"I thought you knew about that. The Stamm girl. Peary brought her back
to town. He left her off at her car. They found her car parked on North
Delaware. And nobody's seen her since. Her old man is fit to be tied.
Everybody is running around in circles."
I couldn't finish the little bit of food that was left. I couldn't
drink the rest of my coffee. It was as though my throat had closed.
I wondered how soon they'd add two and two. Ruth had been subdued
and thoughtful when she left the lake. She would remember that
Fitzmartin had acted strangely. She was the sort of person to do her
own investigating. She was the sort of person who would go and talk
to Fitzmartin. She would have no way of knowing that he was a killer.
She would underestimate his cleverness. It wouldn't take him long to
learn that the car had been found, to learn that they were searching
the area of the lake cabin. It was time to go. The string was running
out. I could guess how it had happened with Grassman. Grassman, as a
result of his quiet investigation, had made some sound guesses as to
what had happened. He had paid a call on Fitzmartin. Maybe Grassman had
wanted to cut himself in. Maybe he had made a search of the place where
Fitzmartin lived while he was out. He could have found the large sum of
money Fitz had extorted from George Warden. Fitz could have found him
there and killed him, driven the body into town, and put it in my car.
From the violence of the blow that had killed Grassman, it could be
assumed that it was an unpremeditated killing. In the moment he killed
Grassman, Fitz became more deeply involved. He waited, expecting me to
be jailed for the Grassman murder. When I wasn't, he would know that I
had successfully gotten rid of the body. No one had spotted it in my
car. Thus, when it was found, it could as readily be traced back to him
as to me.
Assuming he could be questioned about Grassman, then George became the
weak link. George, by talking, could disclose Fitz's motive for the
Grassman murder. And so George had to die. Fitz had killed him boldly,
taking his risk and getting away with it. Prine had been right about
the towel.
Just when he thinks everything has been taken care of, Ruth Stamm
arrives. He can't leave without her immediately spreading the alarm.
He needs a grace period, time enough to get far away before someone
else makes the same guess she has made. That left him with a choice. He
could tie her up and leave her there. But that would be too clear an
admission of guilt. He could take her with him. That would be awkward
and risky. Or he could kill her. One more death wouldn't make any
difference in the final penalty.
"You're doing a lot of sweating," Brubaker said. "It isn't that hot in
here."
I managed a feeble smile. I said I would see him around. I paid and
left. It was too easy to visualize her dead, with raw new lumber
stacked over her body, her dark red hair against the damp ground in the
coolness of the night. What shocked me was the stunning sense of loss.
It taught me that I had underestimated what she meant to me. I could
not understand how she had come to mean so much, in so short a time.
More than Charlotte had ever meant.