"I don't want my judgment or the result of any investigation of mine questioned. We're the law and order here. I don't want amateur competition."
"Sometimes those fellas can help, Steve."
"I have yet to see the day."
"What did those Chicago people say? Did you get in touch?"
"No."
"Well, you phone them, Steve. Or teletype Chicago and let them handle it with the agency. Those fellows may want to send somebody else down."
"Why, for God's sake?" demanded Prine, losing control.
"Why, to look for Grassman!" Marion said mildly. "Missing, isn't he?"
I managed to walk out beside Ruth. She was cool, almost to the point of complete indifference. "Ruth, I want to be able to explain some time."
"I don't think it's worth bothering about, really."
The day had begun to clear and we stood in frail sunlight.
"I don't know why I should worry so much about your good opinion," I said, trying to strike a light note.
"If I were you, I wouldn't even think about it. I'm usually frank with people. Too frank, as you will remember. I expect others to be the same. I usually expect too much. I'm usually disappointed. I'm getting used to it."
I found myself becoming annoyed at her attitude. "It would be nice for you to get used to it. It would make it easier to be the only perfect person—surrounded by all the rest of us."
"What do you think you—"
"I think you sounded pretty stuffy. That's all. You make a lot of virtuous noise. And you condemn me without knowing the score."
"You don't seem exactly eager to tell me the score."
We stood glaring at each other. It suddenly tickled her sense of the ridiculous. I saw her struggle to keep from smiling. Just then a man came up to us. He was young, with a thin face and heavy horn-rimmed glasses.
"Hello, Allan," Ruth said. "Allan, this is Tal Howard, Allan Peary."
We shook hands and he said, "Ruthie, I just heard they're going to appoint me to straighten out George's estate. What there is left of it. Do you happen to know what happened to the household effects when he sold to Syler?"
"He sold everything, Allan."
Allan Peary shook his head. "I don't know where the money went. I've been in touch with the bank. There's only three accounts open. The lumberyard and the store and his personal account. And damn little money in any of them. You're about the only one of his old friends who saw much of him, Ruth. Where did it all go? He liquidated an awful lot of stuff in the past year. What the hell was he doing? Playing the market? Gambling? Women? Drugs?"
"He was drinking it up, I guess."
"Oh, sure," Allan said. "I know what Syler paid for the house. I know what he got when he sold the lease on Delaware Street. I know what he got for the cement trucks. If he didn't touch anything but Napoleon brandy at twenty-five bucks a bottle, he'd have to drink a thousand bucks a week worth to go through that money."
"Maybe it's in some other account, Allan."
"I doubt it." He looked at me uneasily and said, "I don't want to talk out of school, but he had a big tab at Stump's. He was behind on the room at the hotel. And I heard last week that Sid Forrester had a sixty-day exclusive listing on the lumberyard and had an interested customer lined up. That was the only thing George had left that was making any money."
"Maybe when you go over his accounts you can find what he wrote checks for, Allan."
"That isn't going to work, either. He wrote checks for cash and cashed them at the bank. Amounts ranging from five hundred to two thousand."
Ruth frowned. "He didn't seem worried about money."
"I've tried to talk to him a few times. He didn't seem worried about anything. He didn't seem to give a damn about anything. He almost seemed to be enjoying some big joke—on himself."
And right at that moment something became very clear to me. Something I should have seen before. I wondered why I had been so dense. Once you made the proper assumption, a lot of things fell into their proper place.
I realized they were still talking, but I was no longer listening to what they said. Then I realized that Ruth had spoken to me.
"I beg your pardon?"
"I said I have to be running along."
"Wait a minute. Please. Can we talk for a minute? You too, Mr. Peary." I saw that she was holding her shoulders as if she were chilled. The sun had gone under again and a raw April wind was blowing. "We could sit in my car a minute. I want to—make a guess as to what George was doing with the money."
They looked at me oddly. Peary shrugged and said, "Sure."
We crossed the street and got into my car, Ruth in the middle.
"It's just a guess. You know that Rose Fulton has never been satisfied with her husband's disappearance. Prine investigated and he's satisfied. George was out of town when Eloise ran off with Fulton. A neighbor saw Eloise carry a bag out to the car. Now suppose that Eloise wasn't running away permanently. Imagine that she was just going to stay the night with Fulton. She didn't want to stay at the house in case George should come home. And there were the neighbors to consider. She wouldn't want to go to a motel or hotel in the area. She was too well known. So she planned to go up to the lake with Fulton. She took just the things she'd need for overnight. Was it the time of year when there wouldn't be people up at the lake?"
"It was this time of year," Ruth said.
"Now suppose George came home and found she wasn't home. He started hunting for her. And went to the lake. Or imagine that for some reason, driving back from his trip out of town, he stopped at the lake and found them there together. What would he have done?"
"I see where this is heading," Ruth said. "It gives me a strange feeling. George loved Eloise and trusted her. I guess he was the only one who couldn't see what she was. If George walked in on the two of them, I think he would have gone temporarily insane. I think he would have killed them. He used to be a powerful man, Tal."
"So he killed them up there at the lake. He got rid of the bodies. He could have wired weights to the bodies and sunk them in the lake, but I'm more inclined to think he buried them. Maybe he buried them on his own land there. He was lucky in that she had been seen at the Inn with Fulton and she was seen leaving with Fulton. He had no way to know it would work out so well. He killed them in anger, and buried the bodies in panic. For a long time he was safe. He tried to go on as though nothing had happened. He played the part of the abandoned husband. And then somebody found the bodies. They didn't report it to the police. They went to George."
Peary said eagerly, "And put the bite on him. They demanded money and kept demanding money. He had to start selling things. When nearly everything was gone, he killed himself. He couldn't face exposure and trial and conviction. So we have to look for somebody who has gotten rich all of a sudden."
"Or somebody smart enough to just put it away and not attract attention by spending it," I said.
"He seemed so strange sometimes," Ruth said softly. "He said queer things I didn't understand. He was like—one of those bad movies where people laugh at the wrong places."
"It would be quite a thing to have on your mind," Peary said. "The more I think about it, the more logical it seems, Mr. Howard. I think you've hit it right on the head. The next step is to prove it. And that means looking for the bodies. I—I'd like to hear what Mrs. Fulton has to say, though. She's been annoying Prine by sending people here. I'd like to know why she's so convinced that she's willing to spend money."
"We could phone her," I said. "If you could get her address."
He got out of the car. "I think I can get it. I'll be back in a minute."
We placed the call from Peary's office. Peary talked to her from the inner office. Ruth and I listened on the extension, her ear close to mine.
The woman had a harsh voice. "How do you come into this?"
"I don't, really. Mr. George Warden committed suicide last night. It gives us a lead to what might have happened to your husband."
"He was killed and he was killed down there. Maybe that woman did it. I don't know. Now I hear that man Grassman is missing. I talked to him before he went down there. When are you people going to wake up down there? What kind of a place is that, anyhow?"
