Free Death Trap by John D. MacDonald Page B

we’re talking about.”
    She looked relieved. She walked away, schoolbooks cradled in her arm, with only one quick, nervous, backward glance.
     
    The bench I selected was not on one of the main cross paths. I sat and watched an enthusiastic and inept game of touch football. One small boy insisted on making his tackles legitimately until he caught a knee on his nose. The dismal sounds he made were audible after he was out of sight.
    I saw her when she was a hundred yards away. She crossed the street, walking primly. She had changed to jeans and a red cotton flannel shirt. Her blond hair was tied into a high pony tail with blue ribbon. She walked more slowly, looking around until she spotted me, and then came toward me. Her walk seemed very self-conscious, very body-conscious, as though she was making a deliberate effort to suppress any movement that could call attention to breasts or hips. It was not a natural walk for a girl so pretty, so nicely built. It was a denial of the natural and unself-conscious pride she should have had.
    As I had seen when I had talked to her near the school, she was not the girl of the picture. That special look of clarity was gone, as was the impression of imminent maturity. The murder had made growing up too expensive for her, and perhaps for reasons of self-preservation, she had slid back into the formlessness of adolescence, back into the random jungles.
    She gave me a nervous nod and sat on the far end of the bench, as far from me as she could get, her face averted.
    “I decided not to come,” she said.
    “Then why did you?”
    She ignored the question. “I don’t know who you are or anything. Maybe you’re going to write a story about this. I don’t see why I should talk to you. My father had to get the police to get men away from our house.”
    “I told you I’m a friend of Vicky’s.”
    “Anybody could say that.”
    I took out my wallet, found the right card and handed it to her. It had my picture and thumbprint and physical description. The text, in both Spanish and English, said I was employed on the airfield project.
    She studied it and handed it back. “What does it mean? That says in Spain.”
    “I’m on a vacation.”
    “You’re awful tan.”
    “Nancy, I don’t blame you for being suspicious. I’m in the construction game. I was on a road job near here. I met Vicky then. I didn’t know she was in this trouble until I got back to Chicago. Then I came here. Maybe you’re almost old enough to understand this. In one sense I’m almost glad of this trouble, because it gave me a good excuse to come back here and see her again.”
    She gave me a rare look of directness. “Do you love her?”
    “Yes. And when I left before, I thought I’d never see her again. I gave her a bad time.”
    Her eyes widened. “You’re that one!”
    “Then you know about it.”
    “Not much about it. Just some things Al said. You made her unhappy. He said you took the life out of her.”
    “I’ve been sorry ever since, Nancy. Now I’m trying to help her.”
    She had me placed, and she seemed more at ease. “I don’t see how anybody can change it now, Mr. Mac-Reedy.”
    “I don’t see how either. But I’m not closing my mind the way you are.”
    “I came here, didn’t I? I’m willing to talk to you.”
    “It’s good to see you mad instead of scared.”
    “I’m not scared.”
    “Then we’ll talk. We’ll talk like friends, Nancy. Maybe if you can act like a grownup we can be friends. You’re eighteen years old. You aren’t a child. I want us to talk together like a man and a woman. And I want us both to make one major assumption before we start. Let’s assume Al is innocent.”
    “But—”
    “It’s the attitude a court of law is supposed to have. I think if we start that way, we may get farther. Forget that this town considers him some sort of a monster. You don’t have to think that way because they do. Now—can you pretend?”
    “I know the meaning of the