The final paragraph of one story caught his eye: “Captain Ramsden referred newsmen to Detective Sergeant Bauer for further developments in the case, explaining that Sergeant Bauer had been put in full charge.” The sergeant is not so dumb, Conway thought, and then amended, about some things.
“I didn’t hear you come down — I’d have gotten your coffee.” The voice came from outside; he looked on to the patio and saw Betty’s head peering over the back of the settee on which she had been lying in the sun, out of sight. She stood up, and Conway’s hangover was dissipated by a new and more dizzying intoxication.
She was wearing shorts and a bra: the shorts were very short and the bra was extensive enough, perhaps, to ward off arrest. All that had been promised by the dress she had worn yesterday was now ravishingly fulfilled. Conway was reminded of the pin-up girls who had been the major hobby of a good many GI’s; here before him was the first one he had ever seen in the flesh. The vision came toward him, and with something like horror he remembered that last night he had actually thought of destroying this loveliness.
She stood in the doorway and indicated the paper he still held in his hand. “The story doesn’t seem to rate as much attention this morning,” she said.
The spell was broken. For a few moments he had been conscious only of the sheer pleasure he was deriving from her beauty. Her words brought back a realization of the threat she represented. He turned back to his breakfast, and his voice was noncommittal when he spoke.
“Bauer said it would die down pretty quickly,” he said.
“Do you think they’ll find the—” She hesitated, and Conway wondered why she stuck on the word. “—the one who killed her?” she finished.
“I doubt it. Bauer’s said from the first there was practically no chance.”
“Well, that’s their problem, and I’m not going to worry about it — not on a day like this.” She was leaning against the side of the doorway, in profile to him; now she stretched her arms and for a moment stood on tiptoe, her back arched, the leg muscles tensed, her breasts high. “O-oh, it’s been so wonderful out in the sun,” she said as she relaxed. “Why don’t you get into a pair of shorts and we’ll bake in it together? I’m so disgustingly white I can’t bear it.”
Conway dared look at the whiteness for only a moment. “I wonder what the neighbors would think,” he said.
“Oh, the neighbors!” Her nose wrinkled in disgust. “We can’t be seen here on the patio. You and that detective are worse than anybody in Topeka. How about going to the beach, then? I’ve got to wear this outfit sometime.” She tugged at the shorts and covered an additional fraction of an inch of thigh, and laughed. “I got it at a sale last fall. I guess everybody else in Topeka had sense enough to know they wouldn’t dare wear it there. So it was the first thing I packed. Do you think it’s too much?”
“There’s certainly not too much of it.”
She laughed again. “All right — I have a bathing suit that’s at least moderately decent. How about the beach?”
Because he found the prospect so inviting, he had to be brutal. “Have you any intention of looking for that apartment, or are you just planning on staying here indefinitely?”
“Sorry,” she said, looking as though he had slapped her. “I’ll get dressed.”
His remorse was genuine as she left the room. He knew that he dared not let himself be ensnared by a pretty face or an alluring figure or the charm she unquestionably possessed. But — could he be wrong? Might she really be as gay and delightful and straightforward as she seemed? He tried to puzzle it out with an aching head, for when she left the room, the intoxication left with her and only the hangover remained.
She was back, dressed for the street, before he had left the table. “If you want to have dinner here tonight, you’d better get some food — there’s hardly anything in the icebox,” she said. “I don’t know what time I’ll be back for my things — if you go out, will you leave the key under the mat, or something?”
Conway realized that she still was feeling the hurt, and was trying to be cold and distant. But she had none of Helen’s steely venom. He wanted to apologize, he wanted to touch her and tell her he was sorry, tell her that he hated to treat her in this fashion, that he was compelled to in self-defense. “I’ll leave the front door on the latch,” was what he said, and she was gone.
He thumbed through the papers lethargically, and his eye was caught by the obituary page. He remembered Bauer’s counsel about the funeral; he rose from the table and forced himself to call the Walbridge Mortuary. As the sergeant had predicted, their price was very reasonable, and they agreed, with suspicious readiness, to Conway’s request for no publicity. They promised to let him know when the remains would be released, adding that the police were apt to take their time in these cases. Conway hung up, reflecting that only one more unpleasant task had to be faced: the funeral service. He hoped it might be soon.
He went upstairs then, took some aspirin, and lay down. He dozed fitfully, and was awakened by the sound of the doorbell. It did not surprise him; he knew who would be at the door, and he knew the greeting he would hear when he opened it. He was right on both counts.
“I was right near here so I thought I’d drop in and — say, you look terrible. What’s the matter?”
“What?” Conway’s hand automatically went to his face. “Oh — I guess it’s because I haven’t shaved yet. I finally got a little sleep this morning — I was awake most of the night.” Let’s see what he can make of that, Conway thought.
“That reminds me, I promised to tell you what to do about that.”
“So you did.”
“Well, here it is. When you can’t sleep, it’s generally because you’re thinking about something that’s keeping you awake. Unless it’s something you ate, of course. Okay, so here’s what you got to do: stop thinking about it. That’s all there is to it.”
“I see. What do I think about?”
“Nothing. Just absolutely nothing at all. It’s as simple as that. Right? Right.”
“Now why didn’t I think of that?” Conway said.
The detective lowered his voice. “Where is she?”
“Went out a couple of hours ago. Said she’d be back for her things when she found a place. I think she meant it.”
“Good — that’s great.” The detective’s satisfaction seemed somewhat overdone to Conway. “Say, while I think of it,” Bauer continued, “the other day when you were down at Headquarters, Sherlock Ramsden must of been thinking so hard about those reporters that he didn’t find out hardly anything from you.”
“I told him everything I knew,” Conway protested.
“I’m not blaming you. You told him everything he asked you, but he only asked about that night. Well, I’ve checked all that and got nowhere, so now I got to start earlier. What about the day before? Sunday, that was.”
“I worked all day, and Helen was at home.” That was easy — it happened to be true. The next he had to take a chance on, for he had no idea whether Helen had gone out after he had left the house. “We’d planned to go out to dinner, but she had a headache, and only wanted some soup, so I made it for her, and she went to bed. I’d been in the house all day and wanted a little fresh air, so I took a drive down to the beach, sat there for a while and thought about a story I was writing, and came home.”