"What makes you think your husband is dead?"
"Henry was no damn good. He'd chase anything in a skirt. I knew it. That was the way he was. He'd always come crawling back. He even liked crawling, I think. This business with that Warden woman was more of the same. It wouldn't last any two years. He had fourteen hundred dollars in his personal checking account. That's all tied up. He's never drawn on it. He owed payments on the car. The finance company has never been able to find the car. We've got two kids in high school. I'll say this for him, he loved the kids. He couldn't go two years without seeing them. Not Henry. Personally, believe me, I'm convinced I'll never see him again and I don't care. But he had a couple of big insurance policies. I insisted on that to protect me and the kids. What protection have I got? The companies won't pay off. It has to be six years from the time he dropped off the face of the earth. Four more years I have to get along. What about college for the kids? I tell you, you people better wake up down there and find out what happened to Henry."
There was more, but she merely repeated herself. The conversation ended. I hung up and looked at Ruth. Her smile was wan and she shivered a little.
"That was pretty convincing, Tal," she said.
"Very."
Peary came into the outer office. He looked thoughtful. "Suppose I was the blackmailer. I find the bodies. I came across them by accident. Or maybe I was smart enough to look for them. Okay. What do I do? I make damn well certain that nobody else finds them and spoils the game. I want to do a better job of hiding them than George did. But I don't want to completely dispose of the bodies. I want them where they can be a threat. I want them where they can be dug up."
Ruth said, "That man Grassman. We saw him out at the lake, Tal and I did. And now he's disappeared. That could mean that he found the bodies."
"And found the blackmailer, too," Peary said.
I found myself remembering the odd conversation with George. When he had said he couldn't give me a job. And had offered me a gun out of stock. He had known I had come from Fitz. He had thought I was a friend of Fitz, cutting myself in on the take. It was obvious that Fitz was the blackmailer. I remembered the expensive look of the suit he was wearing when I had seen him at the Inn. He had come to Hillston with the idea of finding the money Timmy had hidden. He had stayed in the cabin out at the lake. He made a point of telling me that the money wasn't hidden out at the lake. He had looked there. And found something profitable and horrible.
But what was most convincing was Fitz telling me that he was certain Eloise hadn't taken the money with her. He must have appreciated his own joke. Eloise had never meant to leave permanently. She would have been a fool to leave as long as there was a chance of Timmy coming back. She knew about the money. Yet Timmy had been shrewd enough not to trust her with information about the hiding place.
I thought of that first conversation that must have taken place between Fitz and George after Fitz found the bodies.
"What should we do?" Ruth asked. "Should we talk to Captain Marion?"
At four-thirty that gray Wednesday I stood on the lake shore with Ruth and Allan Peary, Sergeant Brubaker and Lieutenant Prine. We were in front of the place that had belonged to George Warden before he had sold it. The narrow dock had been hauled out onto the shore for the winter and hadn't been replaced. The wind had died and the lake was like a gray steel plate. Voices had an odd resonance in the stillness. Captain Marion came out of the cabin with a husky young patrolman. The patrolman had changed to swimming trunks. He wore an aqualung with the face mask shoved up onto his forehead. He walked gingerly on the rough path in his bare feet. He looked serious, self-important, and chilled.
Captain Marion said, "Try to stay on this line right here. The water looks kind of murky. How's the light?"
The patrolman clicked the watertight flashlight on. "It looks bright enough."
Prine said in a low voice so Captain Marion couldn't overhear, "This is nonsense."
No one answered him. Brubaker moved away from us. I glanced down at Ruth's face. Her lips were compressed. She watched the patrolman wade out into the water. It shelved off abruptly. He thrashed and caught his balance, the water up to his chest. He adjusted the face mask, bit down on the mouthpiece. He glanced toward us, then moved forward and was gone, leaving a swirl of turbulence on the surface. The ripples spread out, died away.
Prine lit a cigarette, threw the match aside with a quick, impatient gesture. He had looked tall when I had seen him behind his desk. Standing beside me he was not tall at all. His trunk was very long, but his legs were short and heavy.
The long minutes passed. We made idle talk, but we kept our voices low. The pines on far hills looked black.
The man came abruptly to the surface about forty feet off shore. He swam to the shore and waded out of the water, dripping. He pushed the face mask up onto his forehead. He was shivering.
"Man, it's cold down there," he said.
We moved toward him. "Well?" Marion demanded.
"Here, sir." He handed Marion something. We looked at it as it lay on Marion's hand. It was the dash lighter out of an automobile, corroded and stained. "I came right up from where it is. It's in about fifty feet of water, half on its side. Gray Studebaker. Illinois plates. The number is CT5851. Empty. Rock bottom. It's on a pretty steep slope. I think it can be hauled out all right."
"That number checks out," Prine said in a reluctant voice. "Damn it, how can you figure a thing like that?"
"Steve," Marion said, "I guess maybe we goofed on this one. I guess maybe that Rose Fulton was right."
Ruth had gone back to town with Peary in his car. She had seemed subdued, thoughtful. As Peary had credited me with making the guess that led to the discovery of the car, I was in Marion's good graces. I had not told them the second installment of the guess—no longer a guess, actually—that Fitzmartin was the blackmailer.
The tow truck had arrived. It stood heading away from the water, brakes locked and wheels blocked. The taut cable stretched down into the water. At dusk they had turned on the big spotlights on the tow truck. About twenty people watched from a place just down the lake shore. Captain Marion had herded them down there out of the way. More men had come out from town. They had been searching the area, prodding into the soft earth with long steel rods.
The tired patrolman surfaced again and came to shore. "It ought to do it this time," he said. "I got the hook around the rear axle and fastened back on the cable." He stood in the light. He had scratched his arm on a rock. There was a sheen of water-diluted blood on his forearm.
"Try her again," Marion called.
The winch began to whine again. The cable tightened visibly. I watched the drum. The cable began to come in a few feet at a time. The progress was uneven. At last, like some surfacing sea monster, the gray back of the car emerged from the water. The car was resting on its wheels. It came backward out of the water, streaming. Bright metal showed where it had been dragged against rocks. The big truck moved forward until the car was entirely on dry land. Water ran out of the car, runneling back into the lake. There was a smell of dampness and weed.
"Get yourself dried off, Ben," Marion said quietly. "George, open up that back end with a pry bar."
The cold, weary underwater swimmer went up to the cabin. A stocky man in uniform opened the trunk expertly. The county police who had arrived moved closer. I could hear the spectators talking excitedly to each other. The floodlights illuminated the interior of the trunk compartment brightly. There was drenched luggage in there, sodden clothing. Water was still running out of the trunk.
