Assume it was one of the four. Which one? Dunleavy
worked in a filling station just up the road. He would have
been able to see me when I ran over there. Ollie was already
there, naturally. Pearl Talley had come in just after me. That
left only Rupe unaccounted for. Did that make him more or
less likely than the others? He could have been watching
from anywhere around, and remained out of sight.
Wouldn’t that be the natural thing to do, rather than
walking in openly, as Talley had done? Sure, I thought,
except for one thing. As far as my reasoning it out
Talk of The Town— 111
afterwards was concerned, the way they saw it, there was
no sweat at all. Afterwards I was going to be dead.
So it could have been Talley just as well as any of the
others. No, I thought. Not with that mush-mouthed, Georgiaboy
accent of his. Whoever the man was, I’d heard him twice
on the telephone, and while he’d been whispering once and
speaking very softly the other time, some of that houn’-dawg
dialect would have come through if it’d been Talley. That left
three of them.
So now I had two very tenuous threads to follow, both due
to the fact they’d underestimated my life expectancy. They’d
know I had them, and they wouldn’t make the same mistake
again. It was a long time before I got to sleep.
* * *
Dawn was breaking when I swung off the highway at the two
mailboxes and followed the dirt road through the pines. No
one was up at either of the two farmhouses. As I passed the
cattle-loading pen, a covey of young quail crossed the road
ahead of me and then flushed, exploding fanwise like
feathered projectiles to sail out over the palmettos. In a few
minutes I pulled in and stopped under the tree in front of
the fire-blackened chimney.
I had wakened before daybreak and almost at once I’d
been struck by the thought I was almost positive there had
been no other car tracks in this road yesterday, at least none
this side of the farmhouses. How had he got in here? There
must be a road of some sort in that timber beyond the fields
and he’d come in the back way. If I could find it, I might
locate the place he’d left his car.
It was humid and warm and the air was utterly still as if
the day were poised and holding its breath, waiting to
explode. There was no sound, except now and then the bubbob-
white of a quail somewhere out in the field. It still
wasn’t full light, but I could see well enough to make out
another set of tire tracks besides the ones I had made
yesterday. The redheaded Deputy, I thought. When he’d
been unable to provoke me into a charge of assaulting an
officer, he’d become bored enough to come on out here and
make a stab at doing his job. For a moment I felt almost
Talk of The Town— 112
sorry for Redfield. It was a sadly undermanned police force,
with one cop and two clowns.
There was no point in even going inside the barn now; it
would be too dark to see anything. I went on past it, hearing
my shoes slash through the dead weeds and feeling a chill
between my shoulderblades as I thought again of that
shotgun going off behind my head. Some two hundred yards
beyond, at the lower end of the smaller field, I crawled
between sagging strands of barbed wire and pushed into the
timber. It was mostly oak and scrubby pine. So far I had
seen no footprints, but I had no illusions as to my being a
scout or tracker. I’d lived all my life on pavement. And what
I was looking for was a road; I’d be able to see that.
I crossed a sandy ravine in which ran a small trickle of
water, and then beyond it the way led upwards at a slight
grade. I kept going. It was easy traveling, fairly open with
not much underbrush and only occasional bunches of dead
grass and nettles. It was broad daylight now. In another few
minutes I hit the road. It was only a pair of dusty ruts
winding through the trees, but there were tire tracks in it,
and they looked fairly fresh. At least they had been put there
since the last rain. The road ran roughly north and south,
parallel to the one I’d come in on. I marked the spot by
dropping a stick in one of the ruts, and turned right,
following it south towards the highway. After a half-mile I’d
still seen no indication the car had ever stopped or pulled
out of the ruts. I turned and went back, and a few hundred
yards north of the marker I’d left I found what I was looking
for. An even fainter pair of ruts led off to the left, towards
the fields in back of the barn, and there were fresh tread
marks in the dust. They were a standard diamond pattern,
which meant nothing, since there were thousands just like
them anywhere. The sun was coming up now.
I followed them, walking between the ruts. In places the
ground was covered with a carpet of pine needles so the
treads didn’t show at all, but in others there was open sand
and I examined them carefully, looking for flaws or cut
places that might identify one of the tires. There were none
that I could see. In about two hundred yards I came to the
place he’d stopped and turned around. A fairly large pine
had fallen across the trace of a road, and there was no way
he could get around it. I studied the tracks. He’d pulled out
Talk of The Town— 113
to left, reversed as far as he could go, and then had pulled
back into the road, facing the way he’d come. Several drops
of oil had seeped into the sand in one place midway between
the ruts, which meant whoever it was hadn’t merely turned
here and gone back. His car had sat here for a while. I
nodded and lit a cigarette. The place should be less than half
a mile directly behind the field and the barn; this was my
boy, all right.
