“Now what?” Kruslov asked. He looked square and dull and tired.
“Now I want to know how proud you are, Kruslov. I want to know how big a charge you got out of slapping me around.”
He eyed me coldly. “Want an apology?”
“You might try one for size.”
“Never, you damn fool. You found a body and moved it. What the hell right has a civilian like you got meddling in police work? You complicate my job, mess up the evidence, shoot off your mouth and then come prancing around looking for an apology. There’s statutes that cover what you did, and if I get too damn annoyed at you I may see if I can make some of them stick. Now get the hell out of my way.”
I got out of his way before he bounced me out of his way with a heavy shoulder. He went on into the house. I felt like a spanked child. I got into my Merc and drove away.
I had won my argument with Toni and moved some of my stuff into a second class hotel room. I won it by telling her that if I knew C.P.P., I wouldn’t remain in my job for more than another few days. We had taken a bag of cheese and liverwurst sandwiches and a cold six-pack of beer far into the country. Before we left, I had brushed off two reporters with more dispatch than finesse.
From the grassy bank we could toss crumbs into the river. Minnows struck the crumbs ferociously. I lay back and her slack-clad thigh fitted the nape of my neck as though designed for that special purpose.
“Stop frowning,” she said softly.
“Can’t help it.”
“It’s all over now.”
“A cold guy, Toni. A type who figured all the angles. A ruthless guy. Could he kill? Yes, if it would give him a big gain, and if he was logically certain he could get away with it. Would he kill himself? Perhaps, if he was aware that he would be caught. So how does it fit? Not at all. No gain in Mary’s death. And he wasn’t about to be caught.”
“In the immortal words of the bard, leave it lay.”
“Can’t.”
“Maybe it’s all different than it looks, Clint dear. So what? We’re out of it. You don’t owe anybody anything. Now we just think of us.”
“Female reasoning. Ten thousand years ago you’d have your own lady-weight club leaning against the cave wall, just inside the door. And uninvited guests — boom.”
“And ten thousand years ago you’d be seeing how close you could get to a saber-toothed tiger. Hah! Male reasoning.”
“But I can’t let go of it, girl. The package is too neatly wrapped. The string is too carefully tied. Maybe too carefully tied around Dodd’s throat.”
“Don’t!”
“I’m not in love with his memory. I’ve got no yen to vindicate him. Good sense says to do as you suggest. Leave it lay. And spend a lot of the tag ends of the hours of my life wondering.”
She ran a gentle thumb along one of my eyebrows and then the other. She sighed heavily. “Meddler.”
“I know.”
“Big fool.”
“I know that too.”
“If you gotta, you gotta.”
“Mmmm. You are a special deal, MacRae.”
“The large economy size deal.”
“Three dimensional, color, bite-sized, built-in flavor.”
We kissed until the river ran uphill. The minnows goggled at us. All the trees applauded, and a brown and white cow strolled down to the river edge to watch with benign gravity. We gave her a spare sandwich. She ate it with the dignity of a baroness. Then we went back to the car. She took hold of my arm. Her fingers bit in. Her dark eyes spotwelded my soul.
“Be careful,” she said.
Yes, I would be careful. But it was something I had to do. I had to know. They had changed me — Kruslov and his hands, the damp cell, the dead girl. Before I had changed I could have said that it was none of my business. But I had changed and become more involved with life. As with John Donne and his talk of no man being an island.
Death had come very close to me, black gauze wings grazing my face. I could not tell myself it was all over. Not while I had these nagging doubts. I could not let Dodd Raymond be buried with that mark on him.
And I would be careful. Because afterward, there would be Toni.
Chapter 10
There are few places where a man can dirty his hands with the dust of the past. After I left Toni off — a rather disconsolate but understanding girl — I went to the Warren Public Library. It was the same vintage as the police station. The young lady who came to my assistance wore a white angora sweater that struggled to contain two of the most enormously unreal breasts I have ever seen. She marched trimly behind them, using them as weapons of offense. I wondered how anybody ever remembered what question they had come to ask. They had a life of their own — mammalian, incredible — objects far beyond the realm of desire, creating only awe and consternation.
I managed to stammer my question about old records and newspapers. She pointed toward a side stairway with those breasts and said that they had booths up there and micro-film projectors and a girl who would help me. I went up the stairway.
The upstairs girl was of different construction. Between the two of them they had two sets of normal equipment. She explained the setup to me and told me that if I knew what I wanted, she would get the rolls and I could sign for them. I told her I didn’t know what I wanted. I told her I wanted to see any rolls a Mr. Dodd Raymond had looked at yesterday afternoon. She became skeptical and uncooperative. She had heard about Mr. Raymond and had recognized the name at once. I confessed that I was not with the police. Finally she allowed as how she could look at the records and tell me. She came back from her desk in a few minutes and, with a relieved icy smile, told me that Mr. Raymond had not signed for anything. It was what I expected. Miss Ice kept her domain spotless.
I thanked her and went back down the stairs and out — not without trying for a last look at Miss Angora. She had disappeared.
The Ledger Building was a three story oblong, quite new, of tan stone and aluminum. A quote about freedom of the press was lettered in bronze beside the main door. I got there a few minutes after five. The business end of the paper, the people with regular hours, were leaving. Trucks were swinging out of the side alley with the afternoon final.
A girl behind the classified counter on the main floor stopped applying raspberry lipstick long enough to tell me, with calculated insolence, that it was late and maybe I could find what I wanted on the second floor.
The file of bound editions was in a small room next to the morgue. A bouncy, swarthy little girl with rhinestones set into her glasses frames looked at me carefully and told me I could help myself.
“Do you keep any record of who uses these?”
“Oh no. Nobody uses them very much any more except the news staff sometimes. The public library has them on micro-film going all the way back to 1822 when the Ledger first started to come out as a weekly. Why don’t you use theirs? They’re handier and cleaner.”
“Well, as long as I’m here.”
“That’s okay. Handle the old ones carefully, won’t you? They’re pretty brittle.”
“I’ll be careful.”
She left me in the small room. One set of bound copies covered one wall of the room, with boards locked across the fronts of the volumes so they could not be taken out; another set was unconfined. I had to find out which volume Dodd Raymond had been interested in — if my guess was right. I found the switch that controlled the overhead light and moved close to the books. The recent years’ copies were quite free of dust. I ranged back over the years. One volume stood out, most of the dust gone from the spine. I slid it out and carried it over to the table.