Marion said, "Well, that's one place they ain't. Didn't expect them to be. Tight fit for two of them. But you can see how it was. Those shirts and socks. That stuff wouldn't jump out of the suitcase. He found them. After he killed them he just dumped their stuff in the back end, loose like. Then he aimed the car at the slope and started it up. It would be night and he wouldn't have the car lights on because that would attract attention. She got going pretty good. He knew it was deep right off here. Hitting the water probably slowed it a lot, but once on the bottom it would keep right on going down the underwater slope until it wedged in those rocks where Ben found it."
I could see a woman's red plastic purse in the back end. The red had stayed bright. It looked new enough to have been carried by Eloise yesterday. Captain Marion reached in and took it out. He unsnapped it and poured the water out of it. A corroded lipstick fell to the ground. Marion grunted as he bent over and picked it up. There was a wallet in the purse. He took it out and shook the water off it, and opened it. He studied the soaked cards.
"Mrs. Warden's, all right. Al, can you tow the car on into town all right?"
"Sure, Captain."
"Well, when you get there, spread all this stuff out in the back end of the garage where it'll get a chance to dry off." In ten minutes the car had been lashed securely and towed off. I heard the tow truck motor labor as it went up the hill toward the road.
"Captain," Prine said, "shall I have the men keep looking? It's getting too dark to do much good. They haven't had any luck."
"Might as well save it until morning. Tom, can you detail some of your boys to help out in the morning?"
"I can send a couple around."
The spectators had gone, most of them. A wiry little man came over to where we stood. The swimmer, back in uniform, had come down from the cabin. I could smell a strong reek of liquor on his breath. Somebody had evidently found a cold preventative for him.
Prine said to the elderly little man, "I told you people to stay back there."
"Don't you bark and show your teeth at me, boy. I want to talk to you fellows. Maybe you might learn something."
"Get off the—"
"Hold it, Steve," Captain Marion said in a mild voice. "What's your name?"
"Finister. Bert Finister. Looking for bodies, somebody said. That's what you're doing. You could listen to me. I live off back there, other side of the road. I do chores around here. Most of the camps. Everybody knows me. Carpentry work, plumbing, masonry. Put the docks in. Take 'em out in the fall. I know these camps."
"So you know the camps. If you were hunting for bodies, Finister, where would you look?"
"I'm getting to that. I know the camps. I know the people that come stay in them. Knew George and Timmy Warden and their pa. Knew that Eloise, too. Knew when Timmy used to come up and swim all the way across to see Ruthie Stamm. Showing off, I guess. Then last year there was a fellow named Fitzmartin up here. Guess he rented this place from George. First time it was ever rented, and now it's been sold, but that's beside the point. You know there's all this do-it-yourself stuff these days. Takes the bread out of a man's mouth. Takes honest work away from him. People do things theirself, they botch it all up. Me, I take it like an insult. That Fitzmartin, he was digging around. Didn't know what he was doing. I figured whatever he was doing it was something he could hire me to do. Then by God, he trucks in cement and he knocks together some forms, and I be damned if he doesn't cement the garage floor. Pretty fair job for an amateur. But it was taking bread out of my mouth, so I remember it. He put that floor in last May. If I was looking for any bodies I'd look under that floor because that Fitzmartin, he's a mean-acting man. I come around to help and he chases me clean off the place. Walks me all the way up to the road with my arm twist up behind me and calls me a trespasser. Nobody ever called me that before. Folks are friendly up here. That man he just didn't fit in at all. And I'm glad he wasn't the one who bought it. The folks who bought it, people from Redding, they seem nice. Got two little kids. I let them know when they want anything done, they get hold of Bert Finister."
We stood in the glow of car lights. Captain Marion looked at Prine. "Fitzmartin?"
"Runs the lumberyard for George. Shall I go get him?"
"We better look first, Steve."
"That cement floor fooled me. I went over it carefully. It hadn't been dug up and patched. It never occurred to me that the whole floor had been—"
"I saw a pickax in the shed," Captain Marion said. "Maybe you better swing it yourself, Steve. Maybe you need the workout."
"Yes, sir," said a subdued Lieutenant Prine.
They parked the cars so that the headlights made the inside of the garage as bright as a stage. Prine swung and grunted and sweated until Captain Marion decided the punishment was enough. Finister came back out of the darkness with another pick and a massive crowbar. The work began to go faster. A big slab was loosened. They pried it up, heaved it over out of the way, exposing black dirt. The men worked silently. For a long time it didn't appear that they would get anywhere. I was out in the darkness having a cigarette when I heard someone say sharply, "Hold it!"
I started toward the garage and then thought of what they might find and stopped where I was. The one called Ben came out into the night. He bent forward from the waist and gagged dryly. He stood up and coughed.
"Find them?" I asked.
"They found them. Prine says it's her. He remembers the color of her hair."
I rode back in with Captain Marion. Prine had gone on ahead to pick up Fitzmartin. Captain Marion felt talkative.
"It isn't going to be too easy with this Fitzmartin. What can we prove that will stand up? Blackmail? We'd have to have the money and George's testimony. Concealing the evidence of a crime? He can say George told him to put a cement floor in the garage. He can say he didn't have any idea what was under it. No, it isn't going to be as easy as Steve thinks it is. Sometimes Steve worries me. He gets so damn set in his mind. He isn't flexible enough."
"But you think it was Fitzmartin."
"It has to be. He milked George clean dry. George didn't have much choice, I guess. Pay up or be exposed. If he was exposed, my guess is he would have gotten life. A good defense attorney could have brought out some things about Eloise that wouldn't sound very pretty to a jury. George could have figured that when he ran out of money, Fitzmartin might—probably would—take off without saying a word. That would leave him free to walk around broke. Better than not walking around at all. What I can't figure is how Fitzmartin got it in his head to look for those bodies. He wasn't in this town when George killed the pair of them. I understand he was in prison camp with Timmy. But how would Timmy have any idea about a thing like that. There's some angles to this we won't know unless that Fitzmartin wants to talk."
I could sense the way his mind was turning. He glanced at me a couple of times.
"You gave us some help, Howard. I grant that. But I don't feel right about the way you fit in, either."
"What do you mean, Captain?"
"Aren't you just a little too damn convenient? You hit town and everything starts to pop open. Why is that?"
"Coincidence, I guess."
"You knew Timmy and you know Fitzmartin. Maybe before you came here you knew Fitzmartin was milking George. Maybe that's why you came here, Howard."
"I didn't know anything about it."
"I'm not through with you, son. Don't take yourself any notion to disappear. I want you where we can talk some more. You're just too damn convenient in this whole thing."
At that moment, about a mile from the Hillston city limits, a call came over the radio. Marion answered it. I could barely decipher Prine's Donald Duck voice over the small speaker.
"He's gone, Captain. Fitzmartin is gone. I've put out a description of him and his car. He was living in a shed at the rear of the lumberyard. All his personal stuff is gone. I felt the space heater. There was a little warmth left. He didn't leave too long ago. How about road blocks?"
"Damn it, Steve, I've told you before. Road blocks aren't worth a damn around here. There's too many roads. There just aren't enough men and vehicles in this area to close all those roads. That stove could have been turned off three hours ago. You'd have to have your blocks set up right now this minute on every road within a hundred miles at least."
