"You and her don't get along," Carol said, "do you?" I looked at her small face. "What makes you say that?" Carol shrugged. "Oh, she has a way of lookin' when I'd say somethin' about you."

  Inside, one lamp burned and the last wood coals glowed feebly in the fireplace. On the sideboard stood a half-empty glass and a bottle of Scotch with the cap off. Pat had certainly scampered upstairs in a hurry.

  Carol saw me looking at the sideboard. "She sure drinks a lot, your wife, don't she? She 'most finished off that bottle sittin' around here tonight. Serves up a good meal, though."

  I detached my hand from hers and went over to the sideboard. Screwing the top back on the Scotch bottle, I saw that the bottle was almost empty. I changed my mind and unscrewed it. I finished it off in one long gulp. I had wanted to tell Pat about being shot at. Now that I couldn't, I knew that I had hoped for some "warm sympathy from her.

  I turned back to Carol. She stood there, waiting, her face calm and beautiful in its frame of fluffy golden hair. I knew I could tell her about being shot at. But she had troubles of her own. Out of my own desire for understanding I wanted to put my arms around her. But I remembered what had happened inside me last time I had touched her. She was too tiny and lovely and distractingly uncomplicated for my emotions to cope with that night.

  "Come on," I said, turning off the lamp. "Let's go on up to bed. We've got to get up early tomorrow."

  Following her slim little figure up the stairs, I felt fate was mocking me. Here I was, nuts about one woman whom I couldn't touch and another whom I was afraid to touch. Maybe I was just nuts.

  At the door of her room Carol turned smoothly, and before I could move she reached up, pulled my head down, and kissed me swiftly with her soft lips. "Remember that night in my room?" she whispered huskily. "Don't worry about your wife. I like you fine!"

  Dazed, I stared at the door she closed behind her. Now I knew that I hadn't dreamed that strange night. Sighing, I went to the door of my den. I stopped, turned around, and went on to Pat's room. I tried the door. It was locked.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The morning sky had only a few skittish clouds, enough to decorate it, so that the sun flooded the sky at dawn and kept on flooding it, making the earth warm and soft when it came time for it to receive the body of Jim Brill. A brisk wind chased the skittish clouds and rippled the grass around the other cemetery gravestones. As we stood with bared heads and listened to the sounds of the meaningless words the man in neat black was saying over the casket beside the long hole in the ground, I thought how rotten it was for a man to be buried under the earth on a beautiful day that promised so much to those above it.

  Carol was crying again, ugly, choking sobs that shook her small, slim body. Her mother didn't cry. She stood rigidly beside the casket, looking tinier than ever. Mack Fisher stared morosely off over the heads of the undertaker's solemn men at a point somewhere in the pale blue sky.

  Afterward I drove Carol and Ma Brill to their house by the river. It was a silent, unhappy ride, with all three of us withdrawn somewhere inside ourselves, with separate, private unhappinesses. Following Carol's occasional muffled directions, I drove most of the way along a highway that curved through the hills and several times came within sight of the river. I turned off when Carol directed me, and bumped the car over a snaky country road that turned progressively into a cinder road and finally a dirt path.

  I stopped at the O'Neil house and picked up the three towheaded boys. They crowded into the car and sat silent and saucer-eyed, occasionally stealing furtive glimpses of their sister and mother. They knew what had happened to their father, but they weren't old enough quite to absorb the finality of it.

  At the Brill house, I managed to get a few words with Ma Brill before heading back to town.

  "Ma, how'll you manage to make enough to live on, now that Jim is gone?"

  "Well manage," she muttered, sitting stiff and lonely at the kitchen table, her stringy arms leaning heavily against its top.

  "What I mean is," I managed to continue, "I want to send you a little money now and then till you all find some way to get along. I sure owe you more than money, Ma. It's because of me that Jim died."

  "No," she said, looking up at me. She looked sadly proud, but I knew she wasn't offended. "We'll manage. We make enough offa the chickens and eggs to get us the little we need."

  "You're sure of that, Ma?"

