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 “Yep. Your prints don’t match the ones we found on the murder weapon.” The sheriff turned to the deputy. “They’s a lotta people I’m gonna wanna see, Jed. Might as well start roundin’ some of ’em up. Let’s start with Corrigan an’ D’Angelo an’ -- oh,yeah!—Rafe Proctor. Give Corrigan a call up to the fact’ry an’ tell him to come over here. D’Angelo an’ Proctor you’d best pick up personal. Then I’ll tell you who else I wanna see.” He looked up and saw that Glory was still standing by the door, her hand on the knob, but not moving to turn it. “I said you could go, Miss Dawes,” he reminded her.

 “Oh! Yes, of course.” She turned the doorknob and let herself out.

On the street, Glory tried to think what to do. Absolved herself, it seemed all the more likely that the sheriff might fasten on Don as a suspect. Of course, the sheriff knew nothing of the letter Don had written her. She’d managed to destroy that most incriminating piece of evidence. But Don didn’t know it was destroyed. He might even take it for granted that the sheriff had it. And if he believed that, he might think the jig was up and confess to having murdered Wilma.

 Glory had to get to him first, before he saw the sheriff. She ran into a drugstore, called the factory and was told he’d left already. She ran out of the drugstore and started walking in the direction of the factory, praying he’d take the main road into town.

 About fifteen minutes later, her prayers were answered. She spotted Don’s car coming down the road and flagged it down. Don braked to a stop beside her.

 “Glory, what are you doing here? I thought you were—”

 “In jail.” She finished the sentence for him. “No. They let me go. They know now that I didn’t kill Wilma. But that’s not important. What is important is that they suspect you. I had to talk to you before you saw the sheriff.

 “Slow down, will you. What are you talking about?”

 “That letter you sent me. The one where you threatened to kill Wilma -- or me.”

 “Oh! In all the excitement I’d forgotten about it.” Don said truthfully.

 “I just wanted you to know I destroyed it. Nobody ever saw it but me.”

 “You did?” Don looked at her, surprised. “Why?” “Because I love you.” she said in a very small voice, unable to meet his eyes.

 “How can you say that—after everything that’s happened?”

 “Oh, Don. You don’t have to believe it. I know how you feel. I don’t want anything from you. I just want to protect you. I know that what you did was because I drove you to it."

 “What I did‘? What are you talking about?”

 “Wilma,” Glory told him in a whisper.

 “Wilma? You mean you think I killed her?”

 “Didn’t you?”

 “No! Of course not!”

 “Don, they’ve got the fingerprints from the ice pick at the sheriff’s office. Don, don’t lie. If you did it, don’t go there. Run away. I’ll go with you if you want. I’ll help you. I’ve got some money. We can change our names. Get out of the country.”

 “Wait a minute! If they’ve got the fingerprints, what difference could the letter make?”

 “I didn’t know they had them when I destroyed it.”

 “Then why are you stopping me now?”

 “To warn you. So you can get away.”

 “If you think I murdered her, why do you want to do that?”

 “I told you. Because I love you.”

 “Even if I’m a murderer?”

 “That doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I love you and I want you to live.”

 “Glory,” Don said gently, “I didn’t kill Wilma. If they’ve got fingerprints from the murder weapon, you can be sure they aren’t mine. Those prints won’t prove my guilt. They’ll prove my innocence.”

 “Don, are you sure?”

 “I ought to know. But if you’ve got doubts, I tell you what, you drive to the sheriff’s office with me and wait for me. Watch how fast they let me go. Will you do that?”

 “Yes, Don.”

 “After I come out, we can talk. We’ve got a lot to talk about. All right?”

 “Yes, Don.”

 Twenty minutes later Glory’s fear subsided as Don emerged from the sheriff’s office and rejoined her in the car. “I told you there was nothing to worry about,” he said as he started the motor. “Now let’s go someplace and have that long talk I mentioned.”

 They went to Don’s hotel room. And they did talk—at first. But there came a moment when for Glory, her eyes filled with tears, mere talk was not enough to express the love she felt for Don. That was when she fell to her knees in front of him and reached up to open the zipper of his pants.

 “You don’t have to—” Don started to say.

 “I want to. I want to feel it in my mouth. I want to kiss it and lick it with my tongue and suck it. And I want you to come in my mouth. I want to feel your sweet, hot cream pouring down my throat. I want to swallow it—every last drop—until you’re drained.”

 At these words Don’s penis reared up hot and hard. Glory bared her large melon-breasts and contrived to put his erection between them. She pulled down Don’s pants and jockey shorts and clutched at his behind, forcing his stiff organ to pump in and out of the deep cleavage between her breasts.

 “You’re so hard!” she panted. She squeezed her breasts tight together, making a vagina-like passage for his organ to move inside. “That’s it! French-fuck me, baby! Rub your hard prick between my tits! Let me feel your cream-filled balls against my nipples. They ticle you, don’t they? Now I’m going to kiss your nuts just the way you always wanted me. Then I’m going to lick your cock.... Oh! It tastes so good! Why was I so stupid? Why wouldn’t I do this before? . . . Now I’m going to lick that white foam off the tip. And then I’m going to take it in my mouth. And I’m going to suck it and suck it and suck it! . . .

 Meanwhile, back in his office, the sheriff was feeling more and more harassed and perplexed. When Glory’s prints hadn’t matched up, he’d been sure that Corrigan would turn out to be the guilty one. Hell, he’d been intimately involved with both girls and the business ruckus over the Malden farm. But fmgerprints didn’t lie. Corrigan’s hadn’t matched those on the ice pick. So now the sheriff was right back where he’d started from—plenty of suspects, but no proof of murder unless he could match up the prints.

 He looked up sourly as the deputy pushed Vito D’Angelo into the office ahead of him. “This bird didn’t wanna come. He had to be persuaded,” the deputy told the sheriff.

 “That so? Well, now that you’re here, Mr. D’Angelo, why don’t you jus’ sit down an’ I’ll be with you in a jiffy. Jed, you wanna come close here a minute? There’s somethin’ I wanna tell you private-like.”

 The deputy walked over to the sheriff and bent down so that the older man might whisper in his ear. He grinned slowly as he heard the sheriff’s words. Then he straightened up and left the way he’d come in. The sheriff turned to D’Angelo.

 “Jus’ a few minutes more an’ I’ll be with you, Mr. D’Angelo.” He propped his feet up comfortably on the desk, took a magazine from the drawer and began to read it.

 D’Angelo watched him from half-closed eyes. Obviously, the sheriff was trying to bug him, trying to wear his patience down. D’Angelo decided he’d just sit it out and not lose his temper.

 This decision lasted for about twenty minutes. By then, D’Angelo had had it. “You can’t pull this on me, you country bumpkin,” he announced with deadly calm. “I’m getting outa here!”

 “ ’Fraid not, Mr. D’Angelo.” The sheriff sighed. He reached into the desk drawer and brought out a large Colt .45. He set it down on the desk in front of him. “You make a move, Mr. D’Angelo, an’ I reckon I’ll jus’ have to shoot you tryin’ to escape. So you jus’ relax. I tol’ you, I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”