"What do you suggest, sir?" Prine said more humbly.
"Wait and see if somebody picks him up."
Marion broke the connection. "Okay, Howard. You seem to know Fitzmartin pretty well. Where does he come from?"
"Originally from Texas, I think."
"What's his line of work?"
"I think he worked in oil fields."
"Ever say anything about his relatives?"
"He never talked very much."
"That's not much help, I guess. Where can we drop you off?"
"My car's parked across the street from Peary's office."
"Want to tell you that I appreciate you making a pretty good guess about this whole thing, Howard. I can't help telling you I wonder just how much of it was guessing. And I wonder why you came here. I'd like it if you'd play the cards face up."
I had thought him amiable, mild, ineffectual. Hour by hour I had revised my opinion. I had thought Prine was the dangerous one. Prine was the fool. Captain Marion was something else entirely.
"I'm not hiding anything, Captain."
"We've got George dead, and that Grassman missing, and we've got those two bodies, and now Fitzmartin on the run. It has to get tied together a little better before I feel right about it."
"I'm sorry I can't help you."
"I'm sorry you won't help, son. Good night."
They drove away. It was after ten and I was famished. In twelve hours I would be picking Antoinette up. With luck, in twenty-four hours I would be gone. Either with her or alone. I didn't know which it would be. Call it a form of monomania. I had thought about the money for too long. I had aimed toward it for too long. Tomorrow I would have it. Once I had it, maybe I could begin to think clearly again.
I found a place to eat. I was just finishing when Brubaker came in. He sat beside me at the counter and gloomily flipped the menu open. "A hell of a long day," he said.
"It has been."
"And not over yet. At least they're giving me time to eat. And then back on the job. Until God knows when. Nobody will get any sleep tonight."
"I thought Captain Marion said he'd just wait and hope Fitzmartin gets picked up."
"That's right. I mean about the girl."
I suddenly felt very cold. "What girl?"
"I thought you knew about that. The Stamm girl. Peary brought her back to town. He left her off at her car. They found her car parked on North Delaware. And nobody's seen her since. Her old man is fit to be tied. Everybody is running around in circles."
I couldn't finish the little bit of food that was left. I couldn't drink the rest of my coffee. It was as though my throat had closed. I wondered how soon they'd add two and two. Ruth had been subdued and thoughtful when she left the lake. She would remember that Fitzmartin had acted strangely. She was the sort of person to do her own investigating. She was the sort of person who would go and talk to Fitzmartin. She would have no way of knowing that he was a killer. She would underestimate his cleverness. It wouldn't take him long to learn that the car had been found, to learn that they were searching the area of the lake cabin. It was time to go. The string was running out. I could guess how it had happened with Grassman. Grassman, as a result of his quiet investigation, had made some sound guesses as to what had happened. He had paid a call on Fitzmartin. Maybe Grassman had wanted to cut himself in. Maybe he had made a search of the place where Fitzmartin lived while he was out. He could have found the large sum of money Fitz had extorted from George Warden. Fitz could have found him there and killed him, driven the body into town, and put it in my car.
From the violence of the blow that had killed Grassman, it could be assumed that it was an unpremeditated killing. In the moment he killed Grassman, Fitz became more deeply involved. He waited, expecting me to be jailed for the Grassman murder. When I wasn't, he would know that I had successfully gotten rid of the body. No one had spotted it in my car. Thus, when it was found, it could as readily be traced back to him as to me.
Assuming he could be questioned about Grassman, then George became the weak link. George, by talking, could disclose Fitz's motive for the Grassman murder. And so George had to die. Fitz had killed him boldly, taking his risk and getting away with it. Prine had been right about the towel.
Just when he thinks everything has been taken care of, Ruth Stamm arrives. He can't leave without her immediately spreading the alarm. He needs a grace period, time enough to get far away before someone else makes the same guess she has made. That left him with a choice. He could tie her up and leave her there. But that would be too clear an admission of guilt. He could take her with him. That would be awkward and risky. Or he could kill her. One more death wouldn't make any difference in the final penalty.
"You're doing a lot of sweating," Brubaker said. "It isn't that hot in here."
I managed a feeble smile. I said I would see him around. I paid and left. It was too easy to visualize her dead, with raw new lumber stacked over her body, her dark red hair against the damp ground in the coolness of the night. What shocked me was the stunning sense of loss. It taught me that I had underestimated what she meant to me. I could not understand how she had come to mean so much, in so short a time. More than Charlotte had ever meant.
I went directly to police headquarters. I demanded to see Captain Marion. After fifteen minutes they let me see him.
I told him that I thought Ruth's disappearance had something to do with Fitzmartin. He looked older and tireder. He nodded without surprise.
He said, "She knew George pretty well. Maybe she remembered something George said about Fitzmartin. So she tried to check it out herself. Maybe he'd think she was the only one who'd guess. I've thought of that, Howard. I don't like it. I've got a crew out there searching the yard. I thought of something else, too. Maybe Grassman guessed. Maybe that's why something happened to him. Thanks for coming in, Howard. I added it up about a half hour ago. I don't like the total."
"Can I help in any way?"
"You look like hell. You better try to get some sleep."
"I don't think I'll be able to sleep."
I drove back out to the motel. It no longer seemed important about meeting Antoinette in the morning. It didn't matter any more. I had come here to Hillston to find treasure. I had thought I would find it buried in the ground. I had found it walking around, with dark red hair, with gray eyes, with a look of pride. And I hadn't recognized it. I had acted like a fool. I had tried to play the role of thief. But it didn't fit. It never would fit. The money meant nothing. Ruth meant everything. I had had a chance and I had lost it. They don't give you two chances.
I parked in front of my motel room. The office was dark, theNo Vacancysign lighted. Cars sat in the light of an uneasy moon, and the travelers slept.
I unlocked the door with my key and stepped inside, reaching for the light switch. Something came out of the darkness and slammed against my jaw. Pain blossomed red behind my eyes, a skyrocket roaring was in my ears and I felt myself fall into nothingness.
I came to in a brightly lighted place. I opened my eyes and saw nothing but the white glare and closed them quickly. The white glare hurt. My hands were behind me, fastened there somehow. I was in an awkward position. Something soft filled my mouth, holding it open.
I opened my eyes again, squinting. I saw that I was in the small tile bathroom of the motel. The door was closed. I lay on my side on the floor. Earl Fitzmartin sat on the side of the tub. He wore khakis. He looked at me with those eyes like smoke. His pale colorless hair was tousled. I could sense at once that he had gone beyond the vague borderline of sanity. It was like being in a cage with an animal.
He stood up, closed the lid on the toilet, bent over me, picked me up with disconcerting ease, and sat me on the closed lid, holding me for a moment until he was certain I wouldn't topple over. He sat on the rim of the tub again, facing me.
