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Neilsville, were non-union printers, and naturally he'd have picked up the
language ґ and the implied prejudice back of it ґ from them.
I said, "My label number is seven."
He slapped the calling card down on the desk in front of him. He
snorted ґ quite literally; you often read about people snorting but seldom
hear them do it. He said, "Stoeger, you printed this damn thing yourself.
The whole thing is a gag. Damn youґ"
He started to get up and then sat down again and looked at the papers
in front of him. He looked back at me and I think he was going to tell me to
get the hell out, and then apparently he decided he might as well wait till
Hank got back.
He shuffled papers.
I sat there and tried to absorb the fact that ґ apparently, at any rate
ґ that Yehudi Smith calling card had been printed in my own shop. I didn't
get up to look at it. Somehow, I was perfectly willing to take Kates' word
for it.
Why not? It was part of the pattern. I should have guessed, it myself.
Not from the typeface; almost every shop has eight-point Garamond. But from
the fact that the "DRINK ME" bottle had contained poison and Yehudi wasn't
going to be there when Hank looked for him. It followed the pattern, and I
knew now what the pattern was. It was the pattern of madness.
Mine ґ or whose? I was getting scared. I'd been scared several times
already that night, but this was a different variety of scaredness. I was
getting scared of the night itself, of the pattern of the night.
I needed a drink, and I needed it bad. I stood up and started for the
door. The swivel chair screamed and Kates said, "Where the hell you think
you're going?"
"Down to my car. Going to get something. I'll be back." I didn't want
to get into an argument with him.
"Sit down. You're not going out of here."
I did want to get into an argument with him. "Am I under arrest? And on
what charge?"
"Material witness in a murder case, Stoeger. If there's a corpse where
you say there's one. If there isn't, we can switch it to drunk and
disorderly. Take your choice."
I took my choice. I sat down again.
He had me over a barrel and I could see that he loved it. I wished that
I'd gone to my office and phoned the state police, regardless of
repercussions.
I waited. That "bug number" angle of Kates' had thrown me off thinking
about how it could be and why it would be that Yehudi Smith's calling card
had been printed in my own print shop. Not that, come to thick of it, the
"how" had been difficult. I lock the door when I leave, but I lock it with a
dime-store skeleton key. They come two on a card for a dime. Yes, Anybody
could have got in. And Anybody, whoever he was, could have printed that card
without knowing a damn thing about printing. You have to know the printer's
case to set type in quantity, but anybody could pick out a dozen letters,
more or less, to spell out Yehudi Smith simply by trial and error. The
little hand press I print cards on is so simple that a child ґ well, anyway,
a high school kid ґ could figure out how to operate it. True, he'd get lousy
impressions and waste a lot of cards trying to get one good one. But
Anybody, if he tried long enough, could have printed one good card that said
Yehudi Smith and carried my union label in the bottom corner.
But why would Anybody have done something like that?
The more I thought about it the less sense it made, although one thing
did emerge that made even less sense than the rest of it. It would have been
easier to print that card without the union label than with it, so Anybody
had gone to a little additional trouble to bring out the fact that the card
had been printed at the Clarion. Except for the death of Yehudi Smith the
whole thing might have been the pattern of a monstrous practical joke. But
practical jokes don't include sudden death. Not even such a fantastic death
as Yehudi Smith had met.
Why had Yehudi Smith died?
Somewhere there had to be a key.
And that reminded me of the key in my pocket and I took it out and
stared at it, wondering what I could open with it. Somewhere there was a
lock that it fitted.
It didn't look either familiar or unfamiliar. Yale keys don't. Could it
be mine? I thought about all the keys I owned. The key to the front door of
my house was a Yale type key, but not actually a Yale. Besidesґ
I took the keytainer from my pocket and opened it. My front door key is
on the left and I compared it with the key I'd brought away from the attic.
The notches didn't match; it wasn't a duplicate of that one. And it was
still more different from my back door key, the one on the other side of the
row. In between were two other keys but both were quite different types. One
was the key to the door at the Clarion office and the other was for the
garage behind my house. I never use the garage key; I keep nothing of value
in the garage except the car itself and I always leave it locked.
It seemed to me that I'd had five keys instead of four, there on the
keytainer, but I couldn't remember for sure and I couldn't figure out what
the missing one was, if one really was missing.
Not the key to my car; I didn't keep that on the keytainer (I hate a
keytainer dangling and swinging from my ignition lock, so I carry the car
key loose in my vest pocket).
I put the keytainer back in my pocket and stared at the single key
again. I wondered suddenly if it could be a duplicate of my car key. But I
couldn't compare it to see because, this time, I'd left the key in the lock
when I'd got out of the car, thinking I was going to be up here in the
sheriffs office only a minute or two and that then he'd be heading out to
the Wentworth place with me.
Kates must have turned his head ґ not his swivel chair, for it didn't
squeak ґ and seen me staring at the key. He asked, "What's that?"
"A key," I said. "A key to unlock a riddle. A key to murder."
The chair did squeak then. "Stoeger, what the hell? Are you just drunk,
or are you crazy?"
"I don't know," I said. "Which do you think?"
He snorted. "Let's see that key." I handed it to him.
"What's it open?"
"I don't know." I was getting mad again ґ not particularly at Kates
this time; at everything. "I know what it's supposed to open."
"What?"
"A little door fifteen inches high off a room at the bottom of a rabbit
hole. It leads to a beautiful garden."
He looked at me a long time. I looked back. I didn't give a damn.
I heard a car outside. That would be Hank Ganzer, probably. He wouldn't
have found the body of Yehudi Smith in the attic out on the pike. I knew
that, somehow.
And how Kates was going to react to that, I could guess. Even though,
obviously, he didn't believe a damn word of it to begin with. I'd have given
a lot, just then, to be inside Rance Kates' mind, or what he uses for one,
to see just what he was thinking. I'd have given a lot more, though, to be
inside the mind of Anybody, the person who'd printed Yehudi Smith's card on
my hand press and who'd put the poison in the "DRINK ME" bottle.
Hank's steps coming up the stairs.
He came in the door and his eyes happened to be looking in my direction
first. He said, "Hi, Doc," casually and then turned to Kates. "No sign of an
accident, Rance. I drove slow, watched both sides of the road. No sign of a
car going off. But look, maybe we should both do it. If one of us could keep
moving the spotlight back and forth while the other drove, we could see back
farther." He looked at his wrist watch. "It's only two-thirty. Won't get
light until six, and in that long a timeґ"
Kates nodded. "Okay, Hank. But listen, I'm going to get the state boys
in on this case ґ well, in case Bonney's car turns up somewhere else. We
know when they left Neilsville, but we can't be positive they started for
Carmel City."
"Why wouldn't they?"
"How would I know?" Kates said. "But if they did start here, they
didn't get here."
I might as well not have been there at all.
I cut in. "Hank, did you go to the Wentworth place?"
He looked at me. "Sure, Doc. Listen, what kind of a gag was that?"
"Did you look in the attic?"
"Sure. Looked all around it with my flashlight."
I'd known it, but I closed my eyes.
Kates surprised me, after all. His voice was almost gentle. "Stoeger,
get the hell out of here. Go home and sleep it off."
I opened my eyes again and looked at Hank. "All right," I said, "I'm
drunk or crazy. But listen, Hank, was there a candle stub standing on top of
the post at the top of the attic steps?"
He shook his head slowly.
"A glass-topped table, standing in one corner ґ it'd be the northwest
corner of the attic?"
"I didn't see it, Doc. I wasn't looking for tables. But I'd have
noticed a candle stub, if it had been on the stair post. I remember putting
my hand on it when I started down."
"And you don't recall seeing a dead body on the floor?"
Hank didn't even answer me. He looked back at Kates. "Rance, maybe I'd
better drive Doc home while you're making those calls. Where's your car,
Doc?"
"Across the street."
"Okay, we won't give you a parking ticket. I'll drive you home in
mine." He looked at Kates for corroboration.
Kates gave it. I hated Kates for it. He was grinning at me. He had me
in such a nasty spot that, damn him, he could afford to be generous. If he
threw me in the can overnight, I could fight back. If he sent me home to
sleep it off ґ and even gave me a chauffeur to take me thereґ
Hank Ganzer said, "Come on, Doc." He was going through the door.
I got to my feet. I didn't want to go home. If I went home now, the
murderer of Yehudi Smith would have the rest of the night, to finish ґ to
finish what? And what was it to me, except that I'd liked Yehudi Smith? And
who the hell was Yehudi Smith?
I said, "Listen, Katesґ"
Kates looked past me at the doorway. He said, "Go on, Hank. See if his
car is parked straight or out in the middle of the street. I want to tell
him something and then I'll send him down. I think he can make it."
He probably hoped I'd break my neck going down the steps.
"Sure, Rance." Hank's footsteps going down the stairs. Diminuendo.
Kates looked up at me. I was standing in front of his desk, trying not
to look like a boy caught cheating in an examination standing in front of
his teacher's desk.
I caught his eyes, and almost took a step backward: I hated Kates and
knew that he hated me, but I hated him as one hates a man in office whom one
knows to be a stupid oaf and a crook. He hated me, I thought, as someone
who, as an editor, had power ґ and used it ґ against men like him.
But the look in his eyes wasn't that. It was sheer personal hatred and
malevolence. It was something I hadn't suspected, and it shocked me. I
don't, after fifty-three years, shock easily.
And then that look was gone, as suddenly as when you turn out a light.
He was looking at me impersonally. His voice was impersonal, almost flat,
not nearly as loud as usual. He said, "Stoeger, you know what I could do to
you on something like this, don't you?"
