The Truth of the Matter (12 page)

“How’d you like to take a little ride around town in the cruiser?” he asked in a soft voice. “I could show you a few things—if you don’t think your husband’d mind.”

“Oh, he wouldn’t mind,” Ellie said, “but he expects me back pretty soon.”

Boadeen gave her his wolfish smile. “Didn’t think he’d really mind. Lou doesn’t strike me as the jealous type. I mean, he seems to me the type to figure what he don’t know won’t hurt him.”

“I guess he’s that type,” Ellie said. She wanted to keep the sheriff on a long string, but a taut one.

“Since he’s that kind,” Boadeen said, “suppose the next time you come into Danton I show you around. I can even show you my office. All the latest equipment.”

“I guess that’d be okay,” Ellie said.

They looked at each other without speaking. At the far end of the aisle a cash register went
Grrrrlunk
, racking up a sale as a customer checked out.

“After I show you the office,” Boadeen said, “maybe I can show you where I live.”

Grrrrlunk! Grrrrlunk!

“I live above the office.”

“That’s interesting,” Ellie said, playing dumb, “living close to your work, I mean.”

“You’re interesting, Ellie,” the sheriff said seriously. His smooth, small-featured face was blank.

Grrrrlunk!

“You and your husband are interesting folk, if you understand my meaning.”

“I think I understand, Sheriff.”

“You struck me as the type that’d understand things. When do you next intend to come into Danton?“

Ellie smiled wistfully. “When the food runs out, I guess.”

Grrrrlunk!

The sheriff ran his fingertips over his gleaming cartridge belt. “I’ll see you then,” he said, backing away. “When you get hungry.” He winked at her and was gone around the watermelon display.

Grrrrlunk! Grrrrlunk! Grrrrlunk!

Ellie pushed her cart forward to check out, past a bright pyramid of cans as eternal as the two-day sale price.

Roebuck recognized the sound of the car. He stood inside the screen door of the cabin and through the trees he caught a glimpse of it laboring up the bumpy road. When Ellie had parked the station wagon, backing it into the shallow ruts that the rear wheels had made, Roebuck stepped outside and walked toward it to help her carry in the groceries. He opened the tailgate as she turned off the engine and got out.

“Anything happen?” he asked, as she walked toward the back of the car.

“Nothing,” she said. “I saw Sheriff Boadeen.”

Roebuck pulled a heavy bag out of the station wagon and stood holding it.

“He came into the store where I was shopping. He saw the car parked outside.”

“Did he act suspicious?” Roebuck rested the bag on the tailgate.

Ellie shook her head. “He wanted me to go for a ride with him in his police car. That’s why he came into the store, though he did buy a jar of coffee.”

“Did you go?”

“’Course not.”

Roebuck grabbed the bag and walked across the hard earth toward the cabin door as Ellie followed.

“I don’t like this,” he said, “the way he keeps chasing you.”

“Maybe it’ll keep his mind off other things.”

Roebuck carried the groceries inside and set them on the kitchen table, then he went quickly back outside into the sunlight where Ellie was waiting.

“He’s got to get onto us sooner or later,” Roebuck said, walking back toward the car with Ellie at his side. “I’ll bet the bastard stays up late every night going through old wanted posters and reading crime textbooks. I’ll bet he has a subscription to
Law and Order
Magazine. He’s a nut on his job.”

“We’ll only be here a little over a week more,” Ellie said. “I don’t think he’ll figure out anything that soon.”

“He’s making a pest of himself,” Roebuck said angrily. “A pest! Do you think I like having a goddamn sheriff hanging around trying to make you when I’m wanted for murder?” He dragged the last two bags out of the car and lifted his knee to slam the tailgate.

“Let me take that light bag. I don’t like it any more than you, but while he’s chasing me he’s not gonna be paying much attention to us in any other way.”

Roebuck followed her into the cabin, and the screen door slammed behind them with a long reverberating bang.

“You’re right,” he said, lowering the groceries onto the table. “But I’m sure as hell getting tired of being nice to him when he comes around.”

Ellie got two cans of beer from the refrigerator and opened the pull tab tops with two skillful yanks. “Only a little while longer, Lou.” She handed him one of the beer cans. “Anyway he’ll cool off some.”

“You’re underestimating yourself,” Roebuck said, taking a swallow of ice-flecked beer.