"We aren't going to talk over a whisper, Tal. We aren't going to make any sudden noises. If we make any sudden noises I'm going to snap your neck with my hands. It wouldn't be hard to do. Nod your head if you're going to be quiet."
I nodded. He took a knife out of his pocket, opened the blade, and leaned toward me. He put the cold steel against my cheek, holding it there, smiling in an odd way, then yanked it toward him, cutting the strip of sheeting that held the dry washcloth in my mouth. I pushed the washcloth out with my tongue and it fell to the floor at my feet.
"Where's Ruth?"
"That was just a little bit too loud. Not much too loud. Just a little bit. So soften it up, Tal. Ruth is all right."
"Thank God."
"Not God. Me. I had the idea, not God. She was on the ground. On her face. Out like a light. I took hold of that wonderful hair in my left hand and I pulled her head up. I held this little knife against her throat. It's sharp enough to shave with. I was about to pull it through her throat when I suddenly began to wonder if she might be worth something. So I didn't do it. She's all right. Don't thank God. Thank Earl Fitzmartin. She isn't comfortable. She isn't happy. But she's still alive, Tal."
"Where is she?"
"Not over a half mile from here. But you don't know what direction. It's across country. I was trained to fight at night. I move well at night, Tal. I'm good at night. You know how I used to get around the camp. You remember that. She's well tied, Tal. She can't even wiggle. She can't make a sound. You're really worried about her, aren't you? She came to the yard. For a little heart-to-heart talk. Did they find the bodies, Tal?"
"They tore up the garage floor."
"Now they can ask George all about it. But George won't have a word to say. George isn't talking. George didn't have much more left. Just a little equity in the lumberyard. A little stock in the store. Not enough left to stay around for. He was good for forty-seven thousand, seven hundred dollars. It should have been more. He didn't have to give up. He could have gotten on the ball and started making more. He could have tried to fatten up the kitty. But he was selfish. He would have lived longer."
"You killed him."
"That was a shade too loud, Tal. Just a bit too loud. How are you coming with Cindy, Tal. Find her?"
"You took an awful chance killing George."
He smiled again. "You won't believe this, but I didn't kill him. He started to come to while I was stripping him, but I poured more liquor into him. I read that people drown themselves and shoot themselves and cut their wrists naked. Did you know that? Very interesting. I got him propped on the side of the bed. I got the muzzle with the towel around it between his teeth. The gun was about the only thing holding him up. I wanted the angle to be right and I wanted to do it when there was a lot of noise on the floor. But I wanted to do it, Tal. You know, you plan a thing, and work it out just right, you want to do it. But he opened his eyes. He looked right at me. He looked ridiculous, with the gun in his mouth. He looked right at me and put his big toe against the trigger before I could stop him. I don't know if it was an accident. What do you think?"
"I think he did it on purpose."
"So do I. So do I. It makes me feel a little strange. He maybe did it like a joke. He did that well. He didn't do much else well. He didn't do well marrying that woman or burying her, either. I thought I'd hit the sixty thousand when I dug under the pines. But it turned out to be the woman and the salesman. It disappointed me, Tal. But it turned out to be just like finding money, didn't it?"
"They're all after you now."
"Do you think that worries me? Now hear this. It doesn't worry me a bit. Maybe you ought to be worried. Where is Grassman? I didn't think you could get out of that. You surprised me a little, Tal. I thought it would give you the jumps. What did you do with it?"
"I hid the body in a barn, an abandoned barn."
"And I bet you did some sweating. Grassman was smart. He was in my league, Tal. Not yours. He added things up. He was a pro. He added things, up and came after the money. He knew I had to have it around somewhere. He knew I was too smart to spend it. I caught him looking for it. We had a little talk. He got rough. I got mad and hit him too hard. That made it awkward. I put him in the back end of my car. I didn't know where to dump him. I was thinking of an alley, so they'd think he'd been mugged. But I found your car by accident. It saved me a lot of time. After I killed Grassman, I knew I had to get George out of the way. He was the only one who could tie me to Grassman. It took some planning, and some luck. I won't have time to work on the Cindy angle. How are you coming?"
I could see the shape of it. George could tie him to Grassman and George was dead. I could tie him to both of them. It was only through his greed that I could buy time, buy my life. "I found her."
He waited ten seconds. He said, "A hundred and seven thousand sounds better than forty-seven. I think I better have that much before I take off, Tal."
"They're going to get you."
"I don't think so. I don't figure it that way. They might have got me if I'd cut her throat. I wanted to. But I didn't let myself. They would have hunted me too hard. Now you can trade information for her, Tal. If she doesn't mean anything to you, too bad. I can kill you right here and go and kill her and be on my way and be careful and take my chances. I couldn't leave you here telling them about George and Grassman and then finding my sixty thousand. I'd rather nobody found it."
"Somebody is going to find it, anyway. The girl is going to find it. She knows where it is."
"Where is it, Tal?"
"She wouldn't tell me. I told her too much. I couldn't find out any other way. She's—more in your league, Fitz. I'm picking her up tomorrow morning in Redding. At ten o'clock. She's going to go with me to where the money is hidden."
He smiled in that wild, unpleasant way. "You're kidding the troops, boy. You're stalling. I scared you and you're making things up. You're just smart enough to know that if you are going to get it tomorrow, and yet you don't know where it is, I've got to leave you alive. You're that smart, and that's why you made it up."
"It's the truth."
"I don't think it's the truth at all. I think maybe you haven't gotten any place. I think I've stalled around here too long. I think I'd like to hear your neck snap. I can do it so quick you'll hardly know it happened. Maybe you won't know it at all."
"Wait a minute. Look in the closet in the bedroom. Her luggage is there."
For the first time he looked uncertain. He turned out the bathroom light and went into the next room. He came back with the two suitcases. He shut the door, turned the light on again. He opened them and looked at the clothing.
"This is pretty good stuff. This belongs to her? What's it doing here?"
"We were going to get the money and go off together."
I could see him appraise that, and half accept it. "But I don't like the idea of letting you go and get it. I can't keep an eye on you."
"Fitz, listen to me. I don't give a damn about the money. You can have every cent of it after I get it. I'll trade all of it for Ruth Stamm. Then see how it will be. You'll have the hundred and seven thousand. They think George was a suicide. Maybe they'll never find Grassman. I covered the body with hay. The barn is about to fall down. Nobody ever goes in there. They won't look as hard for you. You'll be a lot safer."
"You're lying. This is a stall."
"It's not. I'll prove we were going to go away together when we got the money. Look for the small black box in the bottom of the smaller suitcase. Under all the clothes. Yes, that's it. Look under the partition."
He took the money out. He riffled through it. He folded it once and put it in his shirt pocket. He looked at me for long moments, his eyes dubious.
