Charles Williams by Talk of the town

Author:Talk of the town
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Popular literature
Publisher: DELL
Published: 1958-08-15T08:00:00+00:00

9

I cooked the steaks after a while and we had dinner, not talking about it any more until afterwards when we were having coffee. She was quiet, but she ate a little of the steak and drank some wine. I lit a cigarette for her.

“Are you positive your husband never knew Strader?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said definitely. “I never heard him mention the name.”

“Then you realize he had to know the woman?”

“Why?” she asked.

“One of them had to have some provable connection with him; otherwise there was no point in trying to make it look like an accident. Strader wouldn’t have been suspected merely because he happened to be staying here at the motel. So the woman knew she would be. or could be. Look—there’s what’s driving the police crazy. The whole thing goes around in a perfect circle and always comes right back where it starts. The woman knew she would be suspected if there were a homicide investigation; there was a homicide investigation, and you were the only one who was ever suspected. Q.E.D. Except that they haven’t got any actual proof you even knew Strader, let alone were carrying on an affair with him. And if they tried to go to court without that proof, any defense attorney who’d been out of law school an hour would cut ‘em to shreds. Redfield probably wakes up shrieking and chewing the bedclothes. However, that’s his problem; mine is something else.”

“And what is that?”

“Simply this—what in hell became of the other woman? The one who knew she would be suspected, and never was?”

“Maybe she was mistaken, or exaggerating the possible danger.”

“No. On the evidence she’s a long-headed, cold-blooded type that doesn’t get rattled or jump to silly conclusions. So why was she wrong?”

“You say you think there’s another man involved. Maybe he was the one.”

I don’t think so. Strader came up here to see a woman; that’s what you run into everywhere you turn. The woman was at the bottom of the whole thing, and in it up to her neck. But say for the sake of argument it was this other man—why wasn’t he suspected? From what you say of that Sheriff, he wouldn’t deliberately suppress evidence for anybody. And I don’t think Redfield would.”

“No. I’m sure neither of them would. Redfield is a very hard man, but fair. And I think he’s thoroughly honest.”

I frowned. “That’s the picture I get of him too. But something’s chewing him. I get the impression he hates you and doesn’t care what they do to you out here, and at the same time he hates himself for it because basically he’s too honest a cop for that kind of thing.”

She nodded. “I think I understand what you mean. You remember I told you that during the questioning I began to feel he disliked me intensely. There are two reasons for it. My husband knew him quite well, and I remember his remarking once that Redfield was what was known as a dedicated police officer.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.