"But? But?"

All right! So call it an unexpected pleasure. "McGee, you kill me. You really do. You go around suffering so much. All this bedroom therapy you dole out must put a h.e.l.l of a strain on you. How come, boy, you always seem to find broken birds with all these hidden talents? Just lucky?"

I couldn"t answer him. I told him to go away. I got dressed and went looking for her. She had breakfast all ready on the redwood table in a shady corner of Raoul"s private garden. Iced juice, a tureen of scrambled eggs, b.u.t.tered toast stacked under a white napkin, crisp bacon, and a giant pot of steaming black coffee.

She was pleasured to watch a large man eat like a timber wolf. Ah, she was saucy. She was flirty and fancy, chortly and giggly, cooing up and down a two-octave range. She was busting with joy and jollity and high spirits, slanting her eyes at me, blushing now and again, guffawing at the mildest quip, hovering over my needs and my comforts. I was aware of an old and familiar phenomenon. I was no longer able to see her objectively, see her on any comparative basis, rate her on any kind of scale regarding face and figure. The act of complete knowing turns the la.s.s into a familiarity, and she had become Betsy, a person entirely herself. I could see detail that I had not seen before, the extreme slenderness of her long-fingered hands, and the plumpness of the pads at the base of her fingers, a discolored eye tooth-dead perhaps. Two small pock marks on her left cheek, the little squint-lines of the mildly myopic, a puckered line of scar tissue on the side of her throat, less than an inch long. Detail that I could not evaluate as good or bad, tasteful or distasteful, could only observe as being part of this Betsy woman. She pranced and posed, patted and beamed, sighed and chuckled, and I was the great old fatuous toad-king in her garden of celebration, served and feted and extravagantly admired. It was all part of the script, obligatory sauciness of the Doris-Dayism the bright morning after the reluctant-eager surrender of the Most Precious Possession.

I found that she had to work alternate Sundays, and this was her Sunday off. Without any direct dialogue about what we would do with the day, she had begun indirectly to establish the shape of it, some sun-time in the garden, and a marvelous nap, and later on some b.l.o.o.d.y Marys and the marvelous steaks she had been h.o.a.rding in the, freezer for a special occasion, along with some wine a friend tiad given her, and he said it was a marvelous wine, chateau something or other, but she didn"t really know very much about wine. There were these outdoor speakers a friend had given her and they were still in the shipping carton in the carport, and waybe I could help put them up out here because some of her favorite tapes would sound marvelous in the garden, and there was speaker wire and everything, but she didn"t know what gizmo plugged into where. And we wouldn"t think or talk about ugly things all day, not even once.

So I said that it seemed like good planning, but I would like to go back to the White Ibis and check for any messages and change into fresh clothes. So she said that made sense, and she leaned into me at the doorway for a kiss so long and intense it dizzied her into a little sagging lurch to one side.

I went out and stared at the empty driveway and thought for a moment somebody had stolen the white Buick, then remembered her asking me, after it had become evident I would stay the night, if I would go out and drive it back and over to the side of the carport. That way the neighbors couldn"t see it, and it couldn"t be seen from the street. No point in letting idle tongues wag, she had said.

So I walked toward the carport. I glanced up at blue sky and saw a large black Florida buzzard sitting in dusty, silent patience on top of a power pole at the rear of the lot line. Symbol of a Sunday funeral of some small creature. I glanced back at the house as I neared the car and saw the buzzard"s brother standing on the ridge line of the cottage, at the rear corner.

And the next step brought me into view of what had engaged their hungry interest.

I had left the top down. He had been tumbled casually into the shallow rear seat of the convertible. One foot on the floor, the other caught on the seat, bending the knee at a sharp angle. A large tough muscular young man with black hair, high hard cheekbones. Long sideburns. Meyer had said that Lew Arnstead had small dark eyes. These were small dark eyes, one open wider than the other. He wore a stained ranch jacket and dirty white jeans. His head was c.o.c.ked at an angle, exposing the crushed temple area, above and forward of his right ear. It was smashed inward in a pattern that looked as if it could have been done with a length of pipe about an inch in diameter. There was a little blood, and a dozen shiny flies were pacing the area.

In all such moments you do absolutely nothing. You stand and concentrate on breathing deeply and fast. Hyperventilation improves the thinking. You start looking at your options.

"Sheriff, I just spent the night here with Mrs. Betsy Kapp and when I went out to get in my car a couple of minutes ago, I found a dead man in there who might be your ex-deputy. Come over any time. I"ll be right here."

