“Meaning us,” she said tremulously.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s been so quick. Sure, I believe those things happen, but–” I stopped. I wasn’t sure what more to say.
She turned away from me, her face flushed. She stood up and began brushing the pine needles from her slacks. “I think we’d better go,” she said distantly. “The sun is going down and it’s getting cool.” She bent down and opened her big leather handbag. She took out a metal lipstick tube.
I stood up. “Wait,” I said. “I’m sorry. Maybe I was a little abrupt, but you took me by such surprise–” My voice caught in my throat. I had been looking at the handbag and I had seen something gleam inside. “Hold it open,” I said.
“What?” she asked. She quickly snapped the bag shut. I took it from her. I opened it again.
I brought out a pearl-handled .32-20 Colt revolver with an ice-blue two-inch barrel. I stared at her.
“It’s mine,” she said, her face contorted. “There was a pair of them once. I only have this one now.”
I broke it open. There were six cartridges in the cylinder. I said, “It’s loaded full. You mean you carry this around with you all the time?”
“It’s mine.” Her lower lip began to quiver. “I own it.”
“But what reason could you have for carrying a concealed weapon?” I asked. “What are you afraid of, Manette?”
“Because I’ve been involved in things,” she said in a tight, strangled voice. “You’ve seen a scar behind my ear. It shows because it’s on the outside. But things happened to me inside. Mental things, causing mental scars. They don’t show. That’s why you think you can keep them hidden.”
“What things are you talking about?” I asked harshly.
“Not nice things,” she said tonelessly. “Nothing we can talk about.”
“We have to talk about it. You’re carrying a loaded gun. You don’t have a license for it, do you?”
Her laugh was hard, brittle and despairing. “And it’s against the law and you’re a cop. Where do we go now? To the barracks?”
“Don’t be silly,” I said. I put the gun back in her bag and handed it to her. “Take it home and bury it in a bottom drawer. Promise?”
“Yes, I promise.”
“Now, be a good kid and tell me what the trouble is.”
She shook her head. “There’s no more trouble,” she said in a strained voice. “Nothing is going to happen.”
“No, you’re in a jam.”
“Not now. It’s over. I’m going to forget you, Ralph. You can go back to the nice little girl next door. She’s for you. Not me.”
“How did you know there was a girl next door?”
“Because every boy has a girl next door, or in the next block, or somewhere in his neighborhood. He wouldn’t be normal otherwise. And you’re very normal, Ralph.”
“We’re not talking about me,” I said. “Don’t twist it around.”
“I’m giving you your chance to get out. Take it. You don’t know how lucky you are. Go back to your girl.” Her eyes were brimming. “What’s her name?”
“Her name is Ellen,” I said. “Look, maybe I don’t want to be rushed into things, and I can change my mind about going back, too.”
“No, it wouldn’t work with us,” she said dully. “I thought there was a chance, but there isn’t. I shouldn’t have bothered to try. Now take me home, please.”
I tried to talk to her some more. But she wouldn’t listen and she wouldn’t answer. Her lips were compressed stubbornly as she began to gather her things.
So I drove her home. She sat silently beside me, her shoulders slumped, her face pale and drawn. When we turned into Glen Road it had grown dark. I walked with her by the lantern post to the front door. She turned to me.
“Just one thing more,” she said softly. “Would you kiss me good-by, please?”
I put the basket down and drew her in close. Her face came up and I saw her eyes were wet with tears. Then suddenly there was a sharp intake of her breath and her body tensed and her hands gripped my arms. Behind me I heard a car start up. I turned around. It was a black sedan. It flashed by us, went swiftly up Glen Road, its red rear lights dipping over the crest of the hill and disappearing.
“Who was that?” I asked her.
She shook her head dumbly.
“Somebody you know,” I said. “Somebody you’re afraid of. That’s why you asked if I carried a gun. That’s why you carry a gun.”
“No, no,” she said. “It’s nothing. The noise of the car starting scared me. Probably one of the neighbors.”
“Out here in the woods you don’t have neighbors. It was somebody sitting in a parked car. What’s happening, Manette?”
“I don’t know,” she said hysterically. “I don’t know.” Then she wrenched away from me, opened the door and ran inside. The door slammed.
I pressed the bell button. I waited. She didn’t open the door. I rang again, picked up the wicker basket. “Tell me,” I shouted through the door. I rattled the knob. I waited five minutes. I watched for the light in her room. It didn’t go on.
I put the basket down near the door. I went back to my car, got in and drove slowly back to the barracks.
CHAPTER 3 _______________
I was getting ready for breakfast Monday morning when Sergeant Ray Beaupré poked his head into my room. “Ralph,” he said, “the skipper wants to see you before you go to chow.”
Phil Kerrigan was knotting his black service tie in front of the mirror. He turned around to me. “What have you done wrong now, kid?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I had always been a little afraid of the troop commander. He was a stickler on uniforms, for one thing. I made sure mine was meticulous and correct. I examined the German silver collar ornaments and the polish on my black leather puttees and belts. I gave an extra rub to my whistle, whistle chain and handcuff key and made sure they were shiny.
“How do I look?” I asked Kerrigan.
“Gorgeous,” Kerrigan said sardonically. “But if the skipper is going to chew you out, it won’t make no difference how pretty you look.”
I went downstairs to the troop commander’s office. Captain Fred Walsh was sitting behind his desk, his short, muscular trunk tightly encased in the uniform blouse, the captain’s bars glinting on the darker blue of the shoulder straps. He looked up and saw me standing there. His heavy
