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said.
    “Don’t mention it. And there’s one more thing. If it was me, I’d be mighty careful who I got mixed up with around here. She’s going to have all the police attention she wants one of these days.”
    “Yes?” I said. I’d been wondering if he’d come out and say it. “Why?”
    “If you’ve been around here all day, you know why. She killed her husband.”
    “Then you don’t arrest people for that around here, and try them?” I asked. “You just let hoodlums burn their places down with acid?”
    “You arrest ‘em as soon as you’ve got a case,” he said. “You’re able to tell everybody how to run a police department, you ought to know that.”
    “Did you ever hear of slander?” I asked.
    He nodded. “Sure. And did you ever try to prove it without witnesses?”
    He went over and started to get into his car. “Wait a minute,” I said. He paused and turned.
    I reached down and picked up the wallet. “You wanted to see me do it, didn’t you? I wouldn’t want to spoil your whole day.”
    He stared coldly, but said nothing as he drove off.

5
    I located the fuse box and killed the circuits in that wing of the building so I wouldn’t electrocute myself with the hose. Changing into swimming trunks, I went to work. I stood in the doorway playing the hose on walls and ceiling and furniture until water began running over the threshold. I broke open a half-dozen boxes of the soda and scattered it around and washed down some more. When I tried to move the bedclothes, curtains, and mattresses, they tore into rotten and mushy shreds, so I found some garden tools and raked them out onto the gravel, along with all the carpet I could tear up. It was sickening.
    Even as diluted as the stuff was now, it kept stinging my feet when I had to step off the boards. I played the hose on them to wash it off. In about fifteen minutes I had the worst of it out. I dragged the bed-frames and headboards, the chest, the two armchairs, and the night table out onto the concrete porch and played the hose on them some more and scattered the rest of the soda over the wet surfaces. I showered and changed back into my clothes, and went over to the office. Josie said Mrs. Langston was sleeping quietly. She brought me the keys to the station wagon.
    “Turn on the “No Vacancy” sign,” I said. “And if anybody comes in, tell him the place is closed.”
    She looked doubtful. “You reckon Miss Georgia goin’ to like that? She’s kind of pinched for money.”
    “I’ll square it with her,” I said. “She needs rest more than she needs money, and we’re going to see she gets it.”
    That wasn’t the only reason, but I saw no point in going into it now. I drove into town and parked near the garage. In the repair shed a mechanic was working on my car, unbolting the old radiator. He looked up and nodded.
    “Borrow one of your screwdrivers?” I asked. “Sure,” he said. “Here.”
    I went around back and tested one of the screws holding the rear plate. It came loose freely. So did the other one. You could even see where he’d put machine oil on the threads to break them loose. I heard footsteps beside me and looked up. It was the sour-faced foreman in his white overall.
    He nodded. “What’s all the whoop-de-do with the license plates? Man from the Sheriff’s office was fiddlin’ with ‘em a while ago. And dusting powder over them.”
    “Which man?” I asked.
    “You wouldn’t know him. That hard case.”
    “Magruder?”
    He shook his head. “That’s the one thinks he’s hard. This one is. Kelly Redfield.”
    I thought he’d sounded like a good cop. He screamed about it and for some reason tried to slough it off, but in the end he had to come and see. “What he say?” I asked.
    “Say? That guy? He wouldn’t give you the time of day.”
    “But he did tell you where they broke in?”
    Surprise showed for an instant on the sour and frozen face before he brought it under control again. “How’d you