Out on the Cutting Edge

Probably just a few hours after he closed up at Grogan's."

"I talked with him that night. We locked the door and turned down the lights and drank whiskey and he told me how she'd gone to Hollywood to be a movie star. And then he called you? What did he say?"

"That I should stop looking for her. That I was wasting my time."

"Stupid lad. Stupid call to make. Just let you know you were getting on to something, wouldn't it?"

"I already knew."

He nodded. "Gave it all away myself, didn't I? But I never knew I had anything to give away. Thought for all the world she was home in Indiana. What's the name of the town?"

"Muncie."

"Muncie, that's it." He looked at his whiskey, then drank some of it. I never drank Irish much but I got a sudden sense-memory of it now, not as smoky as scotch or as oily as bourbon. I drank the rest of my coffee, gulping it as if it were an antidote.

He said, "I knew he was lying. I gave him a little time to let his nerves get the better of him, and then last night I took him for a long ride upstate and got it all out of him. We went up to Ellenville. That's where the farm is. That's where he took her."

"When?"

"Whenever it was. July. He took her there for a last weekend, he said, a treat before she went back home where she came from. And he gave her a little cocaine, he said, and her heart failed. She didn't take that much, he said, but you can't predict with cocaine, it will get the better of you now and then."

"And that's how she died?"

"No. Because the bastard was lying. I got the story out of him. He took her up to the farm and told her how she had to go home. And she refused, and she got drunk and angry and started threatening to go to the police. And she was making a lot of noise, and he was afraid she'd rouse the couple who take care of the place. And, trying to quiet her, he hit her too hard and she died."

"But that wasn't it either," I said. "Was it?"

"No. Because why would he drive her a hundred miles to tell her she had to get on an airplane? Christ, what a liar he was!" He flashed a shark's grin. "But, you know, I didn't have to read him his rights. He didn't have the right to remain silent. He didn't have the right to an attorney." Unconsciously his hand moved to touch one of the darker stains on the front of his apron. "He talked."

"And?"

"He took her up there to kill her, of course. He claimed she never would have agreed to go home, that he'd sounded her out on it, that all she did was swear she could be counted on to keep her mouth shut.

He took her up to the farm and gave her a lot to drink and then took her outside and made love to her in

the grass. Had all her clothes off, laid with her in the moonlight.

And then while she was lying there afterward he took out a knife and let her see it. 'What's that?' she said. 'What are you going to do?' And he stabbed her."

My coffee cup was empty. I left Ballou at the table and took my cup to the bar and let the barman fill it up again. Crossing the floor, I fancied the sawdust underfoot was blood-soaked. I thought I could see it and smell it. But it was just spilled beer that I was seeing, and the smell was the meat smell from the street outside.

When I got back Ballou was looking at the picture I'd given him.

"She was a pretty girl," he said evenly.

"Prettier than you'd know from her picture. Lively, she was."

"Until he killed her."

"Until then."

"He left her there? I'll want to get the body, arrange to ship it back to them."

"You can't."

"There'd be a way to do it without opening an investigation. I think her parents would cooperate if I explained it to them. Especially if I could tell them that justice had been done." The phrase sounded stilted, but it said what I wanted to say. I glanced at him. "It has been done, hasn't it?"

He said, "Justice? Is justice ever done?" He frowned, following the thought through the fumes of his whiskey. "The answer to your question," he said, "is yes."

"I thought so. But the body—"

"You can't take it, man."

"Why not? Wouldn't he say where he buried it?"

"He never buried her." His hand, resting on the table between us, tightened into a fist. His fingers went white at the knuckles.

I waited.

He said. "I told you about the farm. All it's supposed to be is a place in the country, but the two of them, O'Mara's their name, they like to farm it. She has a garden, and all summer long they're giving me corn and tomatoes. And zucchini, they're always after me to take zucchini."

He opened his fist, spread his hand palm-down on the tabletop. "He has a dairy herd, two dozen head. Holsteins, they are. He sells the milk and keeps what it brings him. They try to give me milk, but what do I want with it? The eggs, though, are the best you'll ever have. They're free range chickens. Do you know what that means? It means they have to scratch for a living. Christ, I'd say it does them good. The yolks are deep yellow, close to orange. Someday I'll bring you some of those eggs."

I didn't say anything.

"He keeps hogs there, too."