I didn't answer; he didn't expect me to. Yes, I knew some of the
things. The can overnight on a drunk and disorderly charge was a starting
point. And if, in the morning, I persisted in my illusions, he could call in
Dr. Buchan for a psychiatric once-over.
He said, "I'm not doing it. But I want you out of my hair from now on.
Understand?"
I didn't answer that, either. If he wanted to think silence was
consent, all right. Apparently he did. He said, "Now get the hell out of
here."
I got the hell out of there. I'd got off easy. Except for that look
he'd given me.
No, I didn't feel like a conquering hero about it. I should have faced
up to it, and I should have insisted that there had been a murder in that
attic, whether there was a corpus delicti there now or not. But I was too
mixed up myself. I wanted time to think things out, to figure what the hell
had really happened.
I went down the stairs and out into the night again.
Hank Ganzer's car was parked right in front, but he was just getting
out of my car, across the street. I walked over toward him.
He said, "You were a little far out from the curb, Doc. I moved it in
for you. Here's your key."
He handed me the key and I stuck it in my pocket and then reopened the
door he'd just closed to get the bottle of whisky that was lying on the
seat. No use leaving that, even if I had to leave the car here.
I stepped back, then, to the back of the car to take another look at
those back tires. I still couldn't believe them; this morning they'd been
completely flat. That was part of the puzzle, too.
Hank came back and stood by me. "What's the matter, Doc?" he asked. "If
you're looking at your tires, they're okay." He kicked the one nearest to
him and then walked around and kicked the other. He started back, and
stopped. He said, "Say, Doc, something you got in your luggage compartment
must've spilled over. Did you have a can of paint or something in there?"
I shook my head and came around to see what he was looking at. It did
look as though something had run out from under the bottom edge of the
luggage compartment door. Something thick and blackish.
Hank turned the handle and tried to lift.
"It's not locked," I said. "I never bother to lock it. Nothing in there
but a worn-out tire without a tube in it."
He tried again. "The hell it's not locked. Where's the key?"
Another piece of the pattern fell into place. I knew now what the fifth
key, the middle one, on my keytainer should have been. I never lock the
luggage compartment of my car except on the rare occasions when I take a
trip and really have luggage in it. But I carry the key on my keytainer. And
it was a Yale key and it hadn't been there when I'd looked a few minutes
ago.
I said, "Kates has got it." It had to be. One Yale key looks like
another, but the card, Yehudi Smith's card, had been printed in my own shop.
The key would be mine, too.
Hank said, "Huh?"
I said again, "Kates has got it."
Hank looked at me strangely. He said, "Wait just a minute, Doc," and
walked across to his own car. Twice, on the way, he looked back as though to
be sure I wasn't going to get in and drive away.
He got a flashlight out of his glove compartment and came back. He bent
down with it and took a close look at those streaks.
I stepped closer to look, too. Hank stepped back, as though he was
suddenly afraid to have me behind him and peering over his shoulder.
So I didn't have to look. I knew what those streaks were, or what Hank
thought they were.
He said, "Seriously, Doc, where's the key?"
"I'm serious," I told him. "I gave it to Rance Kates. I didn't know
what key it was then. I'm pretty sure I do, now."
I thought I knew what was in that luggage compartment now, too.
He looked at me uncertainly and then walked part way across the street,
angling so he could watch me. He cupped his hands around his lips and called
out, "Rance! Hey, Rance!" And then looked quickly back to see that I was
neither sneaking up on him nor trying to get into the car to drive away.
Nothing happened and he did it again.
A window opened and Kates was silhouetted against the light back of it.
He called back, "What the hell, Hank, if you want me come up here. Don't
wake up the whole God damned town."
Hank looked back over his shoulder at me again. Then he called, "Did
Doc give you a key?"
"Yes. Why? What kind of a yarn is he feeding you?"
"Bring down the key, Rance. Quick."
He looked back over his shoulder again, started toward, me, and then
hesitated. He compromised by staying where he was, but watching me.
The window slammed down.
I walked back around the car and I almost decided to light a match and
look at those stains myself. And then I decided, what the hell.
Hank came a few steps closer. He said, "Where you going, Doc?"
I was at the curb by then. I said, "Nowhere," and sat down.
To wait.
Then fill up the glasses as quick as you can,
And sprinkle the table with buttons and bran:
Put cats in the coffee, and mice in the teaґ
And welcome Queen Alice with thirty-times three!
The courthouse door opened and closed. Kates crossed the street. He
looked at me and asked Hank, "What's wrong?"
"Don't know, Rance. Looks like blood has dripped from the luggage
compartment of Doc's car. It's locked. He says he gave you the key. I didn't
want to ґ uh ґ leave him to come up and get it. So I yelled for you."
Kates nodded. His face was toward me and Hank Ganzer couldn't see it. I
could. It looked happy, very happy.
His hand went inside his coat and came out with a pistol. He asked,
"Did you frisk him, Hank?"
"No."
"Go ahead."
Hank came around Kates and came up to me from the side. I stood up and
held out my hands to make it easy for him. The bottle of whisky was in one
of them. He found nothing more deadly than that.
"Clean," Hank said.
Kates didn't put his pistol away. He reached into a pocket with his
free hand and took out the key I'd given him. He tossed it to Hank. "Open
the compartment," he said.
The key fitted. The handle turned. Hank lifted the door.
I heard the sudden intake of his breath and I turned and looked. Two
bodies; I could see that much. I couldn't tell who they were from where I
stood. Hank leaned farther in, using his flashlight.
He said, "Miles Harrison, Rance. And Ralph Bonney. Both dead."
"How'd he kill 'em?"
"Hit over the head with something. Hard. Must've been several blows
apiece. There's lots of blood."
"Weapon there?"
"What looks like it. There's a revolver ґ an old one ґ with blood on
the butt. Nickel-plated Iver-Johnson, rusty where the plating's off.
Thirty-eight, I think."
"The money there? The pay roll?"
"There's what looks like a brief case under Miles." Hank turned around.
His face was as pale as the starlight. "Do I got to ґ uh ґ move him, Rance?"
Kates thought a minute. "Maybe we better not. Maybe we better take a
photo first. Listen, Hank, you go upstairs and get that camera and
flash-gun. And while you're there, phone Dr. Heil to get here right away. Uh
ґ you're sure they're both dead?"
"Christ, yes, Rance. Their heads are beaten in. Shall I call Dorberg,
too?" Dorberg is the local mortician who gets whatever business the
sheriff's office can throw his way; he's Kates' brother-in-law, which may
have a bearing on the fact.
Kates said, "Sure, tell him to bring the wagon. But tell him no hurry;
we want the coroner to have a look before we move 'em. And we want the pix
even before that."
Hank started for the courthouse door and then turned again. "Uh ґ
Rance, how about calling Miles' wife and Bonney's factory?"
I sat down on the curb again. I wanted a drink more badly than before,
and the bottle was in my hand. But it didn't seem right, just at that
moment, to take one. Miles' wife, I thought, and Bonney's factory. What a
hell of a difference that was. But Bonney had been divorced that very day;
he had no children, no relatives at all ґ at least in Carmel City ґ that I
knew of. But then I didn't have either. If I was murdered, who'd be
notified? The Carmel City Clarion, and maybe Carl Trenholm, if whoever did
the notifying knew that Trenholm was my closest friend. Yes, maybe on the
whole it was better that I'd never married. I thought of Bonney's divorce
and the facts behind it that Carl ґ through Smiley ґ had told me. And I
thought of how Miles Harrison's wife would be feeling tonight as soon as she
got the news. But that was different; I didn't know whether it was good or
bad that nobody would feel that way about me if I died suddenly.
Just the same I felt lonely as hell. Well, they'd arrest me now and
that would mean I could call Carl as my attorney. I was going to be in a
hell of a spot, but Carl would believe me ґ and believe that I was sane ґ if
anybody would.
Kates had been thinking. He said, "Not yet ґ either of them, Hank.
Milly especially; she might rush down here and get here before we got the
bodies to Dorberg's. And we might as well be able to tell the factory
whether the pay roll's there when we phone them. Maybe Stoeger hid it
somewhere else and we won't get it back tonight."
Hank said, "That's right, about Milly. We wouldn't want her to see
Miles ґ that way. Okay, so I'll call Heil and Dorberg and then come back
with the camera."
"Quit talking. Get going."
Hank went on into the courthouse.
It wasn't any use, but I had to say it. I said, "Listen, Kates, I
didn't do that. I didn't kill them."
Kates said, "You son of a bitch. Miles was a good guy."
"He was. I didn't kill him." I thought, I wish Miles had let me buy him
that drink early in the evening. I wish I'd known; I'd have insisted and
talked him into it. But that was silly, of course; you can't know things in
advance. If you could, you could stop them from happening. Except of course
in the Looking-Glass country where people sometimes lived backwards, where
the White Queen had screamed first and then later stuck the needle into her
finger. But even then ґ except, of course, that the Alice books were merely
delightful nonsense, ґ why hadn't she simply not picked up the needle she
knew she was going to stick herself with?
Delightful nonsense, that is, until tonight. Tonight somebody was
making gibbering horror out of Lewis Carroll's most amusing episodes. "Drink
Me" ґ and die suddenly and horribly. That key ґ it had been supposed to open
a fifteen-inch-high door into a beautiful garden. What it had opened the
door to ґ well, I didn't care to look.
I sighed and thought, what the hell, it's over with now. I'm going to
be arrested and Kates thinks I killed Miles and Bonney, but I can't blame
him for thinking it. I've got to wait till Carl can get me out of this.
