Part 6 (1/2)

He stared coldly, but said nothing as he drove off.

5

I located the fuse box and killed the circuits in that wing of the building so I wouldn't electrocute myself with the hose. Changing into swimming trunks, I went to work. I stood in the doorway playing the hose on walls and ceiling and furniture until water began running over the threshold. I broke open a half-dozen boxes of the soda and scattered it around and washed down some more. When I tried to move the bedclothes, curtains, and mattresses, they tore into rotten and mushy shreds, so I found some garden tools and raked them out onto the gravel, along with all the carpet I could tear up. It was sickening.

Even as diluted as the stuff was now, it kept stinging my feet when I had to step off the boards. I played the hose on them to wash it off. In about fifteen minutes I had the worst of it out. I dragged the bed-frames and headboards, the chest, the two armchairs, and the night table out onto the concrete porch and played the hose on them some more and scattered the rest of the soda over the wet surfaces. I showered and changed back into my clothes, and went over to the office. Josie said Mrs. Langston was sleeping quietly. She brought me the keys to the station wagon.

”Turn on the ”No Vacancy” sign,” I said. ”And if anybody comes in, tell him the place is closed.”

She looked doubtful. ”You reckon Miss Georgia goin' to like that? She's kind of pinched for money.”

”I'll square it with her,” I said. ”She needs rest more than she needs money, and we're going to see she gets it.”

That wasn't the only reason, but I saw no point in going into it now. I drove into town and parked near the garage. In the repair shed a mechanic was working on my car, unbolting the old radiator. He looked up and nodded.

”Borrow one of your screwdrivers?” I asked. ”Sure,” he said. ”Here.”

I went around back and tested one of the screws holding the rear plate. It came loose freely. So did the other one. You could even see where he'd put machine oil on the threads to break them loose. I heard footsteps beside me and looked up. It was the sour-faced foreman in his white overall.

He nodded. ”What's all the whoop-de-do with the license plates? Man from the Sheriff's office was fiddlin' with 'em a while ago. And dusting powder over them.”

”Which man?” I asked.

”You wouldn't know him. That hard case.”

”Magruder?”

He shook his head. ”That's the one thinks he's hard. This one is. Kelly Redfield.”

I thought he'd sounded like a good cop. He screamed about it and for some reason tried to slough it off, but in the end he had to come and see. ”What he say?” I asked.

”Say? That guy? He wouldn't give you the time of day.”

”But he did tell you where they broke in?”

Surprise showed for an instant on the sour and frozen face before he brought it under control again. ”How'd you know? He said there was a busted pane in the washroom window. And he wanted to know if we'd missed anything.”

”Have you?”

He shook his head. ”Not as far as we can tell yet.”

”How about battery acid?”

”We haven't got any.”

Well, he'd stolen it somewhere in this area, because he had it here at two a.m. He couldn't have gone very far after it. Maybe Redfield had some ideas. I should be able to catch him at the office.

It was at the rear of the courthouse, a dreary room floored with scarred brown linoleum and smelling of dust. The wall at the right was banked with steel filing cabinets, and across the room at desks near a barred window, Magruder and a bull of a man with red hair were doing paperwork. The wall at my left was filled with bulletins and ”Wanted” posters. A large overhead fan circled with weary futility, stirring the heat. At the left end of the room there was a water-cooler and a doorway leading into an inner office.

Magruder came over. I noticed he still wore the heavy gunbelt and the .45 even while shuffling papers. Maybe he wore it to bed. ”What do you want now?” he asked.

”I want to talk to your boss.”

At that moment a lean-hipped man in faded khaki came out of the inner office with a handful of papers which he tossed on one of the desks. Magruder jerked his head at me. ”Kelly, here's that guy now.”

Redfield turned with a quick, hard glance. ”Chatham?”

”That's right,” I said.

”Come in here.”

I followed him into the inner office. An old roll-top desk against the wall on the left. On the right there were two filing cabinets, and a hat-rack on which were draped his jacket, a black tie, and a shoulder holster containing a gun. A locked, gla.s.s-fronted case held four carbines. One barred window looked out onto a parking area paved with white gravel.

He nodded towards the straight chair at the end of the desk. ”Sit down.”

Without taking his eyes off me, he groped in the pocket of the jacket for cigarettes. He lit one, without offering them to me, and flipped the match into the tray on his desk. He was a man of thirty-six or thirty-eight, with an air of tough competence about him that matched the way he had sounded on the telephone. The face was lean, the jaw clean-cut and hard, and he had a high, rounded forehead and thinning brown hair. The hard-bitten eyes were gray. It was a face with intelligence in it, and character, but for the moment at least, no warmth at all.

”All right, Chatham,” he said. ”What are you after around here?”

”Magruder told you,” I said. ”You sent him to find out.”

”I did. And you don't make any sense. Start making some.”

He irritated me, and puzzled me at the same time. Honest, hard-working professional cop was written all over him, and he hadn't been able to resist a police problem, but why the antagonism? ”Were there any prints on those plates?” I asked.

”No,” he said curtly. ”Of course not. And there wouldn't have been any in the room, or on those jugs. You think the man who worked out that operation was a fool, or an amateur? But never mind him; let's get back to you.”

”Why?”

”I want to know who the h.e.l.l you are, and what you're doing here. He went to all that trouble to use your plates Why?”

The message was for me,” I said. I told him about the telephone call warning me to leave, and the earlier call to her and my efforts to find the booth with the noisy fan.

He walked over in front of me. ”In other words, you're, not in town thirty minutes before you're up to your neck in police business. You're a trouble-maker, Chatham; I can smell you a mile off.”

”I reported it to this office,” I said. ”And I was kissed off. You're trying to slough off this acid job, too, but you can't quite make yourself do it entirely. What's with it? I've seen dirt swept under the rug before, but you don't look quite the type for it.”

Just for an instant there was something goaded and savage in his eyes, and I thought he was going to hit me. Then he had it under control. ”n.o.body is being kissed off here,” he said. ”And nothing is being swept under the rug. The description of that man, and his car, have gone out to all adjoining counties and to the Highway Patrol. I know where the acid came from-”

”You do?” I asked.

”Shut up,” he said, without raising his voice. ”You shot off your mouth, and I'm telling you, so listen. The chances are a thousand to one he'll never be picked up. Green Ford sedans are as common as Smiths in a raided wh.o.r.e house. So are men answering that description. Even together, you haven't got much, and by now he'll be in a different car altogether. In a place this size, he had to be from out of town. That means he was probably hired for the job, and he could be from anywhere within a thousand miles of here. The acid itself is a dead end. A truck was hijacked a few weeks ago just east of here, and one of the items on the manifest was ten gallons of sulphuric acid. I just looked it up. The hijackers were never caught, and none of the stuff's been located. The bulk of it was paint, that could be sold anywhere. So try to come up with a lead there. That just leaves you.”

”What do you mean?”

He jabbed a forefinger at me. ”You stick out of this mess like a blonde with a pet skunk, and the more I look at you the wronger you get. For some reason, it happens the very day you show up. You've got some c.o.c.k-and-bull story about a mysterious telephone call. If you're lying about that, you're mixed up in it. If you're not lying and somebody is trying to get you out of here, you're mixed up in something else. I don't like trouble-makers and goons that wander in here for no reason at all and seem to wind up out there at that motel. We've still got the stink from the last one.”