`Yeah. I guess they will at that.'
The thought of the police seemed to depress him profoundly. He sat without speaking for a while. I caught a glimpse of him in the headlights of a passing car. He was sitting with his chin on his chest. His body appeared to be resisting the movement which was carrying him toward his meeting with the police.
`Do you know Carol's father?'
I asked him finally.
`I've met Mr. Brown. Naturally he holds Mike against me. God knows what he'll think of me now, with Carol dead and all.'
`You're not your brother, Harold. You can't go on blaming yourself for what he's done.'
`It's my fault, though.'
`Carol's death?'
`That, too, but I meant the kidnapping. I set it up for Mike without meaning to. I gave him the idea of the whole thing.'
`How did you do that?'
`I don't want to talk about it.'
`You brought it up, Harold. You seem to want to get it off your chest.'
`I've changed my mind.'
I couldn't get him to change it back. He had a passive stubbornness which wouldn't be moved. We drove in complete silence the rest of the way.
I delivered Harold and the five hundred dollars to Lieutenant Bastian, who was waiting in his office in the courthouse, and checked in at the first hotel I came to.
14
AT NINE O'CLOCK in the morning, with the taste of coffee still fresh in my mouth, I was back at the door of the lieutenant's office. He was waiting for me.
`Did you get any sleep at all?'
I said.
`Not much.'
The loss of sleep had affected him hardly at all, except that his voice and bearing were less personal and more official. `You've had an active twenty-four hours. I have to thank you for turning up the brother. His evidence is important, especially if this case ever gets into court.'
`I have some other evidence to show you.'
But Bastian hadn't finished what he was saying: `I talked the sheriff into paying you twenty-five dollars per diem plus ten cents a mile, if you will submit a statement.'
`Thanks, but it can wait. You could do me a bigger favor by talking Ralph Hillman into bankrolling me.'
`I can't do that, Archer.'
`You could tell him the facts. I've spent several hundred dollars of my own money, and I've been getting results.'
`Maybe, if I have an opportunity.'
He changed the subject abruptly: `The pathologist who did the autopsy on Mrs. Brown has come up with something that will interest you. Actual cause of death was a stab wound in the heart. It wasn't noticed at first because it was under the breast.'
`That does interest me. It could let Harley out.'
`I don't see it that way. He beat her and then stabbed her.'
`Do you have the weapon?'
`No. The doctor says it was a good-sized blade, thin but quite broad, and very sharp, with a sharp point. It went into her like butter, the doctor says.'
He took no pleasure in the image. His face was saturnine. `Now what was the evidence you referred to just now?'
I showed Bastian the piece of black yarn and told him where I had found it. He picked up the implication right away: `The trunk, eh? I'm afraid it doesn't look too promising far the boy. He was last seen wearing a black sweater. I believe his mother knitted it for him.'
He studied the scrap of wool under his magnifying glass. `This looks like knitting yarn to me, too. Mrs. Hillman ought to be shown this.'
He put the piece of yarn under glass on an evidence board. Then he picked up the phone and made an appointment with the Hillmans at their house in El Rancho, an appointment for both of us. We drove out through morning fog in two cars. At the foot of the Hillmans' driveway a man in plain clothes came out of the fog-webbed bushes and waved us on.
Mrs. Perez, wearing black shiny Sunday clothes, admitted us to the reception hall. Hillman came out of the room where the bar was. His movements were somnambulistic and precise, as if they were controlled by some external power. His eyes were still too bright.
He shook hands with Bastian and, after some hesitation, with me. `Come into the sitting room, gentlemen. It's good of you to make the trip out here. Elaine simply wasn't up to going downtown. If I could only get her to