But there was nothing to indicate who he might have been
or whether there had been more than one. I could see traces
of footprints in one or two spots, but they were indistinct
and incomplete, of no value. Then I noticed something. In
turning, he’d been cramped for space because of the trees
all around, and at the very end of his reverse he had backed
into a pine sapling. I stood looking at it. The small gouge in
the bark was unmistakable, but it was too high, at least
eighteen inches above where it should have been. Then I
knew what had done it. Not the bumper of a car; the tail of a
pick-up truck.
Talley drove one. The picture of it flashed into my mind,
standing in front of the Silver King with chicken droppings
all over its sides. I shrugged it off, wondering why I kept
thinking of that mush-mouthed clown. Circling the fallen
tree, I went on west, towards the field. There were
occasional traces of footprints between the old ruts, and in
about a hundred yards I came across a half-smoked
cigarette that had been ground out beneath a shoe. It had a
white filter tip, and when I straightened out the torn and
crumpled paper I could read the brand name. It was a Kent.
When I came back to the barn the sun was well up and it
was light enough to see inside. I went through it and found
nothing at all except the savagely mutilated plank at the
head of the ladder where the shot charge had slashed
through it. The empty shells were gone. I stood looking up at
the torn plank, feeling a chill uneasiness. How would they
try next? And where? They’d know I would be more difficult
to decoy now, so they couldn’t get me out here in the
country. Would they dare try it in town, from a car? Possibly
at night, I thought; I’d have to watch all the time. It gave
you the creeps.
Talk of The Town— 114
I drove back to town, had some breakfast at the Steak
House, and called the Sheriff’s office. Magruder answered.
He said Redfield was taking the day off.
“What do you want?” he asked truculently.
“A cop,” I said, and hung up.
I looked up Redfield’s home number in the book, and
dialed it. There was no answer.
The stores were beginning to open now. I went up the
street to a hardware shop and bought a hundred-foot tape,
and picked up some cheap drawing instruments at a dime
store. Before I went back to the car I tried Redfield’s
number again. There was still no answer. I looked at the
address; there was a chance he might be working in the
yard on his day off and not hear the phone. It was 1060
Clayton. That would be the third street north of Springer
and way out in the east end. I drove out. It was in the last
block where the street dead-ended against a fenced peach
orchard. On the left was a playground and baseball diamond
fenced with high wire netting. The house was on the right,
the only one in the block. It was a low ranch-style with a
new coat of white paint. The rural mailbox out in front bore
the neatly lettered name: K. R. Redfield. I stopped and got
out.
Either he or his wife was a gardener. It was a big lot,
probably half an acre, and the lawn in front showed plenty
of care. At the left there was a concrete drive and a six-foot
trellised fence with pyracantha espaliered beautifully
against it. The same type of fence, covered with climbing
roses, was on the right, with another strip of lawn and walk
paved with bricks laid in sand. I stepped up on the porch
and rang the bell. There was no answer. I crossed the lawn
to the driveway and looked towards the back.
The garage was at least a hundred feet back, past this
wing of the L- or J-shaped house. The door was closed.
Bougainvillea was splashed like flame against the side of it. I
stepped on back and around the corner, hoping he might be
working in the backyard. There was a big oak tree over on
the right, with more brick paving under it, and two peach
trees and another strip of velvety lawn. He had been
working back here, apparently laying a low brick wall for a
raised flower-bed along the back of the lawn, but there was
Talk of The Town— 115
no one in sight now. Tools were still lying near the job, and
there was a pile of sand and a bag of cement at one end of
the brick paving.
I had come slightly past the inner corner of the end of the
wing, and as I turned to leave I glanced idly behind me at
the alcove formed by the two wings of the house. Then I
froze in confusion. Almost under my feet, a girl with dark,
wine-red hair was lying on her back on a large beach towel
with her feet towards me and her hands under the back of
her head. She was completely nude except for a pair of dark
glasses that were aimed at my face in a blank, inscrutable
stare. I whirled, and was back around the corner on the
drive again by the time I had grasped the obvious, but
comforting, fact that she was asleep. My face was still hot,
however, as I hurried down the drive and got into the station
wagon.
I could still see her. She was Redfield’s wife and I didn’t
want to, and tried guiltily to scrape the picture of her off my
mind, but it stuck, the way the bright flame of an electric
welding arc does after you’ve closed your eyes too late. I
could see the dark red hair spread across the towel and the
plastic squeeze bottle of suntan lotion beside her hip, and
the concave belly—I cursed, and whirled the car around.
