they’ve issued a warrant for her on suspicion of murder.”
“What?” I almost shouted it.
“And another thing. Don’t try to come back.”
“What do you mean, don’t try to come back?” The booth seemed to be shrinking, trying to choke me. “Listen, don’t you understand—”
“The thing I understand is that we had an agreement and I carried out my end of it. I didn’t know then that I was just financing your expedition, but I’m satisfied with it because so far it’s worked. And if you come back, it won’t. The minute you show up, everything’ll hit the fan. I don’t like to be doubled-crossed, so I’m telling you to stay away. Do we understand each other?”
I understood him, all right. He was warning me. He knew now what had actually happened up there in the swamp, or he was pretty sure of it, but nothing interested him except that two-bit graft investigation. She could go to the chair for all he cared, so long as he was all right. My mind grew quite clear and I no longer shouted.
“I’m coming back,” I said. “Don’t get in my way.” I hung up the receiver and walked out.
But I still couldn’t go until I knew what she had told the police. It was going to be dangerous enough going in there without being able to get word to her, and having Buford trying to stop me, but it would be simple suicide if she’d confessed and I didn’t know it.
I never did know afterward where I was that afternoon. It was a blur of hot streets and a million faceless people going past while time ran down and stopped like a clock no one had thought to wind. And then somewhere, later, with the sun slanting obliquely through the east-west streets and brazen on the shop windows, I heard the newsboys shouting, “Read about Mrs. Shevlin. All about Mrs. Shevlin.”
I bought one and ducked inside a bar. There was another picture of her, but it was the caption I was looking at. “DENIES CHARGE.” I breathed again. Thank God, I thought. She kept her head. Forgetting the beer I had ordered, I tore into the story, trying to absorb it all at once.
MARSHALL NOT DEAD—MRS. SHEVLIN
Mrs. Roger Shevlin, beautiful young wife of the man sought in the disappearance and suspected murder of J. B. Marshall, Devers County officer, denied today in a statement to police, who arrested her in a beauty shop in downtown Bayou City, that her husband had killed Marshall. According to Mrs. Shevlin, who was near collapse in the city jail following her arrest, her husband returned for her after he had overpowered the officer and escaped while the two men were on their way out of the swamp, telling her he had merely tied Marshall up with the boat’s anchor rope, knowing he would eventually work free and get back to town. The boat had been hidden to prevent Marshall’s finding it, to give the Shevlins more time to make good their escape.
If only they don’t break her down before I can get there, I thought desperately. If she cracks…But I didn’t have time to sit and think about it. Paying for the beer, I got up and took a taxi back to the bus station, got the bag out of the locker, and changed back into the old suit in the rest room. Taking out the plane ticket and the watch so there’d be nothing in it by which they could ever connect me with Bayou City, I shoved the bag back into another locker and left it.
I can’t take the bus, I thought. Somebody might see me getting off at Colston. Too many people know me there. I’ve got to get back into that swamp the same way I got out—without being seen. And I haven’t got time to horse around with freight trains.
Thirty minutes later I was weaving through traffic in the outskirts of the city, headed toward Colston in a stolen car. It had been easy. I just walked up the street until I saw a woman park and leave the keys in the car. When she went inside a store I got in and drove off. Nothing was going to stop me any more.
Twenty-four
I stopped once and bought a flashlight in a drugstore. I’d need it, trying to get around in that swamp at night, and at dawn I could throw it in the lake. I worked it out in my mind as I