The Truth of the Matter

by John Lutz

  “You’re underestimating yourself,” Roebuck said, taking a swallow of ice-flecked beer.

  And Roebuck was right. Sheriff Boadeen showed no signs of “cooling off’ toward Ellie. With feigned friendship toward Roebuck, he visited them almost every evening in the cabin, where they’d sit before the fireplace to drink and talk. The sound of his cruiser’s powerful engine became as much a part of their evenings as the croaking of the frogs by the lake. He came with the setting of the sun.

  Boadeen now barely concealed his growing interest in Ellie as he barely concealed his growing disdain for Roebuck. Time was running out on the sheriff, and this one would get away at the end of the week if he didn’t hurry.

  “When you going into Danton to do some more shopping?” he asked her late Wednesday evening as he sat sipping his Scotch and water before the fire.

  “I don’t know,” Ellie answered. “I suspect tomorrow or the next day.”

  “I should think you folk would be running out of food up here,” Boadeen said thoughtfully. “I should think you’d be getting hungry.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Roebuck said, “we get by all right.”

  “Still and all,” Boadeen said, “small town store like Blatkin’s sells cheaper than stores in Chicago.” He smiled with half his mouth and looked at Ellie. “Wouldn’t hurt for you to stock up, take advantage of it while you can.”

  “I don’t like her going into town alone too often,” Roebuck said. “Something’s liable to happen.”

  “Not in my town, Lou. Nothing can happen to her that I wouldn’t be there to take care of.”

  “Nothing can happen, hell! One time in one of the nicest neighborhoods of Chicago a man walked right up to her and tried to drag her into an alley. He didn’t know I was across the street and happened to see the whole thing reflected in a shop window. I ran across the street and got there just in time. Grabbed him and shook him till his teeth rattled. That’s how Ellie and I met.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Boadeen said softly. “Frighten you much, Ellie?”

  “Sure,” Ellie said. “I didn’t know him from Adam.”

  Boadeen chuckled, a sudden machine gun chuckle. Then he ran a finger thoughtfully along the ridge of his narrow nose. “Speaking of things in Chicago, I take it you folk have an unlisted phone number. I got a phone directory from every major city in America in my office and when I looked in Chicago I didn’t see your number. Checked on some that might have been yours, but they were always somebody else’s. Hope you folk don’t think I’m nosy.”

  “Why would you check on us, Sheriff?” Roebuck asked in a voice a shade too high.

  “Just happened to have the Chicago directory out,” Boadeen said, “and I got curious. Part of my job to be curious.”

  “We do have an unlisted number,” Ellie said smoothly. “We were getting crank calls.”

  “What kind of calls?” Boadeen leaned forward into the light of the fire. “Sex maniac or something?”

  “That’s right,” Ellie said. “He’d call me and tell me things before I could hang up.”

  Anger crossed Boadeen’s handsome, fleshy face. “They ought’a catch people like that and fry them before it’s too late. Who knows where something like that could lead? Next time he’ll be following women and knocking on their doors and God knows what all!”

  “There’s no way to catch a crank caller,” Roebuck said. “That’s why we have an unlisted number.” He watched Boadeen settle back on the couch, the firelight shimmering over his polished sheriffs boots. It was odd how sitting before the fire hadn’t bothered Roebuck until the sheriff started making his frequent visits. Now Roebuck had to put down an increasing desire to leave the room when the flames were dancing, and last night he had dreamed his dream for the first time since he and Ellie had come to the cabin.

  “While we’re on the subject of communications,” Boadeen said suddenly, “I couldn’t help but notice something else about you folk. I checked at the post office and old Mr. Gardner tells me you haven’t received any mail at all. That’s funny, especially with you having a young boy back home.”

  “He’s not much for writing letters,” Roebuck said.

  “And not many people know where we’re at.” Ellie spoke up. “The doctors want Lou to rest and demanded that we wouldn’t tell anyone where we were going. That way there wouldn’t be any phone calls or letters to disturb him.”

  “You must be a pretty valuable man,” Boadeen said.

  Roebuck folded his arm across his chest. “There’s no substitute for experience and they know it.”

  “Reckon not,” Boadeen said. “Right, Ellie?”

  Ellie was looking at the sheriff closely, rolling her highball glass between the palms of her hands. “That’s right, Sheriff.”

  “Tomorrow’s sale day at Blatkin’s Foodliner,” the sheriff said, looking at Roebuck but talking to Ellie. “Sure hate to see you folk miss it.”

  “I’ll check and see what we’re out of, Lou,” Ellie said. “Maybe we can buy some canned goods and take them home with us. It’d probably be worth the trouble.”

  “Why, people come from miles around to shop at Blatkin’s,” the sheriff said. “Best prices in the state.”

  “If you go into Danton tomorrow,” Roebuck said, “it might be a good idea if I go with you and drop by the post office. Remember, your mother was going to write us and tell us how she was.”

  “That’s right,” Ellie said. She laid a hand on Roebuck’s knee. “But you’ll stay here and rest like the doctor ordered, Lou.” She smiled fondly at him. “They made me promise to see that you wouldn’t do anything but relax for a month. You remember what Dr. Gipp said.”

  “That’s right.” Roebuck turned pale and took a quick, final swallow of his drink. He set the glass on the floor. “Can’t go against doctor’s orders.”

  “I see your glass is empty too,” Ellie said to Boadeen. “We’d offer you one for the road, Sheriff, but we’re clean out of Scotch.”