At the end of the block I turned left and came out on the
main road near the Spanish Main. Redfield’s place was
almost behind the Magnolia Lodge. Not more than a quarter
of a mile, I thought.
Talk of The Town— 116
10
Georgia Langston was still asleep. I drank a cup of coffee in
the kitchen with Josie, changed into faded denim trousers,
and went to work. I tore up the rest of the ruined carpet in
Room 5, swept it out onto the gravel with the piled remains
of the mattresses, bedclothes, and curtains, and phoned for
a truck to haul it to the city dump. When it was gone I
washed out the whole room with the hose once more and
pushed the water out of the door with a broom. The last of
the acid should be out now, and in four or five days when
the room was thoroughly dry I could paint it and have a new
carpet laid.
The anger at all this senseless ruin began to wear off a
little, and I felt fine. It was wonderful to be doing something
again. The sun beat down and sweat rolled off my shoulders
as I took the hundred-foot tape and a big rough pad and
pencil and went out front. I stood by the sign where I could
see the entire front of the place and as I began excitedly
visualizing it as it would be, I wanted to grab the tools now
and begin the assault on it, violently, in the hot sun. I made
a crude sketch of the lot and the buildings, reeled out the
tape, and began writing in the dimensions. I took all the
data into my room, switched on the air-conditioner, and
drew it to scale on a large sheet of drawing paper, putting
the fifteen by thirty foot pool in the center, almost in front of
the office, with the concrete edge around it and the whole
Talk of The Town— 117
thing bordered with grass. The drive in from the road would
be blacktop paving, as would the parking area in front of the
rooms. Border the drive with two raised flower-beds and at
the outer ends of the front lawns set solid masses of
bamboo. That should grow here, and grow fast. Light the
bamboo from below with colored spotlights—chi-chi and a
little on the overdone side, perhaps, but it would be
spectacular, and that was what we wanted. Children’s
playground here, at this end of the lawn.
I was breaking it down into square yards of lawn, square
yards of blacktop and concrete deck, lineal feet of
underground conduit and water pipe and numbers of
sprinkler heads, when there was a knock on the door. I
looked at my watch and was startled to see it was after
eleven. I’d really been wrapped up in it.
“Come in,” I called.
It was Georgia Langston. She was wearing a crisp white
skirt and a short-sleeved blouse the color of cinnamon, and
looked refreshed and very easy on the eyes. She smiled. “I’m
not interrupting, am I?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “Come on in. I want you to see this.” I stood
up. She came over and stood by my shoulder as I explained
the drawing to her.
“What do you think?” I asked.
I think it would be absolutely wonderful,” she said quietly.
“But are you sure you want to do it?”
“Yes. The more I look at it, the more it appeals to me.
Then it’s a deal?”
She nodded. Then all at once she smiled warmly and held
out her hand.
“I’ll start the transfer of the money to an account here in
the local bank,” I said. “It’ll take several days. In the
meantime you can get your lawyer to draw up the
partnership agreement.”
“All right,” she said. Then she shook her head wearily.
“But, Bill, how can we even reopen the place? We don’t
know what they’ll do next.”
I took hold of her arms. “I’m still working on it. There are
a couple of small leads and I’m trying to get hold of Redfield
now.”
Talk of The Town— 118
“Do you think he’ll ever do anything?”
“He has to,” I said. “We’ve just got to keep trying.”
When she went back to the office I stripped off the sweaty
clothes, showered, and changed the dressing on my arm. I
put on a fresh sports shirt and some new trousers and made
up a bundle of laundry to drop off in town. It was a quarter
to twelve when I got out to Redfield’s again, and this time I
had better luck. Just as I was stopping I caught a glimpse of
him along the right side of the house. He was working in the
backyard. I started rather hesitantly along the brick walk,
but when he saw me coming and made no move to head me
off I gathered it was all right. She had gone inside.
He was shirtless, kneeling as he worked at the low brick
wall. Beside him, in the shade of the large oak, was the steel
wheelbarrow containing a small heap of mortar. He glanced
up.
“Hello,” I said.
He nodded curtly, but made no reply. I wondered if he
thought I’d come to start trouble. He’d roughed me up in the
office when he lost his temper, I outweighed him by at least
thirty pounds, and he was a long way from his gun. But if
the thought had even occurred to him it obviously wasn’t
worrying him.
I lit a cigarette and squatted then on my heels, watching
him. He was a good cop, but he’d never give Churchill any
competition as an amateur bricklayer. “Something I wanted
to tell you,” I said. “I went back out there this morning. And
I found the place he parked his car.”
