“Yes, sir.”
At the doorway the sheriff paused and glanced at Morgan with a slight smile. “Don’t blame yourself for being annoyed at that character. I’m getting annoyed with him, too.”
At the corner of Main Street the sheriff paused and glanced up and down the blocks of busy shops, his figure tall and black in the shining slicker. Everything seemed nice and quiet; people hurrying along the wet sidewalks, couples strolling into the movie, merchants making their weekend deposits in the brightly lighted bank, the traffic whizzing through the town in orderly lanes. Crossing on the green light, he stopped beside the bank and stared for a few seconds at the battered blue station wagon that was parked on the side street. It looked like a candidate for a junkyard, but the sheriff knew all about the powerful engine under its hood. Tommy Bailey at the Atlas station had told his boss about it, and the news had drifted casually back to the sheriff. He hadn’t thought much about it at the time. Lots of people liked to soup-up old cars. Nothing unusual about that. But then the colored man had come to town, a big-city Negro with soft hands and considerable know-how with a deck of cards. And when he’d taken him in for a little talk the tall, dark-haired man who owned that station wagon had popped right in to pump Morgan about it.
So what did it add up to? Two strangers... a big-city card shark and a man who had spent a day poking about the area in an old crate that could move like a streak of lightning. A man who said he wanted to go into farming but sounded as if he didn’t know a damned thing about it. Hadn’t made up his mind whether to try sheep or steers or a dairy herd... That’s what he said, just as if there weren’t a hundred different problems in land and money involved in such a choice...
The sheriff glanced at his watch: twenty to eight. For an instant he hesitated, staring at the car, and then letting his eyes sweep down the shining street. It didn’t add up to anything yet. That’s what nagged at him — that little word yet.
There was the fragrance of a good dinner in the warm hallway of the sheriff’s comfortable home on the outskirts of Crossroads. He hung up his hat and slicker, smoothed his hair down and went into the living room to warm his big hands at the fireplace. Everything in the worn and faded room was part of the life he had lived before his wife died; the family pictures on the mantel, the crocheted mats on the backs of the big chairs, the shelves of familiar books beside the hearth. He liked things as they had been in those happier days, and he had resisted the sporadic attempts of his daughter to brighten up the place.
Filling a stubby black pipe, he called, “Nancy? You home?”
“Yes, Dad. In the kitchen.”
“That sounds hopeful.” He strolled down the hallway, unbuttoning his uniform jacket. “What’s for dinner?”
“Roast beef, hashed brown potatoes, et cetera, et cetera. You’ll manage.”
“An army could manage on that.”
“Do you want a drink? There’s time.” She stood at the stove with an apron over the dark skirt she had worn to the office, a tall girl with blond hair and something of her father’s strength in the planes of her face.
He didn’t want anything to drink because he might have to go out again, but he said, “Sure, let’s celebrate, honey. Want me to do the honors?”
“No, I’ll take care of it.” When she turned from the stove he put a hand on her arm. “Hard day?” He studied the clean, familiar lines of her face with a smile. “All tuckered out in the interests of Slade and Nelson, attorneys at law?”
“Just the usual — nothing out of the ordinary.”
He patted her shoulders. “Well, it’s a nice night to put your feet up and relax.”
She glanced at him briefly and said, “How very true.” Then she slipped past him and went into the pantry for glasses and the bottle of whisky.
The sheriff sat down at the kitchen table and took his time applying an even light to the tobacco in his pipe. Rain pattered against the sides of the house, streaming down the dark windowpanes in slow, level waves. A good night to put your feet up and relax, he thought. An innocent comment, but it annoyed her. But how was he to know that?
She made his drink, whisky with a touch of water, and put it beside him on the table. “How about you?” he asked her.
“I don’t feel like anything.”
“Means I drink alone then. Most pretty girls would save a man from that.”
She pushed a strand of blond hair from her forehead. “How was your day?” she said.
“Like yours, I guess, just the usual routine.” He couldn’t tell whether she was really interested or not; she was stirring the gravy and her voice had matched the mechanical rhythm of her turning hand. “I had a speeder this morning, an idiot salesman with a schedule he couldn’t have kept with a jet plane. He had to be in Wilmington by ten, but had three calls to make in Crossroads first.”
She went into the pantry, and the sheriff sipped his drink slowly, relishing the warmth spreading through his body.
When his daughter returned he tried to think of something else to talk about, but this was always a difficult chore for him; he had no taste for tidbits of conversation and his occasional jokes never seemed to strike her funny bone. And his thoughts were turning on his own problems. The two strangers... He wondered what they were doing. He had given the Negro the address of Mrs. Baker’s boardinghouse. He should be there by now. If he really wanted a room.
“Well, what happened to your speeder?”
“Oh, him. Well, I had to throw the book at him. His commissions aren’t worth a child’s life.” Finishing his drink, he said, “Excuse me a second, hon. I’ve got to make a phone call.”
He went into the hall and dialed Mrs. Baker’s boarding-house. When she answered he said, “Sheriff Burns, Mrs. Baker. Hope I didn’t take you away from supper.”
She laughed. “If you did I wouldn’t mind none. What is it, Sheriff?”
“I sent a man over to your place a while ago. I just wondered if he’d shown up yet.”
“No, not yet. What was his name?”
“John Ingram.”
“I’ll watch for him. I’ll keep something hot for him. And I’m much obliged to you, Sheriff, for recommending my home.”
“Don’t mention it. Good night, Mrs. Baker.”
When he put the receiver down the sheriff realized that his vague uneasiness was hardening into suspicion. He knew his town well and he trusted his feelings about it; when something felt wrong he became cautious. His picture of the village was made up of conscious and unconscious impressions, tactile, emotional, intuitive. The place had a right-and-wrong impact on him and when something was wrong he couldn’t relax until he had pinned it down. But when everything felt right the town seemed whole and perfect; the smell of burning leaves or factory smoke, the sounds of traffic and the activities of dogs, cats and small boys, all of these merged into reassuring patterns of harmony and sense.
Now something was wrong; the pattern was blurred and little storm signals flew in his mind.
“Hon, I’ve got to get back to the office for a while,” he said, buttoning his jacket.
“Right now? Before dinner?”
“I’m afraid so, hon.” He saw the quick disappointment in her eyes and it puzzled and hurt him; why couldn’t he ever figure out this girl of his? He had felt she was bored, and would just as soon be alone. But no. She wanted to have dinner with him, and had gone to a lot of trouble to make a little occasion of it. Instead of chops or an omelet, there was roast beef with all the trimmings. That meant she must have shopped on her lunch hour, probably had driven all the way to Pierce’s for the roast...