I put the concordance back on the shelf. I took the picture into the laboratory and burned it, and washed the ashes down the sink. But it was a long time burning, it seemed like. And I couldn't help noticing something:
How much she looked like Joyce. How there was even a strong resemblance between her and Amy Stanton.
The phone rang. I wiped my hands against my pants, and answered it, looking at myself in the laboratory door mirror-at the guy in the black bow tie and the pink-tan shirt, his trouser legs hooked over his boot tops.
"Lou Ford, speakin'," I said.
"Howard, Lou. Howard Hendricks. Look. I want you to come right down… down to the courthouse, yeah."
"Well, I don't know about that," I said. "I kind of-"
"She'll have to wait, Lou. This is important!" It had to be, the way he was sputtering. "Remember what we were talking about this afternoon? About the-you know-the possibility of an outside party being the murderer. Well, you, we were dead right. Our hunch was right!"
"Huh!" I said. "But it couldn't-I mean-"
"We've got him, Lou! We've got the son-of-a-bitch! We've got the bastard cold, and-"
"You mean he's admitted it? Hell, Howard, there's always some crank confessing to-"
"He's not admitting anything! He won't even talk! That's why we need you. We can't, uh, work on him, you know, but you can make him talk. You can soften him up if anyone can. I think you know him, incidentally."
"W-who-yeah?"
"The Greek's kid, Johnnie Pappas. You know him; he's been in plenty of trouble before. Now, get down here, Lou. I've already called Chester Conway and he's flying out from Fort Worth in the morning. I gave you full credit-told him how we'd worked on this idea together and we'd been sure all along that Elmer wasn't guilty, and… and he's pleased as punch, Lou. Boy, if we can just crack this, get a confession right-"
"I'll come down," I said. "I'll be right down, Howard."
I lowered the receiver hook for a moment, figuring out what had happened, what must have happened. Then, I called Amy.
Her folks were still up so she couldn't talk much; and that was a help. I made her understand that I really wanted to see her-and I did-and I shouldn't be gone too long.
I hung up and took out my wallet, and spread all the bills out on the desk.
I hadn't had any twenties of my own, just the twentyfive Elmer'd given me. And when I saw that five of them were gone, I went limp clear down to my toenails. Then I remembered that I'd used four in Forth Worth on my railroad ticket, and that I'd only broken one here in town where it would matter. Only the one… with Johnnie Pappas. So…
So I got out the car, and drove down to the courthouse.
Office Deputy Hank Butterby gave me a hurt look, and another deputy that was there, Jeff Plummer, winked and said howdy to me. Then Howard bustled in and grabbed me by the elbow, and hustled me into his office.
"What a break, huh, Lou?" He was almost slobbering with excitement. "Now, I'll tell you how to handle it. Here's what you'd better do. Sweet talk him, know what I mean, and get his guard down; then tighten up on him. Tell him if he'll cooperate we'll get him off with manslaughter-we can't do it, of course, but what you say won't be binding on me. Otherwise, tell him, it'll be the chair. He's eighteen years old, past eighteen, and-"
I stared at him. He misread my look.
"Oh, hell," he said, jabbing me in the ribs with his thumb. "Who am I to be telling you what to do? Don't I know how you handle these guys? Haven't I-"
"You haven't told me anything yet," I said. "I know Johnnie's kind of wild, but I can't see him as a murderer. What are you supposed to have on him?"
"Supposed, hell! We've got"-he hesitated-"well, here's the situation, Lou. Elmer took ten thousand bucks out there to that chippy's house. He was supposed to have taken that much. But when we counted it up, five hundred dollars was missing…"
"Yeah?" I said. It was like I'd figured. That damned Elmer hadn't wanted to admit that he didn't have any dough of his own.
"Well, we thought, Bob and I did, that Elmer had probably pissed it off in a crap game or something like that. But the bills were all marked, see, and the old man had already tipped off the local banks. If she tried to hang around town after the payoff, he was going to crack down on her for blackmail… That Conway! They don't put many past him!"
"It looks like they've put a few past me." I said.
"Now, Lou"-he clapped me on the back. "There's no reason to feel that way at all. We trusted you implicitly. But it was Conway's show, and-well, you were there in the vicinity, Lou, and…"
"Let it go," I said. "Johnnie spent some of the money?"
"A twenty. He broke it at a drugstore last night and it went to the bank this morning, and it was traced back to him a couple hours ago when we picked him up. Now-"
"How do you know Elmer didn't blow in the dough, and it's just now beginning to circulate?"
"None of it's shown up. Just this one twenty. So-Wait, Lou. Wait just a minute. Let me give you the whole picture, and we'll save time. I was entirely willing to concede that he'd come by the money innocently. He pays himself there at the filling station, and oddly enough that pay comes to exactly twenty dollars for the two nights. It looked all right, see what I mean? He could have taken the twenty in and paid himself with it. But he couldn't say he did-wouldn't say anything-because he damned well couldn't. There's damned few cars stopping at Murphy's between midnight and eight o'clock. He'd have to remember anyone that gave him a twenty. We could have checked the customer or customers, and he'd have been out of here-if he was innocent."
"Maybe it was in his cash drawer at the start of his shift?"
"Are you kidding? A twenty-dollar bill to make change with?" Hendricks shook his head."We'd know he didn't have it, even without Slim Murphy's word. Now, wait! Hold up! We've checked on Murphy, and his alibi's airtight. The kid-huh-uh. From about nine Sunday night until eleven, his time can't be accounted for. We can't account for it, and he won't… Oh, it's a cinch, Lou, anyway you look at it. Take the murders themselves- that dame beaten to a pulp. That's something a crazy kid would lose his head and do. And the money; only five hundred taken out of ten grand. He's overwhelmed by so much dough, so he grabs up a fistful and leaves the rest. A kid stunt again."
"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, I guess you're right, Howard. You think he's got the rest cached somewhere?"
"Either that or he's got scared and thrown it away. He's a set-up, Lou. Man, I've never seen one so pretty. If he dropped dead right now I'd consider it a judgment from heaven, and I'm not a religious man either!"
Well, he'd said it all. He'd proved it in black and white.
"Well, you'd better get busy, now, Lou. We've got him on ice. Haven't booked him yet, and we're not going to until he comes through. I'm not letting some shyster tell him about his rights at this stage of the game."
I hesitated. Then I said, "No, I don't reckon that would be so smart. There's nothing to be gained by that… Does Bob know about this?"
"Why bother him? There's nothing he can do."
"Well, I just wondered if we should ask him-if it would be all right for me to-"
"Be all right?" He frowned. "Why wouldn't it be all right?… Oh, I know how you feel, Lou. He's just a kid; you know him. But he's a murderer, Lou, and a damned cold-blooded one. Keep that in your mind. Think of how that poor damned woman must have felt while he was beating her face in. You saw her. You saw what her face looked like. Stew meat, hamburger-"
"Don't," I said. "For Christ's sake!"
"Sure, Lou, sure." He dropped an arm around my shoulders. "I'm sorry. I keep forgetting that you've never become hardened to this stuff. Well?"