“Young has been doing some undercover work for me recently. Dangerous stuff, investigating Border activities. I don’t know...”
His voice trailed off and he turned sharply to the left, climbing up steep ruts to a cottage of weathered logs standing in a clump of straggly oaks and jackpine.
A black Chevrolet sedan was parked in front of a low rock wall surrounding a cactus garden. Burke pulled up beside it and we got out.
The front door opened as we went up the path together. Myra Young stood full in the doorway watching our approach with dark sultry eyes. She was wearing a house dress of gay printed cotton material, and didn’t show up to such advantage as when she was sunbathing. Her hair was still tousled, and her mouth looked sullen without any rouge on it.
Burke took off his hat and stopped in front of her. “Mrs. Young, I’m terribly sorry to bring you this news, but Leslie has... had a bad accident.”
Sharp teeth came down over her full lower lip, leaving it indented. That was the only visible sign of emotion on her face. “Thrown?” she questioned throatily. “I told him that horse was mean.”
Burke shook his head. “Shot. I’m afraid it’s murder, Mrs. Young.”
A wild glint showed in her sultry eyes before she lowered her thick black lashes. “Murder?” Her fingers laced together in a quick spasm and her knuckles were as white as naked tendons. “I’m... not surprised,” she said.
I felt like a fool standing there waiting for her to go to pieces. Jerry, though, took it in his stride. “What makes you say that?”
She shrugged her shoulders. She cleared her throat, but her voice was still husky when she answered: “Plenty of reasons. That work he was doing for you. That crazy letter he got this morning, and the telephoned warning. And... playing around... the way he did.” Her body was shaking but she stood there obstinately gripping the door frame with both hands.
“Do you mean the letter from Mexico?”
“Of course. From that O’Toole woman. I knew something was going to happen when he insisted on going after being warned to stay away.”
“Tell me about the warning.” Burke’s voice was gentle, as though he realized how close she was to hysteria and wanted to keep her talking.
“It came... over the telephone this noon. Leslie was visiting some pal of yours at that cabin across the canyon. A woman called... she wouldn’t give her name, but she said Les would die if he insisted on going over to Mexico tonight.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her I knew Leslie too well to hope he’d be scared off by any such warning. Then she... hung up.”
“You should have temporized,” Burke told her. “There wasn’t any use forcing the issue. Your husband might be alive now if you’d used your head.”
I was amazed at Jerry’s tone. All at once it had become hard and relentless. Here was a woman freshly widowed...
But she came back at him without turning a hair. “Why should I protect him? He hasn’t paid any attention to me for months. Do you think I care what happened to him? I’m glad he got it! Do you hear! I’m glad!” She swayed as if a gale had suddenly struck her.
Burke made a quick step to catch her, but she pushed him off with clawed fingers, her face working convulsively.
“It’s... it’s all right.” Her voice had gone lifeless. She looked levelly at Burke with eyes that smouldered. “I guess maybe I do care. I tried not to. I tried to hate him...”
Burke had backed a step away from her. “You’d better not stay here alone,” he urged. “Let me take you down to a hotel. Or I’ll send a woman up.”
She shook her head. “I’m used to being alone.” Supporting herself with both arms outspread, hands pressed against each side of the door, she seemed a disembodied figure in the illusive half-shadows of the canyon, sagging forward, tortured eyes staring, as though she were the victim of physical as well as mental crucifixion.
While the toneless finality of her words, “I’m used to being alone,” still hung in the silence, Myra Young spoke again:
“Have you arrested Laura Yates?”
If Burke felt any surprise he didn’t show it. He said, gently, “Not yet.”
“Leslie went to meet her this afternoon.” The widow’s voice was a sullen drone like the distant roar of angry waters surging destructively and relentlessly onward. “She’s responsible for everything. She made Leslie promise to go tonight.”
“Do you know where we could find Laura Yates?”
“No. I don’t know where she lives.”
She slammed the door in our faces and we stood there looking at each other in the twilight. Then Burke said:
“I guess that’s that,” and led the way back to his car.
I followed, doing a lot of thinking. How did it all tie up with Dwight and his telescope... the sunbathing?
“Suppose you run me over to the Martin cabin,” I suggested. “My things are all packed and I’m ready to leave. I’ll trail you into town to my place.”
He gave me a sidelong glance. “I won’t have much time for idle chatter this evening. I’ll be busy on this thing.”
“That,” I told him, “is why I want you to stop by my place. I know some things you need to know.”
He didn’t act surprised to learn that I had been holding out on him, but, then, he never does, so you can’t tell. He pulled up to the Martin cabin in second gear, and as I got out, he said gruffly:
“I’ll be at your place when you get there.”
I opened the back door of my not-so-late model car and let the pups in, then got in and pulled away from the spot with a jumpy feeling of relief.
But I knew it wasn’t ended. Knew it just as certainly as though I’d seen the handwriting on the wall. I was mixed up in murder, and a man doesn’t leave that behind him simply by driving away.
4
Burke was just getting out of his car at my front gate when I pulled into the drive. He walked on in, knowing my front door is always unlocked, while I got out my typewriter and bag.
He was standing in the middle of the living room floor ruffling his stubby gray hair with heavy fingers when I came in. He looked depressed and worried.
Going past him to a bedroom with my bag, I said: “Open a bottle and pour us both a triple shot.”
He was sitting at the center table in front of a bottle of bourbon and two brimming wine glasses when I came back into the room. He lifted his glass and said heavily: “I don’t like any of this, Asa.”
I knew what he meant. I sat down and swallowed a couple of fingers of the whiskey and said: “You’re going to like it less when I finish spilling all I know.”
He nodded, taking out a stubby pipe and filling it with the rank tobacco he uses. “I gathered you were holding out on Jelcoe,” he said mildly. “You shouldn’t do that, Asa.”
“Why not? God knows he always holds out on you when he gets a chance.”
Burke’s heavy seamed face was placidly inexpressive. He sucked flame into the bowl of his pipe and said: “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
That’s Jerry Burke all over. He’s so damned fair he leans over backward. With Chief Jelcoe not missing a chance to knife him in the back he still insists on giving him every break.
“That’s up to you,” I told him stiffly. “You can hand Jelcoe my information if you want, but you’ll be a stubborn fool if you don’t take advantage of it this time.”
He puffed on his pipe without saying anything, letting his bigboned body relax comfortably while he waited for me to go on.
I emptied my glass and began where I had first noticed the flashes of light from the Dwight estate, going on to tell about calling Leslie Young and asking him to bring his field glasses over; then describing in vivid detail what I had seen through the glasses.