"Who do you think killed her?"

"I'm not saying."

"You've gone to a lot of trouble, andtaken quite a risk, to get me out here and tell me you're not saying. Let's goback to where it started, McGee. Why did your wife leave you?"

"I left her. We had been separatedfor months when she was killed. I wasn't even in Indian Springs that night, Iwas here in the Point."

"Why did you leave her?"

"Because she asked me to. We weren'tgetting along. We never did get along after I came back from the service.Constance and the kid spent the war years living with her sister, and shecouldn't adjust to me after that. I admit I was a wild man for a while then.But her sister Alice promoted the trouble between us."

"Why?"

"She thought the marriage was a mistake. I guessshe wanted Constance all to herself. I just got in the way."

"Did anybody else get in the way?"

"Not if Alice could help it."

I phrased my question more explicitly: "Was thereanother man in Constance's life?"

"Yeah. There was." He seemedashamed, as if the infidelity had been his. "I've given it a lot ofthought over the years, and I don't see much point in opening it up now. Theguy had nothing to do with her death, I'm sure of that. He was crazy about her.He wouldn't hurt her."

"How do you know?"

"I talked to him about her, not longbefore she was killed. The kid told me what was going on between him and her."

"You mean your daughter Dolly?"

"That's right. Constance used to meetthe guy every Saturday, when she brought Dolly in to see the doctor. On one ofmy visiting days with the kid—the last one we ever had together, in fact—shetold me about those meetings. She was only eleven or twelve and she didn'tgrasp the full significance, but she knew something fishy was going on.

"Every Saturday afternoon Constanceand the guy used to park her in a double-feature movie and go off by themselvessomeplace, probably some motel. Constance asked the kid to cover for her, andshe did. The guy even gave her money to tell Alice that Constance went to thosemovies with her. I thought that was a lousy trick." McGee tried to warmover his old anger but he had suffered too much, and thought too much, to beable to. His face hung like a cold moon over the edge of the bunk.

"We might as well use his name,"I said. "Was it Godwin?"

"Hell no. It was Roy Bradshaw. Heused to be a professor at the college." He added with a kind of mournfulpride: "Now he's the Dean out there."

He wouldn't be for long, I thought; hissky was black with chickens coming home to roost.

"Bradshaw was one of Dr. Godwin'spatients," McGee was saying. "That's where he and Connie met, inGodwin's waiting room. I think the doctor kind of encouraged the thing betweenthem."

"What makes you think that?"

"Bradshaw told me himself the doctorsaid it was good for them, for their emotional health. It's a funny thing, Iwent to Bradshaw's house to get him to lay off Connie, even if I had to beathim up. But by the time he was finished talking he had me half-convinced thathe and Connie were right, and I was wrong. I still don't know who was right andwho was wrong. I know I never gave her any real happiness, after the firstyear. Maybe Bradshaw did."

"Is that why you didn't inject himinto your trial?"

"That was one reason. Anyway, whatwas the use of fouling it up? It would only make me look worse." Hepaused. A deeper tone rose from a deeper level of his nature: "Besides, Iloved her. I loved Connie. It was the one way I had to prove I loved her."

"Did you know that Bradshaw was married toanother woman?"

"When?"

"For the last twenty years. He divorced her a fewweeks ago."

McGee looked shocked. He'd been living onillusions for a long time, and I was threatening his sustenance. He pulledhimself back into the bunk, almost out of sight.

"Her name was LetitiaMacready—Letitia Macready Bradshaw. Have you ever heard of her?"

"No. How could he be married? He wasliving at home with his mother."

"There are all kinds ofmarriages," I said. "He may not have seen his wife in years, and thenagain he may have. He may have had her living here in town, unknown to hismother or any of his friends. I suspect that was the case, judging from thelengths he went to to cover up his divorce."

McGee said in a confused and shaken voice:"I don't see what it has to do with me."

"It may have a very great deal. Ifthe Macready woman was in town ten years ago, she had a motive for killing yourwife—a motive as strong as your own."

He didn't want to think about the woman.He was too used to thinking about himself. "I had no motive. I wouldn'thurt a hair of her head."

"You did, though, once ortwice."

He was silent. All I could see of him washis wavy gray hair, like a dusty wig, and his large dishonest eyes trying to behonest:

© Alexander Sviyash, 2009