Kates said, "Stand up, Stoeger."
I didn't. Why should I? I'd just thought, why would Miles or Ralph mind
if I took a drink out of this bottle in my hand? I started to unscrew the
top.
"Stand up, Stoeger. Or I'll shoot you right there."
He meant it. I stood up. His face, as he stood then, was in the shadow,
but I remembered that look of malevolence he'd given me in his office, the
look that said, "I'd like to kill you."
He was going to shoot me. Here and now.
It was safe as houses for him to do so. He could claim ґ if I turned
and ran and he shot me in the back ґ that he'd shot because I was trying to
escape. And if from the front that I ґ a homicidal maniac who had already
killed Miles and Bonney ґ was coming toward him to attack him.
That was why he'd sent Hank away and given him two phone calls to make
so he wouldn't be back for minutes.
I said, "Kates, you're not serious. You wouldn't shoot a man down in
cold blood."
"A man who'd killed a deputy of mine, yes. If I don't, Stoeger, you
might beat the rap. You might get certified as a looney and get away with
it. I'll make sure." That wasn't all of it, of course, but it gave him an
excuse to help his own conscience. I'd killed a deputy of his, he'd thought.
But he'd hated me enough to want to kill me even before he'd thought that.
Hatred and sadism ґ given a perfect excuse.
What could I do? Yell? It wouldn't help. Probably nobody awake ґ it was
well after three o'clock by now ґ would hear me in time to see what
happened. Hank would be phoning in the back office; he wouldn't get to the
window in time.
And Kates would claim that I yelled as I jumped him; yelling would just
trigger the gun.
He stepped closer; if he shot me in the front there'd have to be powder
marks to show that he'd shot while I was coming at him. The gun muzzle
centered on my chest, barely a foot away. I could live seconds longer if I
turned and ran; he'd probably wait until I was a dozen steps away in that
case.
His face was still in the shadow, but I could see that he was grinning.
I couldn't see his eyes or most of the rest of his face, just that grin. A
disembodied grin, like that of the Cheshire cat in Alice. But unlike the
Cheshire cat, he wasn't going to fade away.
I was. Unless something unexpected happened. Like maybe a witness
coming along, over there on the opposite sidewalk. He wouldn't shoot me in
cold blood before a witness. Carl Trenholm, Al Grainger, anybody.
I looked over Kates' shoulder and called out, "Hi, Al!"
Kates turned. He had to; he couldn't take a chance on the possibility
that there was really someone coming.
He turned his head just for a quick glance, to be sure.
I swung the whisky bottle. Maybe I should say my hand swung it; I
hadn't even remembered that I still held it. It hit Kates alongside the head
and like as not the brim of his hat saved his life. I think I swung hard
enough to have killed him if he'd been bare headed.
Kates and the revolver he'd been holding hit the street, separately.
The whisky bottle slid out of my hand and hit the paving; it broke. The
paving must have been harder than Kates' head ґ or maybe it would have
broken on Kates' head if it hadn't been for the brim of his hat.
I didn't even stop to find out if he was dead. I ran like hell.
Afoot, of course. The ignition key of my car was still in my pocket,
but driving off with two corpses was just about the last thing in the world
I wanted to do.
I ran a block and winded myself before I realized I hadn't the faintest
idea where I was going. I slowed down and got off Oak Street. I cut back
into the first alley. I fell over a garbage can and then sat down on it to
get my wind back and to think out what I was going to do. But I had to move
on because a dog started barking.
I found myself behind the courthouse.
I wanted, of course, to know who had killed Ralph Bonney and Miles
Harrison and put their bodies in my car, but there was something that seemed
of even more immediate interest; I wanted to know if I'd killed Rance Kates
or seriously injured him. If I had, I was in a hell of a jam because ґ in
addition to everything else against me ґ it would be my word against his
that I'd done it in self-defense, to save my own life. My word against his,
that is, if he were only injured. My word against nothing at all if I'd
killed him.
And my word wouldn't mean a damn thing to anybody until and unless I
could account for two corpses in my car.
The first window I tried was unlocked. I guess they're careless about
locking windows of the courthouse because, for one reason, there's nothing
kept there that any ordinary burglar would want to steal, and for another
reason because the sheriff's office is in the building, and somebody's on
duty there all night long.
I slid the window up very slowly and it didn't make much noise, not
enough, anyway, to have been heard in the sheriffs office, which is on the
second floor and near the front. I pat it down again, just as quietly, so it
wouldn't be an open giveaway if the search for me went through the alley.
I groped in the dark till I found a chair and sat down to collect what
wits I had left and figure what to do next. I was fairly safe for the
moment. The room I'd entered was one of the small anterooms off the court
room; nobody would look for me here, as long as I kept quiet.
They'd found the sheriff, all right, or the sheriff had come around and
found himself. There were footsteps on the front stairs, footsteps of more
than one person. But back here I was too far away to hear what was being
said, if any talking was going on.
But that could wait for a minute or two.
I wished to hell that I had a drink; I'd never wanted one worse in my
life. I cussed myself for having dropped and broken that bottle ґ and after
it had saved my life, at that. If I hadn't happened to have it in my hand,
I'd have been dead.
I don't know how long I sat there, but it probably wasn't over a few
minutes because I was still breathing a little hard when I decided I'd
better move. If I'd had a bottle to keep me company, I'd have gladly sat
there the rest of the night, I think.
But I had to find out what happened to Kates. If I'd killed him ґ or if
he'd been taken to the hospital and was out of the picture ґ then I'd better
give myself up and get it over with. If he was all right, and was still
running things, that wouldn't be a very smart thing to do. If he'd wanted to
kill me before I'd knocked him out with that bottle, he'd want to do it so
badly now that he would do it, maybe without even bothering to find an
excuse, right in front of Hank or any of the other deputies who were
undoubtedly being waked up to join the manhunt, in front of the coroner or
anybody else who happened to be around.
I bent down and took my shoes off before I got up. I put one in each of
the side pockets of my coat and then tiptoed out through the court room to
the back stairs. I'd been in the building so many thousand times that I knew
the layout almost as well as that of my own home or the Clarion office, and
I didn't run into anything or fall over anything.
I guided myself up the dark back staircase with a hand on the banister
and avoiding the middle of the steps, where they'd be most likely to creak.
Luckily there is an el in the upstairs hallway that runs from the front
stairs to the back ones so there wasn't any danger of my being seen, when
I'd reached the top of the stairs, by anyone entering or leaving the
sheriff's office. And I had dim light now, from the light in the front
hallway near the sheriff's office door.
I tiptoed along almost to the turn of the hall and then tried the door
of the county surveyor's office, which is next to the sheriff's office and
with only an ordinary door with a ground glass pane between them. The door
was unlocked.
I got it open very quietly. It slipped out of my hand when I started to
close it from the inside and almost slammed, but I caught it in time and
eased it shut. I would have liked to lock it, but I didn't know whether the
lock would click or not, so I didn't take a chance on that.
I had plenty of light, comparatively, in the surveyor's office; the
ground glass pane of the door to the sheriff's office was a bright yellow
rectangle through which came enough light to let me see the office furniture
clearly. I avoided it carefully and tiptoed my way toward that yellow
rectangle.
I could hear voices now and as I neared the door I could hear them even
better, but I couldn't quite make out whose they were or what they were
saying until I put my ear against the glass. I could hear perfectly well,
then.
Hank Ganzer was saying, "It still throws me, Rance. A gentle little old
guy like Doc. Two murders andґ"
"Gentle, hell!" It was Kates' voice. "Maybe when he was sane he was,
but he's crazier than a bedbug now. Ow! Go easy with that tape, will you?"
Dr. Heil's voice was soft, harder to understand. He seemed to be urging
that Kates should let himself be taken to the hospital to be sure there
wasn't any concussion.
"The hell with that," Kates said. "Not till we get Stoeger before he
kills anybody else. Like he killed Miles and Bonney and damn near killed me.
Hank, what's about the bodies?"
"I made a quick preliminary examination." Heil's voice was clearer now.
"Cause of death is pretty obviously repeated blows on their heads with what
seems to have been that rusty pistol on your desk. And with the stains on
the pistol butt, I don't think there's any reason to doubt it."
"They still out front?"
Hank said, "No, they're at Dorberg's ґ or on their way there. He and
one of has boys came around with his meat wagon."
"Doc." It was Kates' voice and it made me jump a little until I
realized that he was talking to Dr. Heil and not to me. "You about through?
With that God damn bandage, I mean. I got to get going on this. Hank, how
many of the boys did you get on the phone? How many are coming down?"
"Three, Rance. I got Watkins, Ehlers and Bill Dean. They're all on
their way down. Be here in a few minutes. That'll make five of us."
"Guess that fixes up things as well as I can here, Rance," Dr. Heil's
voice said. "I still suggest you go around to the hospital for an X-ray and
a check-up as soon as you can."
"Sure, Doc. Soon as I catch Stoeger. And he can't get out of town with
the state police watching the roads for us, even if he steals a car. You go
on around to Dorberg's and take care of things there, huh?"
Heil's voice, soft again, said something I couldn't hear, and there
were footsteps toward the outer hall. I could hear other footsteps coming up
the stairs. One or more of the day-shift deputies were arriving.
Kates said, "Hi, Bill, Walt. Ehlers with you?"
"Didn't see him. Probably be here in a minute." It sounded like Bill
Dean's voice.
"That's all right. We'll leave him here, anyway. You both got your
guns? Good. Listen, you two are going together and Hank and I are going
together. We'll work in pairs. Don't worry about the roads leading out; the
state boys are watching them for us. And there's no train or bus out till
late tomorrow morning. We just comb the town."
