"She had every chance to. Of courseit may have been pure accident."

As if we had each received a signal on acommon wavelength, we turned and looked at Helen Haggerty's body. It seemedsmall and lonely at the far end of the room. Our joint flight with it throughcloudy space had been going on for a long time. I looked at my watch. It wasonly nine-thirty-one, fourteen minutes since our arrival. Time seemed to haveslowed down, dividing itself into innumerable fractions, like Zeno's space ormarijuana hours.

With a visible effort, Bradshaw detachedhis gaze from the body. His moment of communion with it had cost him the lastof his boyish look. He leaned toward me with deep lines of puzzlement radiatingfrom his eyes and mouth:

"I don't understand what Mrs. Kincaidsaid to you. Do you mean to say she actually confessed this—this murder?"

"A cop or a prosecutor might say so.Fortunately none was present. I've heard a lot of confessions, good ones andphony ones. Hers was a phony one, in my opinion."

"What about the blood?"

"She may have slipped and fallen in it."

"Then you don't think we should mention any of itto the Sheriff?"

"If you don't mind stretching a point."

His face showed that he minded, but aftersome hesitation he said: "Well keep it to ourselves, at least for thepresent. After all she was a student of ours, however briefly."

Bradshaw didn't notice his use of the pasttense, but I did, and it depressed me. I think we were both relieved by thesound of the Sheriff's car coming up the hill. It was accompanied by a mobilelaboratory. Within a few minutes a fingerprint man and a deputy coroner and aphotographer had taken over the room and changed its character. It becameimpersonal and drab like any room anywhere in which murder had been committed.In a curious way the men in uniform seemed to be doing the murder a second andfinal time, annulling Helen's rather garish aura, converting her intolaboratory meat and courtroom exhibits. My raw nerves jumped when the bulbsflashed in her corner.

Sheriff Herman Crane was a thick-shoulderedman in a tan gabardine suit. His only suggestion of uniform was a slightlybroad-brimmed hat with a woven leather band. His voice had an administrativering, and his manner had the heavy ease of a politician, poised betweenbullying and flattery. He treated Bradshaw with noisy deference, as if Bradshawwas a sensitive plant of undetermined value but some importance.

Me he treated the way cops always treatedme, with occupational suspicion. They suspected me of the misdemeanor of doingmy own thinking. I did succeed in getting Sheriff Crane to dispatch a patrolcar in pursuit of the convertible with the Nevada license. He complained thathis department was seriously understaffed, and he didn't think road blocks wereindicated at this stage of the game. At this stage of the game I made up mymind not to cooperate fully with him.

The Sheriff and I sat in the chaise andthe rope chair respectively and had a talk while a deputy who knew speedwritingtook notes. I told him that Dolly Kincaid, the wife of a client of mine, haddiscovered the body of her college counselor Professor Haggerty and reportedthe discovery to me. She had been badly shocked, and was under a doctor's care.

Before the Sheriff could press me forfurther details, I gave him a verbatim account, or as close to verbatim as Icould make it, of my conversation with Helen about the death threat. Imentioned that she had reported it to his office, and he seemed to take this asa criticism:

"We're understaffed, like I said. Ican't keep experienced men. Los Angeles lures 'em away with salaries we can'tpay and pie in the sky." I was from Los Angeles, as he knew, and theimplication was that I was obscurely to blame. "If I put a man on guardduty in every house that got a crank telephone call, I wouldn't have anybodyleft to run the department."

"I understand that."

"I'm glad you do. Something I don'tunderstand—how did this conversation you had with the decedent happen to takeplace?"

"Professor Haggerty approached me and asked me tocome up here with her."

"What time was this?"

"I didn't check the time. It was shortly beforesundown. I was here for about an hour."

"What did she have in mind?"

"She wanted me to stay with her, forprotection. I'm sorry I didn't." Simply having the chance to say this mademe feel better.

"You mean she wanted to hire you, asa bodyguard?"

"That was the idea." There wasno use going into the complex interchange that had taken place between Helenand me, and failed.

"How did she know you were in thebodyguard business?"

"I'm not, exactly. She knew I was aninvestigator because she saw my name in the paper."

"Sure enough," he said."You testified in the Perrine case this morning. Maybe I ought tocongratulate you because Perrmne got off."

"Don't bother."

"No, I don't think I will. ThePerrine broad was guilty as hell and you know it and I know it."

"The jury didn't think so," Isaid mildly.

"Juries can be fooled and witnessescan be bought. Suddenly you're very active in our local crime circles, Mr.Archer." The words had the weight of an implied threat. He flung out aheavy careless hand toward the body. "This woman, this Professor Haggertyhere, you're sure she wasn't a friend of yours?"

"We became friends to a certain extent."

"In an hour?"

© Alexander Sviyash, 2009