I awoke at dawn. It was still raining. It seemed to be raining harder
than before. I was surprised that I had been able to go to sleep. I
took a hot shower to work the stiffness out of my muscles. The small
cuts stung. My face in the mirror looked like the face of a stranger,
with sunken eyes and flat, taut cheeks.
I prayed that Ruth was still alive. I prayed that she had lived through
the night. I knew what would have happened the previous night had I not
found Cindy. I would be lying dead on the tile floor. They would find
me there.
I shaved and dressed and left the motel. I got uncomfortably wet in the
ten feet from the motel door to the car door. I drove slowly into town,
the lights on, peering ahead through the heavy rain curtain. I drove
through town and found a gas station open on the far side. I had the
car gassed up. Farther along I found an all-night bean wagon. A disc
jockey in Redding was giving the seven-o'clock news. The plastic radio
was behind the counter.
"... as yet on the disappearance of Ruth Stamm, only daughter of Doctor
Buxton Stamm of Hillston. It is believed that the young woman was
abducted by a man named Earl Fitzmartin, Marine veteran and ex-prisoner
of war. Fitzmartin had been employed for the past year by George
Warden, Hillston businessman. Fitzmartin was a newcomer to Hillston.
George Warden committed suicide this week. But certain peculiarities
about the circumstances of Warden's suicide have led Hillston police to
believe that it may have been murder. Yesterday the Hillston police,
assisted by Gordon County police officers, searched a summer cottage
once owned by George Warden and found, under a cement garage floor, the
bodies of Eloise Warden, wife of George Warden, and Henry Fulton, of
Chicago. At the time of the Warden woman's disappearance two years ago,
it was believed she had run off with Fulton. Discovery of the bodies
and of the Fulton car, which had been driven into the lake into deep
water, has led police to believe that George Warden killed both of them
after finding them together at the summer cottage.
"An intensive search is being made for Fitzmartin and Miss Stamm. Full
details of the case have not yet been released, but it is believed
that there is some connection between Fitzmartin and the bodies
discovered yesterday at the summer cottage. It is expected that federal
authorities will be called in on the case today. Miss Ruth Stamm is
twenty-six years old, five feet eight inches tall, and weighs about a
hundred and twenty-eight pounds. She has dark red hair and gray eyes
and was last seen wearing a dark green skirt and a white cardigan
sweater. Fitzmartin is about thirty years old, six feet tall, weighs
about a hundred and eighty pounds. He has very blond, almost white
hair, pale gray eyes. He may be driving a black Ford, license BB67063.
Anyone seeing persons of this description should contact the police at
once. Listen again at eight o'clock to WRED for complete local news."
The disc jockey stopped and whistled softly. "How about that, folks?
They give me this stuff to read and sometimes I read it and don't even
listen. But that's a hot one. That one can grab you. Bodies under
concrete. Cars in lakes. Suicides that aren't suicides. A red-headed
gal and an ex-Marine. Man, that's a crazy mixed-up deal they've got
down there in Hillston. That's got all the makings of a national type
crime. Well, back to the mines. Got to spin some of this stuff. But
before I do, let me tell you a little something you ought to know, you
good folks out there, about the Atlas Laundry and Dry Cleaning people
right here in Redding, over on Downey Street. If you've got clothes
you're really proud of, and I guess we all got one set of those good
threads at least, then you--"
The fat young girl behind the counter turned off the radio. "That
character," she said amiably to me. "Ten minutes of commercials between
every number. Drive you nuts. I just turn him on for the news. If you
want, I can turn him back on or find something else."
"No thanks."
"How about that Stamm girl? I met her once. We had this dog, see. Got
him when he was a puppy. But this highway, it's bad to try to have a
dog when you live on the highway. He got himself hit and we took him
to Stamm's. The girl was real nice. Pretty sort of girl. But Blackie
was too far gone. Busted his back, so they had to give him a shot.
Honest, I cried. And you know what I think? I think it's a big deal for
those two. I think she maybe ran off with that Marine. You can figure
she wasn't getting any younger. She'll hear about all the mess she's
causing and she'll get in touch. That's just what will happen."
"Could be," I said.
"Of course it could be. You want more coffee, maybe? Sometimes I think
I'd run off with anybody asked me just to get out of this rat race.
That's on my bad days. Isn't this day a stinker, though? It keeps
coming down like this, every creek in the county will be flooded. It
gives me the creeps to think about those two buried under a garage
floor all that time. I never knew her, but my sister knew her. She was
in the high school with her, before my time. My sister says she did a
lot of running around. The way I see it, mister, if a husband catches
his wife and another man, he's got a right to kill the two of them.
It's like what they say the unwritten law. When I get married, I'm
not going to do any cheating. I guess it isn't so bad if a man does a
little cheating. They're all alike, beg your pardon. But no woman with
a home and husband and everything has any right to jump the fence.
Don't you think so? He made his big mistake burying the two of them
like he did. He should have just got on the phone and said to the
police, 'You boys come out here and see what I did and why.' Then it
would have been just what they say formalities. The way I look at it--"
I was saved by two truck drivers who came in from the big red combo
that had just parked in front of the place. After she served them she
came back, but I had finished.
As she gave me my change she said, "You remember what I told you, now.
That girl and that Marine ran off some place. Drive carefully."
I drove on through the rain. The cars I met were proceeding with
great care. It should have been full daylight, but it hadn't gotten
appreciably lighter since first dawn. It was almost nine o'clock before
I got to Redding. I parked near a drugstore and phoned her number from
a booth in the back of the store.