"Divide it between us, Rance?"
"No. You, Walt, and Bill cover the whole town. Drive through every
street and alley. Hank and I will take places he might have holed in to
hide. We'll search his house and the Clarion office, whether there are
lights on or not, and we'll try any place else that's indoors where he
might've holed in. He might pick an empty house, for instance. Anybody got
any other suggestions where he might think of holing in?"
Bill Dean's voice said, "He's pretty thick with Carl Trenholm. He might
go to Carl."
"Good idea, Bill. Anybody else?"
Hank said, "He looked pretty drunk to me. And he broke that bottle he
had. Might get into his head he wants another drink and break into a tavern.
Probably Smiley's; that's where he hangs out, mostly."
"Okay, Hank. We'll check ґ That must be Dick coming. Any more ideas,
anybody, before we split up?"
Ehlers was coming in now. Hank said, "Sometimes a guy doubles back
where he figures nobody'll figure where he is. I mean, Rance, maybe he
doubled back here and got in the back way or something, thinking the safest
place to hide's right under our noses. Right here in the building."
Kates said, "You heard that, Dick. And you're staying here to watch the
office, so that's your job. Search the building here first before you settle
down."
"Right, Rance."
Kates said, "One more thing. He's dangerous. He's probably armed by
now. So don't take any chances. When you see him, start shooting."
"At Doc Stoeger?" Someone's voice sounded surprised and a little
shocked. I couldn't tell which of the deputies it was.
"At Doc Stoeger," Kates said. "Maybe you think of him as a harmless
little guy ґ but that's the kind that generally makes homicidal maniacs.
He's killed two men tonight and tried to kill me, probably thought he did
kill me, or he'd stayed and finished the job. And don't forget who one of
the men he did kill was. Miles."
Somebody muttered something.
Bill Dean ґ I think it was Bill Dean ґ said, "I don't get it, though. A
guy like Doc. He isn't broke; he's got a paper that makes money and he's not
a crook. Why'd he suddenly want to kill two men for a couple of thousand
lousy bucks?"
Kates swore. He said, "He's nuts, went off the beam. The money probably
didn't have much to do with it, although he took it all right. It was in
that brief case under Miles' body. Now listen, this is the last time I tell
you; he's a homicidal maniac and you better remember Miles the minute you
spot him and shoot quick. He's crazy as a bedbug. Came in here with a cock
and bull story about a guy being croaked out at the Wentworth place ґ a guy
named Yehudi Smith, of all names. And Doc had a card to prove it, only he
printed the card himself. Crazy enough to put his own bug number ґ union
label number ґ on it. Gives me a key that he says opens a fifteen-inch-high
door to a beautiful garden. Well, that was the key to the luggage
compartment of his own car, see? With Miles' and Bonney's bodies, and the
pay roll money, in it. Parked right in front. He'd driven it here. Comes up
and gives me the key. And tries to get me to go to a haunted house with
him."
"Did anybody look there?" Dean asked.
Hank said, "Sure, Bill. On my way back from Neilsville. Went through
the whole dump. Nothing. And listen, Rance is right about him being crazy. I
heard some of the I stuff he said, myself. And if you don't think he's
dangerous, look at Rance. I'm sorry about it, I liked Doc. But damn it, I'm
with Rance on shooting first and catching him afterwards."
Somebody: "God damn it, if he killed Milesґ"
"If he's that crazyґ" I think it was Dick Ehlers. "ґwe'd be doing him a
favor, the way I figure it. If I ever go that far off the beam, homicidal,
damn if I wouldn't rather be shot than spend the rest of my life in a padded
cell. But what made him go off that way? All of a sudden, I mean?"
"Alcohol. Softens the brain, and then all of a sudden, whang."
"Doc didn't drink that much. He'd get drunk, a little, a night or two a
week, but he wasn't an alcoholic. And he was such a niceґ"
A fist hit a desk. It would have been Kates' fist and Kates' desk. It
was Kates' swivel chair that squealed and his voice said, "What the hell are
we having a sewing circle for. Come on, let's go out and get him. And about
shooting first, that's orders. I've lost one deputy tonight already. Come
on."
Footsteps, lots of them, toward the door.
Kates' voice calling back from it. "And don't forget to search this
building, Dick. Cellar to roof, before you settle down here."
"Right, Rance."
Footsteps, lots of heavy footsteps, going down the steps.
And one set of them turning back along the hallway.
Toward the County Surveyor's office.
Toward me.
And he was very proud and stiff;
He said "I'd go and wake them, ifґ"
I took a corkscrew from the shelf;
I went to wake them up myself.
I hoped he'd take Rance Kates' orders literally and search the place
from cellar to attic, in that order. If he did, I could get out either the
front or back way while he was in the basement. But he might start on this
floor, with this room.
So I tiptoed to the door, pulling one of my shoes out of my pocket as I
went. I stood flat against the wall by the door, gripping the shoe, ready to
swing the heel of it if Ehlers' head came in.
It didn't. The footsteps went on past and started down the back
staircase. I breathed again.
I opened the door and stepped out into the hall as soon as the
footsteps were at the bottom of the back steps. Out there in the hall, in
the quiet of the night, I could hear him moving about down there. He didn't
go to the basement; he was taking the main floor first. That wasn't good.
With him on the first floor I couldn't risk either the front or the back
stairs; I was stuck up here.
Outside I heard first one car start and then another. At least the
front entrance was clear if I had to try to leave that way, if Ehlers
started upstairs by the back staircase.
I took a spot in the middle of the hallway, equidistant from both
flights of steps. I could still hear him walking around down on the floor
below, but it was difficult to tell just where he was. I had to be ready to
make a break in either direction.
I swore to myself at the thoroughness of Kates' plans for finding me.
My house, my office, Carl's place, Smiley's or another tavern ґ every place
I'd actually be likely to go. Even here, the courthouse, where I really was.
But luckily, instead of all of them pitching in for a quick once-over here,
he'd left only one man to do the job, and as long as I could hear him and he
couldn't hear me ґ and probably didn't believe I was really here at all ґ I
had an edge.
Only, damn it, why didn't Ehlers hurry? I wanted a drink, and if I
could get out of here, I could get one somewhere, somehow. I was shaking
like a leaf, and my thoughts were, too. Even one drink would steady me
enough to think straight.
Maybe Kates kept a bottle in the bottom drawer of his desk.
The way I felt just then, it was worth trying. I listened hard to the
sounds below me and decided Ehlers was probably at the back of the building
and I tiptoed to the front and into Kates' office.
I went back to his desk and pulled the drawer open very quietly and
slowly. There was a whisky bottle there. It was empty.
I cussed Kates under my breath. It wasn't bad enough that he'd tried to
kill me; on top of that, he'd had to finish off that bottle without leaving
a single drink in it. And it had been a good brand, too.
I closed the drawer again as carefully as I'd opened it, so there'd be
no sign of my having been there.
Lying on the blotter on Kates' desk was a revolver. I looked at it,
wondering whether I should take it along with me. For a second the fact that
it was rusty didn't register and then I remembered Hank's description of the
gun that had been used as a bludgeon to kill Miles and Bonney, and I bent
closer. Yes, it was an Iver-Johnson, nickel-plated where the plating wasn't
worn or knocked off. This was the death weapon, then.
Exhibit A.
I reached out to pick it up, and then jerked my hand back. Hadn't I
been framed well enough without helping the framer by putting my
fingerprints on that gun? That was all I needed, to have my fingerprints on
the weapon that had done the killing. Or were they there already?
Considering everything else, I wouldn't have been too surprised if they
were.
Then I almost went through the ceiling. The phone rang.
I could hear, in the silence between the first ring and the second,
Ehlers' footsteps starting upstairs. But back here in the office, I couldn't
tell whether he was coming up the front way or the back, and I might not
have time to make it anyway, even if I knew.
I looked around frantically and saw a closet, the door ajar. I grabbed
up the Iver-Johnson and ducked into the closet, behind the door. And I stood
there, trying not to breathe, while Ehlers came in and picked up the phone.
He said, "Sheriff's office," and then, "Oh, you Rance," and then he
listened a while.
"You're phoning from the Clarion? Not at Smiley's or there, huh?... No,
no calls have come in... Yeah, I'm almost through looking around here.
Searched the first floor and the basement. Just got to go over this floor
yet."
I swore at myself. He'd been down in the basement, then, and I could
have got away. But the building had been so quiet that his walking around
down there had sounded to me as though it had been on the main floor.
"Don't worry, I'm not taking any chances, Rance. Gun in one hand and a
flashlight in the other."
There was a gun in my hand too, and suddenly I realized what a damned
foolish thing I'd done to pick it up off Kates' desk. Ehlers must have known
it was there. If he missed it, if he happened to glance down at the desk
while he was talking on the phoneґ
God must have loved me. He didn't. He said, "Okay, Rance," and then he
put the phone down and walked out.
I heard him go back along the hallway and around the el and start
opening doors back there. I had to get out quick, down the front steps,
before he worked his way back here. As a matter of routine, he'd probably
open this closet door too when he'd searched his way back to the office he'd
started from.
I let myself out and tiptoed down the steps. Out into the night again,
onto Oak Street. And I had to get off it quick, because either of the two
cars looking for me might cruise by at any moment. Carmel City isn't large;
a car can cruise all of its streets and alleys in pretty short order.
Besides I still had my shoes in my pockets and ґ I realized now ґ I still
had a gun in my hand.
