She frowned. “But that little man — Mr. Himbermark — he didn’t look like a partner in crime.”
“Sometimes they don’t.”
She tilted her head to one side and looked up at him. “You handled Mr. Flagan very easily. I suppose you’re a policeman.”
“I was once. I suppose I still am, in a way.”
“I didn’t guess that until I watched you with him. Usually I’m good at guessing about people. I suppose policemen have to have that knack too.”
She was handling the conversation as carefully as she could. She did not care to sound as inane as she had when she had talked to him previously.
She had been aware of him since the moment when, picking herself up from the mud of the road, she had seen him go without hesitation into the swollen river to rescue the man who had taken her car. At that time her awareness had been overshadowed by the numbing sense of loss she had felt when she had seen the convertible topple so slowly into the water. She had never felt very strongly about possessions. There was within her no need to have things and tightly hold them. It was not that she was careless with the things she owned. She merely felt that the attitude which places a high value on possessions is in itself a sort of trap.
And so she had not been prepared for her own reaction to the shock of seeing the car go. It was — surprisingly — like a second bereavement. After analyzing her own feelings she knew that she was not as healed of the loss of David as she had supposed. The car had been purchased on their last happy day together, and that was important even though David’s cheer had been forced, almost manic. He had touched it, had driven it down here. In a curious way it seemed an extension of him, more symbolically important than even his ashes in the box in the trunk compartment. By now the trunk would be filled with water, and the cardboard would be melted, the tissue paper sodden. Yet the bronze box itself was tightly made, close fitting. It would be dry inside the box.
After that shock came an anger stronger than any she had ever felt before. She had stood braced against the wind and had watched Malden — she had not known his name then — bring the man ashore. Anger made her legs weak and her hands tremble. She had clenched her teeth so tightly her ears rang. She had wanted to scream and kick. She knew that it was more than anger... It was the release from the withdrawn silence, the sick loneliness of the past few weeks, and the heartbreak of the past year. Tensions had built up a pressure that required all her strength of will to restrain.
As she had watched the near-drowning, the artificial respiration, she had become more aware of Malden. The other two men seemed excited. There had been no excitement on the still face of the big man who had performed the actual rescue, and she had stared at him intently, almost rudely, her anger fading as curiosity grew. She thought it might be the childish pose of a self-styled stoic, but there had been no revealing glint of excitement in the somber eyes. He had acted as though the incident were of little importance, yet in crisis he had been the one who had moved quickly and correctly.
It was not the same look of deadness David had worn before taking his lonely and inexplicable trip. David had withdrawn. This expression had a certain dignity about it. The body could comply while the mind was untouched, the emotions sealed away.
In his stillness she felt a challenge to her which heightened her own awareness of him, her curiosity about him. He was big and strong and dark and too self-composed. Her awareness was unfamiliar to her. She told herself wryly that this reaction was more suitable to a teen-ager.
Later, after she had changed, she had made a very clumsy attempt to talk to him. Usually she was poised and glib when she tried to talk to strangers. But his very somberness seemed to make her awkward.
They stood just inside the open door of the house. “I... I guess you must have seen the tree fall on that man.”
“Yes. I saw it.” He took a ruined pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of his soaked sport shirt and threw them out the doorway.
“Have one of mine. They stayed dry for some reason.”
“Thanks.” He took a cigarette and her lighter, lit both their cigarettes and handed the lighter back. His voice was deep and as mechanical as his expression, barely audible above the wind.
“I’m Mrs. Sherrel. Virginia Sherrel.”
“Steve Malden.”
“That must have been a horrible thing to see. And you say you saw it.”
“Yes.”
She had not felt during the first conversation that he was being deliberately difficult. He just didn’t seem to care to make the effort to carry on a conversation with her. Few men had ever reacted to her that way.
She kept trying. “I thought at first this could be... well, sort of exciting. You know. Marooned here and waiting out the storm. Then that man took my car, and then that tree... It changes the whole thing. It makes it more... grim.”
She realized that she was babbling... babbling in a strained overanxious fashion and, what was worse, talking inanely. She stopped abruptly.
“See what you mean,” he had said and nodded and gone over to talk to Dorn, leaving her with heated cheeks and a feeling of inadequacy. She had told herself then that the man was not worth talking to. He probably had an I.Q. of seventy to go with those muscles. It would be better to stop being so ridiculously girlish and go help Mrs. Dorn with the kids.
Now, after the violent episode with Flagan, here was a chance to talk to him again, and it was a conversation that he had started. That, in itself, was a minor advantage, and she intended to maintain it and definitely refrain from babbling. She did not want him to think her a fool.
He considered her question about whether the police had to be good at making correct guesses about people.
“It isn’t essential. But it’s a help. The best help is to have a very good memory for faces and then spend a lot of time with the mug shots.”
She looked at his shirt. It was still soaked. Nothing would dry in this humid, ominous air. She said, “Aren’t you going to change? You must be uncomfortable.”
“I’m going back out in a few minutes.”
“Why?”
For the first time he looked slightly vulnerable, a very little bit uncomfortable. “I’ve never seen one of these before. It used to be... a hobby. That was a long time ago. Meteorology. Usual gadgets. Wind velocity, rainfall, aneroid barometer.”
“Could I come with you?” she heard herself say. She flushed. She thought, how can I be so ridiculous? Such a forward, obnoxious female!
He shrugged again. “Come along.”
When he opened the door, so much wind was moving through the house that it almost pulled the knob out of his hand. Outside, the force of the wind was more violent than before. When they passed the corner of the house, the wind staggered her. He caught her strongly by the upper arm and hurried her over to the protection of the Cadillac. They stood beside it, looking west through a wide gap in the trees. All the sky was a strange, dark, coppery color. Long cloud banks moved swiftly toward them. Her eyelashes were pushed back against her eyelids, and her black hair snapped against the nape of her neck. When she parted her lips, the wind blew into her mouth, puffing her cheeks. The very violence of it was somehow exhilarating. She wanted to laugh aloud.
He bent a trifle and put his mouth close to her ear and half shouted: “See the highest clouds? Alto-stratus and alto-cumulus, with clear spaces between. Moving east. They radiate out from the eye. Now see the low stuff? It’s moving northeast. That puts us in the bad quadrant, where you get the worst turbulence. This is a small one. But rough. The eye won’t be more than four or five miles wide and it ought to be off about that direction.” He pointed slightly northwest. “And not too far off the coast. Those cloud ridges will go up seven or eight miles. And here comes another rain squall. Better get in the car.”