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my association with you."
    "Well-ahem-I, uh, certainly wouldn't want to chide you in your hour of bereavement. Am I correct in understanding that you had not lived together as man and wife for some time?"
    "Not for several years, sir. Not since I entered the army."
    "Ummm. I see." The stare he gave me was considerably less peevish. "A marriage in name only, eh? A youthful mistake from which you were unable to extricate yourself?"
    "Yes, sir," I said. "You might call it that."
    It was bad, shameful, to speak of her in this way. But, you see, there no longer was a her. Now there was merely a problem, and out of the bad much good could come.
    He gave me a forgiving clap on the back. Then, after a look of puzzled distaste at Lem Stukey, he turned annoyed to Dave Randall.
    "Well, Randall? I believe there's nothing more to be said or done, eh?"
    "N-No, sir." Dave started nervously. "I-I guess it wasn't necessary for you to-I guess I shouldn't have bothered you to come out here, sir."
    "My own thought. Why did you, Randall? I seem to recall that you mentioned that you would later explain the need for my presence."
    "Well, I-I-"
    "Yes? Speak up, man!"
    Lovelace fed on nervousness, even as he did on flattery. Let him catch you jumpy, uneasy, and he would be after you like a hungry hound. And Dave couldn't explain, of course. He couldn't say what he'd thought-that he was sure I was in a bad hole and was apt to need plenty of help to climb out.
    He'd been positively pale with fear when he arrived, and he'd been almost pitifully relieved when it dawned on him that I was very far from the shadows of the gas chamber. That was all he could think of: that I wasn't guilty; that what he had done to me, through a serious error in judgment when he was my commanding officer, had not resulted in murder.
    Now he had to think of something else. The old man was demanding an explanation. And Dave could only stand and squirm, stammer helplessly.
    "Mr. Randall! Are you keeping something from me?"
    "N-No, sir. I-I guess I was just a little excited, sir."
    "Yes? I would not have said that you were an excitable type, Mr. Randall. Are you-uh-are the duties of your position too much for you? Would you like to step down for a time?"
    I decided to intervene. Not, you understand, that I greatly minded Dave's squirming. The good colonel-he who had been so cocksure, so peremptory with his orders-would do much more squirming before I was finished with him. I intervened because it suited me. It was time to start taking the good from the bad.
    "I believe I can explain, sir," I said. "We'll want the story for our first edition. I imagine Dave thought we'd better discuss the handling of it."
    "Oh? Well, why didn't he say so, then? No reason to- Story!" He gulped, his eyes widening in a horrified doubletake. "Did you say story, Mr. Brown? Surely, you don't plan on-"
    "We'll have to, sir. This is one we won't be able to bury. It's another Black Dahlia case. The Los Angeles papers will give it a whopping play. It'll be a front-page story in every paper between here and L.A. We couldn't pass it up, even if we wanted to."
    "If we wanted to? If, Mr. Brown? You know the policy of the Courier. A family paper for family people."
    "If," I repeated, and Lem Stukey cleared his throat.
    "Them other papers," he said. "They won't play up the story if there ain't one. We keep quiet about it here-call it an accident-and what are they gonna-"
    "But it wasn't an accident," I said. "It was murder. And knowing Mr. Lovelace as I do, I feel certain that he will not blink at it. He will not hush it up, and thus leave unchanged the conditions that gave rise to the crime."
    Lovelace's jaw sagged. Slowly he sank down on the lounge.
    "I'm sorry, sir," I said. "I'm sure you must see that I am right."
    "B-But the Courier… Pacific City! I just-Uh, what did you mean, Brown? About the conditions which gave rise to it?"
    I didn't answer immediately. I poured a drink and pressed the glass into his