«Might see about the boat,» the sheriff said.
«What about it?»
«Might see if it was used recent,» Barron said.
«Hell,» Andy said, «we know it was used recent, don’t we?»
«Always supposin’ you guessed right,» Barron said mildly.
Andy looked at him in silence for a moment. Then he spat on the ground and started back to where we had left the car. When he had gone a dozen feet he said over his shoulder: «I wasn’t guessin’.» He turned his head again and went on, plowing through the trees.
«Kind of touchy,» Barron said. «But a good man.» He went down on the boat landing and bent over it, passing his hand along the forward part of the side, below the tarpaulin. He came back slowly and nodded. «Andy’s right. Always is, durn him. What kind of tires would you say those marks were, Mr. Evans? They tell you anything?»
«Cadillac V-12,» I said. «A club coupé with red leather seats and two suitcases in the back. The clock on the dash is twelve and one-half minutes slow.»
He stood there, thinking about it. Then he nodded his big head. He sighed. «Well, I hope it makes money for you,» he said, and turned away.
We went back to the car. Andy was in the front seat behind the wheel again. He had a cigarette going. He looked straight ahead of him through the dusty windshield.
«Where’s Rooney live now?» Barron asked.
«Where he always lived,» Andy said.
«Why, that’s just a piece up the Bascomb road.»
«I ain’t said different,» Andy growled.
«Let’s go there,» the sheriff said, getting in. I got in beside him.
Andy turned the car and went back half a mile and then started to turn. The sheriff snapped to him: «Hold it a minute.»
He got out and used his flash on the road surface. He got back into the car. «I think we got something. Them tracks down by the pier don’t mean a lot. But the same tracks up here might turn out to mean more. If they go on in to Bascomb, they’re goin’ to mean plenty. Them old gold camps over there is made to order for monkey business.»
The car went into the side road and climbed slowly into a gap. Big boulders crowded the road, and the hillside was studded with them. They glistened pure white in the moonlight. The car growled on for half a mile and then Andy stopped again.
«Okay, Hawkshaw, this is the cabin,» he said. Barron got out again and walked around with his flash. There was no light in the cabin. He came back to the car.
«They come by here,» he said. «Bringing Ted home. When they left they turned towards Bascomb. You figure Ted Rooney would be mixed up in something crooked, Andy?»
«Not unless they paid him for it,» Andy said.
I got out of the car and Barron and I went up towards the cabin. It was small, rough, covered with native pine. It had a wooden porch, a tin chimney guyed with wires, and a sagging privy behind the cabin at the edge of the trees. It was dark. We walked up on the porch and Barron hammered on the door. Nothing happened. He tried the knob. The door was locked. We went down off the porch and around the back, looking at the windows. They were all shut. Barron tried the back door, which was level with the ground. That was locked, too. He pounded. The echoes of the sound wandered off through the trees and echoed high up on the rise among the boulders.
«He’s gone with them,» Barron said. «I guess they wouldn’t dast leave him now. Prob’ly stopped here just to let him get his stuff — some of it. Yep.»
I said: «I don’t think so. All they wanted of Rooney was his boat. That boat picked up Fred Lacey’s body out at the end of Speaker Point early this evening. The body was probably weighted and dropped out in the lake. They waited for dark to do that. Rooney was in on it, and he got paid. Tonight they wanted the boat again. But they got to thinking they didn’t need Rooney along. And if they’re over in Bascomb Valley in some quiet little place, making or storing counterfeit money, they wouldn’t at all want Rooney to go over there with them.»
«You’re guessing again, son,» the sheriff said kindly. «Anyways, I don’t have no search warrant. But I can look over Rooney’s dolihouse a minute. Wait for me.»
He walked away towards the privy. I took six feet and hit the door of the cabin. It shivered and split diagonally across the upper panel. Behind me, the sheriff called out, «Hey,» weakly, as if he didn’t mean it.
I took another six feet and hit the door again. I went in with it and landed on my hands and knees on a piece of linoleum that smelled like a fish skillet. I got up to my feet and reached up and turned the key switch of a hanging bulb. Barron was right behind me, making clucking noises of disapproval.
There was a kitchen with a wood stove, some dirty wooden shelves with dishes on them. The stove gave out a faint warmth. Unwashed pots sat on top of it and smelled. I went across the kitchen and into the front room. I turned on another hanging bulb. There was a narrow bed to one side, made up roughly, with a slimy quilt on it. There was a wooden table, some wooden chairs, an old cabinet radio, hooks on the wall, an ashtray with four burned pipes in it, a pile of pulp magazines in the corner on the floor.
The ceiling was low to keep the heat in. In the corner there was a trap to get up to the attic. The trap was open and a stepladder stood under the opening. An old water-stained canvas suitcase lay open on a wooden box, and there were odds and ends of clothing in it.
Barron went over and looked at the suitcase. «Looks like Rooney was getting ready to move out or go for a trip. Then these boys come along and picked him up. He ain’t finished his packing, but he got his suit in. A man like Rooney don’t have but one suit and don’t wear that ’less he goes down the hill.»
«He’s not here,» I said. «He ate dinner here, though. The stove is still warm.»
The sheriff cast a speculative eye at the stepladder. He went over and climbed up it and pushed the trap up with his head. He raised his torch and shone it around overhead. He let the trap close and came down the stepladder again.
«Likely he kept the suitcase up there,» he said. «I see there’s a old steamer trunk up there, too. You ready to leave?»
«I didn’t see a car around,» I said. «He must have had a car.»
«Yep. Had a old Plymouth. Douse the light.»
He walked back into the kitchen and looked around that and then we put both the lights out and went out of the house. I shut what was left of the back door. Barron was examining tire tracks in the soft decomposed granite, trailing them back over to a space under a big oak tree where a couple of large darkened areas showed where a car had stood many times and dripped oil.
He came back swinging his flash, then looked towards the privy and said: «You could go on back to Andy. I still gotta look over that dollhouse.»
I didn’t say anything. I watched him go along the path to the privy and unlatch the door, and open it. I saw his flash go inside and the light leaked out of a dozen cracks and from the ramshackle roof. I walked back along the side of the cabin and got into the car. The sheriff was gone a long time. He came back slowly, stopped beside the car and bit off another chew from his plug. He rolled it around in his mouth and then got to work on it.
«Rooney,» he said, «is in the privy. Shot twice in the head.» He got into the car. «Shot with a big gun, and shot very dead. Judgin’ from the circumstances I would say somebody was in a hell of a hurry.»
ELEVEN
The road climbed steeply for a while following the meanderings of a dried mountain stream the bed of which was full of boulders. Then it leveled off about a thousand or fifteen hundred feet above the level of the lake. We crossed a cattle stop of spaced narrow rails that clanked under the car wheels. The road began to go down. A wide undulating flat appeared with a few browsing cattle in it. A lightless farmhouse showed up against the moonlit sky. We reached a wider road that ran at right angles. Andy stopped the car and Barron got out with his big flashlight again and ran the spot slowly over the road surface.