There was no time, no clocks, no night. Existence was divided into two motions: press-lift. I worked over her. My arms were clumsy, bloated things. The small of my back was like a tooth broken down to the nerves. I had no thought of stopping. It became a mania. I could not remember why I was doing this. I worked with my eyes squeezed against the pain, my jaw sagging.
She made a choking, coughing sound, and she whispered and stirred under my hands. I rested my hands on her, lightly, and felt the swell and fall of her breathing. I found her pulse. It was slow and steady. I crawled away from her and pitched forward, my cheek against the mud. Nausea curled inside me and faded. I wept with weakness. After a time I crawled back to her. I fingered the back of her head, and felt the stickiness.
I stood up weakly and saw, far off, golden rectangles of lighted windows. They were home, and fireside. I gathered her up. She seemed very heavy. She was unconscious. I fumbled over two fences, carrying her. I dropped her once and told her aloud that I was sorry about being so clumsy. I picked her up again.
Chickens made querulous sounds in their sleep. A dog came charging out, yapping in valiant hysteria. See me, the brave dog, defending my land. Hear my bold voice.
A hard, white yard light went on and there was a big barn shape near me, with a smell of tractors. I tripped and caught myself.
“Who’s that? Who’s out there?” a man yelled.
“Accident!” I croaked. “River.”
I came into the cone of light. A gaunt man peered at me. He took two long strides and caught Perry as she started to slip away from me again.
I followed him into the kitchen. The house was full of kids. The television was on. The kitchen tilted slowly and the linoleum hammered the side of my head. I tried slowly and laboriously to get up and somebody helped me, saying, “Easy does it! Easy does it!”
I smiled to show I was just fine. I leaned on him and said carefully, “Please... get a doctor. Phone Arland Police. Get hold of Portugal... Sergeant Portugal. Nobody else, please. Tell him... Dean wants him. Tell him... how to get here.”
Chapter 16
I knew the calls had been made. I wanted to sleep. But the man knew I was badly chilled and shocked and he got me into a hot tub. It had the right effect. I felt life and strength coming back into drained muscles. He left me when he was sure I wouldn’t pass out in the tub. He left fresh underwear, a wool shirt, and blue jeans. I soaked for a long time. I could hear heavy voices in the house, and people walking around. I got out and used the big rough towel. I looked in the mirror. There was a knot in the middle of my forehead. My left cheek was puffed and purple, the eye swollen to a slit.
I dressed in the clothes left there for me and walked out of the steamy bathroom. Kids peered at me and darted into other bedrooms. I went into the living-room. Sergeant Portugal stood there, looking solid and safe and comforting. He was talking to a tired-looking young man with an unkempt mustache.
“How is she?” I asked.
“By God, you look rough, Dean,” Portugal said. “Meet the doctor.” He was bouncing a small object in his hand. He held it up between thumb and forefinger. “The doc took this out of her head.”
“She’ll be all right, Mr. Dean,” the doctor said.
“I figure it was an air gun,” Portugal said.
“A powerful one. It hit at an angle right at the crown of her head, and traveled between scalp and skull all the way around and came to rest just above her left eyebrow. If it hadn’t hit at an angle, I’d judge it could very easily have perforated the skull.”
“Can I see her?”
“No. I removed the pellet, treated her for shock, and gave her a shot that will keep her out for eight hours. She’s okay to be moved. There’s an ambulance on the way out.”
“She’ll go into Arland General under another name, Mr. Dean,” Portugal said. “And you and I are going into town too, so let’s thank these people and arrange about clothes and see if your wallet is dry, and you can start talking on the way in.”
I rode with Portugal in his sedan. As we turned onto the highway, the ambulance turned in. I talked. I kept nothing back. I was so weary, I would begin to ramble until Portugal would haul me back onto the subject with a terse question. He stopped near a drugstore and made a phone call. I sat in the darkness. I felt uneasy. The river had done something to my nerves. Every time I thought of Joan I felt gladness.
Portugal came back. He got in and didn’t start the motor. “I got to make another call in ten minutes. We’ll wait right here.”
“What call?”
“I got to know where to take you. I got to know where they want you.”
“They?”
He turned. There was enough light on his heavy face so that I could see his weary smile. “It’s out of my league. You’re going to be in good hands. Just relax and ride with it, Mr. Dean.”
Suddenly he was shaking me awake. I came to, bleared with sleep. “Did you make your call?” I mumbled.
“Made it and drove three miles. You’re to go with them.”
I saw two men standing by the sedan. We were parked in an alley. I sensed that we were in downtown Arland. I got out and turned to thank Portugal, but the sedan was already in motion.
“Please follow me, Mr. Dean,” one of the men said. We went through a door and down steps and through a boiler room to a waiting basement elevator. The elevator took us up to a high floor, to an empty, echoing corridor, to lighted offices.
There was a man waiting, sitting at a table. There were three empty chairs. There was a small microphone on the table, a large tape recorder with oversized reels on a stand. The two men who brought me up looked young and competent. The seated man was older. I was conscious of the poor fit of the wool shirt and the jeans, of my bruised face and soggy shoes.
“Please sit down, Mr. Dean. My name is Tancey. I’m with the FBI.” He did not introduce the other two. We all sat down. Tancey was one of those curiously professorial-looking men who, on closer examination, suffer a subtle alteration. You see the hard-knuckled hands then, and the steady eyes, and the breadth of chest, and the clean, compact physical movements, and you wonder what gave you the original impression of the subdued scholar.
Tancey turned on the tape recorder, checked the gain, gave the date and hour and my name, and began asking questions. They took me through it, right from the beginning. Facts and conjectures. And when I did not give enough detail to satisfy them, they made me back up and go over the incident again. They asked questions that seemed to me to be immaterial, and when I asked a question, it was ignored. They were not rude. They were businesslike. It was a strain. I kept yawning. At last Tancey was satisfied. He turned off the recorder, rewound the tape, checked it for sound, using the monitor speaker. I heard my own voice, scratchy with fatigue.
During the last half-hour of it, I had begun to get annoyed. They were undoubtedly fine, capable men, but their attitude was as though they were dealing with a rather stupid, naughty child.
Tancey lit a cigarette and gave me a weary smile. “We may have to go over some of it again tomorrow, Mr. Dean.”
“Can I go back to the hotel now?”
“I’m afraid not. You and Miss Perrit were murdered tonight. We’ll keep it that way.”
“How about her people? You can’t keep them in the dark.”
“They’ve been contacted. They’ll co-operate. They know she’s all right. We had them report her missing.”
“There’s something about this cloak-and-dagger atmosphere that doesn’t set too well with me, Mr. Tancey. Why don’t you sweat it out of Colonel Dolson and wrap it up?”