"Did Buck approve of that?"
"I don't think so. I mean I know he didn't."
"I see. Ruthie, what took you down there this morning?"
"I went by the store yesterday afternoon and there was a closed sign on it. It worried me. After I got home I phoned White's Hotel. Herman Watkins was on the desk. He told me George was drinking. This morning I phoned the store and there was no answer. Then I tried the hotel. George wouldn't answer the room phone. He does that sometimes. I mean he used to do that. I have a key. So I drove down and went up to the room. The door wasn't even locked. I opened it and—I saw him."
"What were you planning to do?"
"Get him some coffee. Get him cleaned up. Give him a good talking to, I guess. As I've done before."
"Ruthie, you can stay or go, just as you please. Now then, I've got this other name here. Talbert Howard. You came along right after Ruthie. What were you doing there?"
I saw Ruth Stamm start to get up and then sit back down. "I wanted to talk to George. I saw that the store was closed, so I went to the hotel."
"What did you want to talk about?"
Prine answered for me. "We had this man in last week, Captain. We thought he was another one of those people Rose Fulton keeps sending down here. This man claims he's writing a book about men who died in the prison camp where Timmy Warden died. This man claims he was there, too. He's never written a book. He's unemployed, has no permanent address, and has a record of one conviction."