  "Sure." She reached over and patted my arm. "We like you, Danny. You're like another son to me. Come back and see us when you can, will you?"

  "I will," I promised.

  "You better get goin' now. I know you got a business to take care of. We'll be all right now."

  As I was starting the car outside, Carol came running out of the house. She put her hands on the open car window and looked at me anxiously. Her young face seemed to have matured years in the past day.

  "You will come back and see us, won't you, Danny?"

  This time I reached and pulled her head down. "I will," I said. I kissed her. I'd known all along how I'd feel doing that-and I'd been right. As I drove away I could see her in the rear-view mirror, standing small and straight, looking after me.

  ***

  After parking the car in front of the bar, I took a look at my watch and saw I wasn't due to relieve Jeff yet. Leaning against the fender, I wondered what to do till then. I got an idea. Not a brilliant idea. Just a time-passing idea. I went inside the bar. There wasn't a customer in the place. Just Jeff and Salty sitting around in front of the bar on the high stools dawdling over a game of black-jack.

  "Hi," I said, moving in on them. "Don't we ever do any business in the daytime?"

  Jeff grinned and took a quarter from Salty. Salty groaned and said, "Hi."

  "Not much," Jeff admitted. "Big business is always after you come on at night."

  "Yeah," I said, "and the big work, too. I found that out last night. How come I always work the night shift?" Jeff was visibly offended. "Why, hell, Danny, you were single when you came in with me, and I'm married. We figured it was only right I should have the nights off."

  "That was then. Now I'm married too. Guess it's time we made some rearrangements so I can spend some nights with my wife."

  "Well," Jeff evaded, "we can talk about it sometime."

  "Yeah," I said. "Later. I still have an hour before I take over. Think I'll take a walk."

  "Sure, sure. Go ahead."

  "By the way," I asked him, "did Elsie have any folks?"

  "Yeah. Her father runs the drugstore down the next block, across the street. Her mother died a couple years back."

  "Thanks," I said. I headed out.

  "Hey!" Jeff called after me. "How was the funeral?"

  "Dandy. Just dandy, Jeff."

  ***

  The name Sylvester Daniels was lettered on the drugstore window. Inside the small store, a girl was getting a soda from a squat man almost as wide as he was tall. He had a crown of fuzzy white hair around his wrinkled, bald head. He looked up across the soda fountain when I came in.

  "Is Sylvester Daniels around?" I asked politely.

  The uncertainty on his face hardened into pure hate. "Get out!" he screamed, coming out front behind the fountain in a nervous, stumbling run. "Get out of here, you murderer!"

  "Just a minute, Mr. Daniels. I didn't kill your daughter. Fisher'd have me in jail if I had."

  "You scum! You and all those others. Making a bad girl out of my daughter!"

  "Hold on," I yelled, grabbing him by the arm. "I'm trying to help you. I'm trying to find out who killed Elsie. Maybe you can help me."

  He wrenched himself out of my grasp with surprising strength and hurried toward the back of the store. I followed him. I reached him as he reached under a counter and pulled out a policeman's night stick. He swung it at my head. I ducked and caught the stick in my hand as it descended. The force of its blow stung my fingers numb, sent a jolting pain up my arm.

  I grabbed the stick with my other hand, yanked it out of his grasp. I slapped him hard across his temple with the back of my stung hand. He crashed over sideways into the counter and sat on the floor. He held his lowered head between his palms and moaned.

  "Look," I pleaded, "she was messing around with lots of other guys. Any one of them could have done it. Can you tell me what she was doing the night she was murdered? Who was she out with?"

  "With Buddy Crown," he blubbered, still holding his head.

  "Crown, eh?"

  "Buddy is a nice boy. If she had only married him, she would've been all right. It was you and all those others that turned her into a bad girl."

  He began to cry, tears rolling down his cheeks. I tried to ask him more, but he only shook his head back and forth and cried.

  Feeling sick, I walked out of the store, taking the stick with me. The soda-drinking girl had fled.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I headed for Mack Fisher's office. He was limping down the front steps as I reached the big building. He looked at the night stick in my hand.