I do not like to think about the next half hour. He put the gag back in my mouth. He had his strong hands, and he had the small sharp knife, and he had a sadistic knowledge of the nerve ends. From time to time he would stop and wait until I quieted down, then loosen the gag and question me. The pain and humiliation made me weep like a child. Once I fainted. Finally he was satisfied. He had learned how much I thought of Ruth. He had learned that I knew that we had to go where the money was hidden by boat. He knew that I had guessed we would start from the Rasi house north of town. And he knew that I knew no more than that.
After that he cut my hands loose. He was perfectly safe in so doing. I was too enfeebled by pain to be any threat to him.
"You'll get the money. You'll dig it up. You'll come back here with it."
"No."
He took a quick half step toward me. I couldn't help flinching. Memory of what he could do was too clear.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I don't trust you to do what you promise, Fitz. I've got to know Ruth will be all right. I've got to know she'll be safe. Or you don't get the money."
"I broke you this far. You want to be broken the rest of the way?"
"I don't think you can do it."
After a long time he gave a shrug of disgust. "Maybe not. How do you want it worked?"
"I want to see her. I want to see that she's alive before I give you the money. It could be by the river. Then if you try to cross me, I'll throw the money in the river. I swear I'll do that."
"You would, wouldn't you? You're making it rough. I can't risk being seen."
"I'll see that we start off by boat at one o'clock. I don't know how far we have to go or how long it will take. You could bring her to the Rasi house at two."
"It's a risk."
"It's isolated. There's no phone there. At least I don't think they have a phone. I'll give you the money and I'll see that you get a fair start. That's the most I can do. I won't try to make it any safer for you."
"But you promise a fair start?"
"I promise that."
He snapped out the bathroom light. I heard the door open, and then heard the outer door open and close. I walked unsteadily through the dark room to the front door. I opened it. The moon was gone. A wind sighed across the flats on the far side of the road. There was no sign that Fitzmartin had ever been there. The night was still. He was very good in the night. I remembered that.
There was a first-aid kit in the trunk compartment of my car. I got it. The small cuts had not bled very much. I cleaned myself up and bandaged the cuts. I ached all over. I felt sick and weak, as though I were recovering from a long illness. I kept seeing his eyes. His powerful hands had punished nerves and muscles. Even my bones felt bruised and tender.
I went to bed. I was certain that Ruth was still alive. I hoped his greed would be stronger than his wish to kill. I hoped his greed would last through the night. But there was something erratic about his thought patterns. There was an incoherency about the way he had talked, jumping from one subject to the next. He had a vast confidence in his own powers.
I wondered where he had Ruth. A half mile away. Across country. Maybe she was in his car, and it was parked well off a secondary road. Maybe he had found a deserted shed.
As I lay awake, trying to find some position in which I could be comfortable, I heard it begin to rain. The rain was light at first, a mere whisper of rain. And then it began to come down. It thundered on the roof. It made a drench of the world, bouncing off the painted metal of the cars, coming down as though all the gates of the skies had been opened.
I awoke at dawn. It was still raining. It seemed to be raining harder than before. I was surprised that I had been able to go to sleep. I took a hot shower to work the stiffness out of my muscles. The small cuts stung. My face in the mirror looked like the face of a stranger, with sunken eyes and flat, taut cheeks.
I prayed that Ruth was still alive. I prayed that she had lived through the night. I knew what would have happened the previous night had I not found Cindy. I would be lying dead on the tile floor. They would find me there.
I shaved and dressed and left the motel. I got uncomfortably wet in the ten feet from the motel door to the car door. I drove slowly into town, the lights on, peering ahead through the heavy rain curtain. I drove through town and found a gas station open on the far side. I had the car gassed up. Farther along I found an all-night bean wagon. A disc jockey in Redding was giving the seven-o'clock news. The plastic radio was behind the counter.
"... as yet on the disappearance of Ruth Stamm, only daughter of Doctor Buxton Stamm of Hillston. It is believed that the young woman was abducted by a man named Earl Fitzmartin, Marine veteran and ex-prisoner of war. Fitzmartin had been employed for the past year by George Warden, Hillston businessman. Fitzmartin was a newcomer to Hillston. George Warden committed suicide this week. But certain peculiarities about the circumstances of Warden's suicide have led Hillston police to believe that it may have been murder. Yesterday the Hillston police, assisted by Gordon County police officers, searched a summer cottage once owned by George Warden and found, under a cement garage floor, the bodies of Eloise Warden, wife of George Warden, and Henry Fulton, of Chicago. At the time of the Warden woman's disappearance two years ago, it was believed she had run off with Fulton. Discovery of the bodies and of the Fulton car, which had been driven into the lake into deep water, has led police to believe that George Warden killed both of them after finding them together at the summer cottage.
"An intensive search is being made for Fitzmartin and Miss Stamm. Full details of the case have not yet been released, but it is believed that there is some connection between Fitzmartin and the bodies discovered yesterday at the summer cottage. It is expected that federal authorities will be called in on the case today. Miss Ruth Stamm is twenty-six years old, five feet eight inches tall, and weighs about a hundred and twenty-eight pounds. She has dark red hair and gray eyes and was last seen wearing a dark green skirt and a white cardigan sweater. Fitzmartin is about thirty years old, six feet tall, weighs about a hundred and eighty pounds. He has very blond, almost white hair, pale gray eyes. He may be driving a black Ford, license BB67063. Anyone seeing persons of this description should contact the police at once. Listen again at eight o'clock to WRED for complete local news."
The disc jockey stopped and whistled softly. "How about that, folks? They give me this stuff to read and sometimes I read it and don't even listen. But that's a hot one. That one can grab you. Bodies under concrete. Cars in lakes. Suicides that aren't suicides. A red-headed gal and an ex-Marine. Man, that's a crazy mixed-up deal they've got down there in Hillston. That's got all the makings of a national type crime. Well, back to the mines. Got to spin some of this stuff. But before I do, let me tell you a little something you ought to know, you good folks out there, about the Atlas Laundry and Dry Cleaning people right here in Redding, over on Downey Street. If you've got clothes you're really proud of, and I guess we all got one set of those good threads at least, then you—"
The fat young girl behind the counter turned off the radio. "That character," she said amiably to me. "Ten minutes of commercials between every number. Drive you nuts. I just turn him on for the news. If you want, I can turn him back on or find something else."
"No thanks."
"How about that Stamm girl? I met her once. We had this dog, see. Got him when he was a puppy. But this highway, it's bad to try to have a dog when you live on the highway. He got himself hit and we took him to Stamm's. The girl was real nice. Pretty sort of girl. But Blackie was too far gone. Busted his back, so they had to give him a shot. Honest, I cried. And you know what I think? I think it's a big deal for those two. I think she maybe ran off with that Marine. You can figure she wasn't getting any younger. She'll hear about all the mess she's causing and she'll get in touch. That's just what will happen."
"Could be," I said.
