“I suspect,” Collins said to Earl Junior, “that you were the one who answered the phone. You told Ricks there was no one home, and you gave him the phone number of James. You seem to get some sort of kicks out of defying authority, Earl — is that why you hate the police and withheld the information from us? You don’t realize by what a thread your life hung. Buck asked you not to say anything about the call, didn’t he? If you’d shown a moment’s hesitation, it’s my opinion he’d have killed you, too.”
Earl Junior said nothing. But his sneer was a little pallid.
“As for Molly Wilkerson, Buck James killed her for precisely the same reason: to prevent the discovery of a link between himself and Ricks, a discovery that would have focused attention on him. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
“Buck and Steve brought Mr. Kershaw home. Buck probably had been toying with the idea of a mystery man following the camping party, and Ricks seemed a good man for the job, just sufficiently shy of the police to want to avoid involvement. If the police were looking for a mystery man suspected of having shot Earl Genneman, Steve Ricks wasn’t going to claim to be that man.”
Collins rose. “That’s about it. We have all kinds of evidence. As soon as we find where Buck rented the white Ford, we’ll have even more.”
Jean’s face sagged. “How could he have fooled me like that?” she cried, and turned on Collins with a look of sheer loathing. Then she marched from the room, followed by her mother and Myron Retwig. Red Kershaw turned to Collins. “I’m still in shock, Inspector. Think of it! Buck! Walking right behind me up that trail!”
“You’re lucky he didn’t consider you a threat.”
“Me?” Kershaw raised his brows in astonishment. “Why me?”
“Toward the end, when things started to fall apart, he was ready to kill at the drop of a hat, and it was through you that he met Ricks.”
Kershaw said wonderingly, “One man helps another man carry a drunk out of a bar. If you call that a ‘meeting,’ I guess that’s how Buck James met Steve Ricks.”
“That’s how they met, all right. Molly Wilkerson was a witness. First she tried to blackmail you, then she tried it on James. She’d have been safer spitting in a rattlesnake’s face.”
“I still can’t believe it. Buck’s always seemed so level headed... Three murders! That’s the work of a madman.”
And Inspector Collins nodded back just as soberly. “Every murderer,” he said, “is a little mad.”