You Live Once by John D. MacDonald Page A

intent. I gave him exactly the same story I had given the two cops. He took me over it twice. I didn’t especially care for his manner. I wondered if he was getting even for the times I had chewed out his brother.
    “So when she drove away you went right to bed.”
    “I’ve told you that.”
    “What time was it?”
    “Two-thirty. Something like that.”
    “You went right to sleep.”
    “Yes. I was tired.”
    “Your landlady says you didn’t get in until four.”
    “Does she? I can’t help that. I was in by two-thirty, and asleep by no later than two-thirty-five. She must be mistaken.”
    “She is positive that a car drove in at four.”
    “Captain, I’m a very sound sleeper. Your sergeant over there can verify that. It is entirely possible that one of my less responsible friends drove in at four and couldn’t wake me and drove away again.”
    He dropped that line and went back to the questions he had asked the others. “Did you see anything suspicious? Did any car follow you? Anything like that?”
    “No, I didn’t see …”
    “What’s the matter?”
    “I just remembered something. Mary and I sat out in her car in my driveway for a few minutes and talked. Somebody came into the driveway, backed out and went away. I figured they were just turning around. I just now remembered it.”
    Kruslov gave a grunt of satisfaction. “There’s a new fact. It could mean something. Did the car lights shine on you?”
    “Yes they did. The top was down. I’ll tell you more than I have to, Captain. At the moment we were illuminated, I happened to be kissing Miss Olan.”
    “Are you in love with her?”
    “I wouldn’t say that. I kiss her goodnight. Now here’s some more while we’re at it. We made a date to go up to the lake yesterday. I went anyway, thinking she’d show up. She was going to pick me up at noon. It was entirely possible that I would have been pounding my ear, so I gave her a key. I went in and got it, and took it out to her. So that if I was still sleeping she could come in and drag me out of the sack so we wouldn’t be held up. But I assure you, Captain, that the key I gave her is not the love nest key she spoke to Miss Bettiger about. I had no such designs on Miss Olan. No, that doesn’t sound right. I had designs, I’m that normal. But they didn’t include setting up a menage of that special type.”
    The phone on the free form desk rang. The police stenographer jumped, picked it up timidly, spoke into it in an inaudible voice.
    He held the phone out. “For you, Captain sir.”
    Kruslov walked heavily over and took the phone. “Yes …? Yes … I see … Where …? No, that’s okay … Yes, I’ll tell them.”
    He hung up. He had his own little sense of drama. He walked back to the middle of the room and said, “They found her.”
    “Is she all right?” Uncle Willy asked.
    “She was strangled to death. Probably some time Saturday night. Her body was dumped in the brush up in the hills, a half mile or so off the main road. Damnedest thing. There was a troop of Brownies on a hike yesterday. What the hell are Brownies? One little girl wandered off and saw the body and was too scared to tell anybody. Today she was so upset her mother finally got her to talk and drove her up there to prove it was just the little girl’s imagination. But it wasn’t. She got hold of the state troopers.”
    In the long silence Willy said softly, “Oh my God.”
    Myrna leaned forward and put her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook gently. I looked over at the Raymonds. Nancy held her head high, her face tilted slightly upward. From a long high window, a sort of skylight effect, the light of the pale grey day came down, touching the delicacy of her face, the parted lips. Cherry glow of fire made a highlight on the soft line of her jaw. It was a face almost without expression, clear, clean and perfect. If there was any expression, it was as though she listened for some expected sound. Dodd sat