He didn’t even look up. I don’t bring the job home with
me.”
He was awkward with the trowel, and kept poking and
patting more mortar between the bricks with his fingers.
“You’re not going to have any fingertips left,” I said. “That
stuff’s abrasive.”
“I know,” he replied. “After half an hour of it they feel like
they’d been sandpapered.”
“You mind if I show you something?” I asked.
“You a bricklayer?”
“Not union. But I used to do a lot of this patio stuff. Walks,
borders, things like that.”
Talk of The Town— 119
He said nothing, and for a moment I thought he was going
to refuse. Then he handed me the trowel and moved back a
little. I showed him how to slap down the mortar, spread it
with the tip of the trowel to push it towards the edge of the
bricks, and how to butter the end of the new one with
mortar with a wiping motion of the trowel. I put it in place,
sliced off the excess with the trowel, and went on to the next
one. I put down three more.
He gave me a fleeting, hard grin. “You sure as hell make it
look easy.”
“It just takes practice,” I said. “But you ought to wet your
bricks down more. They’re too dry.”
“What does that do?” he asked.
“They’re porous, so they absorb all the moisture from your
mortar too fast. Makes it crumbly, and it won’t bind. You got
a tub or something to soak them in?”
“Sure.” He went across to the garage and came back with
a small garbage can. “How’s this?”
“Fine,” I said. We filled it with bricks and turned the hose
on it. “Let them soak a few minutes and then take them
out.”
He nodded, and wiped the perspiration from his face.
“How about a beer?”
“Sounds great,” I said.
He went through the screened back porch and into the
kitchen, and emerged in a minute with two punched cans of
beer. We squatted on our heels in the shade. I glanced
around the rest of the patio. The other wing of the house
stretched across behind us to the drive and I could see the
front wheels and hood of an old car beyond the corner of it.
There was a picture window in the central part, with flowerbeds
under it, and brick paving across the inner part of the
L. That was where she had been. I tried not to think about
her at all and hoped she didn’t come out.
I nodded towards the mass of bougainvillea on the garage.
“Don’t you have frost here? How do you protect that?”
He took a sip of his beer. “We only have two or three a
year that’re sharp enough to hurt it. I put a smudge pot back
in the corner and that saves it.”
Talk of The Town— 120
We discussed the local lawn grasses. He was full of the
subject, and some of the hardness went out of his eyes as he
warmed to it. He looked at me with interest. “You sound like
a gardener yourself. How’d you happen to know so much
about all this?”
I had an uncle who was a landscape architect,” I said. “I
used to work for him.” I told him about the deal with
Georgia Langston, and what I wanted to do with the
grounds.
He nodded. “So that’s the deal?” He turned the beer can
in his hands, staring at the lettering on it. Then he said,
curtly and ill-at-ease, “I’m sorry about that business in the
office.”
“Forget it,” I said.
He reached into the pocket of his trousers and brought out
a packet of cigarettes and held them out. “Smoke?”
They were Kents. “Thanks,” I said. I took one and we both
lit up.
We finished the beer and he rose. “Got to unload the rest
of those bricks,” he said. “I’ll back in.”
“I’ll give you a hand,” I told him. I felt good about having
been right about him all the time. He went on round the
corner of the opposite wing of the house and I heard the car
door slam. It pulled ahead in the drive, and as it came all the
way into view I stared. It was a pick-up truck. He cut the
wheels and backed in across the brick paving and stopped. I
shot a quick glance at the rear wheels. The treads were that
same diamond pattern I’d seen out there in the dust.
I kept my face expressionless. It didn’t mean anything, I
thought. Plenty of people smoked that brand of cigarettes,
there were hundreds of pick-up trucks around, and that was
one of the most common of all truck tires. But he was out of
the office when I’d got there.
We unloaded the bricks and stacked them. He leaned
against the tailgate and looked at me thoughtfully. “You say
you went out there this morning? And found the place he
parked?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know what he was driving?”
Talk of The Town— 121
I wasn’t too sure what he was after, but there was no use
ducking it. “Yes,” I said. “A pick-up truck.”
He nodded approvingly. I was wondering if you spotted
that gouged place on the sapling.”
It was a relief, somehow. The other man, the unknown,
was dangerous enough, but Redfield would have been
worse. “So you went out, too?” I asked.
“After Mitchell came back and told me it probably
happened about the way you said. I had a hunch how he’d
got in there, so I took the back road and then walked down
to where he’d turned around at that fallen tree.”
“Did you go on down to the barn?” I asked.