And Roebuck was right. Sheriff Boadeen showed no signs of “cooling off’ toward Ellie. With feigned friendship toward Roebuck, he visited them almost every evening in the cabin, where they’d sit before the fireplace to drink and talk. The sound of his cruiser’s powerful engine became as much a part of their evenings as the croaking of the frogs by the lake. He came with the setting of the sun.

Boadeen now barely concealed his growing interest in Ellie as he barely concealed his growing disdain for Roebuck. Time was running out on the sheriff, and this one would get away at the end of the week if he didn’t hurry.

“When you going into Danton to do some more shopping?” he asked her late Wednesday evening as he sat sipping his Scotch and water before the fire.

“I don’t know,” Ellie answered. “I suspect tomorrow or the next day.”

“I should think you folk would be running out of food up here,” Boadeen said thoughtfully. “I should think you’d be getting hungry.”

“As a matter of fact,” Roebuck said, “we get by all right.”

“Still and all,” Boadeen said, “small town store like Blatkin’s sells cheaper than stores in Chicago.” He smiled with half his mouth and looked at Ellie. “Wouldn’t hurt for you to stock up, take advantage of it while you can.”

“I don’t like her going into town alone too often,” Roebuck said. “Something’s liable to happen.”

“Not in my town, Lou. Nothing can happen to her that I wouldn’t be there to take care of.”

“Nothing can happen, hell! One time in one of the nicest neighborhoods of Chicago a man walked right up to her and tried to drag her into an alley. He didn’t know I was across the street and happened to see the whole thing reflected in a shop window. I ran across the street and got there just in time. Grabbed him and shook him till his teeth rattled. That’s how Ellie and I met.”

“I’ll be damned,” Boadeen said softly. “Frighten you much, Ellie?”

“Sure,” Ellie said. “I didn’t know him from Adam.”

Boadeen chuckled, a sudden machine gun chuckle. Then he ran a finger thoughtfully along the ridge of his narrow nose. “Speaking of things in Chicago, I take it you folk have an unlisted phone number. I got a phone directory from every major city in America in my office and when I looked in Chicago I didn’t see your number. Checked on some that might have been yours, but they were always somebody else’s. Hope you folk don’t think I’m nosy.”

“Why would you check on us, Sheriff?” Roebuck asked in a voice a shade too high.

“Just happened to have the Chicago directory out,” Boadeen said, “and I got curious. Part of my job to be curious.”

“We do have an unlisted number,” Ellie said smoothly. “We were getting crank calls.”

“What kind of calls?” Boadeen leaned forward into the light of the fire. “Sex maniac or something?”

“That’s right,” Ellie said. “He’d call me and tell me things before I could hang up.”

Anger crossed Boadeen’s handsome, fleshy face. “They ought’a catch people like that and fry them before it’s too late. Who knows where something like that could lead? Next time he’ll be following women and knocking on their doors and God knows what all!”

“There’s no way to catch a crank caller,” Roebuck said. “That’s why we have an unlisted number.” He watched Boadeen settle back on the couch, the firelight shimmering over his polished sheriffs boots. It was odd how sitting before the fire hadn’t bothered Roebuck until the sheriff started making his frequent visits. Now Roebuck had to put down an increasing desire to leave the room when the flames were dancing, and last night he had dreamed his dream for the first time since he and Ellie had come to the cabin.

“While we’re on the subject of communications,” Boadeen said suddenly, “I couldn’t help but notice something else about you folk. I checked at the post office and old Mr. Gardner tells me you haven’t received any mail at all. That’s funny, especially with you having a young boy back home.”

“He’s not much for writing letters,” Roebuck said.

“And not many people know where we’re at.” Ellie spoke up. “The doctors want Lou to rest and demanded that we wouldn’t tell anyone where we were going. That way there wouldn’t be any phone calls or letters to disturb him.”

“You must be a pretty valuable man,” Boadeen said.

Roebuck folded his arm across his chest. “There’s no substitute for experience and they know it.”

“Reckon not,” Boadeen said. “Right, Ellie?”

Ellie was looking at the sheriff closely, rolling her highball glass between the palms of her hands. “That’s right, Sheriff.”

“Tomorrow’s sale day at Blatkin’s Foodliner,” the sheriff said, looking at Roebuck but talking to Ellie. “Sure hate to see you folk miss it.”

“I’ll check and see what we’re out of, Lou,” Ellie said. “Maybe we can buy some canned goods and take them home with us. It’d probably be worth the trouble.”

