He did, circling the house, climbing one of the hills and staring down at the river. I went out to watch, and he called to me to come, so I did. He had me take him up the bank to the boat landing, point out the tree to him, where it stuck out of the water, just up the river, and explain everything that had happened, from our trip in the boat to catch fish to her twirling the hook in the air to her finding the bag in the hollow. Then he led on back to the house where he led in to the living room, sat down, and began: “Well — you have it, there’s no getting around that. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. You have that on your side. Nevertheless, in this case the question arises: Can you keep it?”
“Can she keep it,” I corrected.
“That’s it: Can she?”
“Why can’t she? Or couldn’t she?”
“I don’t exactly know, but I feel her claim is quite shaky, in spite of that deed Mr. Morgan drew. It makes the money hers, but it wasn’t hers at the time it was hidden. At the time it was hidden — by whom? Do you know?”
“I’d rather not say,” I told him.
“Then count me out,” he snapped, annoyed. “You’re skating on thin ice. I can’t be of any help if you make me skate wearing blinders.”
He got up to go, but Jill put her arms around him and pushed him back in his seat. “By his supposed-to-be mother,” she said.
“Who?”
“You met her. The woman he thought was his mother, except it turned out that she wasn’t. She’s his foster mother. We assume she hid the money and skipped.”
“It certainly looks that way.” He asked some questions, then: “And she’s not friendly?”
“Friendly? She hates my guts.”
“Well, you can’t exactly blame her.”
“If you’re talking about Dave,” she told him very quick, “I do like him, but don’t jump to conclusions, please. I did call you from here and did spend the night — but right on that very same sofa, and the reason was money, not romance. I was afraid to take it to town with me, to bring it to that hotel, where it could be stolen, quite easy. It wasn’t what you think.”
“How do you know what I think?”
“I don’t want you to get a false impression.”
“I don’t think, I know — that you told her to her face she tried to get Shaw to kill you. If you think that arouses love for you, I don’t.”
“I see what you mean.”
“But that’s not what you told the officers.”
“That’s right. You told us to take it easy.”
“I would say the same thing now.”
“Well, what are you getting at?”
“I’m not sure. I have to think.” He took us over it step by step and minute by minute — what had happened out there that morning, what Shaw had said, what I had said, what Mom had said, what Jill had said, and what we all four had done. He took us inside, to my bed, to the bathtub, and Jill lined it out, exactly what had happened, even to my looking like God. When we got done, he got up and walked around with it for quite some little time.
Then: “Your trouble,” he said at last, “is that your finding the money, conveniently on purpose now, is going to look very suspicious — at least to Edgren and Mantle, who’ve been suspicious from the start. You can say all you please, that you found it completely by accident while trying to catch a carp, but that won’t convince these officers, at least, if I know them. And on top of that, if this woman is ever located and vents her spite on Miss Kreeger by saying you all three did it, then you’re really in trouble.”
“Why?” asked Jill. “The money’s mine. What difference does it make what she says?”
“On account of Mr. Morgan. If, from what she says, he gets the idea that the three of you conspired, you and Dave and this woman, to gyp him out of this money, then he can allege that you obtained your deed through fraud and have it declared void.”
She flared at that. “Mr. Morgan wouldn’t think any such thing.”
“For a hundred thousand bucks, I wouldn’t trust anyone.”
That kind of took care of that, but I felt he’d come up with something, and asked him: “OK, get to it. So what?”
“So if you put that money back, in the tree, right where you found it, and then tonight saw a prowler, someone in a boat. If you reported that to Edgren, he’d have to investigate. Then he would find the money. Then no one could say you knew it was there. This woman can scream her head off, and still you’re in the clear. And, if you graciously mention reward, a small percentage to Edgren, I don’t know how he’d feel — whether he’d take it, that is, whether he’d feel that he could. But he might — just might persuade himself it would be all right — in which case that brings down the curtain. The rest of the money’s yours, with no more nonsense about it.”
“What do you think?” she asked me.
“Well,” I told her. “It’s why we got Mr. Bledsoe in it, why you did, why you asked him to come out. It covers everything that we were worried about and in a very simple way. At last we’d be playing it safe.”
“How much reward?” she asked.
“Well, that’s up to you. I would say maybe five percent, which you could well afford. It’s off your taxes anyway.”
“My — what?”
“You’ll pay heavy tax on this 98. On 93 you’d pay less.”
“You mean, give him five thousand?”
“Well? For finding your money, for deciding no charges are called for—?”
She sat there staring at him, and then: “I don’t know. I don’t know what to say. I have the money now. If I put it out there again—?”
“For one night only, remember.”
“Yes, but just the same—?”
He sat there a minute but then jumped up to face us. “Wait a minute, wait a minute!” he growled, very excited. “At last I’ve caught up with this, to know why my instinct told me you have to put it back, that money, in the tree, to let Edgren find it. That woman — it lies in her power, not only to say the three of you hid the money, but that one of you killed him for it — Shaw, I’m talking about. Howell, that one is you. Now if you want to spend the next 20 years in prison while she gets immunity for singing—”
“OK, Mr. Bledsoe, you’ve said it.”
That was me. She sat staring at him.
15
Bledsoe left, and I went outside with him, but she still sat there staring at the money. As he got in his car he said: “I don’t think that girl’s going to do it. I think she’s hipped on that money. OK, it’s a lot, and putting it out in a sycamore tree, if only for one night, is a heartbreak — but nothing like the heartbreak it’s going to be if it’s taken from her and on top of that, she does a stretch in Marysville. She seems to like you, and I think it would help if you remind her that Mrs. Howell holds the cards, if she wants to play them. She’s not in your power, as this girl seems to think. She and you are in hers, but bad. Because if you killed Shaw to save a girl from being killed, that’s one thing, and no one could possibly mind. But if you killed him to steal the money, if the three of you had that idea, that’s a whole new ball game. Unfortunately, it’s Edgren’s idea, and Mantle’s, or seems to be. Police have that kind of mind.”
He drove off after calling through the window: “You’re still riding for free — no charge for this, Dave.” I waved, but when I went back inside, she was still sitting there, still staring at the money. I asked: “Are you going to do what he said?”
“Yeah, it was easy for him to say, it cost him nothing to say it. It’s not his money, it’s mine. It’s mine and I’ve got it, so why should I give it up? Go hiding it out in some sycamore tree? And another thing: How do I know that Edgren will give it to me? Or that he won’t swipe it from me?”