she was faking evidence. My dear sister-inlaw was always out to get me,anyway."

"Was she out to get Connie,too?"

"Connie? She doted on Connie. Alicewas more like her mother than her sister. There was fourteen-fifteen years'difference in their ages."

"You said she wanted Connie to herself. Herfeelings for Connie could have changed if she found out about Bradshaw."

"Not that much. Anyway, who would tell her?"

"Your daughter might have. If she told you, she'dtell Alice."

McGee shook his head. "You're reallyreaching."

"I have to. This is a deep case, and I can't seethe bottom of it yet. Did Alice ever live in Boston, do you know?"

"I think she always lived here. She's a NativeDaughter. I'm a native son, but nobody ever gave me a medal for it."

"Even Native Daughters have beenknown to go to Boston. Did Alice ever go on the stage, or marry a man namedMacready, or dye her hair red?"

"None of those things sound like Alice."

I thought of her pink fantastic bedroom, and wondered.

"They sound more," McGee wassaying, and then he stopped. He was silent for a watching moment. "I'lltake that cigarette you offered me."

I gave him a cigarette and lighted it. "What wereyou going to say?"

"Nothing. I must have been thinking aloud."

"Who were you thinking about?"

"Nobody you know. Forget it, eh?"

"Come on, McGee. You're supposed to be levelingwith me."

"I still have a right to my private thoughts. Itkept me alive in prison."

"You're out of prison now. Don't you want to stayout?"

"Not if somebody else has to go in."

"Sucker," I said. "Who are you coveringfor now?"

"Nobody."

"Madge Cerhardi?"

"You must be off your rocker."

I couldn't get anything more out of him.The long slow weight of prison forces men into unusual shapes. McGee had becomea sort of twisted saint.

chapter28

He was about to be given another turn ofthe screw. When I climbed out into the cockpit I saw three men approachingalong the floating dock. Their bodies, their hatted heads, were dark as ironagainst the exploding sunset.

One of them showed me a deputy's badge anda gun, which he held on me while the others went below. I heard McGee cry outonce. He scrambled up through the hatch with blue handcuffs on his wrists and ablue gun at his back. The single look he gave me was full of fear and loathing.

They didn't handcuff me, but they made meride to the courthouse with McGee in the screened rear compartment of theSheriff's car. I tried to talk to him. He wouldn't speak to me or look in mydirection. He believed I had turned him in, and perhaps I had without intendingto.

I sat under guard outside theinterrogation room while they questioned him in tones that rose and fell andgrowled and palavered and yelled and threatened and promised and refused andwheedled. Sheriff Crane arrived, looking tired but important. He stood over mesmiling, with his belly thrust out.

"Your friend's in real troublenow."

"He's been in real trouble for thelast ten years. You ought to know, you helped to cook it for him."

The veins in his cheeks lit up likeintricate little networks of infra-red tubing. He leaned toward me spewingmartiniscented words:

"I could put you in jail for loosetalk like that. You know where your friend is going? He's going all the way tothe green room this time."

"He wouldn't be the first innocentman who was gassed."

"Innocent? McGee's a mass murderer,and we've got the evidence to prove it. It took my experts all day to nail itdown: The bullet in the Haggerty corpse came from the same gun as the bullet wefound in McGee's wife—the same gun he stole from Alice Jenks in IndianSprings."

I'd succeeded in provoking the Sheriffinto an indiscretion. I tried for another. "You have no proof he stole it.You have no proof he fired it either time. Where's he been keeping the gun forthe last ten years?"

"He cached it someplace, maybe on Stevens's boat.Or maybe an accomplice kept it for him."

"Then he hid it in his daughter's bed to frameher?"

"That's the kind of man he is."

"Nuts!"

"Don't talk to me like that!" He menaced mewith the cannon ball of his belly.

© Alexander Sviyash, 2009