Hoping Ehlers wouldn't happen to be looking out of any of the windows,
I ran around the corner and into the mouth of the alley behind the
language ґ and the implied prejudice back of it ґ from them.
I said, "My label number is seven."
He slapped the calling card down on the desk in front of him. He
snorted ґ quite literally; you often read about people snorting but seldom
hear them do it. He said, "Stoeger, you printed this damn thing yourself.
The whole thing is a gag. Damn youґ"
He started to get up and then sat down again and looked at the papers
in front of him. He looked back at me and I think he was going to tell me to
get the hell out, and then apparently he decided he might as well wait till
Hank got back.
He shuffled papers.
I sat there and tried to absorb the fact that ґ apparently, at any rate
ґ that Yehudi Smith calling card had been printed in my own shop. I didn't
get up to look at it. Somehow, I was perfectly willing to take Kates' word
for it.
Why not? It was part of the pattern. I should have guessed, it myself.
Not from the typeface; almost every shop has eight-point Garamond. But from
the fact that the "DRINK ME" bottle had contained poison and Yehudi wasn't
going to be there when Hank looked for him. It followed the pattern, and I
knew now what the pattern was. It was the pattern of madness.
Mine ґ or whose? I was getting scared. I'd been scared several times
already that night, but this was a different variety of scaredness. I was
getting scared of the night itself, of the pattern of the night.
I needed a drink, and I needed it bad. I stood up and started for the
door. The swivel chair screamed and Kates said, "Where the hell you think
you're going?"
"Down to my car. Going to get something. I'll be back." I didn't want
to get into an argument with him.
"Sit down. You're not going out of here."
I did want to get into an argument with him. "Am I under arrest? And on
what charge?"
"Material witness in a murder case, Stoeger. If there's a corpse where
you say there's one. If there isn't, we can switch it to drunk and
disorderly. Take your choice."
I took my choice. I sat down again.
He had me over a barrel and I could see that he loved it. I wished that
I'd gone to my office and phoned the state police, regardless of
repercussions.
I waited. That "bug number" angle of Kates' had thrown me off thinking
about how it could be and why it would be that Yehudi Smith's calling card
had been printed in my own print shop. Not that, come to thick of it, the
"how" had been difficult. I lock the door when I leave, but I lock it with a
dime-store skeleton key. They come two on a card for a dime. Yes, Anybody
could have got in. And Anybody, whoever he was, could have printed that card
without knowing a damn thing about printing. You have to know the printer's
case to set type in quantity, but anybody could pick out a dozen letters,
more or less, to spell out Yehudi Smith simply by trial and error. The
little hand press I print cards on is so simple that a child ґ well, anyway,
a high school kid ґ could figure out how to operate it. True, he'd get lousy
impressions and waste a lot of cards trying to get one good one. But
Anybody, if he tried long enough, could have printed one good card that said
Yehudi Smith and carried my union label in the bottom corner.
But why would Anybody have done something like that?
The more I thought about it the less sense it made, although one thing
did emerge that made even less sense than the rest of it. It would have been
easier to print that card without the union label than with it, so Anybody
had gone to a little additional trouble to bring out the fact that the card
had been printed at the Clarion. Except for the death of Yehudi Smith the
whole thing might have been the pattern of a monstrous practical joke. But
practical jokes don't include sudden death. Not even such a fantastic death
as Yehudi Smith had met.
Why had Yehudi Smith died?
Somewhere there had to be a key.
And that reminded me of the key in my pocket and I took it out and
stared at it, wondering what I could open with it. Somewhere there was a
lock that it fitted.
It didn't look either familiar or unfamiliar. Yale keys don't. Could it
be mine? I thought about all the keys I owned. The key to the front door of
my house was a Yale type key, but not actually a Yale. Besidesґ
I took the keytainer from my pocket and opened it. My front door key is
on the left and I compared it with the key I'd brought away from the attic.
The notches didn't match; it wasn't a duplicate of that one. And it was
still more different from my back door key, the one on the other side of the
row. In between were two other keys but both were quite different types. One
was the key to the door at the Clarion office and the other was for the
garage behind my house. I never use the garage key; I keep nothing of value
in the garage except the car itself and I always leave it locked.
It seemed to me that I'd had five keys instead of four, there on the
keytainer, but I couldn't remember for sure and I couldn't figure out what
the missing one was, if one really was missing.
Not the key to my car; I didn't keep that on the keytainer (I hate a
keytainer dangling and swinging from my ignition lock, so I carry the car
key loose in my vest pocket).
I put the keytainer back in my pocket and stared at the single key
again. I wondered suddenly if it could be a duplicate of my car key. But I
couldn't compare it to see because, this time, I'd left the key in the lock
when I'd got out of the car, thinking I was going to be up here in the
sheriffs office only a minute or two and that then he'd be heading out to
the Wentworth place with me.
Kates must have turned his head ґ not his swivel chair, for it didn't
squeak ґ and seen me staring at the key. He asked, "What's that?"
"A key," I said. "A key to unlock a riddle. A key to murder."
The chair did squeak then. "Stoeger, what the hell? Are you just drunk,
or are you crazy?"
"I don't know," I said. "Which do you think?"
He snorted. "Let's see that key." I handed it to him.
"What's it open?"
"I don't know." I was getting mad again ґ not particularly at Kates
this time; at everything. "I know what it's supposed to open."
"What?"
"A little door fifteen inches high off a room at the bottom of a rabbit
hole. It leads to a beautiful garden."
He looked at me a long time. I looked back. I didn't give a damn.
I heard a car outside. That would be Hank Ganzer, probably. He wouldn't
have found the body of Yehudi Smith in the attic out on the pike. I knew
that, somehow.
And how Kates was going to react to that, I could guess. Even though,
obviously, he didn't believe a damn word of it to begin with. I'd have given
a lot, just then, to be inside Rance Kates' mind, or what he uses for one,
to see just what he was thinking. I'd have given a lot more, though, to be
inside the mind of Anybody, the person who'd printed Yehudi Smith's card on
my hand press and who'd put the poison in the "DRINK ME" bottle.
Hank's steps coming up the stairs.
He came in the door and his eyes happened to be looking in my direction
first. He said, "Hi, Doc," casually and then turned to Kates. "No sign of an
accident, Rance. I drove slow, watched both sides of the road. No sign of a
car going off. But look, maybe we should both do it. If one of us could keep
moving the spotlight back and forth while the other drove, we could see back
farther." He looked at his wrist watch. "It's only two-thirty. Won't get
light until six, and in that long a timeґ"
Kates nodded. "Okay, Hank. But listen, I'm going to get the state boys
in on this case ґ well, in case Bonney's car turns up somewhere else. We
know when they left Neilsville, but we can't be positive they started for
Carmel City."
"Why wouldn't they?"
"How would I know?" Kates said. "But if they did start here, they
didn't get here."
I might as well not have been there at all.
I cut in. "Hank, did you go to the Wentworth place?"
He looked at me. "Sure, Doc. Listen, what kind of a gag was that?"
"Did you look in the attic?"
"Sure. Looked all around it with my flashlight."
I'd known it, but I closed my eyes.
Kates surprised me, after all. His voice was almost gentle. "Stoeger,
get the hell out of here. Go home and sleep it off."
I opened my eyes again and looked at Hank. "All right," I said, "I'm
drunk or crazy. But listen, Hank, was there a candle stub standing on top of
the post at the top of the attic steps?"
He shook his head slowly.
"A glass-topped table, standing in one corner ґ it'd be the northwest
corner of the attic?"
"I didn't see it, Doc. I wasn't looking for tables. But I'd have
noticed a candle stub, if it had been on the stair post. I remember putting
my hand on it when I started down."
"And you don't recall seeing a dead body on the floor?"
Hank didn't even answer me. He looked back at Kates. "Rance, maybe I'd
better drive Doc home while you're making those calls. Where's your car,
Doc?"
"Across the street."
"Okay, we won't give you a parking ticket. I'll drive you home in
mine." He looked at Kates for corroboration.
Kates gave it. I hated Kates for it. He was grinning at me. He had me
in such a nasty spot that, damn him, he could afford to be generous. If he
threw me in the can overnight, I could fight back. If he sent me home to
sleep it off ґ and even gave me a chauffeur to take me thereґ
Hank Ganzer said, "Come on, Doc." He was going through the door.
I got to my feet. I didn't want to go home. If I went home now, the
murderer of Yehudi Smith would have the rest of the night, to finish ґ to
finish what? And what was it to me, except that I'd liked Yehudi Smith? And
who the hell was Yehudi Smith?
I said, "Listen, Katesґ"
Kates looked past me at the doorway. He said, "Go on, Hank. See if his
car is parked straight or out in the middle of the street. I want to tell
him something and then I'll send him down. I think he can make it."
He probably hoped I'd break my neck going down the steps.
"Sure, Rance." Hank's footsteps going down the stairs. Diminuendo.
Kates looked up at me. I was standing in front of his desk, trying not
to look like a boy caught cheating in an examination standing in front of
his teacher's desk.
I caught his eyes, and almost took a step backward: I hated Kates and
knew that he hated me, but I hated him as one hates a man in office whom one
knows to be a stupid oaf and a crook. He hated me, I thought, as someone
who, as an editor, had power ґ and used it ґ against men like him.
But the look in his eyes wasn't that. It was sheer personal hatred and
malevolence. It was something I hadn't suspected, and it shocked me. I
don't, after fifty-three years, shock easily.
And then that look was gone, as suddenly as when you turn out a light.
He was looking at me impersonally. His voice was impersonal, almost flat,
not nearly as loud as usual. He said, "Stoeger, you know what I could do to
you on something like this, don't you?"
