* * * *
Time passed, and still they ran test upon test on the Park murder evidence.
As they worked, Dean asked Sid, “Any truth to Peggy and Park's having had a thing going?"
"Let's just say that Peggy Carson doesn't like sleeping alone, Dean. I mean, she's not a whore, but she doesn't care for long nights alone."
"She ever ... you ever..."
"She wouldn't take me up on the offer. But you weren't the only one she said yes to."
"How'd you know about it?"
"This ain't Chicago, Dean ... word gets around a smaller operation like ours, you know, as to who's going with whom. The only secret I've ever been able to keep is me and Karen the judge, and now that's been blown to hell."
"And Diana, does she know?"
Sid frowned, “Di and me, we've sorta drifted apart—quietly but effectively drifted way apart. Kids are interested in other things, too. Take a lot to get us all into the happy niche we were in when I returned from Korea, let me tell you...."
Sid sounded deeply saddened over the condition of his family, a trace of guilt in his voice. Dean thought again of Jackie and his relationship, which had, until the Floaters case, been so strong he'd felt nothing on earth could wedge them apart. Things fall apart, people change; it was funny how all the old clichés suddenly took on powerful meaning in a crisis, Dean thought. Words seemed empty until you were drowning in a quagmire of them, in a situation out-of-hand, a circumstance that screamed for fast, sure ropes to bind a man's wounds.
Life was filled with wounds.
Wounds and pitfalls: deep and gaping wells into which people plummeted without the slightest notion they'd ever been near the edge. The condition of marriage—or any relationship, Dean believed—was a microcosm of the larger, dangerous territory of life. A relationship between a man and a woman was peppered with minefields, large or small, but often deadly. Mind fields, actually, since most were linked to emotional time bombs ticking away, ready to explode over the weakening of some small detail.
It wasn't something the therapists or the manuals were likely to help people with, but rather one of the countless truisms people learned by experience. Getting out of the situation was done either with finesse or with foolishness. For many, the easy way out was a word shouted in anger: divorce. It presented a quick-fix route to tying off the loosened and severed ropes of one's mental balance and emotional needs. Remove the object—in this case a person—of distress from sight, and pretend it never existed.
For Dean himself, it was an ugly word to be ranked alongside cancer: it was a cancer of relationships.
The very thought of divorce for him brought on an image of a barbed corkscrew that turned hideously round and round in his stomach. The awful instrument was turned on memories, and it made an ever-widening cut.
Dean decided he could not waste a moment more in telephoning Jackie to tell her he loved her, and that he planned to be on a plane for home tonight. Sid could now finish up this case without him, regardless of the fact that somewhere in the city, or maybe far from the city now, the Scalpers had left a trail to a man named Park in order to escape. It might very well mean that their scalping days were over, for now if Dean and Sid kept quiet to the press, the killers could do as they wished, so long as no one was ever again mutilated for a scalp. No, they didn't have the guilty parties behind bars. No, they had not yet identified the killers. No, justice was not served, and yes, an innocent man and his memory had been destroyed in the process. So what, Dean's exhausted mind told him, so what? He was no avenging angel. He was only one man, a man who had more pressing personal and professional problems awaiting him at home.
Sid's face drained of color when Dean told him of his plans, but he understood. In a controlled fashion, he thanked Dean for all he'd done. “You've been a considerable godsend, Dean. You saved my ass and put my mind right. I needed your support, and you gave it."
A look at Dean's watch told him it was already late afternoon. Sid had allowed him to sleep much more than he should have. He had much to do if he was going to make his way back to Chicago and Jackie.
"Peggy Carson came by, Dean. She tried to get me to fill her in on what we've found, but given the situation, I stonewalled her. This isn't the time for leaks, and you know how word gets out, guys like that reporter Evans last night. Hell, they're everywhere—"
"You did the right thing, Sid. Keep the jar and the chloroform between you and me. Don't even bring Tom Warner in on it."
"Warner's okay, Dean, just a little green."
"Defend him if you like, Sid, but like many of us, he's also easily swayed by a pretty face, and if by a pretty face, no telling who else might control him. Frankly, given all that's happened around here, with your scissors turning up like they did ... don't know if I wouldn't clean house, if it were my house to clean."
Sid looked down the corridor to where he'd last seen Warner. “You really think ... naw!"
"I didn't say he might be the killer. But if you can't be sure your people are with you one hundred percent, no matter how dire the situation, well, old friend, you've got people putting little pins in your balloon and the results can be ... explosive. How, for instance, did Hodges know enough to double back on your reports early on in the case? Who provided the odor for them to sniff at?"
"Tom?"
"Like Dyer told you, Sid, watch your backside."
Sid had a lot to think about. Dean got his things together from the lab and started out. Sid stopped him at the door. “I sure wish you didn't have to go, Dean, but I understand. Really. Have a safe trip, and I'll keep in touch."
"Before you take anything to Hodges, make sure it's everything. Overwhelm him with the evidence and he'll have to back whatever play you make."
"Right, standard practice time. I guess I let a lot go by the wayside here. Too cushy a job. Tell you what, if Hodges throws me out, I may show up on your doorstep."
"Brr! Don't forget Chicago winters!"
The two men laughed as Tom Warner looked on with what might be envy in his eyes. Dean noticed the assistant had begun to rummage near Sid's office, and now he stepped inside with some papers in hand to lay on Sid's desk.
"Sneaky fellow, that Warner,” Dean said.
Sid turned to see Warner in his office where both jar and chloroform result lay exposed. Sid rushed to the attack, shouting at Warner, whose face drained of color.
Dean chose the moment to escape without further discussion. Sid could give his regards to Chief Hodges, Frank Dyer, and Hamel, if necessary, but Dean wanted to say a personal good-bye to Peggy Carson. It only seemed right. He'd return to his hotel, shave and shower, get a change of clothes, and from there make his flight reservations and telephone Jackie. He'd then have a brief and final phone talk with Peggy Carson, unsure what he might tell her beyond the fact that both he and Sid Corman knew that she was telling the truth, that she had not killed Park, and that the case was now in Sid's hands.
As Dean was passing through the lobby of the municipal building, Frank Dyer came racing after him, shouting for his attention. Dyer seemed shaken.
"Corman tells me you're leaving."
"That's right."
"Because of Hodges, last night?"
"Among other things."
"You can't do it."
"Yes I can."