the float and dumped the catfish out of the wet tow sack into the water. They were still alive. After looking the seat over carefully to be sure there was no blood on it, I put the motor back on the stern. She came alongside in a few minutes and I made the boat fast and helped her out.
“I’ve just got one more thing to do,” I said. “It won’t take more than about twenty minutes.”
She came very close to me there on the float and looked up. “I’m sorry I went to pieces on you,” she said quietly. “But I’m all right now, Jack. Hold me for just a minute before you go back and I won’t cause you any more trouble.”
When I reached out for her and tipped her face back I could see that a little of the color had come back into it and that the dead, washed-out agony was leaving her eyes. “Jack,” she whispered, pleading, “it’ll be all right with us now, won’t it? Tell me it will.”
I knew what she meant. It wasn’t the police she was thinking of. I kissed her, holding her very tightly, then ran a hand along her cheek and through the straight, dark hair. “Yes,” I said. “It’ll be all right. It’ll be just like it was before.”
“For always, Jack?”
“For always,” I said.
There were two water buckets in the kitchen. I found a big dishrag and a scrubbing brush and set to work, spilling some water on the floor where he had lain, mopping it up with the rag and wringing it out into the bucket. When I had used up all the water I went down to the lake shore for more, throwing the dirty water out into the lake. Then I used soap and the stiff scrubbing brush over a wide area and carefully mopped up all the soapsuds, wiped the floor as dry as I could get it with the cloth, dumped the soapy water in the lake, washed out the buckets, filled one of them with water, and brought them back to the kitchen.
I stood there in the front room for a minute, looking around. The floor would be dry in a few hours and everything else was in order. I saw her purse lying on the dresser where she had left it, and picked it up. Then I gathered up the gun, wrapped the wet cloth around it, and stuck both in a pocket so I could throw them in the lake. It was as I was just starting out the door that I again felt that disturbing and uneasy awareness of having forgotten something absolutely damning. It was picking up the gun that reminded me of it. The gun was an automatic, and somewhere in this room was the ejected cartridge case, which I had completely forgotten. I stopped, feeling the hair prickle along the back of my neck. I was too slipshod about things like that.
It wasn’t anywhere. I looked all over the floor, under the dresser, under the bed, and on top of it, and I couldn’t find it. It had to be here, and it wasn’t. You couldn’t lose anything as large as a .45 case in this bare room I told myself. It’s impossible. I stood still by the dresser, sweating, afraid again, hearing the ticking of the clock beat its way up out of the silence and the dead, empty air and the heat. Frantically I jerked the gun out of my pocket and unwrapped it, and pulled the slide back until I could see the cartridge in the chamber. It was unfired, as I had known it would be, for the gun hadn’t jammed. The empty case had come flying out, as it was supposed to, and now it was gone. Had one of the dresser drawers been open, I wondered? Maybe it had flown in here. I yanked them open, one by one, and pawed through them. It wasn’t there. Hold onto yourself, I thought. Don’t start coming apart like an old maid with the vapors. You’ve already lost your head once in this room and killed a man, and if you lose it again you may kill yourself. There’s a good explanation for it if you’ll just cool off and look for it. Nobody’s been here, so it’s still here. It has to be.
He was there, I thought, coming off the wall and going toward the bed, and I was right here in front