to prove Lila killed Deline.”
“Too late to do it different now.” A change in his tone put me on guard. “You know, you shouldn’t stick your nose in people’s business.” He picked up a wrench and held it loosely in one strong hand.
My heartbeat sped up as he took a step toward me. Had I been wrong about Oscar not being a killer? I put a hand in my right pocket, fumbling for the key fob. “I came here to help—”
“Keep your hands where I can see them.” I obeyed, and Oscar stepped forward and put a hand first in one pocket, taking my phone, and then the other, grabbing my keys. He stepped back, dropping them into the roomy pocket of his coveralls.
“I need you to get in there.” Turning, I saw a metal tool crib in the back corner of the shop. Its wide door stood open, but a padlock hung in the hasp, ready to secure it.
Shouldn’t Barbara and Faye be on their way by now? Glancing out the half-closed door, I saw only blackness.
Lacking other options, I backed into the small, windowless space cluttered with tools: some on shelves, some hung from pegboard hooks, some stuck into boxes and buckets in the corners.
The door closed, shutting out most of the light. Oscar’s hands shook as he took up the padlock, and he had to make several attempts before he got it in place. He was rattled. What would he do if he saw Barbara and Faye coming?
I tried to focus his attention on me. “You won’t get away, Oscar.”
“I don’t think you’re going to stop me.”
“But I’m not the only one who knows what you did.”
“But you’re the only one here, so I got time.” He peered out the doorway. “I won’t hurt you, or your dog neither.”
“My dog?” I wasn’t thinking straight, but I was still pretty sure he didn’t know about Styx.
“I can see it looking out the window of your car. He’ll be fine out there, and you’ll be okay until my dad gets here in the morning. By then I’ll be long gone.”
