lurching out at twelve, to think much of him as a sheriff. He looked like a bad-tempered failure, the sort of cop who'd enjoy using his gunbutt on someone's head. When Rea got the door open, Hardesty stood on the porch with his hands in his pockets, his sunglasses like armor over his eyes, and made no move to come in. ' 'Lo, Miss Dedham,' he said. 'Well, where's your problem?'
Rea pulled the shawl more tightly around herself and went through the door. Freddy hesitated a moment and then realized that she was not coming back in; he dumped his papers on the chair and followed. Nettie waggled her head at him as he passed.
'I know who did it,' he heard her saying to Hardesty as he went toward them. The old lady's voice was high and indignant. 'It was that Jim Hardie, that's who.'
'Oh, yeah?' Hardesty said. Freddy joined them, and the sheriff nodded at him over Rea's head. 'Didn't take you long to get here, Mr. Robinson.'
'Company paperwork,' Freddy mumbled. 'Official paperwork.'
'Guys like you always got papers up the old kazoo,' Hardesty said, and gave him a taut smile.
'It was Jim Hardie for sure,' Rea insisted. 'That boy's crazy.'
'Well, we'll see about that,' Hardesty said. They were nearly at the stables. 'You find the dead animal?'
'We have a boy these days,' Rea said. 'He comes out to feed and water and change the straw. He's a nancy- boy,' she added, and Freddy jerked his head up in surprise. Now he could smell the stables. 'He found Chocolate in his stall. That's six hundred dollars' worth of horsemeat, Mr. Robinson, no matter who did it.'
'Uh, how did you reach that figure?' Freddy asked. Hardesty was opening the stable doors. One horse whinnied, another kicked at its stall door. All the horses, to Freddy's untrained eye, looked dangerous. Their enormous lips and eyes flared at him.
'Because his sire was General Hershey and his dam was Sweet Tooth and they were two fine horses, that's because why. We could have sold General Hershey for stud anywhere-he looked just like Seabiscuit, Nettie used to say.'
'You're too young to remember any of the good horses,' Rea said. 'You write that down in your papers. Six hundred dollars.' She was leading them into the stables, and the horses in the stalls shied back or swung their heads, according to their nature.
'These animals ain't too damn clean,' Hardesty said. Freddy looked more closely and saw a huge patch of dried mud on the side of a gray.
'Skittish,' Freddy said.
'He says they're skittish, the other one says they're dirty. I'm too
'Hell,' Hardesty said, and opened the stall door. He stepped over the stiff legs and began to straddle the neck. The horse in the next stall whinnied, and Hardesty nearly fell down. 'Hell.' He steadied himself by propping an arm against the wooden side of the stall. 'Hell, I can see it from here.' He reached down to the horse's nose and tugged the entire head back toward him.
Rea Dedham screamed.
The two men half-carried, half-lifted her out of the stables past two rows of terrified horses. 'Settle down now, settle down,' Hardesty kept repeating, as if the old lady were herself a horse.
'Who the hell would do a thing like that?' Freddy asked, still shocked by the sight of the long wound in the horse's neck.
'Norbert Clyde claims it's Martians. Says he saw one. Didn't you hear about that?'
'I heard something,' Freddy admitted. 'Are you going to check into where Jim Hardie was last night?'
'Mister, I'd be a damn sight happier if people didn't tell me how to do my job.' He bent over the old woman. 'Miss Dedham, you settled down now? You like to sit?' She nodded, and Hardesty said to Freddy, 'I'll hold her up, you open the door of my car.'
They propped her up on the car seat, her legs dangling out. 'Poor Chocolate, poor Chocolate,' she moaned. 'Horrible… poor Chocolate.'
'All right, Miss Dedham. Now, I want to tell you something.' Hardesty leaned forward and propped a foot up on the car. 'Jim Hardie didn't do this, you hear me? Jim Hardie was out drinking beer with Pete Barnes last night. They drove up to a beer joint outside Glen Aubrey, and we got them checked in there till damn near two o'clock. I know about your little feud with Jim, so I asked around.'
'He could have done it after two,' Freddy said.
'He was playing cards with Peter Barnes in the Barnes's basement until daylight. That's what Pete says anyhow. Jim's been spending a lot of time with Pete Barnes, but I don't think the Barnes kid would do a thing like this or cover up for someone who did, do you?'
Freddy shook his head.
'And when Jim hasn't been with the Barnes kid, he's been with that new dame, you know who I mean. The good-looker-looks like a model.'
'I know who you mean. That is, I've seen her.'
'Yeah. So he didn't kill this horse, and he didn't kill Elmer Scales's heifers either. The State Farm Agent says it was a dog turned killer. So if you see a big flying dog with teeth like razors, I guess you got it.' He looked at Freddy hard, and turned back to Rea Dedham. 'You about ready to go inside now? Too cold out here for a old lady like you. I'll get you inside, and go back and get someone to get rid of that horse for you.'
Freddy stepped back, rebuffed by Hardesty. 'You know it wasn't a dog.'
'Yep.'
'So what do you think it was? What's going on?' He looked around, knowing that he was missing something. Then he had it, and opened his mouth just as he saw a bright bit of cloth fluttering on the barbed-wire fence near the stables.
'You want to say?'
'There wasn't any blood,' Freddy said, looking at the cloth.
'Good for you. Farm Agent decided not to notice that. You gonna help me with this old lady?'
'I dropped something back there,' Freddy told him, and walked back toward the stables. He heard Hardesty grunt, picking up Miss Dedham, and when he got to the stables, turned around to see him carrying her in the door. Freddy went over to the barbed wire and pulled the long bit of cloth from it-silk. It was torn from a scarf, and he knew where he had seen it.
Freddy began-it was not the word he would have chosen-to scheme.
Back home, after he had typed up his report and mailed it and the signed forms off to the head office, he dialed Lewis Benedikt's telephone number. He did not really know what he would say to Lewis; but he thought he had the key he'd been looking for.
'Hey, Lewis,' he said. 'Hey, how are you? This is Freddy.'
'Freddy?'
'Freddy Robinson. You know.'
'Oh yes.'
'Ah, are you busy right now? I've got something I want to talk to you about.'
'Go ahead,' Lewis said, not very promisingly.
'Yeah. If I'm not taking up your time?… Okay. You know about those animals that were killed? Did you know there was another one? One of those old horses the Dedham sisters own, I wrote the policy on it, well I don't think any Martian killed it. I mean, do you?' He paused, but Lewis said nothing. 'I mean, that's screwball. Uh, look, isn't that woman who just moved into town, the one who sometimes hangs around with Jim Hardie, isn't she working for Sears and Ricky?'
'I've heard something to that effect.' Lewis said, and Freddy heard in his voice that he should have said Hawthorne, James instead of Sears and Ricky.
'Do you know her at all?'
'Not at all. Do you mind if I ask what the point is?'
'Well, I think there's more going on than Sheriff Hardesty knows about.'