  "This belongs to Sylvester Daniels," I told him, holding it out to him. "He just tried to club me with it. It's weighted at the end. It'd probably have finished me if it had landed."

  Fisher took the club. "Where did this happen?"

  "In his store. I tried to ask him some questions about his daughter. Did you know she was out with your deputy Crown the night she was murdered?"

  "Yes. I've checked all that." He looked at me. "Buddy" took her back home at eleven-thirty that night. Then he went home himself. His mother and father both agree that he was home by midnight. And that he didn't go out again."

  "But Elsie Daniels did."

  "Yes. Her father, Sylvester, says she took their car and drove away shortly after Buddy brought her home. She didn't tell him where she was going. She seldom did. And she never came back."

  "At least," I pointed out, "that's her father's story."

  "Can you disprove it? I can't. Sylvester says he went to bed after she left. He didn't leave the house till morning."

  "Where were Daniels and Crown when Brill was murdered?"

  "Sylvester was in his store, as far as we can tell. Buddy was in my office, typing some notes."

  "Were you there with him?"

  "No. But… look here, Danny, I'm running this investigation, not you. I can't stop your asking questions, but don't bother me till you get some answers. As a matter of fact, I think I have some."

  "What?"

  "Going to your place?"

  "Yeah," I told him. "It's time for me to relieve Jeff."

  "Then I'll go with you."

  I walked slowly to match his limping gait. He didn't seem to notice me glance at his leg, but he said, "The First War. I was a machine gunner. You seem to have come through the Second War without any such accident."

  "Yeah," I said. "I guess I had to settle in your peaceful little community to get action."

  He grunted at that. I accepted it as his version of a chuckle.

  There were a few men drinking at the bar now. Jeff and Salty Karlog were working behind the bar. They both wore soiled white aprons.

  Mack Fisher leaned against the bar and spoke quietly to Jeff. "I'd like to talk to you and Danny. Want to go back to your office?"

  Surprised, Jeff looked up at me. There was resentment in his face. He spoke to Salty and walked back toward the office. Inside, Fisher closed the door and sat on the sofa.

  "Jeff," he asked, "where were you the night Elsie was murdered, the night Danny disappeared?"

  "Me?" Jeff sat uncomfortably on the edge of the desk. "I was home."

  "All night?" persisted Fisher.

  "Sure. Me and Sandra listened to the radio. Then we went to bed."

  "That's nice," Fisher said, as though he thought it was. He went on in the same tone: "Mel Singer, next door to you, heard your car come into the driveway a little before midnight, just before he fell asleep. His wife heard you, too. Where were you till then? I mean really, not that radio-listening business."

  Sweat oozed out on Jeff's face. He wiped it with his apron. "All right," he said. "I was out gambling."

  "Big gambling, eh?"

  "Y-yeah."

  "Where?"

  "I don't have to tell you that."

  Fisher was quiet. He didn't look pleasant.

  "No," Fisher said finally, "you don't have to tell me. Not now, you don't. But if I get just a little more on you, you'll tell me or hang. You want to hang, Jeff?"

  Jeff mopped his streaming, reddening face.

  "I know there's a big-city gang running big gambling somewhere in this county or near it again," Fisher went on. "We don't like those big-money mobs getting a hold around here. They've tried it before. I'll get them this time, too. Where is it? Over in Sunbridge?"

  Jeff kept his mouth shut, his jaws straining with the effort.

  "I'll find it," Fisher said, half to himself. "And you better not be in it when I do." He shot out his next question so suddenly Jeff almost fell off the desk: "Where did you go after you left your house again that night?"

  "W-what?" Jeff whined.

  "Mel Singer heard you leave again, about five minutes after you drove home. He was in the bathroom. He looked out and saw your car pull away. It was almost exactly midnight. Elsie was killed around one-thirty. Danny was dropped in the river at around three a.m. Where were you?"