So the old lady knows you came looking for her son. King Sturnevan gave you a little course in how to whip Arnstead when you caught up with him. Arnstead broke the face of your old and true friend. Hmmm. Betsy Kapp would be questioned. Her relationship with Lew was probably known. "Mr. McGee was with me. He couldn"t possibly have killed that rotten crazy person who beat me up."

Somebody had gone to a lot of trouble to leave me this little token. Somebody had taken some risk. Reasonable to a.s.sume they had added a few other little touches to sew me more tightly into the bag. Such as a weapon. The piece of pipe under the front seat, or in the glove compartment or in the nearby shrubbery.

I don"t call Hyzer, then. I have to take the calcuIated risk of not calling Hyzer, which might make things a lot worse later on. Maybe Hyzer is already on his way, with Billy Cable at the wheel.

Option. I put the top up and drive away and put him somewhere. They could know it already, and be staked out waiting for me to drive out with the package. That would be a very unhappy scene indeed. The ultimate version of egg-on-the-face.

Or... go back in and say I"d changed my mind, and there was no point in going to the motel. Play Betsy"s game for a day and another night, and hope they would come and knock on the door, and then convince them with the totality of our horrid surprise.

Or... bring Betsy into it right now. Look at this little inconvenience, sweetie. Gibbering hysteria, with a lot of flapping and squalling and running around in small circles.

Fact: I had gone out sometime between one-thirty and two and moved the car. Fact: I had stayed, in part, because Betsy had been terrified by the thought of Arnstead skulking about in the night. Fact: I had sought out Betsy because of the letter hidden in Lew"s room, and in the course of events Mister Norm would gather up that letter as evidence. And King would remember he had identified Betsy for me.

Supposition: Had I not been roped into the Baither killing and released with a certain obvious reluctance by Mister Norm, I might be able to carry this situation off and make useful explanations. But it was a little bit too much to expect Mister Norm to swallow.

Uneasy suspicion: Dropping the package on me was just a potentially handy byproduct of the primary necessity to turn off the mouth and the memory of a link between Frank Baither and his executioners.

Forlorn option: Hide the package right here, and fast.

I did not like any of my options.

"Trav?" Betsy said, walking toward me. "Trav, honey, I didn"t hear you drive out and I wondered..."

"Go back in the house!"

"Darling, you"re practically barking at me! I only-"

I moved to stop her, but she had taken that one step that brought her close enough to the convertible to see the dead face, the dried and dusty eyes.

She swayed, eyes going out of focus. She made a gagging sound. I got to her then, caught her by the upper arms. Her color was ghastly. Her teeth chattered, and there were gooseb.u.mps on her long pale arms and legs. She looked at him again, and I turned her away and led her over into the sunshine. She turned into my arms. I held her. She hiccuped, sighed, then pushed herself out of my arms and stared up into my face, frowning.

"I"m all right now. But why? My G.o.d, how did he get here?"

"It is Arnstead?"

She tilted her head. "Of course! Didn"t you ever see him before?"

"No."

She tried to smile, a valiant effort. "For one second I thought that maybe he was around here in the night like I thought, and when you went out to move your car... Forgive me, darling. You couldn"t have come back into my house, into my bed, and... it couldn"t have been the way it was for us. But what a filthy thing to do to us, to put his body here."

"Somebody had to know I was here."

She walked around me and went into the carport and came out with a ragged bedsheet which had been used as a drop cloth. She marched to the car, snapped the sheet open, floated it down over the body.

"Why don"t you put the top up? You shouldn"t have left it down anyway, dear. It"s all soppy with dew inside."

I reached in and pushed the toggle. The top ground up out of the well and swung forward and whacked down. The buzzards winged away.

It was comforting to be unable to see him. I said, "You are coming on very staunch, woman."

She looked mildly surprised. "I feel like screaming my head off. But that wouldn"t do much good, would it? Should we phone now?"

"Let"s see if there"s enough coffee left for two cups, and have a little talk and see whether we should phone."

She listened, with all the girlish games turned off. I had to start back at the beginning and cover everything that had happened. Not quite everything. I left out her letter and the pictures of her. I went through my options.

When it had all been said, she frowned at me and said, "But suppose Sheriff Hyzer did jump to the wrong conclusion, and he put you back in jail. Wouldn"t that be a lot safer than trying to... do something that might not turn out so good? I mean you would certainly be cleared, because, after all, you are not some kind of a criminal, and you have friends and you are in business."

"Add one more murder, Betsy, and the Cypress City Call Journal is going to have to stop covering it like a zoning violation. And there will be Miami papers and television coming in here. And it would not matter one d.a.m.n if I got cleared and released later. I can"t afford that kind of coverage, that much exposure."

