the last of this,” he snarled.
Alessandro nodded. “One of the interesting things about police work is that you never hear the last of anything. There are always too many loose ends. Just what would you like me to do? Arrest someone who has been tried and acquitted, just because you are a big shot in Westfield, Carolina?”
“I told her I’d never give her any peace,” Cumberland said furiously. “I’d follow her to the end of the earth. I’d make sure everyone knew just what she was!”
“And what is she, Mr. Cumberland?”
“A murderess that killed my son and was let off by an idiot of a judge—that’s what she is!”
Captain Alessandro stood up, all six feet three inches of him. “Take off, buster,” he said coldly. “You annoy me. I’ve met all kinds of punks in my time. Most of them have been poor stupid backward kids. This is the first time I’ve come across a great big important man who was just as stupid and vicious as a fifteen-year-old delinquent. Maybe you own Westfield, North Carolina, or think you do. You don’t own a cigar butt in my town. Get out before I put the arm on you for interfering with an officer in the performance of his duties.”
Cumberland almost staggered to the door and groped for the knob, although the door was wide open. Alessandro looked after him. He sat down slowly.
“You were pretty rough, Captain.”
“It’s breaking my heart. If anything I said makes him take another look at himself—oh well, hell!”
“Not his kind. Am I free to go?”
“Yes. Goble won’t make charges. He’ll be on his way back to Kansas City today. We’ll dig up something on this Richard Harvest, but what’s the use? We put him away for a while, and a hundred just like him are available for the same work.”
“What do I do about Betty Mayfield?”
“I have a vague idea that you’ve already done it,” he said, deadpan.
“Not until I know what happened to Mitchell.” I was just as deadpan as he was.
“All I know is that he’s gone. That doesn’t make him police business.”
I stood up. We gave each other those looks. I went out.
25
She was still asleep. My coming in didn’t wake her. She slept like a little girl, soundlessly, her face at peace. I watched her for a moment, then lit a cigarette and went out to the kitchen. When I had put coffee on to percolate in the handsome paper-thin dime store aluminum percolator provided by the management, I went back and sat on the bed. The note I had left was still on the pillow with my car keys.
I shook her gently and her eyes opened and blinked.
“What time is it?” she asked, stretching her bare arms as far as she could. “God, I slept like a log.”
“It’s time for you to get dressed. I have some coffee brewing. I’ve been down to the police station—by request. Your father-in-law is in town, Mrs. Cumberland.”
She shot upright and stared at me without breathing.
“He got the brush, but good, from Captain Alessandro. He can’t hurt you. Was that what all the fear was about?”
“Did he say—say what happened back in Westfield?”
“That’s what he came here to say. He’s mad enough to jump down his own throat. And what of it? You didn’t, did you? Do what they said?”
“I did not.” Her eyes blazed at me.
“Wouldn’t matter if you had—now. But it wouldn’t make me very happy about last night. How did Mitchell get wise?”
“He just happened to be there or somewhere nearby. Good heavens, the papers were full of it for weeks, It wasn’t hard for him to recognize me. Didn’t they have it in the papers here?”
“They ought to have covered it, if only because of the unusual legal angle. If they did, I missed it. The coffee ought to be ready now. How do you take it?”
“Black, please. No sugar.”
“Fine. I don’t have any cream or sugar. Why did you call yourself Eleanor King? No, don’t answer that. I’m stupid. Old man Cumberland would know your unmarried name.”
I went out to the kitchen and removed the top of the percolator, and poured us both a cup. I carried hers to her. I sat down in a chair with mine. Our eyes met and were strangers again.
She put her cup aside. “That was good. Would you mind looking the other way while I gather myself together?”
“Sure.” I picked a paperback off the table and made a pretense of reading it. It was about some private eye whose idea of a hot scene was a dead naked woman hanging from the shower rail with the marks of torture on her. By that time Betty was in the bathroom. I threw the paperback into the wastebasket, not having a garbage can handy at the moment. Then I got to thinking there are two kinds of women you can make love to. Those who give themselves so completely and with such utter abandonment that they don’t even think about their bodies. And there are those who are self-conscious and always want to cover up a little. I remembered a girl in a story by Anatole France who insisted on taking her stockings off. Keeping them on made her feel like a whore. She was right.
When Betty came out of the bathroom she looked like a fresh-opened rose, her make-up perfect, her eyes shining, every hair exactly in place.
