Rothman frowned thoughtfully, his fingers drumming upon the table. "No," he said, slowly. "It doesn't sound logical. That's the trouble. The man who walked away from that job-if he walked away-"
"You know he didn't, Joe."
"So you say."
"So I say," I said. "So everyone says. You'd say so yourself, if you didn't know how I felt about the Conways. Put that out of your mind once, and what do you have? Why, just a double murder-two people getting in a brawl and killing each other-under kind of puzzling circumstances."
He smiled wryly. "I'd call that the understatement of the century, Lou."
"I can't tell you what happened," I said, "because I wasn't there. But I know there are flukes in murder the same as there are in anything else. A man crawls a mile with his brains blown out. A woman calls the police after she's shot through the heart. A man is hanged and poisoned and chopped up and shot, and he goes right on living. Don't ask me why those things are. I don't know. But I do know they happen, and so do you."
Rothman looked at me steadily. Then, his head jerked a little, nodding.
"I guess so, Lou," he said. "I guess you're clean, at least. I've been sitting here watching you, putting together everything I know about you, and I couldn't make it tally with the picture I've got of that guy. Screwy as things are, that would be even screwier. You don't fit the part, to coin a phrase."
"What do I say to that?" I said.
"Not a thing, Lou. I should be thanking you for lifting a considerable load from my mind. However, if you don't mind my going into your debt a little further…"
"Yes?"
"What's the lowdown, just for my own information? I'll concede that you didn't have a killing hate for Conway, but you did hate him. What are you trying to pull off?"
I'd been expecting that question since the night I'd talked to him. I had the answer all ready.
"The money was supposed to be a payoff to get her out of town. Conway was paying her to go away and leave Elmer alone. Actually-"
"— Elmer was going to leave with her, right?" Rothman got up and put on his hat. "Well, I can't find it in my heart to chide you for the stunt, despite its unfortunate outcome. I almost wish I'd thought of it."
"Aw," I said, "it wasn't nothing much. Just a matter of a will finding a way."
"Ooof!" he said. "What are Conway's feelings, by the way?"
"Well, I don't think he feels real good," I said.
"Probably something he ate," he nodded. "Don't you imagine? But watch that stuff, Lou. Watch it. Save it for those birds."
He left.
I got the newspapers out of the yard-yesterday afternoon's and this morning's-poured more coffee, and sat back down at the table.
As usual, the papers had given me all the breaks. Instead of making me look like a boob or a busybody, which they could have done easily enough, they had me down as a kind of combination J. Edgar Hoover-Lombroso, "the shrewd sheriff's sleuth whose unselfish intervention in the affair came to naught, due only to the unpredictable quirks of all-too-human behavior."
I laughed, choking on the coffee I was starting to swallow. In spite of all I'd been through, I was beginning to feel nice and relaxed. Joyce was dead. Not even Rothman suspected me. And when you passed clean with that guy, you didn't have anything to worry about. It was sort of an acid test, you might say.
I debated calling up the newspapers and complimenting them on their "accuracy." I often did that, spread a little sunshine, you know, and they ate it up. I could say something-I laughed-I could say something about truth being stranger than fiction. And maybe add something like-well-murder will Out. Or… the best laid plans of mice and men.
I stopped laughing.
I was supposed to be over that stuff. Rothman had warned me about it, and it'd got Bob Maples' goat, But- Well, why shouldn't I, if I wanted to? If it helped to take the tension out of me? It was in character. It fitted in with that dull good-natured guy who couldn't do anything bad if he tried. Rothman himself had remarked that no matter how screwy things looked, seeing me as a murderer was even screwier. And my talk was a big part of me-part of the guy that had thrown 'em all off the trail. If I suddenly stopped talking that way, what would people think?
Why, I just about had to keep on whether I wanted to or not. The choice was out of my hands. But, of course, I'd take it kind of easy. Not overdo it.
I reasoned it all out, and wound up still feeling good. But I decided not to call the newspapers, after all. The stories had been more than fair to me, but it hadn't cost 'em anything; they had to fill space some way. And I didn't care too much about a number of the details; what they said about Joyce, for example. She wasn't a "shabby sister of sin." She hadn't, for Christ's sake, "loved not wisely but too well." She was just a cute little ol' gal who'd latched onto the wrong guy, or the right guy in the wrong place; she hadn't wanted anything else, nothing else. And she'd got it. Nothing.
Amy Stanton called a little after eight o'clock, and I asked her to come over that night. The best way to stall, I figured, was not to stall; not to put any opposition to her. If I didn't hang back, she'd stop pushing me. And, after all, she couldn't get married on an hour's notice. There'd be all sorts of things to attend to, and discuss- God, how they'd have to be discussed! even the size of the douche bag to take along on our honeymoon! And long before she was through, I'd be in shape to pull out of Central City.
After I'd finished talking to her, I went into Dad's laboratory, lighted the Bunsen burner and put an intravenous needle and an ordinary hypodermic on to boil. Then, I looked along the shelves until I found a carton each of male hormone, ACTH, B-complex and sterile water. Dad's stock of drugs was getting old, of course, but the pharmaceutical houses still kept sending us samples. The samples were what I used.
I mixed up an intravenous of the ACTH, B-complex and water and put it into my right arm. (Dad had a theory that shots should never be given on the same side as the heart.) I shot the hormone into my hip… and I was set for the night. Amy wouldn't be disappointed again. She wouldn't have anything to wonder about. Whether my trouble had been psychosomatic or real, the result of tension or too much Joyce, I wouldn't have it tonight. Little Amy would be tamed down for a week.
I went up to my bedroom and went to sleep. I woke up at noon, when the refinery whistles began to blow; then, dozed off again and slept until after two. Sometimes, most of the time, I should say, I can sleep eighteen hours and still not feel rested. Well, I'm not tired, exactly, but I hate to get up. I just want to stay where I am, and not talk to anyone or see anyone.
Today, though, it was different; just the opposite. I could hardly wait to get cleaned up, and be out and doing something.
I showered and shaved, standing under the cold water a long time because that medicine was really working. I got into a clean tan shirt, and put on a new black bow tie, and took a freshly pressed blue suit out of the closet.
I fixed and ate a bite of lunch, and called Sheriff Maples' house.
His wife answered the phone. She said that Bob was feeling kind of poorly, and that the doctor thought he'd better stay in bed for a day or two. He was asleep, right then, and she kind of hated to wake him up. But if there was anything important…
"I just wondered how he was," I said. "Thought I might drop by for a few minutes."
"Well, that's mighty nice of you, Lou. I'll tell him you called when he wakes up. Maybe you can come by tomorrow if he's not up and around by then."
"Fine," I said.
I tried to read a while, but I couldn't concentrate. I wondered what to do with myself, now that I did have a day off. I couldn't shoot pool or bowl. It didn't look good for a cop to hang around pool halls and bowling alleys. It didn't look good for 'em to go into bars. It didn't look good for them to be seen in a show in the daytime.