"Why not? Are you... are you wanted for something else?"

"No. And I am in the salvage business, but not like you think. Personal salvage. Suppose some cutie clips an innocent pigeon for a very big score, and the pigeon exhausts all the possible legal ways of getting it back. Somebody might steer him to me, and if I think there"s a fair chance, I"ll gamble my time and expenses against a deal whereby I keep half of any recovery I make. Last resort salvage specialist. A small and useful reputation for recovery. And the methods used aren"t particularly legal. If Hyzer checks me out carefully, he"s going to come up with a lifestyle he"s going to label unsavory. I am a lot more conspicuous and memorable than I would like to be. It"s a handicap in my line of work. If they ever make me on the front pages, with picture and with colorful account of how I make a living, that is the end of the living, honey. I would never get a chance to get in close enough to make a recovery, and I would have the law keeping a beady eye on me from that point on. So no thanks."

"But you could find some other way to make money, couldn"t you?"

"Wouldn"t that be just a different kind of prison?"

She stared into s.p.a.ce, then nodded. "I guess having the kind of life you want is worth taking a big chance for."

"But now you"re taking part of the risk. It isn"t fair to ask you to do that. The smart thing for you to do is make the phone call."

"Pooh. If I was any good at doing smart things, I"d have started a long time back. Darling, that houseboat you live on, does it have engines and everything, or does it just sit there?"

"It cruises. Very very slowly, but very very comfortably."

"They"re shutting down the Lodge in June and remodeling the whole main part, the kitchen and dining room and bar. If a person takes a risk, a person ought to make a profit, don"t you think?"

"Okay, honey. The month of June is yours aboard the Busted Flush."

"I"ll do the cooking and laundry and all that." No phone call. And considering the various areas of unknown risk, she came up with the best idea. So she changed to a blouse and skirt and went tooling out in her Volks, with a rather shaky wave and a set smile. And I used the time in a careful search for any extra bonus which might have been left with the special gift. I saved the worst until last. He had stiffened up, and it was difficult to go through his pockets. The sun had moved and it heated the inside of the car. The dead deputy was beginning to smell.

Western wallet, cowhide with the hair still on, and L.A. burn-branded into it. Thirty-eight dollars. Scruffy cards of ident.i.ty and credit. Cracked Kodacolor shot of his black horse. Two snapshots of commercial origin and vivid clinical obscenity.

Plastic vial containing eight of the bicolored spansules. Dull pocket knife full of lint and tobacco crumbs. Squashed pack containing three Viceroy cigarettes. Zippo lighter. Several keys on a worn chain. Twenty-six cents in change.

The jackpot was in the top right-hand breast pocket of the worn ranch jacket. Half a sheet of blue stationery, carelessly torn off. Hasty scrawl. "Lew if you ever come to my place again I swear to almighty G.o.d I"ve got a gun and I"ll kill you dead on sight." Signed with a big B in ballpoint so firmly the downstroke had gouged a little hole in the paper.

Everything back as before, except for the note. No weapon in the car or shrubbery. Body covered with the drop cloth. I was careful how I had handled anything that would take a print.

I had seen Betsy"s handwriting before, on the same blue paper, but in a much longer letter, with the words more carefully formed.

What the h.e.l.l was keeping the woman?

I went in. Raoul wound around my ankles, making little ingratiating mews. I wondered if the lady did indeed have a gun. There is a pattern to hiding places, and you always save time by starting with the places most frequently used. Suitcases and hat boxes. Then covered bowls and cooking pots in the kitchen cabinets. Next you try the bedroom drawers. So it took perhaps twelve minutes to find the gun. Bottom drawer on the left side of her dressing table. In the front of the drawer was a plastic bag with a drawstring, containing the diaphragm in its pink plastic case, along with the accessory tube. The gun was in the back under a batch of bright scarves, each carefully folded. It, too, was in a plastic drawstring bag, the bag wrapped in a fragrant silk scarf. No obscure little small-caliber ladygun this, no European purse-pistol with mickey mouse action and engraved floral pattern. A deadly, fourteen-ounce Colt.38 Special, trade name "Agent," drop-forged aluminum frame, full checkered walnut stocks, Colt bluing, equipped with hammer shroud. Six rounds in the cylinder, and a full box of ammo in the plastic bag, with just the six rounds missing therefrom. Almost mint condition. A very hard and heavy close-range punch for a lady to own. If you had an earnest and honest desire to kill somebody, this item would simplify the task and shorten the process.

I put it back exactly as before.

