Free Till Death Do Us Part by Louis Trimble Page A

illegal.
    The logical one to have killed Pachuco—assuming my premise to be true—was Navarro. But I found it hard to picture him as a torturer. It was easier to think of Rosanne twisting a thumb screw. I was willing to credit her with almost any action.
    But no matter how I twisted the facts, I couldn’t find a logical explanation for Nace or Arden, and not much of one for Amalie. The more I thought of Amalie, the less sure I was that she was pretending to have a crush on me. I hoped she was pretending; if not, then I had one more problem on top of the rest. I had no idea what to do with a hero-worshipping child.
    I smoked and nursed my bruises and finally got around to wondering just who was interested enough in getting me out of Rio Bravo to have given me that beating. Nace, of course, but Nace wasn’t big enough. Porter Delman possibly. After all I had made him look somewhat of a fool before his fiancee. Or someone else—Navarro perhaps—who was in a position to hire a thug to do the job.
    I thought of another possibility—Jim Kruse. The look of adoration I had caught when he looked at Rosanne gave me an idea. I saw him finding out that Pachuco was causing her trouble and of him taking care of the trouble in his own way—by murder. It wasn’t hard to see him deciding that I was just more of the same and giving me a beating as a warning to get out of her hair. He was big enough to break me in two.
    And then there was always the possibility of its being someone I didn’t know. In other words,
señor
Fulano de Tal—which is Spanish for Mr. So-and-So.
    I thought hopefully, maybe Rosanne will have all the answers tonight, and I rolled over and went to sleep, a pastime Arden had sensibly been working at for about the last hour.
    When I awakened, it was growing dark. I could hear the shower running in the bath. In a few moments Arden appeared, bright-eyed and dressed in jeans, high-heeled boots, a plaid shirt, and a flat-brimmed hat. She looked real sharp.
    I said, “Where do you think you’re going in that rig?”
    “With you,” she said sweetly, “to the barbecue.”
    “The hell you are,” I said flatly. “This is no time to connect yourself to me. Remember, someone wants me to leave this part of the country. Since I haven’t, they just might decide to try to get at me some other way—and that way could be you.”
    She said, “Darling, I didn’t know you cared.”
    I got up and washed and changed my suit and came back. She smiled sweetly at me. I said, “This is no kidding matter. You could get hurt.”
    She said, “I was hired to do a job and I’m going to do it.”
    Something in her tone warned me that she was going to be difficult to argue with. She stood with hands on hips and her body posed so that her peculiar loose-jointedness thrust the more interesting parts of her anatomy at me. But she wasn’t being coquettish. That was just one of her ways of standing.
    The pose gave me an idea. I stepped closer to her. “Look, honey,” I said, “can’t you see I don’t want to take a chance on your getting hurt?”
    She just cocked her head and gave me a half grin. I took another step, put out my arms, and tried to move in even closer. But she was a smart girl. Either that or she could read my mind. One way or another, she guessed that I wasn’t making a pass but was trying to grab her so I could tie her up.
    She kept her half smile as she took a step backward. I made a grab for her. She went up in the air in one of her dance steps. She reached the top of her leap and let one leg fly. If I hadn’t moved fast, the high heel of her boot would have taken me squarely in the Adam’s apple. As it was I caught it on the collarbone. The jolt was enough to change my mind about rough-housing her.
    I said, “What happens to the guy who makes a real pass at you?”
    She had landed on both feet, and for all her exercise, she was a good deal calmer looking than I. She said sweetly, “I’m ready to