Free Pale Gray for Guilt by John D. MacDonald

out, leaving the door open, shook hands, introduced Puss. Connie leaned in and shook her hand, then straightened again. In the glow of the courtesy light I had my first good look at her. A strong-looking woman, chunky, with good shoulders, a weathered face, no makeup, very lovely dark longlashed eyes.
    "You would have helped them if they'd hollered, McGee?"
    "All I could."
    "Me too. Pride. Their lousy, stiff-necked pride. How many good people has pride killed? She's up there at the house thinking the roof has fallen in on her. She doesn't know it's the roof and the chimney and the whole damn sky, and it is a lousy time to have to tell her. What happened?"
    "He was on his back on the ground and about five hundred pounds of scrap iron dropped on him from ten feet in the air. Head and chest, I'd imagine. I haven't seen him, and probably wouldn't know who I was seeing if I did."
    "Jesus Christ, man, you don't tiptoe around things, do you?"
    "Do you want me to?"
    "I think already you know me better than that. Are they trying to call it an accident?"
    "Suicide. He's supposed to have run a wire to the ratchet stop, lay down and yanked it loose. They found it still fastened and wound around his hand. Yesterday morning."
    Suddenly her brown strong fingers locked onto my wrist. "Oh my dear God! Had he gotten the note she left him?"
    "No."
    I heard the depth of her sigh. "That could have done it. That could have been the one thing that could have made him do it. I think I got to know him that well. I think I know how much Jan meant to that poor big sweet guy."
    "Not even that, Connie. At least not that way. He was murdered. But we've got to swallow the suicide story. All of us. We've got to act as if we believed it."
    "Why?"
    "Why do you think?"
    "I think why use amateur talent when you can hire professionals."
    "Rest your mind, Mrs. A."
    "We'll talk after we get this sad thing done." She leaned abruptly into the car again. "You, girl. Do you dither? Do you bleat and snuffle and carry on?"
    "Go grow yourself an orange, lady."
    She threw her head back and gave a single bark of humorless laughter. "Maybe you'll both do." She pulled my seat back forward and scrambled into the back seat, rustling the discarded wrapping paper. "Let's go, McGee. The gate light turns off up at the house."
    I wasn't prepared for a full half mile of drive, nor for the house at the end of it, big and long and low, with upswept drama of roof lines, something by Frank Lloyd Wright out of Holiday Inns. She had me park around at the side. "I'll have my people take care of the car and bring your gear in. You people use one bedroom or two."
    "Two, please," said Puss.
    "Well, at least the thundering herd is sacked out by now. Her three and my two." She looked up at the stars. And we squared our shoulders and went in to drop the sky down upon Janine, to change the shape of her world and the shape of her heart forever.
    It was one thirty in the morning when Puss came walking slowly into the big living room, yawning. Connie and I had been sitting for a long time in the dark leather chairs near a small crackling of fat pine in the big fireplace of coquina rock. We'd done a lot of talking.
    "I think she's good until midmorning anyway," Puss said.
    "But Maria better sit there by her just in case." "She's there, Connie. If Jan wakes up, she'll wake us up. But it isn't likely."
    Puss went over to the little bar in the corner, put two cubes in a squat glass, poured some brandy over them and then came over and shoved the footstool closer to me, sat on it and leaned her head against the side of my knee and yawned again. "She was trying to be so damn brave," Puss said. "She wouldn't let go, and she wouldn't let go, and then she did. And that's the best thing. Did you get the calls through, Connie?"
    "I got that Sheriff and told him she knew and she was resting, and I'd call him back tomorrow and let him know what she's going to do next. I got her people and got them calmed down.