  "I talked with my wife a little after I got in." Jeff sounded and looked completely exhausted. "Then I got to thinking I'd been noticing something wrong with our books lately." Jeff motioned at the safe. I began to feel funny in my stomach. I went over and sat on the far side of the sofa, away from Fisher.

  "I'd got to thinking someone was milking our receipts," Jeff said, not looking my way. "I decided to come down here and study them a little closer. I wanted to check how much dough Danny had left from the day's receipts. He always leaves it in the safe."

  "And you suspected," interrupted Fisher, "that Danny wasn't leaving all he should leave, is that it?"

  I was breathing with difficulty.

  "That's it." Jeff nodded.

  "And did Danny have any idea you suspected this?"

  "No. Or at least, I don't think so."

  "And when did you arrive here?"

  "I guess it was about half past twelve."

  "Was anybody here?"

  "No."

  "What did you find from your studies here?"

  "It looked like Danny hadn't left it all. At least, there wasn't as much in the safe as there should have been."

  I was on my feet, boiling mad.

  "My friend," I sneered. "My buddy, you said. I don't remember anything, so it's easy to pin a thing like this on me. I can't talk back and know what I'm talking about. O.K. So maybe I was a crook. But you just now said you've been gambling. Big gambling. That means big losing, doesn't it? Where were you getting that kind of money? Maybe you were milking us. What do you say?"

  Jeff didn't say anything. He only looked unhappy. The perspiration was soaking through his shirt.

  Fisher waited for one of us to speak again. Then he said, "And when did you leave here? Eh, Jeff?"

  "I don't know. I didn't check the time."

  "Convenient. And when did you get home?"

  "I'm not sure. Around two, two-thirty, maybe."

  "Maybe." Fisher sighed. "Unfortunately, your neighbors were sound asleep by then, whenever it was. Was your wife, Sandra, asleep when you got in?"

  "Yeah, and she didn't wake up. I was quiet."

  "I see. Would you mind, Danny, going out for a while? I imagine you have work to do. I want to talk to Jeff alone."

  I stalked out and slammed the door. Now I was beginning to sweat. I was flushed with rage at Jeff. Yet I couldn't help wondering if he was telling the truth. It would just fit the lovely picture I'm getting of myself, I thought bitterly. An adulterer and a petty crook.

  The bar was crowding up. I joined Salty Karlog behind the bar and went to work. I remembered a surprising amount of what Salty and Jeff had taught me. Occasionally, one of the men drinking what I was serving talked about the two murders with me, and asked about my amnesia. They had a lot of questions, but no answers. Then I heard Salty say, "How'reya, Mrs. Hull."

  I looked over quickly. She was a fairly tall, plumpish woman in her middle thirties. She had mousy brown hair and a pug-nosed, plain sort of pleasantness. She smiled when she saw me, and when she smiled she looked pretty.

  "Hello, Dan." She gave me her warm, firm hand. "Are you still having trouble with your head?"

  "I still can't remember anything, if that's what you mean."

  "Oh," she said. "I'm very sorry, Danny. I'm Sandra Hull. Jeff's wife."

  "I figured."

  "Sheriff Fisher called for me to meet him and Jeff here."

  "They're back in the office," I told her.

  "Do you know what it's all about?"

  "Not all of it, Mrs. Hull. Not yet."

  "Oh," she said. She seemed undecided for a moment. Then she shook her head and went back into the office.

  Jeff and his wife emerged almost half an hour later. They walked down by the bar and out. Mrs. Hull turned and said, "See you later, Danny," and looked sad. Jeff didn't look at me.

  Mack Fisher came out a little later and stopped by the bar.

  "She backed up his story," he told me. "As much of it as she knew. He came in before twelve, left shortly after that, and she was asleep so she doesn't know when he got home."

  "My buddy, Jeff," I said.

  "Well, you may be right that he may be lying about that missing money."

  "Fine. Only I'll never be sure."

  "He told me you learned the back-of-the-bar business real fast this afternoon. Faster than when you first became his partner. He seemed to think that was strange, if you've really lost your memory."

  "What do you think?"

 

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