of guilt which may be only superficially connected with these murders."

"You mean she's using the murders tounload guilt which she feels about something else?"

"More or less. It's a common enoughmechanism. I know for a fact that she didn't kill her mother, or lie about herfather, essentially. I'm certain McGee was guilty."

"Courts can make mistakes, even in a capitalcase."

He said with a kind of muted arrogance: "I knowmore about that case than ever came out in court."

"From Dolly?"

"From various sources."

"I'd be obliged if you'd let me in on it."

His eyes veiled themselves. "I can'tdo that. I have to respect the confidences of my patients. But you can take myword for it that McGee killed his wife."

"Then what's Dolly feeling so guiltyabout?"

"I'm sure that will come out, inlime. It probably has to do with her resentment against her parents. It'snatural she'd want to punish them for the ugly failure of their marriage. Shemay well have fantasied her mother's death, her father's imprisonment, beforethose things emerged into reality. When the poor child's vengeful dreams cametrue, how else could she feel but guilty? McGee's tirade the other weekendstirred up the old feelings, and then this dreadful accident last night—"He ran out of words and spread his hands, palms upward and fingers curling, onhis heavy thighs.

"The Haggerty shooting was noaccident, doctor. The gun is missing, for one thing."

"I realize that. I was referring toDolly's discovery of the body, which was certainly accidental."

"I wonder. She blames herself forthat killing, too. I don't see how you can explain that in terms of childhoodresentments."

"I wasn't attempting to." Therewas irritation in his voice. It made him pull a little professional rank on me:"Nor is there any need for you to understand the psychic situation. Youstick to the objective facts, and I'll handle the subjective." He softenedthis with a bit of philosophy: "Objective and subjective, the outer worldand the inner, do correspond of course. But sometimes you have to follow theparallel lines almost to infinity before they touch."

"Let's stick to the objective factsthen. Dolly said she killed Helen Haggerty with her poisonous tongue. Is thatall she said on the subject?"

"There was more, a good deal more, ofa rather confused nature. Dolly seems to feel that her friendship with MissHaggerty was somehow responsible for the latter's death."

"The two women were friends?"

"I'd say so, yes, though there wastwenty years' difference in their ages. Dolly confided in her, poured outeverything, and Miss Haggerty reciprocated. Apparently she'd had severeemotional problems involving her own father, and she couldn't resist theparallel with Dolly. They both let down their back hair. It wasn't a healthysituation," he said dryly.

"Does she have anything to say aboutHelen's father?"

"Dolly seems to think he was acrooked policeman involved in a murder, but that may be sheer fantasy—a kind ofsecondary image of her own father."

"It isn't. Helen's father is a policeman, andHelen at least regarded him as a crook."

"How in the world would you know that?"

"I read a letter from her mother on the subject.I'd like to have a chance to talk to her parents."

"Why don't you?"

"They live in Bridgeton, Illinois."

It was a long jump, but not so long as thejump my mind made into blank possibility. I had handled cases which opened upgradually like fissures in the firm ground of the present, cleaving far downthrough the strata of the past. Perhaps Helen's murder was connected with anobscure murder in Illinois more than twenty years ago, before Dolly was born.It was a wishful thought, and I didn't mention it to Dr. Godwin.

"I'm sorry I can't be more help toyou," he was saying. "I have to go now, I'm already overdue for myhospital rounds."

The sound of a motor detached itself fromthe traffic in the street, and slowed down. A car door was opened and closed.Men's footsteps came up the walk. Moving quickly for a big man, Godwin openedthe door before they rang.

I couldn't see who his visitors were, butthey were unwelcome ones. Godwin went rigid with hostility.

"Good morning, Sheriff," hesaid.

Crane responded folksily: "It's ahell of a morning and you know it. September's supposed to be our best month,but the bloody fog's so thick the airport's socked in."

"You didn't come here to discuss theweather."

"That's right, I didn't. I heard you got afugitive from justice holed up here."

"Where did you hear that?"

"I have my sources."

"You'd better fire them, Sheriff. They're givingyou misleading information."

"Somebody is, doctor. Are you denying that Mrs.Dolly Kincaid née McGee is in this building?"

Godwin hesitated His heavy jaw got heavier. "Sheis."

© Alexander Sviyash, 2009