“Sure.” He gave me that hard-bitten grin. “If you mean the
cigarette butt, I left that. You don’t think he’d be stupid
enough to do it?”
“No,” I said. “I guess not, come to think of it.”
At that moment a car came down the drive and stopped in
front of the garage, and I realized I had stayed too long. It
was a station wagon, and the girl who got out could have
been any attractive young suburban housewife meeting the
six-fifteen. except that I had to fight myself to keep from
seeing her the way I had the first time. I kept my face
blankly polite—I hoped.
She wore the dark red hair in a shoulder-length pony tail,
and had on sandals and a crisp cotton dress with a very
conservative heart-shaped face. She was prettier than most.
And probably more extensively tanned—I cursed myself.
Redfield introduced us rather stiffly. She held out her
hand, and smiled. “How do you do, Mr. Chatham.”
“How do you do,” I said.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” she asked
pleasantly.
I shook my head. “San Francisco.”
She regarded me thoughtfully. “It’s odd, though. I have
the strangest impression I’ve seen you somewhere before.
I caught my party expression before it could slide off onto
my shirt, and propped it up again. “Well—that is, I have
been around here for a day or two.”
Talk of The Town— 122
“Maybe that’s it.” Then she smiled charmingly. “You’ve
had that feeling, haven’t you, Mr. Chatham. I mean, that
you’ve seen someone before?”
“Oh, sure,” I said. I suppose everybody does at times.”
I was furious, and uneasy at the same time because I
couldn’t see what she was up to. So she hadn’t been asleep.
Then she knew it was purely accidental and that I’d fled the
moment I saw her.
“How do you like our garden?” she asked. “Don’t you think
Kelly’s done a wonderful job?”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s very good.”
Maybe she was crazy. It was another minute or two before
I could get away with any grace at all. Redfield said nothing,
except to thank me curtly for helping him with the bricks.
“You must come back, Mr. Chatham,” she said graciously.
“Of course,” I said. “Thank you.”
I went out to the station wagon, wondering if I was leaving
blood tracks on the driveway. What was the matter with her,
and what had she been trying to do? Why the knife? Or had
it been that at all? Maybe she was just bouncing her nude
body against me for kicks. Or as an invitation.
In the presence of her husband? Redfield? If she liked to
live that dangerously, why not take up Russian roulette with
all the chambers loaded?
When I got back to the motel, Georgia Langston was
behind the desk in the lobby, making entries in two big
ledgers. Josie was muttering indignantly. “I jest can’t do
nothin’ with her, Mr. Chatham.”
“I can,” I said. I closed the ledgers, took her by the arm,
and walked her into the bedroom. Stacking the two pillows, I
told her firmly, “In you go.”
She sighed with exaggerated martyrdom, but lay back. I
removed her sandals, dropped them by the bed, and sat
down in the armchair. She turned her head then, and
smiled. “You’re a bully. But nice.”
“I happen to think you’re pretty nice too,” I said. “And I
don’t like picking up the pieces of people I’m fond of, so you
stay there. I want to talk to you, anyway.”
Talk of The Town— 123
She made a face. “Well, do you think I could smoke,
Doctor?”
I lit a cigarette for her and one for myself. “How well did
you and your husband know the Redfields?” I asked.
“Not really well,” she replied. “We rarely entertained at
all. You just can’t, and operate a motel. I think we played
bridge together two or three times. But he and my husband
went fishing together quite often.”
“That’s something else I wanted to ask you about,” I said.
“Weren’t you worried about his going fishing alone? I mean,
with a history of two heart attacks?”
She nodded. “Of course. But he practically never did,
because of the way I felt about it. The only reason he went
alone that day was that Redfield had to go out of town at the
last minute and he couldn’t get anybody else—”
“Hold it,” I said quickly. “Back up a minute. You mean he
and Redfield had planned to go together, but Redfield had to
cancel? Tell me exactly how it happened.”
She stared at me questioningly. “The day it all happened
was Thursday, you know. They’d had the trip planned since
the previous Monday, or something like that. But around
noon on Wednesday Redfield called here. He was leaving
town right then, going up into Alabama somewhere, I think,
to extradite a prisoner, or some other police job. He said he
was sorry he hadn’t called sooner.”
“He talked to you?” I asked. “Not your husband?”
“Yes. Kendall was out somewhere.”
“And you gave him the message? You’re sure of it?”
“Of course. But why are you asking me all this?”
“Frankly, I don’t know,” I said. “But there’s something
about it that keeps needling me. You say Redfield apologized
because he hadn’t called sooner? Did he say it was because
he hadn’t known about it sooner, or he’d just forgotten to?”
