I snorted. “I didn't pump you. I might have mentioned it casually. Hell, the whole town was talking about it. If I mentioned it, do you call that proof that I had a hand in it or killed Manley?”
“And Otto Finney, too,” he said softly. “Don't forget Otto. No, it doesn't prove anything in particular, but it all adds up to a jury.”
We stood there glaring at each other and nobody had to tell me that he had me by the throat and I was fighting for my life. From here on out it would be brass knucks, and I knew it. I tried to get set for it.
“All right,” he said, and his voice was hard now, hitting like a hammer. “Here's something maybe you didn't know. We knew Manley got some ideas during his stay in Leavenworth. We figured he'd try something like this before long. But Manley was smart, we didn't learn a thing from him, so we figured our best bet was to find the man who was in it with him. That turned out to be easier than I had hoped, when we found Otto's body in the lake with that flywheel tied to him. That was your big mistake, Hooper, that flywheel.”
It wasn't “Joe” now, it was “Hooper,” and he said it as though he had a mouthful of quinine.
“That flywheel is the thing that cooked you, Hooper. We have Ike Abrams' word that he took it out of your father's car and left it in the back of your station. No mistake about it, it's the same flywheel. The jury will take Ike's word for that. You and Bunt Manley robbed the box factory and killed the watchman; then you smeared Otto's fingerprints all over the safe to throw me off the track. Finally you brought the body out here, weighted it with that flywheel, then took it out to the lake and dumped it. It's as simple as that and I can prove every damn word of it.
“Have you heard enough? Well, I'm not through yet. There's plenty more. There's something else that started me thinking about you, Hooper. That visit of yours to the box factory. You hadn't been near that factory for years, not since you used to work there, but on the day before the robbery you made the trip just to pay a five-dollar debt. I ask you, does a story like that hold water? Like hell it does! You went out there to get the exact layout in your mind because the robbery was all set for the next night, when you knew the entire payroll would be in the safe. You prowled around the front office, where the safe was, then you went back to the warehouse and talked to some of the workmen.”
I was almost ready to explode. “All this talk doesn't prove a damn thing and you know it!”
Otis grinned tightly. “It proves plenty, and I can see your guts crawling. Do you know how long the factory burglar alarm had been installed, Hooper? Just two days! That means that whoever took the money and killed the watchman gave that place a thorough going-over not more than two days before the job. And you're the man, Hooper. I can put my hands on at least twenty people who will testify to it. How does it look to you now, Hooper? The jury will throw the book at you. When the story gets out, you'll be lucky if they don't lynch you on the courthouse lawn.”
My voice deserted me. I couldn't make a sound.
“I'm not making any promises, Hooper, but if you'll sign a statement I'll at least see that you get a fair trial.”
My brain was numb. I just stood there too sick to move.
Then a light stabbed the darkness outside the cabin, and I heard the sound of my father's old Dodge pulling up in front of my door.
Ray King said, “It's your father, I think, Joe.”
“Look,” I said. “Don't say anything to him about this. Not now, anyway. He has a patient next door. That's the only reason he's out here.”
Otis Miller said nothing. The two of them looked at each other and finally Ray nodded. I went to the door and said, “Dad, is that you?”
“Yes, Joe. It's pretty late for you to be up, isn't it?”
“Some friends of mine dropped in. Anyway, I wanted to stay up till you got here. I don't know how important it is, but his wife seems to think he's getting worse.”
I could see him standing there, a stooped, bone-tired old man. After a moment he turned and walked heavily toward Number 2.
“How about it, Hooper?” Otis said. “You ready to sign that statement?”
The brief escape from the Sheriffs hammering had given me a chance to get things straight in my mind. At first I felt empty and helpless. I knew they had me. There was absolutely no doubt about it, and I might as well do what they said. So this is the way it ends, Hooper.
After a moment I turned to the Sheriff and looked dully into those eyes of his.
That was the thing that saved me.
I had expected to see the iron-hard glint of victory in those eyes. But it wasn't there. There was anticipation, anxiety, expectation, but not that glint of complete victory. At last I recognized what I saw there. Otis Miller's eyes were the eyes of a gambler who had just run an outrageous bluff and was waiting for his opponent to call.
The implication struck me like an icy shower. It jarred me awake, it released the numbness in my brain. Otis Miller didn't have a damn thing on me! Maybe he had tried to run the most fantastic bluff in history, but he still didn't have a leg to stand on and he knew it.
Oh, he knew I was guilty, all right. He was mixed up about Manley, but he had me pegged every inch of the way. But he couldn't prove a bit of it. All that loud talk of his had been so much hogwash in the hope that he could panic me into a confession.
I felt like a teen-ager on his first drunk. I wanted to laugh right in Otis Miller's face and then kick him and Ray King out of my cabin. What I did was look at Otis and grin.
“Now,” I said, “are you through, Otis?” The glee of the top dog was bubbling inside me. “Are you finally through shooting off that fat mouth of yours? Because if you are, I've got a few things to say that might interest you.”
He reacted just the way I had known he would, as though I had whipped him across the face with a pistol butt.
I had to laugh then; I couldn't hold it back. “Who the hell do you think you are, Otis? None of your talk means a thing. That flywheel story, for instance. There's no way in the world you can prove the flywheel was in my station on the night of the robbery. It was hauled away to the dumping grounds almost a month before, where anybody could have picked it up. As for the bogus bill, I always thought it was a sheriff's duty to take care of things like that. You can suspect anything you please, Otis, but you'd better be damn sure you have proof to back you up before you accuse people of robbery and murder.”
He opened his mouth but I didn't give him a chance to say a word.
“That visit to the factory,” I said. “No jury is going to convict a man for going out of his way to pay an honest debt. That burglar alarm doesn't prove a thing, either, because any top law officer will tell you that any burglar worth his salt takes care of burglar alarms as a matter of course. That just about blows your conviction sky-high, doesn't it, Otis?”
I wasn't through yet. When you got Otis down, it was a good idea to kick him, just to be safe.
“What else is there?” I said. “Oh, yes, the watch. Well, listen carefully, Otis, because this is what happened to my watch. I missed it tonight just before Bunt Manley drove up for gas. I figured at the time the strap had broken and I'd dropped it somewhere, and I intended to look for it when I wasn't busy. While Manley was here I saw him pick something up, but I didn't think anything about it at the time. Manley wouldn't be above picking up a watch, of course, but I didn't think about that until it was too late. So that's what happened to my watch. Also, while Manley was here I noticed that he had been drinking and mentioned that he shouldn't be driving in his condition, but he wouldn't listen to me. Half drunk, he stalled his car on the railroad tracks and got himself killed by a train. Later, you found my watch near the scene of the accident, which isn't surprising. I'll bet you found a lot of other things, too, didn't you, Otis, scattered clear to hell and gone, probably?”