I never closed the station faster than I did that night. I took in the hose and oil displays, I locked the pumps and the door, and when I headed for Number 2 it was all I could do to keep from running.
Paula had the door open for me. “What happened?”
“It's all right,” I said. I walked over to the bed where Sheldon lay quietly, his eyes closed. “How about him?”
“He's asleep. What did you tell your father?”
“I told you everything was all right. He thinks I shot your husband.”
She blinked. That was all. Then she laughed. “Your father didn't like me Very much. He didn't approve of me. He thinks I led you astray, doesn't he?”
“Something like that.”
“And he knows about the robbery?”
“Not a thing. He doesn't even suspect anything.”
“Well,” she said, smiling, “you've got brains. I'm glad you didn't disappoint me by not using them.”
There never was another woman like Paula Sheldon. She didn't have to talk. What she had to say she could say with her eyes and her body. I lit a cigarette for her and one for me, and we stood there for one long moment saying nothing. Suddenly I reached for her, but she stepped aside as gracefully as a cat.
“No!”
“What's the matter with you?”
“I think you'd better go to your cabin,” she said. “You look like you could use some sleep.” Carelessly she dropped her cigarette to the floor and stepped on it, then she went over to the bed and placed the back of her hand to Sheldon's forehead. I followed and put one arm around her.
“That's enough,” she said flatly.
I wheeled her around, pinning her arms to her side, and when I put my mouth to hers it was like setting fire to a keg of powder. Her arms went around my neck. She melted and flowed against me and I could feel the nervous ripple of her body, the softness of her, the heat of her.
Then it was over. She slipped away.
“You'd better go.”
“Like hell!” I reached for her again and she whipped her hand across my face with a crack like a pistol shot in the silence of the room.
“Get out of here!” she hissed.
I almost hit her. I could feel the muscles in my shoulders and arms grow taut as I took a quick step toward her. She didn't move. She just stood there smiling that insolent smile, and I grabbed her by the front of her dress and slammed her against the wall. She went reeling back, then fell over a chair and went down to her hands and knees. Even then, in the midst of rage, I thought what a hell of a woman she was. I had to force myself to turn and walk out. If she had said one word, I would have come running. But she made no sound.
I took a shower and felt a little better. I opened all the doors and windows of my cabin to let in what little breeze there was. I lay across the bed in my shorts and tried to think about my life before Paula came into it, but the picture wouldn't come. It was hard to believe that I had ever been such a person.
Relax, I told myself. Relax and get some sleep.
Easier said than done. Paula had played hell with me. I could feel myself winding up tighter and tighter, and pretty soon I'd be ready to get up and start kicking holes in the wall.
That was when I heard it. A quick, soft shuffling outside. Then my door opened and Paula was standing there in the doorway, framed in moonlight, as pale as the moon herself. I sat up in bed as she came toward me.
She didn't say a word. She slipped onto the bed and her fingers were like a hundred snakes crawling over my body. “Goddamn you,” I said, “I ought to beat your brains out!”
She laughed softly. That hot mouth found me in the darkness and I pulled her down with me.
“Joe?”
“Yes?”
“What were you thinking about before I came?”
“Nothing.”
She laughed again.
Chapter Twelve
It was about two the next afternoon when Ike Abrams came back with the news. His drowsy eyes were bright with the excitement. “By God,”, he said, “Creston's about to bust loose at the seams! They just found old Otto Finney's body in the lake!”
“They what!”
“The old watchman at the box factory. They just found his body.”
I couldn't believe it. Otto Finney was at the bottom of the lake, where I had dumped him. He had to be!
“A funny thing,” Ike said, “the way it happened. You know that upper part of the lake has always been bothered with garfish and big cats. Well, the city opened that part of the lake to commercial fishermen, hoping they'd clean out the scavengers before they ruined it for game fish. Well, this morning these fishermen brought up something that damn near tore their nets to pieces, and it turned out to be a body. It was pretty much of a mess, I guess. All they had to go by for identification was his clothes.”
“Is it a positive identification?”
“According to the Sheriff, it is. And you know what kept old Otto underwater all this time? They had him wired to a flywheel.”
I couldn't think of a thing to say. I was stunned.
“They say Otis Miller is fit to kill about it. I sure wouldn't want to be in the killer's shoes, with the Sheriff in that frame of mind.”
“Does he have anything to go on, any clues?” Ike shrugged. “You know the Sheriff. He doesn't say a thing until he's ready to slip the noose around somebody's neck.” Then he noticed the blue Buick in the carport next to Number 2. “I see our star boarders are still with us.” He grinned.
That Buick! I should have got rid of it somehow, but it was too late now. I said, “Mr. Sheldon picked up some fever in Texas and doesn't feel like driving. They'll probably be staying over for a day or two.”
It didn't sound too good, but Ike took it in stride and was already beginning to sweep the driveway. Then he stopped. “Now that you mention it,” he said, “Sheldon didn't look so hot when they came in yesterday. His wife was driving, if I remember right.”
I didn't want to talk about the Sheldons; I wanted to hear more about the body. “You say the Sheriff hasn't got any clues to go on?”
“Who knows what Otis Miller has in his mind? All I know is they've got a body and a flywheel. If he could trace the flywheel, it might mean something, but that don't seem very likely. Lot of flywheels around. I think we've got one ourselves in the back of the station.”
A coldness was gathering in the pit of my stomach, and I didn't like it. “We had that hauled away the last time the junkman was around,” I said quickly.
“Oh?” Ike paused in his sweeping. “I don't remember. The flywheel came out of your dad's old Dodge, though— I remember that much. You don't see them very often these days.”
I'd heard enough. I turned the station over Jo Ike and went to my cabin. Then, when the way was clear, I made it over to Number 2. Sheldon was awake but he looked like hell.
“How do you feel?” I asked.
“Lousy.” It was barely a whisper.
I went into the kitchen, where Paula was warming some canned soup on the apartment-sized range. She looked at me blankly and it was almost impossible to believe that she was the same woman who had been in my cabin the night before.
“We're in trouble,” I said. “They found the body.”
She took the pan off the stove. “We had guessed that much, hadn't we?”
“But I hadn't guessed they'd find it this soon. Some commercial fishermen found it this morning, caught that flywheel in their nets.”
She didn't seem worried. “It served its purpose. The trail is cold now, just the way you said it would be. They'd never think of looking for the killer in Creston.”