“Take that off, too,” he said.
“No,” she said. “I like to leave something for you.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” She grinned and kissed him on the mouth. “I don’t like to make it too easy.” She kissed him again. “What’d you do today?”
“Shot it out with a killer,” he said.
“Did you get him?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Went back to talk to his landlady.”
“Any help?”
“Not much. A little girl gave us the guy’s first name, though.”
“Good.”
“Petie,” he said. “How many Peties do you think there are in this city?”
“Two million, I would suspect.”
“Your mouth is nice tonight,” he said, and he kissed her again.
“Mmmm.”
“We went on a dope raid just before I came here. Got a whole suitcase of the stuff, about forty pounds of it, worth something like twelve million bucks.”
“Did you bring some with you?”
“I didn’t know you were a junkie,” Hawes murmured.
“I’m a secret junkie,” Christine whispered in his ear. “That’s the worst kind.”
“I know.” He paused, grinning in the darkness. “I’ve got a few sticks of marijuana in my desk at the office. I’ll bring them next time I come.”
“Marijuana,” Christine said. “That’s kid stuff.”
“You’re on heroin, huh?”
“Absolutely.” She bit his ear and then said, “Maybe we can work out something here. You must go on a lot of those raids, don’t you?”
“Every now and then. Usually, we leave them to the Narcotics Squad.”
“But you do get a certain amount of heroin, don’t you?”
“Sure,” Hawes said.
“Maybe we can trade,” Christine said.
“Maybe.” He kissed her on the neck and said, “Take off your pants.”
“My pants are off,” she answered.
“Your thing then, your garter belt.”
“You do it.”
He pulled her to him, his hands going behind her back to the clasps on the flimsy garment. He frowned suddenly and said, “Now, what the hell?”
“Yes?”
“I thought of something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know it went in my mind, and then right out again. That’s funny, isn’t it?”
“Do you want me to help you with that?”
“No, I can do it.” He frowned again. “That’s funny, I… what are you doing with this thing on, anyway?”
“What?” Christine said, puzzled.
“Well, how… ?” He shook his head, “Never mind,” he said, and he unclasped the garter belt and threw it across the room at the chair, missing.
“Now it’s on the floor,” Christine said.
“You want me to go pick it up?”
“No. You stay right here.”
She kissed him, but his mouth was tight and she touched his face in the darkness and felt the frown still there, covering it like a mask.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Must be that guy today. Petie. Whatever his name is.”
“What about him?”
“I don’t know.” He hesitated. “Something… I just… maybe not him. Something, though.”
“Something about what?”
“I don’t know. But something just… just popped into my mind, and I thought all at once, Of course! And then the thing went away and… something… something with murder.”
“Then it must be that man today. The one you were shooting at.”
“Sure, it must be, but…” He shook his head. “I’ll be damned, to just run out of my mind like that.” He pulled her close and kissed her throat, and then ran his hand down her thigh and then sat up suddenly and said, “The… the… the…”
“What?” she said. “What is it?”
“What do you take off?” he blurted.
“What?”
“Come on, Christine!” he said angrily, wanting her to understand immediately, and annoyed when she did not.
“What is it?”
“First!” he said. “What do you take off first!”
“When? What are you… ?”
“Does anybody wear pants under a garter belt? Does any woman?”
“Well, no, how could they?”
“Then how the hell…”
“Unless… well, I suppose…”
“Unless what?”
“Unless the panties were very brief. But still, it would be terribly awkward, Cotton. I don’t see why any woman would…”
“They weren’t.”
“What?”
“Brief. They weren’t. And, damnit, the garter belt was on the chair!”
“What garter belt? It’s on the floor, Cotton. You just threw it there yourself a few min…”
“Not yours! Irene’s!” he shouted, and he rose from the couch suddenly.
“Who?”
“Irene Thayer! Her garter belt was on that chair with the rest of her clothes, but she was wearing her pants, Christine! Now how the hell did she manage that?”
“The suicide, do you mean? The one you were working on last month?”
“Suicide, my foot! How’d she manage to get that garter belt off without taking off her pants first, would you mind telling me?”
“I… I don’t know,” Christine said. “Maybe she got undressed and then… then felt chilly or something, and put the panties on again. Really, she could have…”
“Or maybe somebody put them on for her! Somebody who didn’t know the first thing about dressing or undressing a woman!” He looked at her wildly and then nodded and then punched his fist into the open palm of his other hand. “Where are my shoes?” he said.
* * * *
Too much has been said about the guilt complex of the American people. Too much has been said about the Puritan heritage, and a culture seemingly designed to encourage all sorts of anxiety. Hawes didn’t know whether the average American male carried guilt around in him like a stone, nor did he much give a damn about the average American male on the night he went to make his arrest. He did know that a guilty criminal is an American who is carrying guilt in him like a stone, and he further knew he didn’t have a chance in hell of cracking a case that was already in the Open File unless he made use of that guilt. There were probably a hundred easy explanations for why Irene Thayer was found dead with her panties on and her garter belt off. Christine had provided one at the drop of a hat, and a clever murderer could possibly provide another dozen if pressed only slightly. So Hawes didn’t go to the house in Riverhead with the idea of thrashing out the correct procedure for removing a woman’s undergarments. He went there with a lie as big as the house itself, a lie designed to bring the guilt to the surface immediately. He went to that house to make an arrest, and everything in his manner indicated he knew all the facts of the case and wasn’t ready to listen to any nonsense. As a start, he rapped on the door of the house with his drawn .38.