“Why, people come from miles around to shop at Blatkin’s,” the sheriff said. “Best prices in the state.”

“If you go into Danton tomorrow,” Roebuck said, “it might be a good idea if I go with you and drop by the post office. Remember, your mother was going to write us and tell us how she was.”

“That’s right,” Ellie said. She laid a hand on Roebuck’s knee. “But you’ll stay here and rest like the doctor ordered, Lou.” She smiled fondly at him. “They made me promise to see that you wouldn’t do anything but relax for a month. You remember what Dr. Gipp said.”

“That’s right.” Roebuck turned pale and took a quick, final swallow of his drink. He set the glass on the floor. “Can’t go against doctor’s orders.”

“I see your glass is empty too,” Ellie said to Boadeen. “We’d offer you one for the road, Sheriff, but we’re clean out of Scotch.”

Catching the hint, Boadeen looked at her and grinned his predatory grin. “That’s okay,” he said, standing and placing his uniform cap carefully on his head. “If I’m in town same time you are tomorrow, maybe we’ll run into one another.” He smoothed his trousers where they were tucked into his high-topped boots and adjusted the holster and long nightstick that hung at his hip. “See you folk.” He turned and strutted jangling from the fire-lighted cabin, like some slighted Prussian Cavalry officer going back into the past.

Roebuck and Ellie sat listening to the fading rumble of the cruiser’s powerful engine.

“I told you he suspects something,” Roebuck said, kicking his empty glass across the room. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

“He suspects something,” Ellie agreed, “but we don’t know what and neither does he. If you ask me, I think he did all that checking on us to find out more about me.”

“Yeah,” Roebuck said, “but what’s to keep him from checking further?”

“The next time he says anything to me, I’ll tell him right off he doesn’t have a chance. Then maybe he’ll lose interest in us.”

“Lose interest!” Roebuck stood and paced to the other side of the cabin. “Lose interest! He’ll probably gain interest! I knew an M.P. like that once. Career cops like that don’t lose interest—they have to be satisfied!”

“He knows we’re leaving this weekend, Lou. He’s not that suspicious of us that he’ll start checking all over the country. He thinks we have an unlisted phone number in Chicago now, so maybe he’ll forget all about it.”

“Maybe he will,” Roebuck said, wanting to believe it. “I hope you’re right. If it weren’t for the fact that I know they’d be hot after us if we left here suddenly, we’d pack and leave right now.”

“We’ll go now,” Ellie said, “if you say to.”

Roebuck walked to the center of the room and stood with his thumbs hitched in his belt.

“No,” he said, slowly and evenly, “it’s worth the risk to stay until the end of the week. Then when we leave it’ll be a clean break.”

Ellie sat in the station wagon in front of Blatkin’s Foodliner and waited. Within fifteen minutes Sheriff Boadeen’s cruiser turned into the small blacktop lot and came to a rocking halt beside her. The sheriff looked over at her and smiled.

Ellie took her purse and got out of the station wagon. Sheriff Boadeen said nothing as she walked around, and he reached over and unlocked the passenger’s door so she could get into the cruiser. As the powerful car pulled back out into the street, Ellie looked at the neat blank tablet and clipboard lying on the seat, the shortwave radio and the shining walnut stocked shotgun mounted the length of the dashboard on silver brackets.

Boadeen saw her looking at the gun and smiled. “Husband know you’re here with me?”

“I don’t know,” Ellie answered truthfully. “I think so.”

“I think so too,” Boadeen said. He made a right turn and they went down one of Danton’s side streets.

It was a typical small Midwestern town, new brick buildings next to old white frames, gas stations, a confectionery, hardware store, bank, post office, and here and there a glimpse of nothing behind them.

“I knew you’d meet me,” Boadeen said casually.

Ellie didn’t answer.

“You and Lou ain’t like most couples that come to the lake. I spotted it right off. So, according to my job, I did a little checking. You’re not really from Chicago, are you?”

“We are,” Ellie said. “We told you we had an unlisted number. Lots of people have unlisted numbers.”

“Still,” Boadeen said, looking ahead as he drove, “you two just don’t fit right. Like the fact that you get no mail, and the way you’re all nervous and wanted me to leave in a hurry the first time I met you.”

Ellie turned her eyes on him honestly. “We’re not lawbreakers, Sheriff.”