Act of Betrayal by Shirley Kennett

hissed. She was hunched over on the toilet with the phone pressed to her ear so that his voice couldn’t be overheard even in the ladies’ room, ignoring the fact that she was perfectly alone. “Where the hell are you? What’s the idea of fooling me with that taxi?” She lowered her voice until she was almost growling into the phone. “And if you ever put your filthy hands on me again, drunk or not, I’ll slice off your balls and fry them for breakfast, you, you faker!”
    “That’s my girl,” he said. “I knew you’d be happy to hear from me.”
    She was mute with a fury that overrode any consideration of Schultz’s situation or recent events. She pressed her lips together and glared at the back of the stall door. Her gaze should have melted a hole through it in moments, but evidently the door was hardier than most.
    “Where are you?” she demanded in a whisper, when the wave of anger had crested.
    “In the train station in Chicago,” Schultz said. “Didn’t Julia tell you? I told her to call.”
    So he had gone to visit Julia, after all. “How did you know I wasn’t in my office? Do you have somebody watching me right now?”
    “No, but I know your habits. You’re eating lunch at the Chinese place, Subway, or Pizza Hut. Got to be one of those three.”
    “You’re right, Mr. Know-It-All. And did you also know that Lieutenant Wall is with me?”
    “Christ, I’ll hang up. Don’t tell him it was me. I’m going AWOL for a few days. You said my name aloud, didn’t you? Shit.”
    “Idiot. Even I’m not that stupid. I have privacy at the moment.”
    “Oh, you’re in the John. Well, take your time, then. Just tell him you were freshening up. Men are trained not to question that.”
    PJ, elbows on her knees, left hand holding the phone to her ear, squeezed the bridge of her nose with the fingers of her right hand. She couldn’t believe she was sitting in the bathroom having a ridiculous conversation with a man wanted for questioning in a murder—a man who had shared her bed, no less, although to her knowledge nothing had come of it beyond adolescent groping.
    “Do you have any idea what’s been happening here,” she said, “while you’ve been gallivanting off to Chicago?”
    “No, but I’m sure you’ll tell me in your own sweet way.”
    PJ reined in her anger, and all of her many questions for him, and summarized in a few sentences the hit-and-run and the fact that he was a wanted man. She kept her voice low, imagining Wall with his ear pressed against the ladies’ room door.
    “Jesus Christ,” he said. “A girl dead. I’m so sorry to hear that. You’ve got to believe me. I had nothing to do with that girl’s death. I wasn’t even in St. Louis at the time. You believe me, don’t you?”
    The pain in his voice was like slivers of glass twisting in her stomach.
    “I want to, Leo. Why don’t you turn yourself in and explain everything?”
    “I can’t do that, Doc. First he took my son, and now he’s framing me, and goddamn it, that girl died for it. I won’t let him get away with it. I swear I won’t.”
    “Who? Who’s framing you? Do you know a Ginger Miller?”
    “I shouldn’t have said that. Forget about that. Who’s Ginger Miller?”
    She told him about the notes in Rick’s pocket, omitting their glued-together condition. There was no verbal reaction, but she could practically hear his brain ticking.
    “I’ll be in touch,” he said. “Don’t tell Wall I called you. Give me three more days before you tell Wall anything. You can do that for me, can’t you? Three days?”
    “Schultz! Give me something to go on,” PJ frantically whispered into the phone. “I can’t help you unless—”
    “You stay out of this, Doc. This is way, way over your head. I didn’t kill that girl. I swear it. You gotta trust me. Three days, you hear me?”
    The connection was broken.
    PJ silently cried a few tears of frustration and helplessness, then splashed water on her face and