“She listened for a long time, quite patiently. I told her how she had to combat the evil she had inherited. I spoke calmly to her. When I was through she laughed at me. She jeered at me and said unforgivable things to me. I walked away from the car, trembling. I went in the house and took a sock from my bedroom and went out and filled the toe with coarse dirt. When she came walking toward the house, humming to herself, I struck her as hard as I could, caught her as she fell and put her back in the car.
“I thought for a long time. Raymond had broken vows. I found a strange key in her purse. I drove back to the apartment, left her in the car. The key opened the door. I went in and found him in bed, breathing heavily, smelling of drink. I struck him twice, as hard as I could, to prevent his awakening. In the darkness his head was clearly visible on the pillow. His breathing changed and that was all. I carried her into the dark apartment. She seemed to have no weight at all. I placed her in the closet. I lighted a match and saw a belt hanging there. I placed it around her neck and drew it tight. I knelt in the closet doorway in the darkness. I could hear a faint whistle of breathing. I tightened the belt a bit more and I could hear nothing.
“I waited a long time and began to tremble. I thrust her further back into the closet, closed the door, closed the outside door and drove away. I did not sleep that night. Early in the morning I called my wife at the lake and said that Mary had not come home and I was worried. Myrna drove down from the lake. It was minutes before she arrived that I happened to see Mary’s purse near the edge of the drive where I had struck her...”
“The car, her car,” Kruslov said softly.
“I drove her car from Sewell’s driveway and abandoned it near Highland. I walked two miles to the farm and drove back to my home in one of the jeeps. I rubbed my hands on the parts of her car I had touched, to smear my fingerprints. I hid her purse and the key in my bureau. After my wife returned from the lake and we phoned Stine, I waited for Raymond to be found with the body in that apartment. We told Stine that Mary had been at the club with the Raymonds. But it turned out I had struck Sewell. When the body was not found, I guessed that Sewell had taken it away somehow. I did not want Sewell punished. I suspected that he and Mary had been intimate, but I had no proof.
“I wanted to talk to Sewell, to find out if he too should be punished. I waited one night near his apartment, the night Mary’s body had been found. He drove in with Yeagger. I was behind a tree. They came close to me and fought. I got a tire iron from my car. Yeagger was choking Sewell. I struck him from behind. I thought I had killed him. Sewell still breathed. I left.
“Sewell’s arrest troubled me. I visited him in his cell. He seemed honest. He disclaimed carnal knowledge of my niece. I was afraid that once again, as with Nadine, the innocent would be punished. I began to think of confession and suicide. I was the instrument of the vengeance of the Lord, but He did not want me to punish the innocent.
“When Raymond phoned me to set a place to speak to me in private, I had no idea what he wanted. I had him meet me at the farm on Friday night. He spoke cautiously. Suddenly I realized what he wanted. Mary had hinted of her suspicions that perhaps I had killed her father. She had told him of the relationship between herself and me. Raymond had a business venture in mind. I would furnish funds. He said he could insure a good return. Otherwise he would go to the police with his suspicions, and he felt there would be enough to warrant reopening the investigation. I told him I would have to think it over. I told him to wait there. He showed me the gun he was carrying.
“I went back to my home and recovered Mary’s purse from its hiding place and took it back out there with me. The sock heavy with dirt had worked so well that I used it another time. It did not take long to catch him off guard. I spoke of large sums of money and his greed diluted his caution. He was a heavy man, but as when I carried Mary, he seemed astonishingly light. I removed my shoes so as not to leave telltale marks on the roof of his car. The most difficult part was holding him upright while I knotted the tow line around his neck. He began to recover consciousness as I held him upright. I put the purse in one side pocket and the key in the other.
“I pushed him off the car. He caught at the rope over his head with his hands and when he swung back he scrabbled at the car roof with his feet but he could not get a purchase. On the second swing he did not come close enough. He held his weight with his hands, swinging and turning slowly. I had used a flashlight to locate the proper limb and judge the throw. I turned the light on him. He swung, turning slowly, looking at me with a terrible face. I turned off the light. I put my shoes on and stood by the car in the darkness. Soon I heard the sounds of his dying. I walked back to the farm and drove home. I knew it was all over. Sewell would be freed. The guilty had been punished. I felt clean again, as in the moment when I decided to kill my niece.
“When Sewell spoke to me today my anger turned me blind. I knew that it was all over in a different sense. I was angered because I had saved him and this was the way he would repay me.”
Pryor stood up slowly. The faces of the listeners changed. The orange fountain pen made a tiny scratching sound as the last few words were taken down.
Pryor turned toward Kruslov. “Now that you know all the reasons, Captain, now that I have explained everything in detail, may I go home? I’ll appreciate it if this is given no publicity.”
I swear that Kruslov was so shocked he almost said yes. He licked his lips and said, “Oh no, Mr. Pryor! You can’t go home.”
“Do you plan to detain me? Here?”
“I’m afraid I’ve got to.”
“Well, get your formalities over as soon as possible then. Will I be able to go home this evening?”
I saw the Kruslov brain begin to tick. He stood up and smiled and said, “Mr. Pryor, rest assured that we’ll take care of all this just as efficiently as we know how. If you’ll come along with me, sir?”
They half bowed to each other. As they went out the door together, Willis Pryor said, “Remember now. No publicity. And I’d like to talk to Jud Sutton as soon as possible. Get him for me, please.”
“Right this way, Mr. Pryor,” Kruslov said gently.
We were all left in the room. Somebody sighed. Then we all filed out of there, not looking at each other. We all shared some nameless guilt. We’d all seen the shining structures fall, the streets decay, the walls crumble. We didn’t want anything to do with each other. Maybe we had all resigned from the human race a little bit.
Young John Olan was standing in the main corridor when I left. Nobody seemed to want me, so I left. A reporter had edged up to me and I had snarled at him. John Olan was studying a pocket chessboard.
“More prepared variations?”
I startled him. He recognized me and smiled at me. “That’s right.”
He jerked his head toward the other end of the corridor, the official end. “He did it? My father and my sister?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
His eyes were dark mirrors, reflecting nothing. His mouth moved in a quick grimace of pain, wiped out immediately.
He looked back at the board in his hand. I no longer existed. He was back in a special clean geometric world, where the god was reason, where the goddess was logic, where hearts were prisms, cold and true and neatly cut. Perhaps it was a good world to hide in.
I left him and walked slowly to my car in the late afternoon sunshine. A thunder front was rolling up the sky, and the sun was beginning to be misted, and the city was full of an orange light, lambent and ominous.