about the other things. Maybe he didn’t kill Smithell.” I threw in the last without even thinking, because I was getting sore.
Gulliver gave me a furious look. He stood up, leaving his drink on the floor. “All right, if you’re not going to shut up I’ll get out of here. I don’t know what gets into you, Bill. I just want a quiet little evening and you go and spoil the whole goddam thing. I don’t know what’s the matter with you, Bill.”
Roxy said, “Sam, do you want me to call—”
“No!” Gulliver raged. “I’m too upset for any pigeon plucking tonight. I’m just going to get the hell out of here.”
He started for the door and was halfway across the rug when he remembered he had left his shoes in front of the chair. He hesitated, then turned around and went back for them. He carried the shoes in one hand and made for the door and I felt a laugh coming. I suppressed it because there is nothing funny about Gulliver when he’s angry.
The door closed behind him and there was a loaded silence that slowly became weary.
I drank from my glass, feeling sort of ridiculous and a little bit sorry. “Well, I’ve got to open my goddam mouth,” I said. “I’m sorry, Roxy.”
“You ought to be,” Roxy said, but his voice, as usual, was mild. “I suppose it’s none of my business, but you ought to forget about it, Bill. Or take it up with him later. You picked a bad time.”
“I know.”
Roxy went through his ritual of putting a little whiskey down. “We were talking about you, Bill, before you came up. Gulliver likes you, Bill. He really likes you. And respects you, too. He knows you’ve got the guts to stand up to him. But you shouldn’t overdo it. I don’t know much about the case you and Sam have been working on. I know he was satisfied that the case was closed. You seem intent on reopening it.”
“Look, Roxy,” I said, “I’m a cop. I’m supposed to keep an open mind about the cases I investigate. Jimmy Herne confessed he killed Smithell. I don’t think he would have said one word about killing the old man if he hadn’t done it, because he had everything to lose. Gulliver worked on him, though. Nothing unusual. But he worked on him. I don’t know how much the kid could take. I don’t know if he could have been made under duress to confess a murder he didn’t commit. I thought the kid was guilty. I still think so. I learned tonight that one of the statements Jimmy made, about where he got the money, stands up. That’s all. I was just telling Gulliver. Maybe I said more than necessary. He shouldn’t have told me to keep my mouth shut in front of you.”
“Let’s forget it, Bill. Sam will cool off. I was saying, Bill, that he likes you. We were talking about Endicott earlier.”
Endicott had been assistant chief of police until his death two month ago. “Yeah?”
“Gulliver thinks you could fill that job and retain your present duties—for forty dollars a month more.”
“It would be nice,” I said, surprised.
Roxy smiled. “You’ve got a good future in Cheyney, Bill. I thought you’d like to know. That’s why I’m cautioning you not to assert yourself so much with Gulliver. Not that you should let yourself be pushed around. You know.”
“I think so.”
“If you’re staying for dinner,” Roxy said, “I’ll call down to Rudy and have him put your steak on.”
While he was on the phone, I went to his desk and mixed myself another drink, not thinking about Gulliver now, but about Roxy, who thought I had a good future in Cheyney. Roxy with the eyes of cold purpose. I was lucky to be so popular with everybody.
LATER, WHEN I WAS LEAVING, I WALKED OVER TO THE SHED-like bungalow that housed some of Roxy’s kitchen help and a couple of chambermaids who cleaned up in the motel. One of them had been involved in some petty thefts on the grounds a couple of months before, but I had let her off after she had restored the pilfered property to the transient guest, who didn’t want to be delayed by pressing charges.
I got her to step outside with me. She was a gray, wispy woman on the other side of fifty. “Been behaving yourself, Barbara?”
“Oh, sure, Sergeant. Sure I have. I’ll never do anything like that again.”
“Look, Barbara. You have a set of master keys, don’t you? I mean, you have to get into all the cabins and rooms and places.”
“Sure. I have a set and so does the other girl.”
“Does she clean Roxy’s office, or do you?”
“I do. Buts—”
“I just want the key for an hour or so. I’ll get it right back to you. Nobody will know.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that, Sergeant!”
“You want me to mention about that stealing? You want me to tell Roxy, or maybe Chief Gulliver?”
She said nothing more. I drove the key over to a hardware retailer in Rocky Spring, a friend of mine. Rocky Spring lies about twenty miles south on the highway, and by the time I got there my friend had gone to bed. I woke him, got him to go to his store. There he duplicated the key for me, and I drove back to Cheyney, returning the original to old Barbara.
THERE IS AN OLD BLACKTOP ROAD SOUTH OF ROXY’S PLACE that is a quick way into town. It winds for four miles through farmland and is called Foundry Road because of an old ironworks built along it somewhere. The kids like the road because it’s always dark and rarely used and there are many dirt side roads.
Heat lightning glimmered in the thick clouds over the river valley to the north and there was a musty wet smell of rain in the air as I drove along the road, away from Roxy’s. As I took a curve my headlights revealed a truck pulled almost off the road. A man stood beside the truck. I slowed as I saw the car in the ditch on the other side.
I pulled across the road and parked facing the truck. It was carrying a load of furniture with a tarpaulin stretched tight and lashed to the body. The Negro driver leaned against the front fender and watched me come with a tight sick expression.
I showed him the badge and he looked at it without eagerness. A few drops of rain were falling. The shoulders of the road were already soft from a rain the night before.
“What happened?”
He waved his hand at the ditch on the opposite side. “That car came roarin’ at me ninety miles a second. Straight at me, officer. I pulled clean off the road and he pulled out, too. I never heard such a noise. He musta laid down fifty feet of rubber. He went into that soft shoulder and couldn’t bring it back. Went nose down into that ditch. Not more’n half a minute ago.”
“Anybody hurt?”
His throat moved darkly as he swallowed. “I don’t know. I’m afraid to go and look. He went over with an awful whump. I thought I saw one of ’em throwed out.”
I swore to myself. “All right. You got a flashlight in that rig?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get it and stand back of my car. If anybody comes along slow
