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on?”
    â€œWhat’s that got to do with anything?”
    â€œIf the accident happened the way Mrs. O’Gorman believes it did, O’Gorman was driving around on the stormiest night of the year in his shirt sleeves.”
    Ronda looked puzzled for a minute. “I don’t think any­thing was ever brought up concerning a heater in the car.”
    â€œIt should have been.”
    â€œAll right, take the stuff with you for tonight. Maybe you’ll come across some other little thing the rest of us missed.”
    He sounded as if he felt the project was hopeless, and by eight o’clock that night Quinn was beginning to share the feeling. The facts in the case were meager, and the possibili­ties seemed endless.
    Including infanticide, Quinn thought . Maybe Martha O’Gorman was getting pretty tired of her little boy, Patrick.
    One item that especially interested Quinn was from a transcript of Martha O’Gorman’s testimony before the coroner’s jury: “It was about 8:30. The children were in bed sleeping and I was reading the newspaper. Patrick acted rest­less and worried, he couldn’t seem to settle down. Finally I asked him what was the matter and he told me he’d made a mistake that afternoon and wanted to go back to the field office to correct it before anyone discovered it. Patrick was so terribly conscientious about his work—please, I can’t go on. Please. Oh Lord, help me—”
    Very touching, Quinn thought. But the fact remains, the children were asleep, and Martha and Patrick O’Gorman could have left the house together.
    No evidence was brought out about a heater in the car, al­though the piece of wool flannel with the bloodstains on it was discussed at length. The blood type was the same as O’Gor­man’s, and the flannel was part of a shirt O’Gorman fre­quently wore. Both Martha and two of O’Gorman’s fellow clerks identified it. It was a bright yellow and black plaid, of the Macleod tartan, and his co-workers had kidded O’Gorman about an Irishman wearing a Scotch tartan.
    â€œAll right,” Quinn said, addressing the blank wall. “Sup­pose I’m O’Gorman. I’m sick of being a little boy. I want to run away and see the world. But I can’t face up to Martha so I have to disappear. I arrange to be in an accident while I’m wearing a shirt that will be identified as mine by a lot of people. I choose the time carefully, when the river is high and it’s still raining. O.K., I rig the accident and the piece of flannel with my own blood on it. Then what? I’m left stand­ing in my underwear in a heavy rainstorm three miles from town with only two bucks to my name. Great planning, O’Gorman, really great.”
    By nine o’clock he was more than willing to believe in Ronda’s hitchhiking stranger.

FOUR
    Quinn ate a late dinner at El Bocado, a bar and grill across the street from his motel. Entertainment facilities in Chicote were limited and the place was crowded to the doors with ranchers in ten-gallon Stetsons and oil workers in their field clothes. There weren’t many women: a few wives already worried at nine about driving home at twelve; a quartet of self-conscious girls celebrating a birthday and acting a good deal noisier than the two prostitutes at the bar; a prim-faced woman about thirty standing near the door. She wore a blue turban, horn-rimmed spectacles and no make-up. She looked as if she had entered the place thinking it was the YWCA, and was now trying to muster the courage to walk out.
    She spoke briefly to one of the waitresses. The waitress glanced around the room, her eyes finally settling on Quinn.
    She approached him without hesitation. “Would you mind sharing your table, mister? There’s a lady that has to eat before she catches the bus to L.A. Those bus stops serve lousy food.”
    So did El Bocado, but Quinn said