I didn't answer; he didn't expect me to. Yes, I knew some of the
things. The can overnight on a drunk and disorderly charge was a starting
point. And if, in the morning, I persisted in my illusions, he could call in
Dr. Buchan for a psychiatric once-over.
He said, "I'm not doing it. But I want you out of my hair from now on.
Understand?"
I didn't answer that, either. If he wanted to think silence was
consent, all right. Apparently he did. He said, "Now get the hell out of
here."
I got the hell out of there. I'd got off easy. Except for that look
he'd given me.
No, I didn't feel like a conquering hero about it. I should have faced
up to it, and I should have insisted that there had been a murder in that
attic, whether there was a corpus delicti there now or not. But I was too
mixed up myself. I wanted time to think things out, to figure what the hell
had really happened.
I went down the stairs and out into the night again.
Hank Ganzer's car was parked right in front, but he was just getting
out of my car, across the street. I walked over toward him.
He said, "You were a little far out from the curb, Doc. I moved it in
for you. Here's your key."
He handed me the key and I stuck it in my pocket and then reopened the
door he'd just closed to get the bottle of whisky that was lying on the
seat. No use leaving that, even if I had to leave the car here.
I stepped back, then, to the back of the car to take another look at
those back tires. I still couldn't believe them; this morning they'd been
completely flat. That was part of the puzzle, too.
Hank came back and stood by me. "What's the matter, Doc?" he asked. "If
you're looking at your tires, they're okay." He kicked the one nearest to
him and then walked around and kicked the other. He started back, and
stopped. He said, "Say, Doc, something you got in your luggage compartment
must've spilled over. Did you have a can of paint or something in there?"
I shook my head and came around to see what he was looking at. It did
look as though something had run out from under the bottom edge of the
luggage compartment door. Something thick and blackish.
Hank turned the handle and tried to lift.
"It's not locked," I said. "I never bother to lock it. Nothing in there
but a worn-out tire without a tube in it."
He tried again. "The hell it's not locked. Where's the key?"
Another piece of the pattern fell into place. I knew now what the fifth
key, the middle one, on my keytainer should have been. I never lock the
luggage compartment of my car except on the rare occasions when I take a
trip and really have luggage in it. But I carry the key on my keytainer. And
it was a Yale key and it hadn't been there when I'd looked a few minutes
ago.
I said, "Kates has got it." It had to be. One Yale key looks like
another, but the card, Yehudi Smith's card, had been printed in my own shop.
The key would be mine, too.
Hank said, "Huh?"
I said again, "Kates has got it."
Hank looked at me strangely. He said, "Wait just a minute, Doc," and
walked across to his own car. Twice, on the way, he looked back as though to
be sure I wasn't going to get in and drive away.
He got a flashlight out of his glove compartment and came back. He bent
down with it and took a close look at those streaks.
I stepped closer to look, too. Hank stepped back, as though he was
suddenly afraid to have me behind him and peering over his shoulder.
So I didn't have to look. I knew what those streaks were, or what Hank
thought they were.
He said, "Seriously, Doc, where's the key?"
"I'm serious," I told him. "I gave it to Rance Kates. I didn't know
what key it was then. I'm pretty sure I do, now."
I thought I knew what was in that luggage compartment now, too.
He looked at me uncertainly and then walked part way across the street,
angling so he could watch me. He cupped his hands around his lips and called
out, "Rance! Hey, Rance!" And then looked quickly back to see that I was
neither sneaking up on him nor trying to get into the car to drive away.
Nothing happened and he did it again.
A window opened and Kates was silhouetted against the light back of it.
He called back, "What the hell, Hank, if you want me come up here. Don't
wake up the whole God damned town."
Hank looked back over his shoulder at me again. Then he called, "Did
Doc give you a key?"
"Yes. Why? What kind of a yarn is he feeding you?"
"Bring down the key, Rance. Quick."
He looked back over his shoulder again, started toward, me, and then
hesitated. He compromised by staying where he was, but watching me.
The window slammed down.
I walked back around the car and I almost decided to light a match and
look at those stains myself. And then I decided, what the hell.
Hank came a few steps closer. He said, "Where you going, Doc?"
I was at the curb by then. I said, "Nowhere," and sat down.
To wait.
Then fill up the glasses as quick as you can,
And sprinkle the table with buttons and bran:
Put cats in the coffee, and mice in the teaґ
And welcome Queen Alice with thirty-times three!
The courthouse door opened and closed. Kates crossed the street. He
looked at me and asked Hank, "What's wrong?"
"Don't know, Rance. Looks like blood has dripped from the luggage
compartment of Doc's car. It's locked. He says he gave you the key. I didn't
want to ґ uh ґ leave him to come up and get it. So I yelled for you."
Kates nodded. His face was toward me and Hank Ganzer couldn't see it. I
could. It looked happy, very happy.
His hand went inside his coat and came out with a pistol. He asked,
"Did you frisk him, Hank?"
"No."
"Go ahead."
Hank came around Kates and came up to me from the side. I stood up and
held out my hands to make it easy for him. The bottle of whisky was in one
of them. He found nothing more deadly than that.
"Clean," Hank said.
Kates didn't put his pistol away. He reached into a pocket with his
free hand and took out the key I'd given him. He tossed it to Hank. "Open
the compartment," he said.
The key fitted. The handle turned. Hank lifted the door.
I heard the sudden intake of his breath and I turned and looked. Two
bodies; I could see that much. I couldn't tell who they were from where I
stood. Hank leaned farther in, using his flashlight.
He said, "Miles Harrison, Rance. And Ralph Bonney. Both dead."
"How'd he kill 'em?"
"Hit over the head with something. Hard. Must've been several blows
apiece. There's lots of blood."
"Weapon there?"
"What looks like it. There's a revolver ґ an old one ґ with blood on
the butt. Nickel-plated Iver-Johnson, rusty where the plating's off.
Thirty-eight, I think."
"The money there? The pay roll?"
"There's what looks like a brief case under Miles." Hank turned around.
His face was as pale as the starlight. "Do I got to ґ uh ґ move him, Rance?"
Kates thought a minute. "Maybe we better not. Maybe we better take a
photo first. Listen, Hank, you go upstairs and get that camera and
flash-gun. And while you're there, phone Dr. Heil to get here right away. Uh
ґ you're sure they're both dead?"
"Christ, yes, Rance. Their heads are beaten in. Shall I call Dorberg,
too?" Dorberg is the local mortician who gets whatever business the
sheriff's office can throw his way; he's Kates' brother-in-law, which may
have a bearing on the fact.
Kates said, "Sure, tell him to bring the wagon. But tell him no hurry;
we want the coroner to have a look before we move 'em. And we want the pix
even before that."
Hank started for the courthouse door and then turned again. "Uh ґ
Rance, how about calling Miles' wife and Bonney's factory?"
I sat down on the curb again. I wanted a drink more badly than before,
and the bottle was in my hand. But it didn't seem right, just at that
moment, to take one. Miles' wife, I thought, and Bonney's factory. What a
hell of a difference that was. But Bonney had been divorced that very day;
he had no children, no relatives at all ґ at least in Carmel City ґ that I
knew of. But then I didn't have either. If I was murdered, who'd be
notified? The Carmel City Clarion, and maybe Carl Trenholm, if whoever did
the notifying knew that Trenholm was my closest friend. Yes, maybe on the
whole it was better that I'd never married. I thought of Bonney's divorce
and the facts behind it that Carl ґ through Smiley ґ had told me. And I
thought of how Miles Harrison's wife would be feeling tonight as soon as she
got the news. But that was different; I didn't know whether it was good or
bad that nobody would feel that way about me if I died suddenly.
Just the same I felt lonely as hell. Well, they'd arrest me now and
that would mean I could call Carl as my attorney. I was going to be in a
hell of a spot, but Carl would believe me ґ and believe that I was sane ґ if
anybody would.
Kates had been thinking. He said, "Not yet ґ either of them, Hank.
Milly especially; she might rush down here and get here before we got the
bodies to Dorberg's. And we might as well be able to tell the factory
whether the pay roll's there when we phone them. Maybe Stoeger hid it
somewhere else and we won't get it back tonight."
Hank said, "That's right, about Milly. We wouldn't want her to see
Miles ґ that way. Okay, so I'll call Heil and Dorberg and then come back
with the camera."
"Quit talking. Get going."
Hank went on into the courthouse.
It wasn't any use, but I had to say it. I said, "Listen, Kates, I
didn't do that. I didn't kill them."
Kates said, "You son of a bitch. Miles was a good guy."
"He was. I didn't kill him." I thought, I wish Miles had let me buy him
that drink early in the evening. I wish I'd known; I'd have insisted and
talked him into it. But that was silly, of course; you can't know things in
advance. If you could, you could stop them from happening. Except of course
in the Looking-Glass country where people sometimes lived backwards, where
the White Queen had screamed first and then later stuck the needle into her
finger. But even then ґ except, of course, that the Alice books were merely
delightful nonsense, ґ why hadn't she simply not picked up the needle she
knew she was going to stick herself with?
Delightful nonsense, that is, until tonight. Tonight somebody was
making gibbering horror out of Lewis Carroll's most amusing episodes. "Drink
Me" ґ and die suddenly and horribly. That key ґ it had been supposed to open
a fifteen-inch-high door into a beautiful garden. What it had opened the
door to ґ well, I didn't care to look.
I sighed and thought, what the hell, it's over with now. I'm going to
be arrested and Kates thinks I killed Miles and Bonney, but I can't blame
him for thinking it. I've got to wait till Carl can get me out of this.
Kates said, "Stand up, Stoeger."
