‘Do they know what-’
‘Not yet,’ Ben said. ‘I’m very tired, Mrs Miller. I think I’ll sleep for a while.’
‘Of course you should. That upstairs room is hot at midday, even this late in the year. Take the one in the downstairs hall if you like. The sheets are fresh.’
‘No, that’s all right. I know all the squeaks in the one upstairs.’
‘Yes, a person does get used to their own,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘Why in the world did Mr Burke want Ralph’s crucifix?’
Ben paused on his way to the stairs, momentarily at a loss. ‘I think he must have thought Mike Ryerson was a Catholic.’
Eva slipped a new shirt on the end of her ironing board. ‘He should have known better than that. After all, he had Mike in school. All his people were Lutherans.’
Ben had no answer for that. He went upstairs, pulled his clothes off, and got into bed. Sleep came rapidly and heavily. He did not dream.
9
When he woke up, it was quarter past four. His body was beaded with sweat, and he had kicked the upper sheet away. Still, he felt clear-headed again. The events of that early morning seemed to be far away and dim, and Matt Burke’s fancies had lost their urgency. His job for tonight was only to humor him out of them if he could.
10
He decided that he would call Susan from Spencer’s and have her meet him there. They could go to the park and he would tell her the whole thing from beginning to end.
He could get her opinion on their way out to see Matt, and at Matt’s house she could listen to his ‘version and complete her judgment. Then, on to the Marsten House. The thought caused a ripple of fear in his midsection.
He was so involved in his own thoughts that he never noticed that someone was sitting in his car until the door opened and the tall form accordioned out. For a moment his mind was too stunned to command his body; it was busy boggling at what it first took to be an animated scarecrow. The slanting sun picked the figure out in detail that was sharp and cruel: the old fedora hat pulled low around the ears; the wrap-around sunglasses; the ragged overcoat with the collar turned up; the heavy industrial green rubber gloves on the hands.
‘Who-’ was all Ben had time to get out. The figure moved closer. The fists bunched. There was an old yellow smell that Ben recognized as that of mothballs. He could hear breath slobbering in and out.
‘You’re the son of a bitch that stole my girl,’ Floyd Tibbits said in a grating, toneless voice. ‘I’m going to kill you.’
And while Ben was still trying to clear all this through his central switchboard, Floyd Tibbits waded in.
Chapter Nine
SUSAN (II)
1
Susan arrived home from Portland a little after three in the afternoon, and came into the house carrying three crackling brown department-store bags-she had sold two paintings for a sum totaling just over eighty dollars and had gone on a small spree. Two new skirts and a cardigan top.
‘Suze?’ Her mother called. ‘Is that you?’
‘I’m home. I got-’
‘Come in here, Susan. I want to talk to you.’
She recognized the tone instantly, although she had not heard it to that precise degree since her high school days, when the arguments over hem lines and boy friends had gone on day after bitter day.
She put down her bags and went into the living room. Her mother had grown colder and colder on the subject of Ben Mears, and Susan supposed this was to be her Final Word.
Her mother was sitting in the rocker by the bay window, knitting. The TV was off. The two in conjunction were an ominous sign.
‘I suppose you haven’t heard the latest,’ Mrs Norton said. Her needles clicked rapidly, meshing the dark green yam she was working with into neat rows. Someone’s winter scarf. ‘You left too early this morning.’
‘Latest?’
‘Mike Ryerson died at Matthew Burke’s house last night, and who should be in attendance at the deathbed but your writer friend, Mr Ben Mears!’
‘Mike… Ben… what?’
Mrs Norton smiled grimly. ‘Mabel called around ten this morning and told me. Mr Burke
‘They know each other,’ Susan said absently. ‘In fact, Ben says they hit it off really well… what happened to