"Of course it could be. You want more coffee, maybe? Sometimes I think I'd run off with anybody asked me just to get out of this rat race. That's on my bad days. Isn't this day a stinker, though? It keeps coming down like this, every creek in the county will be flooded. It gives me the creeps to think about those two buried under a garage floor all that time. I never knew her, but my sister knew her. She was in the high school with her, before my time. My sister says she did a lot of running around. The way I see it, mister, if a husband catches his wife and another man, he's got a right to kill the two of them. It's like what they say the unwritten law. When I get married, I'm not going to do any cheating. I guess it isn't so bad if a man does a little cheating. They're all alike, beg your pardon. But no woman with a home and husband and everything has any right to jump the fence. Don't you think so? He made his big mistake burying the two of them like he did. He should have just got on the phone and said to the police, 'You boys come out here and see what I did and why.' Then it would have been just what they say formalities. The way I look at it—"
I was saved by two truck drivers who came in from the big red combo that had just parked in front of the place. After she served them she came back, but I had finished.
As she gave me my change she said, "You remember what I told you, now. That girl and that Marine ran off some place. Drive carefully."
I drove on through the rain. The cars I met were proceeding with great care. It should have been full daylight, but it hadn't gotten appreciably lighter since first dawn. It was almost nine o'clock before I got to Redding. I parked near a drugstore and phoned her number from a booth in the back of the store.
She answered the phone at once. "Hello?"
"This is Tal."
"I'm sorry. I'm afraid you have the wrong number."
"I'll be there at ten like you said."
"That's perfectly all right." She hung up. Her last comment had been the tip-off. Somebody was there with her. She had answered as though I had apologized. I wondered if it would be all set for ten. I wondered if I dared try again. I went to the drugstore counter and had coffee. The counter was emptying rapidly as people went to work. I bought a Redding paper. The discovery of the bodies had been given a big play. The article filled in a little more background than the radio item, but essentially it was the same.
At nine-thirty I tried again. She answered on the second ring. "Hello?"
"This is Tal again."
"Yes?"
"Is this deal off or on. What goes on? Should I be there at ten?"
"This coming Saturday? No, I'm very sorry. I have a date."
"I'm at a pay phone. The number is 4-6040. I'll wait right here until you can call me back."
"No, I'm so sorry. Maybe some other time. Give me a ring."
"Phone as soon as you can."
"Thank you. Good-by."
I took a booth near the phone booths. I went and got my paper and ordered more coffee. I waited. Two people used the booth. At five minutes to ten the call came.
"Hello?"
"Is that you, Tal? I couldn't talk before. I'm glad you phoned. Make it ten-fifteen. What does your watch say?"
"Exactly four minutes of."
"Don't park out back. Park a block away. Start up at exactly ten-fifteen and go slow. When you see me coming, unlatch the door. Don't waste time getting away from there."
I began to be more nervous. I had no way of knowing what she was mixed up in. I knew her playmates would be hard people. I didn't know how closely they would be watching her.
The rain had begun to let up a little. I parked a block away from her apartment house. I could see it. I kept the motor running. I kept an eye on my watch. At exactly ten fifteen I started up. I drove slowly. I saw a man in a trench coat across the street from the apartment house, leaning against a phone pole.
As I drew even with the apartment house, slowing down, she came running. I swung the door open. I didn't stop. She piled into the car. She wore a dark coat, a black hat with a veil, and carried a brown case like a dispatch case.
"Hurry!" she ordered. Her voice was shrill, frightened.
I speeded up. She was looking back. I heard a hoarse shout.
"Keep going!" she ordered. "He's running for his car. It's headed the wrong way. They posted a man out in back. I didn't know it until yesterday afternoon."
A light ahead turned red. There was cross traffic. I ran the light. Tires yelped and horns blatted with indignation. I barely made the next light. She kept watching back over her shoulder. It took fifteen minutes to get to the southbound highway, the road to Hillston.
Once we were out on the highway and I was able to open it up a little, she turned around. I glanced at her. Her left eye was badly puffed and discolored. Her left cheek was bruised. I remembered the story of the small girl who had stayed home from school because her brother had blacked her eye.
"What happened to your face?"
"I got bounced around a little. People got annoyed at me."
"What the hell have you been mixed up in?"
"Don't worry about it."
"I'd like to know how much chance I was taking."
"You weren't taking it. I was taking it. They didn't want me to leave. Anybody leaves they get the idea there's a subpoena in the background. And a committee and an investigation. They were careless. I learned too much. So they had a problem. Do they kill me or watch me. They watched me. I'm stupid, I guess. I was having a big time. I thought I could pull out any time. I didn't know they played so rough. If I'd guessed it could be that rough, I wouldn't have gotten that far in."
"You can't go back, then."
"I can't ever go back. Don't make jokes. Just drive as fast as you can."
She had changed in the short time since I'd seen her. There had been a lot of arrogance about her. Confidence and arrogance, and a flavor of enjoyment. That was gone. She was bitter and half-frightened and sullen.
I drove. The rain finally stopped. The sky had a yellow look. Tires made a wet sound on the road. The ditches were full. We went through a village. Children romped in the schoolyard under the yellow sky.
I did not like what I was going to have to do to her. She had given me a certain measure of trust. She had no way of knowing that the stakes had changed. She could not know I was willing to betray her—that I had to betray her. I knew I could not risk taking her to the motel. She would want her luggage first of all. She would want to check on the money. It was gone. She would want an explanation. And there was no explanation I could give her.
I would betray her, but it was the money balanced against Ruth's life. It seemed fantastic that I could have seriously considered going away with this woman who sat so silently beside me, fists clenched nervously against the dark fabric of her skirt. It seemed fantastic that I could have gotten wound up in the whole thing. Charlotte was several lifetimes in the past. When I had come home I had felt half alive. Now I was entirely alive. I knew what I wanted, and why, and knew that I would go to any lengths to get what I wanted.
"Are you serious in thinking they would kill you?" I asked.
She laughed. A single short, flat sound. "I know where the body is buried. Ever hear that expression? It was a party I didn't want to go on in the first place. I knew it would be a brawl. It was. A man got himself killed. He got too excited. Not a bad guy. Young guy. Rich family. Got a big whomp out of running around with the rougher element. You know. Liked to know people by their first name, the ones who had been in jail. Liked to be able to get his parking tickets fixed. He got suddenly taken dead. Sort of an accident. A very important fellow shot him in the head. I was the only outsider. I know where they put him. The family has spent a fortune in the last five years, looking for their kid. They're still looking. It could be very bad. It was very bad at the time. I'd never seen anything like that before."
"They would kill you?"
"If they think I'll talk. If they were sure of it and had a chance. There wouldn't be much heat over me. Not over this pair of round heels. The kid they killed is real heat. The man with the gun was drunk. I was with the man with the gun. The kid thought he was too drunk to know or care. He had his arms around me when he was shot in the head. When the bullet hit his head, he grabbed onto me so hard I couldn't breathe for a week without it hurting. Then he let go and fell down and tried to get up and went down for good. It was at a farm. They put him in an old cistern and filled it with big rocks. They had his car repainted and sold through channels. If nothing happens in six months or so, they'll stop worrying about me, and maybe they'll stop looking. But I know what I'm going to do. Blond dye job. Maybe glasses. I'll feel better if I don't look like myself."