Five minutes later I heard the lawn mower engine of the VW come chattering along the driveway and into the carport. She came hurrying into the house and into my arms, clung for a little while then gave me a tired upslanted smile, quick peck on the corner of the mouth. She wandered over and dropped onto the couch, kicked her sandals off, leaned her head back, forearm across her eyes.

"Gone a long time, Betsy."

"Well... I wanted to find out anything worth finding out. For what it"s worth, there is absolutely no one watching this place. I went around and around and came up on it from all the directions there are. Nothing."

"That"s comforting."

"I went to the White Ibis and went to the desk and asked for you. They tried the phone and said you weren"t in. I located the box for 114, and I couldn"t see any message slips in it."

"You shouldn"t have gone there."

"It was the quickest way to find out if anybody was trying to find you, dear. And if they were, and if I came there looking for you, the last place they"d look would be here. What are we going to do?"

"I found this on him," I said, and handed her the note.

She read it and it brought her bolt upright, astonishment on her face. "But I wrote this last year! Why would he be carrying it around? It isn"t even all here."

"What was on the top half?"

"Let me think. The date, I guess. And something about how bad he"d hurt me, about how my face looked."

"You wrote it right after he beat you?"

"The second day. I was too sick to write anything the first day."

"Did you think he might come back here?"

She leaned back again. "I don"t know. You see... I wanted him to come back. That was the sick part. I wanted him to come back, no matter what. I was afraid that... if he did come back, I"d go to bed with him if that"s what he wanted. I hated him for beating me, but the wanting was stronger than the hate. So I don"t know whether I was trying to keep him away from me until I could stop wanting him, or whether I was trying to... to challenge him so he would come back."

"Do you even have a gun?"

"Sure. Stay right there. I"ll get it." She brought it into the living room, took it out of the plastic bag and handed it to me. "It scares me to look at it. Lew gave it to me. He took it away from somebody and didn"t turn it in like he was supposed to. He bought the ammunition for it and loaded it for me and showed me how it works. But I never fired it. Is it a good gun?"

"Very reliable up to thirty feet or so."

"He said if I ever had to use it, not to try to aim. Just point it like pointing my finger and keep pulling the trigger. I don"t think I could fire a gun right at anybody, no matter what."

I gave it back to her and she stowed it away. She sat as before and said, "It was just half the note in his pocket so that if somebody found it on his body they"d think he came here."

"Somebody put the note in a handy pocket after he was dead. They brought the body here. They saw the Buick and dumped him into it. They thought you would be alone."

"Then they changed their mind. What do you think they were going to do, if I"d been alone?"

"To set it up to look as if you killed him, there"s the little problem of a weapon, something you could reasonably kill him with."

"I... I didn"t look at him very long. I saw that terrible mushed-in place. What shape would it have to be?"

I demonstrated with my hands. "A piece of pipe about this long and about this big around would do it. You could do that much damage with one full swing."

She shuddered. "I couldn"t do anything like that."

"Let"s think this out. He"s too heavy for you to carry. So the encounter had to happen outside the house. You wouldn"t have come out into the night, so it had to look as if it happened earlier. You come home and drive into the carport and get out of the car and go to that side door, right?"

"Yes. It"s a delay switch on the carport light. It gives me time to get inside before it goes out."

"So he could have been waiting for you in the carport, or in the bushes near the door. Handy places to drop the body. Now then, in one place or the other, there has to be something that you could pick up and swing."

She sat with elbows on knees, chin on fists, lips pursed. "I can"t think of a dang thing around here that... Oh!"

"Oh what?"

"Maybe it could be the handle for the doohickey for the corner of the house. The estimate was two hundred dollars to put in a new pillar. The old one sort of started sinking into the ground for some reason and Mr. Kaufman down the street said why didn"t I mail-order that thing from Sears for under nine dollars and it would work just as well, and just leave it there."

"You"ve lost me. You better show me."

We went out, and she sat on her heels by the rear corner of the house and pointed out the construction jack that was bracing it up. It was the type that uses a pipe handle.

The handle, about thirty inches long, was on the ground under the house, beside the jack. I saw that it was too rusty to take a print. I reached under and picked it up and pulled it out. The far end was clotted with dark-dried blood, some short black hairs, some bits of tissue.

She spun, ran three steps, bent over and threw up. When she was finished she trotted into the house, keeping her face turned away from me. I put the jack handle in the Buick on the floor in back.

I was sitting on the couch when she finally came out of the bathroom. She was wan and subdued. She apologized.

"We have to keep going with it, Betsy. Okay, so I"ll leave him near the corner of the house. You find him in the morning and phone the law. Hyzer is a thorough man. You certainly wouldn"t have looked through Arnstead"s pockets and found that old note."