She thought about it “Wait. I remember now. I’m pretty
sure he said it had just slipped his mind.”
I nodded. “Well, wait a minute. You say Redfield
questioned you, along with the Sheriff. The next day, I
mean. Was his trip called off, or something, or had he gone
and come back?”
Talk of The Town— 124
“Let’s see,” she said. “They took me into the Sheriff’s
office about nine-thirty that morning, I think. Redfield
wasn’t there then, I know. He came in around noon, or one
o’clock.”
So he had gone out of town, apparently. And he’d known
about it prior to noon the day before, possibly early that
morning. I began to feel excited. Then it went flat. What
possible connection could it have had with Langston, even
assuming my wild guess was right?
“Do you know anything about Mrs. Redfield at all?” I
asked. “Where she comes from originally and how long
they’ve been married and so on?”
“No-o. I don’t know much. As I say, I only met her a few
times. But she seemed very nice. She was a school teacher,
and I think they’ve been married a little over two years.”
“Is she a native?”
“I think she came here from Warren Springs. That’s about
sixty miles. But she does have relatives here; you’d never
believe it if you’ve met her, an attractive girl like that, but
she’s a cousin of that horrible Pearl Talley—”
“Talley?” I said sharply.
“Umh-umh.” She smiled. I gather, from the way you said
it, that you’ve met him?”
Twice,” I said. I told her about it.
“That’s Talley, all right. The lipstick thing is typical. A lot
of people think he’s amusing—you know, a character—but to
me he’s revolting. Those depraved girls he lives with—And it
isn’t as if he were stupid and didn’t know any better. He’s
very intelligent, and probably the shrewdest business man in
the County. He owns a half-interest in the movie theatre,
and a junk yard, and I don’t know how much real estate.”
I know,” I said. “Or at least, I’ve heard about his farms.
But what else do you know about Mrs. Redfield?”
“Well, I gather you’ve met her too,” she said coolly. “She
is about the most attractive girl in town, isn’t she?”
“Let’s say the second most attractive,” I interrupted. “But
here’s what I’m driving at. Everybody agrees Strader came
up here to see some woman. And from what I’ve heard of
him, the chances are it wasn’t Gravel Gertie.”
Talk of The Town— 125
She stared. “You couldn’t mean her?”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know—but she just doesn’t seem the type. And
they’ve been married only two—”
“Let’s take another look at the record,” I said. “You don’t
exactly seem the type yourself. And you’d been married only
one year. But that didn’t seem to bother anybody when it
came to hanging Strader around your neck. So why can’t we
try him on Mrs. Redfield, just for size?”
“But what do you have to go on?”
“Mostly coincidences and wild guesses, so far. He always
stayed here, and she lives about a quarter of a mile behind
the place. We know Redfield was out one night, at least—”
She looked worried. “Bill, do you have any idea how long
you’d stay alive if you ever said that aloud in this town?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m afraid so.”
It could have been Redfield in that loft. His saying he’d
been out there later didn’t mean a thing. I’d already told him
I’d gone out there, he knew I was a trained cop and would
have seen those things, so he had to explain them some way.
What could be subtler and more convincing than that buddybuddy
mutual-admiration pitch that we were both pretty
good.
Mrs. Redfield appeared to be in an absolutely impregnable
position.
Talk of The Town— 126
11
Then it began to fall apart.
“Wait,” I said. “We could be a mile off the beam. We both
have some idea of the kind of man Redfield is. So why are
we taking it for granted he’d shield her if he knew she’d
cheated with Strader? He’d be more likely to kill her.”
“Yes,” she said thoughtfully. “If he knew.”
I nodded. “There. You’ve got it. He doesn’t know, and he
doesn’t want to. That fits all the way round and explains
everything he’s done. So far, he doesn’t have any more
doubt than he can bury and try to ignore, and as far as he’s
concerned it’s going to stay that way. Maybe it’s very little.
Say those other two dates that Strader was up here—”
“The sixth and the twenty-ninth of October.”
They came out, of course, when they were questioning
you,” I went on. “So suppose Redfield checked back and
found he’d also been out of town overnight on both the sixth
and twenty-ninth of October?”
She thought about it. “That’s still rather flimsy evidence to
cause a man to suspect his wife.”
“Sure,” I said. “So he must have more. But not too much
more. He’s an intelligent man and a very hard one, so
there’s a definite limit to the amount of self-delusion he can
come up with, or live with, no matter how desperately he’s
Talk of The Town— 127
in love with her—or infatuated with her, if you want to put it
that way.”
