was silent 'As soon as I get to the hotel, I'll call my father. Once he's heard the story, I know he'll take care of lawyers and everything. I guess it will be a terrible business. But to run away...'
'It was a foolish suggestion,' he said. 'I didn't really expect you to agree.'
'No, Bud, you wouldn't want to do a thing like that, would you?'
'I only tried it as a last resort,' he said. Suddenly he swung the car in a wide left turn from the brightly lighted orbit of Washington Avenue to the darkness of a northbound road.
'Shouldn't you stay on Washington?' Ellen asked.
'Quicker this way. Avoid traffic.'
'What I can't understand,' she said, tapping her cigarette on the edge of the dashboard tray, 'is why he didn't do anything to me there, on the roof.' She was settled comfortably, turned towards Bud with her left leg drawn up under her, the cigarette suffusing her with sedative warmth.
'You must have been pretty conspicuous, going there at night,' he said. 'He was probably afraid that an elevator man or someone would remember his face.'
'Yes, I suppose so. But wouldn't it have been less risky than taking me back to his house and... doing it there?'
'Maybe he didn't intend to do it there. Maybe he was going to force you into a car and drive you out into the country someplace.'
'He didn't have a car.'
'He could have stolen one. It's not such a hard thing to steal a car.' A street light flashing by brushed his face with white, then dropped it back into the darkness where the cleanly-hewn features were touched only by the dashboard's nebulous green.
'The lies he told me! 'I loved her. I was in New York. I felt responsible.'' She mashed the cigarette into the ashtray, shaking her head bitterly. 'Oh my God!' she gasped.
He flicked a glance at her. 'What is it?'
Her voice had taken on the sick glaze again. 'He showed me his transcript... from NYU. He was in New York...'
'That was probably a fake. He must have known someone in the registrar's office there. They could fake something like that.'
'But suppose it wasn't... Suppose he was telling the truth!'
'He was coming after you with a gun. Isn't that proof enough he was lying?'
'Are you sure, Bud? Are you sure he didn't- maybe take the gun out to get at something else? The notebook he mentioned?'
'He was going to the door with the gun.'
'Oh God, if he really didn't kill Dorothy...'She was silent for a moment. 'The police will investigate,' she said positively. 'They'll prove he was right here in Blue River! They'll prove he killed Dorothy!'
'That's right,' he said.
'But even if he didn't, Bud, even if it was a-a terrible mistake,-they wouldn't blame you for anything. You couldn't know; you saw him with the gun. They couldn't never blame you for anything.'
'That's right,' he said.
Shifting uncomfortably, she drew her folded leg out from under her. She squinted at her watch in the dashboard's glow. 'It's twenty-five after ten. Shouldn't we be there already?'
He didn't answer her.
She looked out the window. There were no more streetlights, no more buildings. There was only the pitch blackness of fields under the star-heightened blackness of the sky. 'Bud, this isn't the way into town.'
He didn't answer her.
Ahead of the car a white onrush of highway narrowed to implied infinity always beyond the headlights' reach.
'Bud, you're going the wrong way!'
'What you want from me?' Chief of Police Eldon Chesser asked blandly. He lay supine, his long legs supported beneath the ankles by an arm of the chintz-covered sofa, his hand laced loosely across the front of his red flannel shirt, his large brown eyes vaguely contemplating the ceiling.
'Get after the car. That's what I want,' Gordon Gant said, glaring at him from the middle of the living room.
'Ha,' said Chesser. 'Ha ha. A dark car is all the man next door knows; after he called about the shot he saw a man and a woman go down the block and get into a dark car. A dark car with a man and woman. You know how many dark cars there is driving around town with a man and woman in them? We didn't even have a description of the girl until you come shooting in. By that time they could've been half-way to Cedar Rapids. Or parked in some garage two blocks from here, for all we know.'
Gant paced malevolently. 'So what are we supposed to do?'
'Wait, is all. I notified the highway boys, didn't I?
Maybe this is bank night Why don't you sit down?'
'Sure, sit down,' Gant snapped. 'She's liable to be murdered!' Chesser was silent 'Last year her sister, - now her.'
'Here we go again,' Chesser said. The brown eyes closed in weariness. 'Her sister committed suicide,' he articulated slowly. 'I saw the note with my own two eyes. A handwriting expert-' Gant made a noise. 'And who killed her?' Chesser demanded. 'You said Powell was supposed to be the one, only now it couldnt've been him 'cause the girl left a message for you that he was all right, and you found this paper here from New York U. that makes it look like he wasn't even in these parts last spring. So if the only suspect didn't do it, who did? Answer: nobody.' His voice tight with the exasperation of repetition, Gant said, 'Her message said that Powell had an idea who it was. The murderer must have known that Powell-'
'There was no murderer, until tonight,' Chesser said flatly. 'The sister committed suicide.' His eyes bunked open and regarded the ceiling. Gant glare at him and resumed his bitter pacing. After a few minutes Chesser said, 'Well, I guess I got it all reconstructed now.'
'Yeah?' Gant said.
'Yeah. You didn't think I was laying here just to be lazy, did you? This is the way to think, with your feet higher'n your head. Blood goes to the brain.' He cleared his throat. 'The guy breaks in about a quarter to ten-man next door heard the glass break but didn't think anything of it No sign of any of the other rooms having been gone through, so Powell's must have been the first one he hit. A couple minutes later Powell and the girl come in. The guy is stuck upstairs. He hides in Powell's closet-the clothes are all pushed to the side. Powell and the girl go into the kitchen. She starts making coffee, turns on the radio. Powell goes upstairs to hang up his coat, or maybe he heard a noise. The guy comes out. He's already tried to open the suitcase-we found glove smudges on it. He makes Powell unlock it and goes through it. Stuff all over the floor. Maybe he finds something, some money. Anyway, Powell jumps him. The guy shoots Powell. Probably panics, probably didn't intend to shoot him-they never do; they only carry guns to scare people. Always wind up shooting 'em. Forty-five shell. Most likely an Army Colt. Million of 'em floating around.
'Next thing the girl comes running upstairs-same prints on the door fram up there as on the cups and stuff in the kitchen. The guy is panicky, no time to... He forces her to leave with him.'
'Why? Why wouldn't he have left her here... the way he left Powell?'
'Don't ask me. Maybe he didn't have the nerve. Or maybe he got ideas. Sometimes they get ideas when they're holding a gun and there's a pretty girl on the other end of it.'
'Thanks,' Gant said. 'That makes me feel a whole lot better. Thanks a lot.'
Chesser sighed. 'You might as well sit down,' he said. 'There ain't a damn thing we can do but wait.' Gant sat down. He began rubbing his forehead with the heel of his hand.
Chesser finally turned his face from the ceiling. He watched Gant sitting across the room. 'What is she? Your girlfriend?' he asked.
'No,' Gant said. He remembered the letter he had read in Ellen's room. 'No, there's some guy in Wisconsin.'
Behind the racing island of the headlights' reach, the car arrowed over the tight line of highway, tarred seams in concrete creating a regular rhythm under the tires. The speedometer's luminous green needle split the figure