I didn't. Why should I? I'd just thought, why would Miles or Ralph mind
if I took a drink out of this bottle in my hand? I started to unscrew the
top.
"Stand up, Stoeger. Or I'll shoot you right there."
He meant it. I stood up. His face, as he stood then, was in the shadow,
but I remembered that look of malevolence he'd given me in his office, the
look that said, "I'd like to kill you."
He was going to shoot me. Here and now.
It was safe as houses for him to do so. He could claim ґ if I turned
and ran and he shot me in the back ґ that he'd shot because I was trying to
escape. And if from the front that I ґ a homicidal maniac who had already
killed Miles and Bonney ґ was coming toward him to attack him.
That was why he'd sent Hank away and given him two phone calls to make
so he wouldn't be back for minutes.
I said, "Kates, you're not serious. You wouldn't shoot a man down in
cold blood."
"A man who'd killed a deputy of mine, yes. If I don't, Stoeger, you
might beat the rap. You might get certified as a looney and get away with
it. I'll make sure." That wasn't all of it, of course, but it gave him an
excuse to help his own conscience. I'd killed a deputy of his, he'd thought.
But he'd hated me enough to want to kill me even before he'd thought that.
Hatred and sadism ґ given a perfect excuse.
What could I do? Yell? It wouldn't help. Probably nobody awake ґ it was
well after three o'clock by now ґ would hear me in time to see what
happened. Hank would be phoning in the back office; he wouldn't get to the
window in time.
And Kates would claim that I yelled as I jumped him; yelling would just
trigger the gun.
He stepped closer; if he shot me in the front there'd have to be powder
marks to show that he'd shot while I was coming at him. The gun muzzle
centered on my chest, barely a foot away. I could live seconds longer if I
turned and ran; he'd probably wait until I was a dozen steps away in that
case.
His face was still in the shadow, but I could see that he was grinning.
I couldn't see his eyes or most of the rest of his face, just that grin. A
disembodied grin, like that of the Cheshire cat in Alice. But unlike the
Cheshire cat, he wasn't going to fade away.
I was. Unless something unexpected happened. Like maybe a witness
coming along, over there on the opposite sidewalk. He wouldn't shoot me in
cold blood before a witness. Carl Trenholm, Al Grainger, anybody.
I looked over Kates' shoulder and called out, "Hi, Al!"
Kates turned. He had to; he couldn't take a chance on the possibility
that there was really someone coming.
He turned his head just for a quick glance, to be sure.
I swung the whisky bottle. Maybe I should say my hand swung it; I
hadn't even remembered that I still held it. It hit Kates alongside the head
and like as not the brim of his hat saved his life. I think I swung hard
enough to have killed him if he'd been bare headed.
Kates and the revolver he'd been holding hit the street, separately.
The whisky bottle slid out of my hand and hit the paving; it broke. The
paving must have been harder than Kates' head ґ or maybe it would have
broken on Kates' head if it hadn't been for the brim of his hat.
I didn't even stop to find out if he was dead. I ran like hell.
Afoot, of course. The ignition key of my car was still in my pocket,
but driving off with two corpses was just about the last thing in the world
I wanted to do.
I ran a block and winded myself before I realized I hadn't the faintest
idea where I was going. I slowed down and got off Oak Street. I cut back
into the first alley. I fell over a garbage can and then sat down on it to
get my wind back and to think out what I was going to do. But I had to move
on because a dog started barking.
I found myself behind the courthouse.
I wanted, of course, to know who had killed Ralph Bonney and Miles
Harrison and put their bodies in my car, but there was something that seemed
of even more immediate interest; I wanted to know if I'd killed Rance Kates
or seriously injured him. If I had, I was in a hell of a jam because ґ in
addition to everything else against me ґ it would be my word against his
that I'd done it in self-defense, to save my own life. My word against his,
that is, if he were only injured. My word against nothing at all if I'd
killed him.
And my word wouldn't mean a damn thing to anybody until and unless I
could account for two corpses in my car.
The first window I tried was unlocked. I guess they're careless about
locking windows of the courthouse because, for one reason, there's nothing
kept there that any ordinary burglar would want to steal, and for another
reason because the sheriff's office is in the building, and somebody's on
duty there all night long.
I slid the window up very slowly and it didn't make much noise, not
enough, anyway, to have been heard in the sheriffs office, which is on the
second floor and near the front. I pat it down again, just as quietly, so it
wouldn't be an open giveaway if the search for me went through the alley.
I groped in the dark till I found a chair and sat down to collect what
wits I had left and figure what to do next. I was fairly safe for the
moment. The room I'd entered was one of the small anterooms off the court
room; nobody would look for me here, as long as I kept quiet.
They'd found the sheriff, all right, or the sheriff had come around and
found himself. There were footsteps on the front stairs, footsteps of more
than one person. But back here I was too far away to hear what was being
said, if any talking was going on.
But that could wait for a minute or two.
I wished to hell that I had a drink; I'd never wanted one worse in my
life. I cussed myself for having dropped and broken that bottle ґ and after
it had saved my life, at that. If I hadn't happened to have it in my hand,
I'd have been dead.
I don't know how long I sat there, but it probably wasn't over a few
minutes because I was still breathing a little hard when I decided I'd
better move. If I'd had a bottle to keep me company, I'd have gladly sat
there the rest of the night, I think.
But I had to find out what happened to Kates. If I'd killed him ґ or if
he'd been taken to the hospital and was out of the picture ґ then I'd better
give myself up and get it over with. If he was all right, and was still
running things, that wouldn't be a very smart thing to do. If he'd wanted to
kill me before I'd knocked him out with that bottle, he'd want to do it so
badly now that he would do it, maybe without even bothering to find an
excuse, right in front of Hank or any of the other deputies who were
undoubtedly being waked up to join the manhunt, in front of the coroner or
anybody else who happened to be around.
I bent down and took my shoes off before I got up. I put one in each of
the side pockets of my coat and then tiptoed out through the court room to
the back stairs. I'd been in the building so many thousand times that I knew
the layout almost as well as that of my own home or the Clarion office, and
I didn't run into anything or fall over anything.
I guided myself up the dark back staircase with a hand on the banister
and avoiding the middle of the steps, where they'd be most likely to creak.
Luckily there is an el in the upstairs hallway that runs from the front
stairs to the back ones so there wasn't any danger of my being seen, when
I'd reached the top of the stairs, by anyone entering or leaving the
sheriff's office. And I had dim light now, from the light in the front
hallway near the sheriff's office door.
I tiptoed along almost to the turn of the hall and then tried the door
of the county surveyor's office, which is next to the sheriff's office and
with only an ordinary door with a ground glass pane between them. The door
was unlocked.
I got it open very quietly. It slipped out of my hand when I started to
close it from the inside and almost slammed, but I caught it in time and
eased it shut. I would have liked to lock it, but I didn't know whether the
lock would click or not, so I didn't take a chance on that.
I had plenty of light, comparatively, in the surveyor's office; the
ground glass pane of the door to the sheriff's office was a bright yellow
rectangle through which came enough light to let me see the office furniture
clearly. I avoided it carefully and tiptoed my way toward that yellow
rectangle.
I could hear voices now and as I neared the door I could hear them even
better, but I couldn't quite make out whose they were or what they were
saying until I put my ear against the glass. I could hear perfectly well,
then.
Hank Ganzer was saying, "It still throws me, Rance. A gentle little old
guy like Doc. Two murders andґ"
"Gentle, hell!" It was Kates' voice. "Maybe when he was sane he was,
but he's crazier than a bedbug now. Ow! Go easy with that tape, will you?"
Dr. Heil's voice was soft, harder to understand. He seemed to be urging
that Kates should let himself be taken to the hospital to be sure there
wasn't any concussion.
"The hell with that," Kates said. "Not till we get Stoeger before he
kills anybody else. Like he killed Miles and Bonney and damn near killed me.
Hank, what's about the bodies?"
"I made a quick preliminary examination." Heil's voice was clearer now.
"Cause of death is pretty obviously repeated blows on their heads with what
seems to have been that rusty pistol on your desk. And with the stains on
the pistol butt, I don't think there's any reason to doubt it."
"They still out front?"
Hank said, "No, they're at Dorberg's ґ or on their way there. He and
one of has boys came around with his meat wagon."
"Doc." It was Kates' voice and it made me jump a little until I
realized that he was talking to Dr. Heil and not to me. "You about through?
With that God damn bandage, I mean. I got to get going on this. Hank, how
many of the boys did you get on the phone? How many are coming down?"
"Three, Rance. I got Watkins, Ehlers and Bill Dean. They're all on
their way down. Be here in a few minutes. That'll make five of us."
"Guess that fixes up things as well as I can here, Rance," Dr. Heil's
voice said. "I still suggest you go around to the hospital for an X-ray and
a check-up as soon as you can."
"Sure, Doc. Soon as I catch Stoeger. And he can't get out of town with
the state police watching the roads for us, even if he steals a car. You go
on around to Dorberg's and take care of things there, huh?"
Heil's voice, soft again, said something I couldn't hear, and there
were footsteps toward the outer hall. I could hear other footsteps coming up
the stairs. One or more of the day-shift deputies were arriving.
Kates said, "Hi, Bill, Walt. Ehlers with you?"
"Didn't see him. Probably be here in a minute." It sounded like Bill
Dean's voice.
"That's all right. We'll leave him here, anyway. You both got your
guns? Good. Listen, you two are going together and Hank and I are going
together. We'll work in pairs. Don't worry about the roads leading out; the
state boys are watching them for us. And there's no train or bus out till
late tomorrow morning. We just comb the town."