“But what are you going to do?” she asked apprehensively.
“I don’t know yet,” I said.
It was deadly any way you looked at it. Redfield was a
police officer, and a highly respected one. He had sources of
information everywhere. I was already marked because of
my connection with Georgia Langston. Anything I did or any
questions I asked would get back to him within an hour.
Even if she were completely innocent, he could kill me with
no more penalty than a routine hearing. This was the South,
and the small-town South at that; you didn’t go around
publicly inquiring into the morals of another man’s wife
unless you were already tired of living.
And why was there any reason to assume she even knew
Strader? How could you prove it if there were? And if we did
find out she was actually Strader’s girl friend, what possible
connection did it have with Langston’s death? There simply
was no motive for their killing him. And who was the man
who was trying to drive Georgia Langston insane or run her
out of business? And why? Where was the connection
between him and Mrs. Redfield? Was it Talley? Merely
because they were cousins? That didn’t make sense.
And in the end, it was not only deadly, but utterly futile. If
we did learn beyond a doubt she was the one Strader had
come to see and that there was a connection with Langston,
where did we take our charge? To Redfield? Why, naturally.
He had jurisdiction, didn’t he?
Redfield, old boy, if you’ve got a minute to spare, I’ve just
learned your wife is a tramp and, I’d like to have her
arrested for adultery, and murder, and a number of other
things—let’s see, I’ve got the list right here—
Right here where you just emptied the clip.
Well, we had to do something.”Do you know,” I asked, “if
there’s any chance the Sheriff may be back on the job any
time soon?”
She shook her head. “Practically none, from what I’ve
heard. I think they did learn the stomach condition he went
up there for wasn’t malignant, but he’s over sixty and the
ulcers are so bad the doctors told him he’d just have to
Talk of The Town— 128
retire. Redfield will probably remain in charge and run for
the office next election.”
“Okay,” I said wearily. “Let’s take it from the top again.
Mrs. Redfield. What else do you know about her?”
“It’s sketchy, as I told you,” she said. “Her first name is
Cynthia. I’d say she was twenty-eight or twenty-nine, and I
think they were married two years ago last June, just after
school was out. It seems to me she taught third grade, and
just for the one school term, and that somebody once told
me she came here just before school started in September.
That would be 1954. I don’t know whether she came directly
from Warren Springs or not, but somehow I have the
impression that was the last place she taught.”
“You don’t know what her maiden name was? It might
have been Talley, but not necessarily.”
“No-o, I’m sorry.”
“Well, that one’s easy, anyway,” I said. I went out to the
desk and called City Hall for the name of the local
Superintendent of Schools. He was a Mr. J. P. Wardlaw. I
looked up his number, and called him at home.
“I’m trying lo locate a Miss Talley, or Miss Tanner,” I said.
“She teaches one of the elementary grades here, or used to,
and I thought perhaps you could help me.”
“Hmm, no,” he replied, “I don’t have any records here at
home, of course, the name’s not familiar at all.”
I laughed sheepishly. “Well, to tell the truth, Mr. Wardlaw
I could be all fouled up on it. You see, she’s an old friend of
my wife’s was supposed to call on on my way through here,
but I’ve lost the slip she gave me. All I can remember is that
her first name was Cynthia and I think she taught the third
grade—”
“Wait. I know who you mean. That would be Mrs. Sprague.
Cynthia Sprague. She’s married now to a Mr. Redfield. Kelly
Redfield. You can find her in the book.”
“Thanks a million,” I said.
I called the garage to see if my car was ready yet. The girl
was sorry, but there’d been a little delay in getting the
radiator from Tallahassee. It should be ready tomorrow
morning. She was sorry again. I came in on the second
chorus and was sorry with her.
Talk of The Town— 129
I went back to the bedroom. Georgia Langston looked at
me inquiringly. I couldn’t figure out why just seeing her
always gave me a lift. “Besides being a very honest and
deserving girl with exquisite feet,” I said, “you also have a
station wagon I’ve been driving for the past few days. Can I
drive it again?”
She smiled. “I’m an invalid; so how could I stop you?
Where are you going?”
“Warren Springs,” I said. “Cynthia Redfield was married
before. To a man named Sprague. Somewhere, if we go back
far enough, we might find a tie-in with Strader. If I’m late
getting back, keep Josie here with you.”
I was going out the door when she said, “Bill.” I turned.
“Be careful,” she said simply.
I was within ten miles of Warren Springs before it dawned
on me at last that I was an idiot on a wild-goose chase. I
hadn’t even thought of it before, but there was no chance at
all Cynthia Redfield could have been the woman who called
me on the phone to set me up in that barn. Her voice was
deeper, down in the contralto range, and the inflection and
accent were entirely different.
