First was the Bensons, few houses down. Lot of metal and paneling, everything looked shiny and sharp. When I knocked, a middle-aged guy with thick coke bottle glasses squinted, let me in.
Clocks everywhere inside, wall clocks, cuckoo clocks, pocket watches, all of em on time. His wife came out, her glasses even thicker. They looked bug-eyed and curious, like aliens. She had some tweezers in her hand, and a little gear in those tweezers. They invited me to the dining room, just the cedar table and a few tall chairs and all the clocks on the walls. They sat on either side of me, got real close like Europeans do, blinked and squinted at me.
I asked em what they were doing last night. They said they were fixing clocks in the basement, watched the Tonight Show, then went to bed. Each other as their alibi was just as good as no alibi. They told me Mathilda was getting old. Every year, she got more paranoid about the competition. They talked to her, liked her, said they wouldn't do nothing to her.
I asked if they could drive me back to her place, and they told me they didn't have any licenses, cause they were both legally blind. I doubted they could walk more than a few feet without getting hurt. Couldn'ta been them. I left a card on the table cloth, told em they could contact me whenever. Both of them ran their hands over the table, trying to find the card, looking like they were giving the table a back rub.
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