Among those gripped most tightly by this fear were Harvey and Johanna Henshaw. As though perched on the scaffold and watching the approach of the executioner, they stared out the front window at the figure of the sheriff as he came up the front walk. It was Johanna who managed to get up the courage to answer his ring and usher him into the living room.
The sheriff minced no words. He reached into his jacket pocket, withdrew a packet of four-by-five photoprints and spread them out before the Henshaws. “These here pictures was found in the dead girl’s handbag,” he told them. “S’pose you start explainin’.”
Harvey seemed unable to get his tongue unwrapped from around his teeth, so Johanna ‘did the talking. She told the sheriff the truth, all of it, from the beginning. She told how Wilma had snapped the picture of them in their “dress-ups,” and how she’d used it to blackmail them into giving her the job as the Daweses’ maid. “That’s all of it, sheriff,” she finished. “Honest. I knowed me an’ Harv was doin’ wrong, but what else could we a done with her threatenin’ us the way she did?”
“‘All of it, hey‘? Not quite, Johanna. You’re leavin’ out one mighty important fact.”
“What’s that, sheriff?”
“Jus’ that these here pictures give you a mighty strong motive to of murdered Wilma Malden. That’s all, Johanna.”
“Why, sheriff, we never—” Harvey found his tongue at last.
“Not us. Not never, sheriff,” Johanna chimed in. Then thinking fast, she added, “if we had, sheriff, you don’t s’pose we’d leave them pictures behind so’s you could find ’em, do you?”
“Maybe not. Unless you got scared off afore you could get ’em or somethin’. Lotsa things mighta happened to keep you from findin’ the pictures after you killed Wilma. So I think maybe you better tell me where the two of you was last night.”
“Why, right here, sheriff,” Johanna said. “You jus’ ask Mr. Dawes. He knows we was here.”
“He went to bed at one o’clock. Where was you after that?”
“In bed ourselves. Hell, sheriff, we couldn’t a done it if we wanted to. We was both here to give Mr. Dawes his breakfast come mornin’. He’ll vouch for that, too. So you see there weren’t even time to get up there an’ kill her an’ get back. We ain’t got no car. Fact is, neither of us even knows how to drive one, sheriff.”
“That agrees with Dawes’s story all right,” the sheriff admitted. “I’ll check on the car bit an’ if it’s true, then I reckon you got nothin’ to fear.” He picked up the photos and shoved them back in his pocket.
“What you gonna do with them pictures, sheriff?” Johanna asked fearfully.
“Use ’em at the trial.”
“You mean the murder trial, sheriff?”
“Nope. I mean your trial-the one they’s gonna be for you an’ Harvey. These here pictures prove you done broke the law. You two been behavin’ like real perverts. What you done is ag’in’ man an ag’in’ nature. I ain’t gonna have goin’s-on like that in Glenville. You gotta pay for your sinnin’.”
His next stop was at Luke Partridge’s house. Luke was in bed when he got there. Annie May, his wife, went in to wake him up.
“Where was you at last night, Luke?” the sheriff asked him before he could rub the sleep from his eyes.
“What for you wanna know, sheriff? I ain’t done nothin’.”
“Wilma Malden’s been murdered. You had a lotta trouble with her father. Also, you was at a meetin’ at Beau Barker’s house where he tol’ what she an’ the Dawes gal were doin’. Way I hear it, you was plenty upset ’bout it. Thought they oughta be punished, you did. Maybe even lynched. Or maybe jus’ quietly killed, hey, Luke? You decide to take the law in your own hands? That what you done?”
“I didn’t do nothin’ like that, sheriff. I never even knowed about it till you just told me.”
“Then answer my question. Where was you last night?”
“Working. Ten to six shift. After‘ that, I hung aroun’ to see Mr. Dawes. But he never showed. That’s the truth, sheriff.” '
“Okay, Luke. If it ain’t, I’ll find out fast enough.” The sheriff got to his feet and left.
Luke watched him go. Annie May looked at his face and saw worry written there.“What’s the matter, Luke?”she asked.
“Nothin’,” he answered shortly. But his mind was racing and it saw only disaster ahead. That petition he’d given to Wilma instead of mailing to the meat-packing locals. It was bound to turn up. And when it did, Luke knew he’d be sure to lose his position as head of the company union and probably his job as well. He sighed and cursed the dead girl to himself.
The sheriff’s route from the Partridge house to the next stop on his list took him past his office, so he decided to look in to tell the deputy where he’d be if he was needed.
“Birdwell’s? Ain’t no sense your goin’ there, sheriff. He ain’t to home.”
“No? Where is he?”
“Down the hospital with a broken jaw.”
“How’d that happen?”
“He ain’t in no condition to say. The only story we got to go by is the one of the feller what broke it.”
“What’s his story?” the sheriff wanted to know.
“It’s a lulu.” The deputy grinned. “Seems he were out in the picnic area east o’ town spoonin’ his gal when he hear like heavy pantin’ comin’ from the bushes. He says he went over to have a look an’ found Birdwell’d been watchin’ him an’ his girl goin’ at it. He says Birdwell were squattin’ there with his pants down round his ankles with his fist wrapped round hisself an’ goin’ to it like a V-8 piston. So this here feller see’d red an’ smashed him with his fist an’ knocked him cold. He brang him to the hospital an’ they say his chinny-chin-chin’s busted in three places.”
“Anybody hol’ this feller?’
“Naw, sheriff. He’s jus’ a kid an’ a scared one at that. We want him, he’s a cinch to pick up with no trouble.”
“You think he tol’ the truth?”
“I didn’t talk to him, sheriff. The doc down the hospital called to tell me what happened. Way he tells it, it sounds true. l mean, the coulda jus’ left him lyin’ there. If it weren’t true, why would he bother totin’ him to the hospital?’
“What time’d all this happen?”
“Kid brung Birdwell in ’round midnight.”
“Then Birdwell couldn’t a been up at the motel,” the sheriff mused.
“Reckon not.” The sheriff took out his notebook and checked Birdwell’s name off his list. “What else been happenin’?” he asked.
“We developed them prints we took off the handle o’ that ice pick. One or two of ’em’s clear as a bell. Oughta be jus’ right for positive identification.”
“You take the Dawes girl’s prints yet to see if they match up?”
“Nope. We was waitin’ for you. Figured you’d wanna be here to see for yourself.”
“Well, I’m here. Go get the girl an’ let’s see.”
The deputy went out and returned a moment later, leading Glory into the room. The girl looked calm, resigned to whatever fate had in store for her. The deputy escorted her over to the desk, took her fingers one by one and pressed them down on the ink pad, rolling them to be sure they were adequately blacked. Then he took a white card and rolled each inked finger over its surface to get an imprint. A second card for her other hand, and the process was completed. The deputy reached into the desk and took out another white card with the imprint of fingerprints on it. He set the three cards down in front of the sheriff.
The sheriff studied them for a long time. “Damn!” he said under his breath. “Why does everything have to be so dadblasted complicated.” He sighed and looked at Glory. “All right, Miss Dawes, I reckon you can go now,” he said.
“You mean I’m free?” Glory asked, dazed.