Chapter 8

Lucy stood naked beside the bed and mixed a couple of highballs. The rattle of ice on the glasses swung him into a sitting position. He took his bourbon on the rocks. Lucy posed, glass in hand, before him.

"like me now, honey?" she asked, weaving her hips.

"You're better looking than a lot of models." She laughed. "You mean in those pictures of mine?"

"Yes," he said, finally. "How did you get a shy girl like Nona to pose for you?"

She giggled. "It wasn't easy. She does have good lines-especially up here!" She arched her breasts forward. "What makes her shy really is her stutter."

He made a mental note of that. A speech irregularity could account for her retiring behavior.

"You're interested, aren't you, honey?" Lucy said.

He grinned. "I won't deny it."

Lucy giggled. "I'm not the jealous type! Ivy had charms, too...."

Lucy had probably seen him with the school-marm. And he would be with her at the party the following night. He finally decided why Lucy didn't shake him as thoroughly as he would have expected.

She wanted to be a "pa," type. There was no real mystery about her. In spite of her delicacy of feature, her well-formed body, she was another unfulfilled young housewife with too much time on her hands. His first edge of interest did something of a diminuendo.

Maybe the booze would spur his flagging interest.

She sat beside him on the rim of the bed, her slender thighs spread. She sipped her drink, pressing nearer. Her perfume wafted into his nostrils.

She bounced up and down. "Almost squeak-proof!"

"You think of everything."

She kissed his bare shoulder. "Hurry up with your drink, honey. I'm interested to see what you're going to do with those extra pillows!"

The liquor began to affect him. He took the last of it, and she placed the glasses on the tray.

I wish to hell this was Nona-or even Ivy, he thought. Why does the grass on the other side of the fence always look greener?

Already he was just a bit tired of the whole sequence. Her problem belonged to Jud, her husband, not to him.

When he opened the door of his cabin, at about one o'clock, and turned up the lights, he knew someone had been there in his absence. He had a good eye for detail, and some of his music on the piano had been moved.

He cursed, peering at the darkness in the rear of his abode, toward the kitchen. No strange sounds. He strode forward and flicked the kitchen light switch.

The back door was ajar. He knew he had locked it, and now he saw that the latch had been jimmied. Three cupboard doors hung open, and some of his supplies were missing.

Growling under his breath, he checked the refrigerator. Many food items gone from there, too. Lunch meat, cheese, a half-gallon of milk.

His liquor hadn't been touched.

That damned Ridge-runner. Or maybe somebody from the village.

He closed the back door and braced a chair against it under the knob.

Should he report this to the sheriff's office? He decided not to. He would have to explain his absence, and the less he saw of Carl Hinton the better.

He didn't mind someone taking food if they were hungry. He drew a glass of water and gulped it down. He had a dark taste in his mouth, part of the after-effect of his prolonged bout with Lucy.

He returned to the living room, threw the latch on the front door and sat down to have a smoke. In the morning he would look around for footprints, but the dryness of recent weeks would doubtless work against anything like that.

As soon as possible he would pull out of Craig. Things were getting too sticky! However, he would have to stay until the murder was cleared up, or until the officials were satisfied he had had nothing to do with the rape-murder of Zelda Nesbitt.

The evening hadn't been a complete flop. Lucy had taken the sharp edge from his woman-hunger; he had hauled his ashes. But her efforts to reach a total climax had failed-again.

He was glad Jud would be around for a couple of days. He could concentrate on Ivy-and maybe he would get a chance at that cozy blonde bundle, Nona Mills.