We yelled at each other for a good fifteen minutes. He paced the small cell, with gestures. Suddenly he dropped all his mannerisms. He sat down and took out a big white handkerchief and wiped his mouth and looked at me calmly.
“Didn’t do it, eh?”
“No! I’ve been...”
“All right. All right. Let me think. Beautiful circumstantial case. Beautiful! Quarrel at the club. Your belt. Disposal of body.”
“I admit getting rid of the body.”
He smiled a little sadly. “Young man, I might say that I do not look with great anticipation on basing my case on the assumption that somebody entered your apartment while you were sleeping and put the body in your closet.”
“That’s what happened!”
“Kindly stop repeating yourself. I accept that. Let me see. May. I’ll have until early December to prepare.”
“December! Can you get me out of here?”
“There is no bail for a first degree charge. You remain here until then.” He looked around the cell and sniffed. He said, “Of course we can see that they make you a good deal more comfortable than this.”
“Kruslov and his people knocked me around a lot. Can you make anything out of that?”
“I doubt it. If you had signed a confession we could start thinking about physical duress. But you signed nothing, so we’ll just have to forget that. My fee, young man, will be five thousand dollars, plus expenses if I should decide to employ an investigator.”
“That’s a lot of money.”
“I’m a lot of lawyer, young man.”
I grinned at him. “Okay.”
“I will do some thinking and review the facts we have and come back and bring a tape recorder and we’ll go into this in detail, young man.”
“What happened to... Miss MacRae, my secretary? I’m anxious to keep her out of this.”
“That investigator, France, reported where he had found you. Kruslov had her brought in. She was here when they brought you in. Kruslov was willing to be convinced that she had no part at all in the murder. He knows her father, and I guess his brother knows her. He talked to France about it. So the papers didn’t get it yet. But I think they will when it comes to trial. The prosecution will want to show that you acted like a guilty man. That includes hiding, and whoever hid you.”
“The company will fire her.”
He looked at me sadly. “They’re not likely to give you a medal, Mr. Sewell.”
At about six o’clock they took me to the same room, that shabby defeated room with its smell of violence, where they had roughed me up. Toni was waiting there for me. They closed the door and left us alone. I suspected the influence of Jerry Hyers in that nice arrangement.
We kissed and both talked at once and kissed again. She put gentle fingertips against my swollen face and cried about that, and about us and about the whole miserable mess.
“It can’t be true, Clint. It’s hideous. It can’t really be true.”
“Part of it was true.”
She flushed. “Yes. Oh, yes. You know, they came to the plant and got me. Captain Kruslov said awful things to me. About helping you. Mr. France was there too. He was terribly angry at you. You chipped one of his teeth. I talked to Mr. France afterward. I asked him if his assignment was over and he said he thought it was. I asked him if he’d work for you. I didn’t think he would he was so angry, but he said he would, and I’m going to pay him.”
“I don’t want you trying to pay his fees.”
“I want to. When I run out of money, you can pay him. But I want somebody trying to help you, Clint. Captain Kruslov is so certain it was you that it scares me.”
“You know it wasn’t.”
“Yes. I know, darling.”
“Don’t ever doubt it. Don’t ever wonder about me.”
“I couldn’t. Don’t talk like that.” She looked directly at me. “And don’t you doubt me. Nothing will ever change. I’ll wait for you. I’ll work to get you free.”
They warned us that we could have but two more minutes together. She said she would be at the office the next morning, Saturday morning, to clean up odds and ends and the phone in my office would be on one of the night circuits if I could get a chance to phone her. She said she would come and see me on Saturday afternoon and bring a change of clothing and toilet articles for me. She had something else to tell me, too, she said, but there wasn’t time to explain it. She had to leave then and they took me back to a cell that was colder, barer, more frightening, after the chance I had had to hold my tall warm girl in my arms and hear her voice and look into her eyes. Somebody has to believe in you, all the way. Somebody has to give a damn about you. You have to be important to somebody. Or life is just a routine of going through the motions.
They released me at ten-fifteen on Saturday morning. Hyers stood impatiently while I put the laces back in my shoes, put my belt through the loops, tied my tie around the collar of the dirty shirt. I ripped open the manila envelope, recovered wallet, keys, lighter, change, cigarettes.
“What’s up?” I asked Hyers.
“Let’s have some coffee down the street.”
I was glad it was a small dingy place. With a four day beard and dirty shirt, I looked like a bum. We took a booth near the back of the place.
Jerry Hyers ordered doughnuts and coffee and said to me, “They would have let you stay there all week end. Too damn much trouble to go through the red tape and get you out.”
“Would somebody kindly tell me what the hell is going on?”
“Don’t you know yet? They found Raymond this morning. Early. A couple of kids were cutting across the Pryor farm, going out on an all day hike. His car was on one of the farm roads. He’d taken his tow rope, climbed up on the roof of the car, heaved the rope over a limb, made it fast, tied it around his neck and swung off the car. The kids couldn’t reach the rope even if they’d felt like it. They left him hanging there and ran to the farm. He had the Olan girl’s pocketbook in one pocket and the missing key to your apartment in the other. Kruslov got hold of Mrs. Raymond right away. When she found out what had happened she admitted that she had lied about the night when the Olan girl was killed. Apparently Raymond was out until five in the morning. And she told Kruslov that Raymond, as your boss, had fixed you up with dates with the Olan girl so he could see her oftener. She told Kruslov that she was positive her husband had rented a room or apartment somewhere where he could have been seeing the Olan girl. Here’s a note. Turn it in at the police garage on Fourth Street and they’ll release your car to you. Charges against you have been dropped.”
“I thought of Dodd, but I couldn’t believe that...”
“Nice guy. If his nerve hadn’t broken, you’d be holding the big bag, young man. Your check for three hundred will take care of my activities in your behalf.”
“I’ll mail it Monday.”
“Thank you. I have to be off.” We shook hands and he hurried out, important and busy.
I finished my coffee, paid the check and found the police garage. After a bored look at the note they told me my car was around in back. Just go down the alley, mister. I drove back to the apartment and phoned my office.
Toni answered, “Mr. Sewell’s office.”
“This is Mr. Sewell, Miss MacRae. I phoned to tell you I won’t be in this morning.”
“Clint! Is it true then? There’s a rumor around that Mr. Raymond...”
“Are there enough people there to cook up a rumor?”