Part 5 (2/2)

I remembered the slashed cus.h.i.+ons. ”So that's who-”

”You didn't think there was anything original about it, did you? I can a.s.sure you that in almost nothing connected with Miss James are you likely to be the first.”

I said nothing. I was busy with a lot of things. She knew the house had been searched before, but still she hadn't reported it to the police. That meant she couldn't, and that I was still right. She was in whatever it was right up to her neck. She couldn't report me either.

Her eyes were slightly mocking. ”But I see you admit you had started to search the place. What changed your mind? I was asleep and wouldn't bother you.”

”It got a little crowded,” I said. ”With three of us.”

”Three?”

”The other one was the man who tried to kill you.”

”Oh, we're going back to that again?”

”Listen,” I said. I told her what had happened.

”You don't expect me to believe that?” she asked when I had finished.

”When you go back to the house, take a look at what's left of your records and the player. We rolled on 'em. The other guy was a heavyweight, too.”

”He was?” she asked. She was thinking about it. Then she shrugged it off. ”I don't believe you.”

”Suit yourself,” I said.

Then I stopped. We had both heard it. It was a car crossing that wooden culvert at the edge of the meadow. It came on, and pulled to a stop right in front of the porch. I could hear the brakes squeak.

I shook my head savagely and motioned for her to stay where she was. She couldn't be seen through the front window. I stepped out into the other room. The coat, with the gun in it, was on the back of a chair against the other wall. As I started across I could look out the front door and see the car. There was only one person in it, and it was a girl. I could hear the radio, crooning softly.

I went out and walked around the car to the driver's side. She smiled. She was an ash blonde with an angelic face and a cool pair of eyes, and you knew she could turn on the honey-chile like throwing a switch at Boulder Dam. She turned it on.

”Good moarornin',” she said. It came out slowly and kept falling on you like honey dripping out of a spoon. ”It's absolutely the silliest thing, but I think I'm lost.”

”Yes?” I said. She was eight miles from a county road and twenty from the highway. And she didn't look much like a bird watcher. ”What are you looking for?”

She poured another jug of it over me. ”A farmhouse. It's a man named Mr. Gillespie. They said to go out this road, and take that road, and turn over here, and go down that way, you know how people tell you to go somewhere, they just get you all mixed up, it's the silliest thing. Actually. All these roads with no names on them, how do you know which one they mean?”

Maybe I imagined it, but the patter and the eyes didn't seem to match. And the eyes were looking around.

The radio had quit crooning and was talking. I didn't pay any attention to it. Not then.

”Did they tell you to go through a gate?” I asked.

”Oh, yes, definitely a gate. Mr. Cramer, he's the manager of the store, he was the one that found out Mr. Gillespie had forgotten to sign one of the time-payment papers when he bought the cookstove and took it home in his truck. Anyway, he definitely said a gate, and then about a mile after the gate you turn- I know you're not Mr. Gillespie, are you? You don't look a bit like him.”

”No,” I said. ”My name's Graves. I'm on a fis.h.i.+ng trip.”

”My,” she said admiringly, looking at the white s.h.i.+rt and the tie, ”you go fis.h.i.+ng all dressed up, don't you? My brother, when he goes fis.h.i.+ng, he's the messiest thing, actually, you should see him.”

”I just got here,” I said. ”A few minutes ago.”

Her story was plausible enough. She might be looking for somebody named Gillespie. G.o.d knows, she sounded as if she could get lost. She could get lost in a telephone booth, or a double bed. But still. . .

An icicle walked slowly up my spine and sat down between my shoulder blades.

It was the radio. It was what the radio was saying.

”. . .Butler. . .”

”Are you fis.h.i.+ng all alone?” Dreamboat asked.

All I had to do was stand there in the sunlight beside the car and try to hear what the radio was saying, and remember it, and listen to this pink-and-silver idiot, and answer in the right places, and at the same time try to figure out whether she was an idiot or not and what she was really up to, and keep her from noticing I was paying any attention to the radio.

”Mrs. Madelon Butler, thirty-three, lovely brunette widow of the missing bank official sought since last June eighth. . .”

Widow. So they'd found his body.

”Mrs. Butler is believed to have fled in a blue 1953 Cadillac.”

”I don't see any car,” she said, looking around. ”How did you get here?”

”. . .sought in connection with the murder. Police in neighboring states have been alerted, and a description of Mrs. Butler and the license number of the car. . .”

”Pickup truck,” I said. ”Its in the shed.”

”. . .since the discovery of the body late yesterday, but no trace of the missing money has been found. Police are positive, however, that the apprehension of Mrs. Butler will clear up. . .”

The man had known the body'd been found, and that they were going to arrest her. He didn't want her arrested. He still didn't. Maybe this lost blonde wasn't lost.

”Malenkov,” the radio said.

But she was going to get lost, and d.a.m.ned fast.

”-drink of water,” she was saying. She was smiling at me. She wanted to come into the house. She wanted to look around.

I smiled at her. ”Sure, baby. But water? Look, I got bourbon.”

I was leaning in the window a little. I slid her skirt up.

”Thought I saw an ant on your stocking,” I said. I patted a handful of bare, pink-candy thigh. ”Come on in, Blondie.”

The ”You-” was as cold and deadly as a rifle shot. Then she got back into character. ”Well! I must say!”

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