“There’s one thing I’m still not too sure of,” I said. “And that’s why you’re so certain she’s the one that killed him and left his car in front of your apartment. Wasn’t there anybody else who could have known he was going to run off with you?”
“It’s not likely. And nobody but that vindictive bitch would have gone to that much trouble and risk of exposure just for the pleasure of letting me know. I mean, leaving the car right out front here. She would do that.”
“How about telling me the whole thing?” I said.
“Suppose you tell me something first,” she said coolly. “Do you want in this, or don’t you?”
“What do you think? I came back, didn’t I?”
“Not worried about breaking the law?”
“Let’s put it this way: Whoever’s got that money is outside the law himself, or herself. So he or she can’t yell cop. And as far as conscience is concerned, you can buy a lot of sleeping pills with sixty thousand dollars.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Who said anything about sixty thousand? I’m offering you a third.”
“And you know what you can do with your third. It’s half or nothing.”
“You’ve got a nerve—”
“What do you mean, nerve? I’m the one that has to go up there and stick his head in the lion’s mouth and search the place. You don’t take any risk.”
“All right, all right,” she said. “Relax. I just thought I’d try. A half it is.”
“That’s better. Now, tell me about it.”
“All right,” she said. “You know now why I’m so certain he’s dead. He has to be, or he’d have shown up here. Butler was no fool. He knew he didn’t have a chance unless he had a place to hide. So he and I worked it out. I got this apartment several months before he pulled it off. When he took the money and made the break he was to come here, hide in this apartment without even going out on the street for at least two months, until some of the uproar had died down and we had changed his appearance as much as possible. Then we were going to get away to the West Coast in a car and trailer, with Butler riding in the trailer. He’d turn up in San Francisco with a whole new identity. It was a fine idea, of course, except that he never did show up here. His car did, but somebody else drove it.”
“That’s right.”
“So you believe me now?” she said.
“Yes. Certainly. That was the thing that made the difference. The other story didn’t make any sense. As soon as it soaked into my head that you were the woman he was running off with— And, of course, if he didn’t show up here, it was because he couldn’t.”
“So the money’s still right there in the house in Mount Temple,” she said.
“That I’m not so sure of. Anybody might have killed him, for that much.”
“No. Nobody else could have known about it. But she did. The last time I saw him he was afraid she’d put detectives on our trail.”
“How long have you known them?” I asked. “Were you actually a nurse there in Mount Temple?”
“Yes. But that was last fall and winter. I’d been back here four months when he actually pulled it off.”
“He was pretty gone on you?”
“Maybe. In a way,” she said.
“You after him? Or the money?”
“Let’s say both. We believed in taking what we needed, and what we needed was each other. What do you want? Tristan and Isolde?”
“And now that he’s dead, you’ll settle for the money?” Then I changed it. “For half the money.”
“That’s right. What should I do? Throw myself off a cliff?”
“We’ll get along,” I said.
She crushed the cigarette out with a savage slash at the ashtray. “There’s another thing, too. She’s not going to get away with it. The drunken bitch.”
Well, I thought, I’ll be a sad...
“Get this through your head,” I said. “Once and for all. This is a business proposition, or I’m out, as of now. There’ll be no wild-haired babes blowing their tops and killing each other in anything I’m mixed up in. I thought you were tough.”
She glared at me. “I am,” she said. “What I mean is
she’s not going to get away with the money.”
“That’s better. Just keep it in mind.”
“Mount Temple’s about two hundred miles away,” I
said. “I can drive it in four hours.”
She shook her head. “You’ll have to go on the bus.”
“What do you mean, go on the bus?”
“Look. You’ll be in that house two days. Maybe three.
Where are you going to leave your car? In the drive?”
“I’ll park it somewhere else in town.”
“No. In that length of time somebody might notice it. The police might impound it. A hundred things could happen.”
I could see she was right. A car with out-of-town tags sitting around that long might attract attention. But the bus idea wasn’t much better.
“I’m supposed to get in there and out without being seen by anybody who could identify me afterward. The bus is no good.”
She nodded. “That’s right, too. We can’t be too careful about that. I think the best thing is for me to drive you up there.”
“Listen,” I said. “Here’s the way we work it. You drive me up there, drop me off in back somewhere where there s no street light, then come back and keep an eye on Mrs. Butler. This is Tuesday night. If the house is as big as you say it is, I’ll want two full days. So at exactly two o’clock Friday morning you ease by in back of the place again and I’ll be out there waiting for you. We’ll either have the money, or we’ll know it’s not there.”
“Right.” She leaned back in her chair and stared at me with her eyes a little cool and hard. “And just in case you haven’t thought of it yet,” she said, “don’t get any brilliant ideas about running out with all of it if you find it, just because I’m not there. You know how far you’d get as soon as the police received an anonymous phone call.”
She had it figured from every angle. “You’re sweet,” I said. “Who’d run off from you?”
“For that much money, you would. But don’t try it.”
“Right,” I said. “And while we’re on the subject, don’t try to double-cross me, either.”
I held my wrist under the dash lights and looked at the watch. It was three-ten.
We had left Sanport at midnight, after I had put my own car in a storage garage and bought a few things I’d need. I checked them off in my mind: flashlight with spare batteries, small screwdriver, Scotch tape, half a dozen packs of cigarettes. It was all there.
She was driving fast, around sixty most of the time. There was very little traffic, and the towns along the highway were asleep. We came into one now, and she slowed to thirty-five as we went through.
“It’s the next one,” she said. “About thirty miles.”
“You won’t get back until after daylight.”
“It doesn’t matter. Nobody knows me there. And Mrs.
Butler probably won’t be up before noon.”
“The police may be tailing her. Just on the chance she might be meeting Butler.”
“I know.” She punched the cigarette lighter and said, “Give me a cigarette, Lee. But what if they are? They don’t know anything.”
When the lighter popped out, I lit the cigarette and handed it to her. We were running through a long river bottom now, with dark walls of trees on both sides. I looked at her. She had put on a long, pleated white skirt and maroon blouse. She was a smooth job, with the glow of the dash highlighting the rounded contours of her face and shining in the big dark eyes.
I lit one for myself. “There’s one thing I still don’t like,” I said. “There may be a lot of that money in negotiable securities instead of cash. I mean, he was a banker and he’d know how to convert ‘em without getting tripped up, but we wouldn’t.”