"Divide it between us, Rance?"
"No. You, Walt, and Bill cover the whole town. Drive through every
street and alley. Hank and I will take places he might have holed in to
hide. We'll search his house and the Clarion office, whether there are
lights on or not, and we'll try any place else that's indoors where he
might've holed in. He might pick an empty house, for instance. Anybody got
any other suggestions where he might think of holing in?"
Bill Dean's voice said, "He's pretty thick with Carl Trenholm. He might
go to Carl."
"Good idea, Bill. Anybody else?"
Hank said, "He looked pretty drunk to me. And he broke that bottle he
had. Might get into his head he wants another drink and break into a tavern.
Probably Smiley's; that's where he hangs out, mostly."
"Okay, Hank. We'll check ґ That must be Dick coming. Any more ideas,
anybody, before we split up?"
Ehlers was coming in now. Hank said, "Sometimes a guy doubles back
where he figures nobody'll figure where he is. I mean, Rance, maybe he
doubled back here and got in the back way or something, thinking the safest
place to hide's right under our noses. Right here in the building."
Kates said, "You heard that, Dick. And you're staying here to watch the
office, so that's your job. Search the building here first before you settle
down."
"Right, Rance."
Kates said, "One more thing. He's dangerous. He's probably armed by
now. So don't take any chances. When you see him, start shooting."
"At Doc Stoeger?" Someone's voice sounded surprised and a little
shocked. I couldn't tell which of the deputies it was.
"At Doc Stoeger," Kates said. "Maybe you think of him as a harmless
little guy ґ but that's the kind that generally makes homicidal maniacs.
He's killed two men tonight and tried to kill me, probably thought he did
kill me, or he'd stayed and finished the job. And don't forget who one of
the men he did kill was. Miles."
Somebody muttered something.
Bill Dean ґ I think it was Bill Dean ґ said, "I don't get it, though. A
guy like Doc. He isn't broke; he's got a paper that makes money and he's not
a crook. Why'd he suddenly want to kill two men for a couple of thousand
lousy bucks?"
Kates swore. He said, "He's nuts, went off the beam. The money probably
didn't have much to do with it, although he took it all right. It was in
that brief case under Miles' body. Now listen, this is the last time I tell
you; he's a homicidal maniac and you better remember Miles the minute you
spot him and shoot quick. He's crazy as a bedbug. Came in here with a cock
and bull story about a guy being croaked out at the Wentworth place ґ a guy
named Yehudi Smith, of all names. And Doc had a card to prove it, only he
printed the card himself. Crazy enough to put his own bug number ґ union
label number ґ on it. Gives me a key that he says opens a fifteen-inch-high
door to a beautiful garden. Well, that was the key to the luggage
compartment of his own car, see? With Miles' and Bonney's bodies, and the
pay roll money, in it. Parked right in front. He'd driven it here. Comes up
and gives me the key. And tries to get me to go to a haunted house with
him."
"Did anybody look there?" Dean asked.
Hank said, "Sure, Bill. On my way back from Neilsville. Went through
the whole dump. Nothing. And listen, Rance is right about him being crazy. I
heard some of the I stuff he said, myself. And if you don't think he's
dangerous, look at Rance. I'm sorry about it, I liked Doc. But damn it, I'm
with Rance on shooting first and catching him afterwards."
Somebody: "God damn it, if he killed Milesґ"
"If he's that crazyґ" I think it was Dick Ehlers. "ґwe'd be doing him a
favor, the way I figure it. If I ever go that far off the beam, homicidal,
damn if I wouldn't rather be shot than spend the rest of my life in a padded
cell. But what made him go off that way? All of a sudden, I mean?"
"Alcohol. Softens the brain, and then all of a sudden, whang."
"Doc didn't drink that much. He'd get drunk, a little, a night or two a
week, but he wasn't an alcoholic. And he was such a niceґ"
A fist hit a desk. It would have been Kates' fist and Kates' desk. It
was Kates' swivel chair that squealed and his voice said, "What the hell are
we having a sewing circle for. Come on, let's go out and get him. And about
shooting first, that's orders. I've lost one deputy tonight already. Come
on."
Footsteps, lots of them, toward the door.
Kates' voice calling back from it. "And don't forget to search this
building, Dick. Cellar to roof, before you settle down here."
"Right, Rance."
Footsteps, lots of heavy footsteps, going down the steps.
And one set of them turning back along the hallway.
Toward the County Surveyor's office.
Toward me.
And he was very proud and stiff;
He said "I'd go and wake them, ifґ"
I took a corkscrew from the shelf;
I went to wake them up myself.
I hoped he'd take Rance Kates' orders literally and search the place
from cellar to attic, in that order. If he did, I could get out either the
front or back way while he was in the basement. But he might start on this
floor, with this room.
So I tiptoed to the door, pulling one of my shoes out of my pocket as I
went. I stood flat against the wall by the door, gripping the shoe, ready to
swing the heel of it if Ehlers' head came in.
It didn't. The footsteps went on past and started down the back
staircase. I breathed again.
I opened the door and stepped out into the hall as soon as the
footsteps were at the bottom of the back steps. Out there in the hall, in
the quiet of the night, I could hear him moving about down there. He didn't
go to the basement; he was taking the main floor first. That wasn't good.
With him on the first floor I couldn't risk either the front or the back
stairs; I was stuck up here.
Outside I heard first one car start and then another. At least the
front entrance was clear if I had to try to leave that way, if Ehlers
started upstairs by the back staircase.
I took a spot in the middle of the hallway, equidistant from both
flights of steps. I could still hear him walking around down on the floor
below, but it was difficult to tell just where he was. I had to be ready to
make a break in either direction.
I swore to myself at the thoroughness of Kates' plans for finding me.
My house, my office, Carl's place, Smiley's or another tavern ґ every place
I'd actually be likely to go. Even here, the courthouse, where I really was.
But luckily, instead of all of them pitching in for a quick once-over here,
he'd left only one man to do the job, and as long as I could hear him and he
couldn't hear me ґ and probably didn't believe I was really here at all ґ I
had an edge.
Only, damn it, why didn't Ehlers hurry? I wanted a drink, and if I
could get out of here, I could get one somewhere, somehow. I was shaking
like a leaf, and my thoughts were, too. Even one drink would steady me
enough to think straight.
Maybe Kates kept a bottle in the bottom drawer of his desk.
The way I felt just then, it was worth trying. I listened hard to the
sounds below me and decided Ehlers was probably at the back of the building
and I tiptoed to the front and into Kates' office.
I went back to his desk and pulled the drawer open very quietly and
slowly. There was a whisky bottle there. It was empty.
I cussed Kates under my breath. It wasn't bad enough that he'd tried to
kill me; on top of that, he'd had to finish off that bottle without leaving
a single drink in it. And it had been a good brand, too.
I closed the drawer again as carefully as I'd opened it, so there'd be
no sign of my having been there.
Lying on the blotter on Kates' desk was a revolver. I looked at it,
wondering whether I should take it along with me. For a second the fact that
it was rusty didn't register and then I remembered Hank's description of the
gun that had been used as a bludgeon to kill Miles and Bonney, and I bent
closer. Yes, it was an Iver-Johnson, nickel-plated where the plating wasn't
worn or knocked off. This was the death weapon, then.
Exhibit A.
I reached out to pick it up, and then jerked my hand back. Hadn't I
been framed well enough without helping the framer by putting my
fingerprints on that gun? That was all I needed, to have my fingerprints on
the weapon that had done the killing. Or were they there already?
Considering everything else, I wouldn't have been too surprised if they
were.
Then I almost went through the ceiling. The phone rang.
I could hear, in the silence between the first ring and the second,
Ehlers' footsteps starting upstairs. But back here in the office, I couldn't
tell whether he was coming up the front way or the back, and I might not
have time to make it anyway, even if I knew.
I looked around frantically and saw a closet, the door ajar. I grabbed
up the Iver-Johnson and ducked into the closet, behind the door. And I stood
there, trying not to breathe, while Ehlers came in and picked up the phone.
He said, "Sheriff's office," and then, "Oh, you Rance," and then he
listened a while.
"You're phoning from the Clarion? Not at Smiley's or there, huh?... No,
no calls have come in... Yeah, I'm almost through looking around here.
Searched the first floor and the basement. Just got to go over this floor
yet."
I swore at myself. He'd been down in the basement, then, and I could
have got away. But the building had been so quiet that his walking around
down there had sounded to me as though it had been on the main floor.
"Don't worry, I'm not taking any chances, Rance. Gun in one hand and a
flashlight in the other."
There was a gun in my hand too, and suddenly I realized what a damned
foolish thing I'd done to pick it up off Kates' desk. Ehlers must have known
it was there. If he missed it, if he happened to glance down at the desk
while he was talking on the phoneґ
God must have loved me. He didn't. He said, "Okay, Rance," and then he
put the phone down and walked out.
I heard him go back along the hallway and around the el and start
opening doors back there. I had to get out quick, down the front steps,
before he worked his way back here. As a matter of routine, he'd probably
open this closet door too when he'd searched his way back to the office he'd
started from.
I let myself out and tiptoed down the steps. Out into the night again,
onto Oak Street. And I had to get off it quick, because either of the two
cars looking for me might cruise by at any moment. Carmel City isn't large;
a car can cruise all of its streets and alleys in pretty short order.
Besides I still had my shoes in my pockets and ґ I realized now ґ I still
had a gun in my hand.
Hoping Ehlers wouldn't happen to be looking out of any of the windows,
I ran around the corner and into the mouth of the alley behind the