‘Simms. We were just up to his room. He’s not there.’
‘I don’t know where he is.’
Planett smiled. ‘We’ll find him. One of us is sure to find him. Come on.’
We went down to the waiting police car. The town seal was painted on the side of the car. The car was blue with an orange top. It was, at that hour, the loudest thing in Sullivan’s Corners. We drove to Planett’s office. When we got there, he didn’t bother booking me. He took me straight to the cell block, opened one of the cells, and then locked it behind me.
He was starting off when I called him back.
‘What’s the story, Planett?’
‘The story? No story, Colby.’
‘Why am I here?’
‘You’re waiting for somebody. As soon as I make a phone call, somebody’ll pick you up.’
‘Who?’
Planett smiled.
‘And when I’m picked up, where do I go?’
Planett smiled again.
‘Come on, what’s the story?’
‘The story is simple. We don’t want D.A. trouble. We don’t want State’s Attorney trouble, either. We like the setup the way it is. Sometimes things happen that can foul up a situation. We take care of those things. Simple?’
‘Simple. What happens to me?’
‘I think you die, Colby,’ he said flatly.
‘Just like that?’
‘Just like that.’ Planett smiled. ‘It’s nothing personal, believe me. A setup has to be protected. I earn about $30,000 a year. That’s not so much. A man needs a setup.’
‘I earn $25,000 a year,’ I said, ‘and I don’t have any setup.’
Planett shrugged. ‘You’re the one’s going to die — not me.’
‘All this to cover a whorehouse?’ I asked.
‘All this to cover a murder,’ Planett said, and he wasn’t smiling any more. He turned and started off down the corridor. He unlocked the door at the end, and I watched him, and then he began backing into the corridor again, and he puzzled me for a moment until I saw what he was backing away from.
Johnny Simms was coming through the door. Johnny Simms had a fire ax in his hands. Planett was reaching for the .45 at his hip when Simms swung. He swung as if he were about to fell a tree, except that he used the broad flat side of the ax. His aim was true. He caught Planett on the side of his head, and Planett slammed sidewards into the corridor wall, and then collapsed like a dish rag. Simms stooped and pulled the ring of keys from Planett’s belt. He unlocked the cell door, and I said, ‘You might have killed him.’
‘Maybe I did,’ Simms answered. He grinned. ‘You should see his two deputies out there. I caught them in the middle of a card game.’
‘Where’d you get the ax?’
‘In the hotel corridor, alongside a fire hose. I was coming down to your room when I saw Planett and his boys. I didn’t think he was taking you here for a piano recital.’
‘Where’d you learn to use that ax that way?’
‘I was a Marine,’ Simms said. ‘Remember?’
‘I remember.’ I stooped down and pulled Sandy’s gun from Planett’s belt. Then I yanked the .45 from his holster and handed it to Simms. ‘This should feel familiar to a Marine.’
He took the gun. ‘It does.’
‘Come on.’
We passed through the outer office. The deputies had been playing poker. One of them had obviously been trying to fill an inside straight. He had filled a knock on the head instead.
‘My car’s down the street outside the hotel,’ I said. ‘Let’s get it.’
‘Where we going?’ Simms wanted to know.
‘To the motel.’
‘Good.’
We were walking rapidly, our heels clicking on the sidewalk of the silent town. I turned to Simms. ‘There may be trouble.’
‘I’m just itching for trouble,’ he said. ‘Can’t you tell?’
‘I mean big trouble.’
‘Lois is gone,’ Simms said simply. ‘That’s the biggest trouble I can imagine.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Come on.’
When we reached O’Hare’s convertible I started the engine and then reached for a knob on the dash. ‘You may get chilly, but I’m putting the top down,’ I said. ‘I want to be able to get in and out of this thing in a hurry.’
‘All right,’ Simms said. He watched the top as it folded back over his head. Then he looked up at the sky. ‘It looks like rain.’
‘Yes,’ I said as I pulled away from the curb.
We didn’t talk much on the way to the motel. When we got there, the grounds were pitch black. I kept the headlights up, splashing across the office door. ‘There’s a flash in the glove compartment,’ I said to Simms. ‘You’d better get it.’
I drew the .38 and went to the door. I banged on the door with the gun butt. There was no answer. Simms was out of the car, splashing light on the ground with the flash.
‘Tire tracks here,’ he said. ‘Leading into the woods.’
I walked over to where the flash made a circle of light on the soft earth just off the gravel court.
‘Truck tires,’ I said.
‘Want to check it?’
‘Yes.’
Simms walked ahead of me, the flash in his left hand, the .45 in his right. The truck had made big ruts in the soft earth. It wasn’t a difficult trail to follow.
‘There she is,’ Simms said.
The truck sat in a clearing ringed with tall pines. The air smelled good. There was no moon and no stars, and the sky was sown with rain clouds, but the pines smelled antiseptic and the silence was pure. The truck sat like a brooding prehistoric monster. Simms splashed the light onto the tailgate.
‘Let’s see what’s inside,’ I said. We were talking in whispers. There’s something about the darkness of night and the silence of woods that makes men automatically lower their voices. Together, we lowered the tailgate. I climbed up into the truck.
‘Want to hand me the light, Johnny?’
He passed the flash to me. I ran it over the floorboards. In one corner of the truck was a burlap sack. It was empty, but it was soggy and limp, wadded into the corner, huddled there like a frightened amoeba.
The sack was red with blood.
I got sick inside.
I stood there for several moments, and I couldn’t say anything or think anything. I finally knelt and touched the sack. The blood was cold. I got up and played the flash over the rest of the truck. Something metallic flashed in the beam of light. I stooped again.
It was a shovel with a broken handle.
There was fresh earth on the blade. There was dried blood on the splintered wooden shaft. I went to the back of the truck, doused the light, and jumped to the ground. I handed the dead flash to Simms.
‘Better leave it out,’ I said.
‘Why?’ He studied me in the darkness. ‘What’d you find?’
‘Blood.’
‘What?’
‘And a shovel that was recently used. Somebody’s dead, Johnny, and somebody was buried.’
‘Who?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Buried... where?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Here?’
‘I doubt it. Probably some place away from here.’
‘It couldn’t be Lois,’ he said. ‘She went to Davistown. She...’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It couldn’t be Lois.’
‘Then—’ He cut himself off. He stuck the flashlight into his back pocket. We walked up the road in silence. The voice came as a complete surprise.
‘Don’t use them guns,’ it said.
I stopped dead, automatically bringing up the .38.
‘I said don’t! My finger’s on the trigger. All I got to do is tighten it.’
He stood in the middle of the road, a giant in a red plaid shirt and earth-stained jeans. Hezekiah. He held a shotgun in his hands. As he’d said, one finger was making love to the trigger.
‘Drop it, Colby,’ he said. ‘You, too, Simms.’