Well, meat-head, I thought, law enforcement certainly
didn’t lose anything when you got out. I shrugged and went
on; there was no point in turning back now.
* * *
Warren Springs appeared to be slightly larger than Galicia.
It was built around a square where magnificent old trees did
their best to hide a turn-of-the-century courthouse that set
your teeth on edge. At two-fifteen on a Thursday afternoon
in July it was less than hectic. I had no difficulty in finding a
parking place, and ducked into the nearest drugstore.
Ordering the inevitable coke, I went back to the phone
booth. There were two Spragues listed. There was no
answer at the first, and at the other I raised a charmer who
sounded as if she were talking through a wide gap in her
front teeth and who said Mommy was gone to the store and
that she’d never heard of Cynthia Sprague.
I got some more dimes and tackled it through the
Superintendent of Schools. When I’d run down his name, I
Talk of The Town— 130
called his home. He was out of town, and his wife didn’t
know whether a Cynthia Sprague had ever taught here or
not.
“What you ought to do is call my husband’s secretary,” she
said. “She’s been with him for fifteen years or longer, and
she’d know whatever it is you want.”
“Fine,” I said. “Where can I get hold of her?”
“Her name’s Ellen Beasley, and in the summer she always
works vacation relief at the telephone-company business
office. They’re on Stuart Street, just off the north side of the
square.”
“Thank you very much,” I said.
Ellen Beasley proved to be unmarried and forty-ish, with a
petite face, a small bud of a mouth, and earnest but friendly
blue eyes. She looked up at me from her desk and smiled
inquiringly.
“Not phone business,” I said. “I’m trying to locate a girl
who used to teach here in town, and I understand you’d
know her if anybody would. Have you got time for a cup of
coffee?”
“Why, I think so,” she said. She said something into the
telephone at the corner of her desk, gathered up her purse,
and we went out. There was an air-conditioned café just
around the corner on the square. We went back to a table
and ordered the coffee. I offered her a cigarette, but she
refused with an apologetic smile.
“The girl’s name was Cynthia Sprague,” I said. “And if she
taught here it would probably be three or four years ago.”
She frowned thoughtfully, “You don’t know whether she
usually taught in high school or junior high? Or is the
elementary grades?
“No,” I said. “But she would have probably been pretty
young. Not over twenty-four or twenty-five, so I’d imagine in
grade school. She was married, but I don’t know her
husband’s first name.”
“Oh, well, sure, I know who you mean.” she said quickly.
“She wasn’t a teacher, though; at least, not the last two
years she was here. She was married to a teacher. Her
husband was principal of the junior high school. Robert
Talk of The Town— 131
Sprague. I remember quite well now; her maiden name was
Cynthia Forrest.”
“Did she live around here long?” I asked.
“Well, yes. I think she and her mother came here from
Georgia about the time she was in high school. When she
got her certificate she started teaching in the third grade in
—let’s see—that would be about 1950. It seems to me she
and Robert Sprague were married in 1952, in the spring,
and that she quit teaching. But she did do part-time clerical
work in his office. That is, up until the time he was killed—”
I glanced up quickly. “Killed?”
She nodded. “It was an accident. One of those awful
bathroom things people are always being warned about, and
that you just can’t believe really happen. I mean, that people
would do the things they do. You see, a lot of the older
houses here don’t have central heating, and they had a
portable electric heater in the bathroom. Mrs. Sprague
heard him fall, and rushed in, and the heater was right in
the water with him. He must have tried to turn it off, or on,
while he was sitting in the tub.”
So? No grown man could be that stupid or careless, I
thought. Then I knew I was reaching for it; it not only could
happen, it did. All the time. And the police and insurance
company—if any—would have taken a long, slow look.
“When was this?” I asked. “Do you recall?”
“Hmm. They’d been married less than two years, so it
must have been early in 1954. January or February. I went
to the funeral, of course, and I remember it was quite cold,
with a north-wester blowing. She was very broken up about
it.”
“She didn’t go back to teaching?”
“No. Mr. Snell told her she could have all the part-time
work she wanted until the next term started and then have
her job back in the third grade, but she said she was going
away. Her mother had died the previous year, as I
remember, so there was really nothing to keep her here. She
must have left shortly after the funeral. Maybe the latter
part of February.”
”You don’t know where she went?”
Talk of The Town— 132
She shook her head. “No. If she wrote to anyone here, I
don’t remember hearing about it. I’m sorry; I do wish I could
help you.”
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