I was wondering how I could keep her away from the motel and still stall long enough to get to the Rasi place at one.
She helped out by saying, suddenly, "What's been going on down in Hillston, anyhow? Eloise and her boy friend under the cement. That Stamm girl missing. George knocking himself off. Sounds like it has been pretty wild down there."
"I want to talk to you about that."
I sensed a new wariness about her. "Just what do you mean?"
"I'm new in town. There's been a lot going on. I haven't had anything to do with it. I mean I've been in on it as a bystander, but that's all. But the police like to keep busy. I think it would be better if we didn't go on back through town to the motel. I think it would be better if we went after the money first."
"You could be picked up?"
"I might be."
"But what for? I don't like this. If they pick you up they pick me up. And word would get back to Redding too damn fast."
"I'm sorry, but that's the way it is."
"I don't like it."
"I can't help that. I think we ought to go after the money. When we get it, we can circle around town and get to the motel from the south. Then we can pick up our luggage and be on our way."
"Then that means spending too much time in the area with the money on us. Why don't we circle around and get the baggage first? Then when we get the money, we're on our way."
"They know where I'm staying. Suppose they're waiting there to pick us up."
"Damn it, how did you manage to mess this up, Tal Howard?"
"I didn't mess it up. It isn't a big city. I'm a stranger. They're after a man named Fitzmartin."
"I remember that name. You said he knows about the money, too."
"He doesn't know where it is. You're the only one who knows where it is."
"Why are they after him? On account of the girl? They think he took her?"
"And they think he was blackmailing George because he found out about Eloise and her boy friend being dead. And they think he killed George, and maybe a private detective named Grassman."
"Busy little man, isn't he?"
"That puts me in the picture because the three of us, Fitz, Timmy, and I, were in the same prison camp."
"I knew this was going to be a mess. I knew it."
"Don't be such a pessimist."
"Why the hell didn't you bring all the stuff along right in the car? Why didn't you check out?"
"If I checked out, they'd be looking already."
"I suppose so. But you could have brought my stuff, anyway."
"I didn't think of that."
"You don't seem to think of much of anything, do you?"
"Don't get nasty. It isn't going to help."
"Everything gets messed up. I was all right. Now I'm out on a limb. I should be laughing?"
"I think we ought to get the money first."
"I can't go like this. I don't want to ruin these clothes."
"Ruin your clothes? Where are we going?"
"Never mind that."
"You haven't got anything but good clothes in—" I stopped too suddenly.
"So you had to poke around," she said, vibrating with anger. "Did you have a good time? Did you like what you saw?"
"It's nice stuff."
"I know it's nice. Sometimes it wasn't so nice earning it, but I know it's nice. I have good taste. Did you count the money? Attractive color, don't you think? Green."
"I counted it."
"It better all be there. And the jewelry better all be there. Every damn stone. The jewelry more than the money. A lot of people thought it was junk jewelry. It isn't. It's worth three or four times the money."
"It's all there. It's safe."
"It better be. I can't go in these clothes. We'll have to go somewhere where I can pick up some jeans. I thought I could buy them in Hillston. Now you can't go into Hillston. So where do we go?"
"You know the area better than I do."
"Let me think a minute."
She told me where to turn. We made a left, heading east, twenty miles north of Hillston. It was a narrow, busy road. Ten miles from the turn was the town of Westonville, a small, grubby town with a narrow main street. I circled a block until I found an empty meter. I watched her walk away from the car. Men turned to look at her. Men would always turn to look at that walk. I went into a drugstore and came back with cigarettes. She was back in about ten minutes with a brown parcel.
"All right," she said. "Let's go. I've got what I need."
We headed back toward the Redding road. She said, "Find a place where you can get off the road. I want to change into this stuff. How about ahead there, on the left, that little road."
I turned up the little road she pointed out. We passed two dreary farmhouses. The road entered a patch of woods. I turned onto an old lumber road. The clay was greasy under the wheels. After we went around a bend, I stopped.
She opened the door on her side and got out. She bent over the seat and undid the parcel. She took out a pair of burnt-orange slacks, some cheap sneakers, and a wooly yellow sweat shirt. She took the black suit jacket off and folded it and put it on the back seat. The odd light of the yellow sky came down through the trees. The leaves dripped. She undid her skirt at the side and stepped out of it carefully. There was no coyness about her, not the slightest flavor of modesty. She did not care whether I stared at her or averted my eyes. She folded the skirt and put it with the jacket. She took her blouse off and put it carefully on the back seat. She stood there in the woodland in black hat with veil, black shoes, skimpy oyster-white bra and panties, looking both provocative and ridiculous. The hat was last.
She gave me a wry look and said, "Strip tease alfresco. Aren't you supposed to stamp your feet or something?"
"Aren't you cold?"
"I'm a warm-blooded thing." She put the wooly, baggy sweat shirt on, then stepped into the slacks and pulled them up around her full hips and fastened them with zipper and buttons. She sat on the car seat and took off her black shoes and put them in back and put on the sneakers and laced them up.
"Good God, I haven't had clothes like this in years. How do I look, Tal?"
I couldn't tell her how she looked. It wasn't a return to the girl who had gone on the bike trips with Timmy. I would have guessed it would have made her look younger and fresher. But it didn't. Her body was too ripe, her eyes and mouth too knowing. The years had taken her beyond the point where she could wear such clothes and look young.
She read the look in my eyes. "Not so good, I guess. Not good at all. You don't have to say it."
"You look fine."
"Don't be a damned fool. Wait a minute while I use the facilities, and then we'll get out of here." She went off into the woods out of sight of the car. She was back in a few minutes. I backed out. I looked at my watch. The time problem had been nearly solved. It was a little past twelve-fifteen.
I pulled into the yard of the Doyle place, the Rasi place where she had been born. I saw that the boy had finished painting the boat.
"It looks even worse than I remember," she said. She got out of the car and went toward the porch. The chickens were under the porch. The dog lay on the porch. He thumped his tail. Antoinette leaned over and scratched him behind the ear. He thudded the tail with more energy.
Her sister came to the doorway, dirty towel in her hand.
"Hello, Anita," Antoinette said calmly.
"What are you doing here? Doyle don't want you coming around here. You know that."
"——Doyle," Antoinette said.
"Don't use that kind of language with kids in the house. I'm warning you." The girl who had cried came up behind her mother and stared at us.
"You're so damn cautious about the kids," Antoinette said with contempt. "Hi there, Sandy."
"Hi," the girl said in a muted voice.
"You give the kids such a nice home and all, Anita."
"I do what I can do. I do the best I can."
"Look at the way she's dressed. I sent money. Why don't you spend some of it on clothes. Or does Doyle drink it?"