  Catching the hint, Boadeen looked at her and grinned his predatory grin. “That’s okay,” he said, standing and placing his uniform cap carefully on his head. “If I’m in town same time you are tomorrow, maybe we’ll run into one another.” He smoothed his trousers where they were tucked into his high-topped boots and adjusted the holster and long nightstick that hung at his hip. “See you folk.” He turned and strutted jangling from the fire-lighted cabin, like some slighted Prussian Cavalry officer going back into the past.

  Roebuck and Ellie sat listening to the fading rumble of the cruiser’s powerful engine.

  “I told you he suspects something,” Roebuck said, kicking his empty glass across the room. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

  “He suspects something,” Ellie agreed, “but we don’t know what and neither does he. If you ask me, I think he did all that checking on us to find out more about me.”

  “Yeah,” Roebuck said, “but what’s to keep him from checking further?”

  “The next time he says anything to me, I’ll tell him right off he doesn’t have a chance. Then maybe he’ll lose interest in us.”

  “Lose interest!” Roebuck stood and paced to the other side of the cabin. “Lose interest! He’ll probably gain interest! I knew an M.P. like that once. Career cops like that don’t lose interest—they have to be satisfied!”

  “He knows we’re leaving this weekend, Lou. He’s not that suspicious of us that he’ll start checking all over the country. He thinks we have an unlisted phone number in Chicago now, so maybe he’ll forget all about it.”

  “Maybe he will,” Roebuck said, wanting to believe it. “I hope you’re right. If it weren’t for the fact that I know they’d be hot after us if we left here suddenly, we’d pack and leave right now.”

  “We’ll go now,” Ellie said, “if you say to.”

  Roebuck walked to the center of the room and stood with his thumbs hitched in his belt.

  “No,” he said, slowly and evenly, “it’s wo
rth the risk to stay until the end of the week. Then when we leave it’ll be a clean break.”

  5

  Ellie sat in the station wagon in front of Blatkin’s Foodliner and waited. Within fifteen minutes Sheriff Boadeen’s cruiser turned into the small blacktop lot and came to a rocking halt beside her. The sheriff looked over at her and smiled.

  Ellie took her purse and got out of the station wagon. Sheriff Boadeen said nothing as she walked around, and he reached over and unlocked the passenger’s door so she could get into the cruiser. As the powerful car pulled back out into the street, Ellie looked at the neat blank tablet and clipboard lying on the seat, the shortwave radio and the shining walnut stocked shotgun mounted the length of the dashboard on silver brackets.

  Boadeen saw her looking at the gun and smiled. “Husband know you’re here with me?”

  “I don’t know,” Ellie answered truthfully. “I think so.”

  “I think so too,” Boadeen said. He made a right turn and they went down one of Danton’s side streets.

  It was a typical small Midwestern town, new brick buildings next to old white frames, gas stations, a confectionery, hardware store, bank, post office, and here and there a glimpse of nothing behind them.

  “I knew you’d meet me,” Boadeen said casually.

  Ellie didn’t answer.

  “You and Lou ain’t like most couples that come to the lake. I spotted it right off. So, according to my job, I did a little checking. You’re not really from Chicago, are you?”

  “We are,” Ellie said. “We told you we had an unlisted number. Lots of people have unlisted numbers.”

  “Still,” Boadeen said, looking ahead as he drove, “you two just don’t fit right. Like the fact that you get no mail, and the way you’re all nervous and wanted me to leave in a hurry the first time I met you.”

  Ellie turned her eyes on him honestly. “We’re not lawbreakers, Sheriff.”

  Boadeen gave his precise chuckle. “Why, I didn’t say you were. But I do believe you’re hiding from something.”

  The cruiser’s engine broke into a deeper roar as they took a hill.

  “You’re right, Sheriff,” Ellie said in a defeated voice. “We’re hiding from my ex-husband. He doesn’t want me to leave him and he hates Lou. He even tried to kill him once, run over him with our car.”

  “Why didn’t you have him arrested?”

  “You should know, Sheriff; it takes proof. Trouble is, we probably won’t have proof until Lou or myself is dead. That’s why we decided to hide from him a while, to let him get used to the idea of me being gone, of Lou and me being together.”

  The sheriff digested that story slowly while Ellie hoped he believed her.

  “This ex-husband of yours following you?”

  “We think he might be. That’s why we didn’t tell anyone where we were going.”

  Boadeen patted her on the knee, then let his hand rest there. “Don’t be too upset, Ellie. That kind of thing happens all the time, but the husband seldom does anything about it. I’ve got the statistics to prove it.”

  Ellie made no attempt to remove his hand. “I hope you’re right, Sheriff. But you can see why I was frightened.”

  “Surely can.”

  They were out of Danton now, surrounded by fields of ripe corn, tall green stalks that stretched away on either side of them. It was like a bug’s eye view of a gigantic carpet. Dragonflies flitted now and then across the highway, and one struck the windshield with a loud smack that made Ellie wince.

  Boadeen lifted his hand from her knee, slowed for a clearing that he must have known about and veered off the highway for a quick U-turn to head them back toward Danton. The hand returned to her stockinged knee, resting higher up on her thigh this time. She sat quietly.

  “Would you like to go by the office?” Boadeen asked.

  “Sure,” Ellie said, “why not?”

  “I thought you’d see it that way,” Boadeen said. “I thought so the first time I saw you there at the lake.”

  “I know,” Ellie said.

  “You knew it would happen, didn’t you?”

  “I did.”

  They reentered Danton on a side street that ran parallel to the main highway and drove for about five minutes before stopping at the rear of a two story brick building. There was one set of yellow lines leading to the building, and Boadeen ran the car between them, facing a metal sign with his name and a gold shield painted on it mounted on the brick wall. They got out of the car and Boadeen reached without looking for the correct key that hung on the huge key ring on his belt. He swiveled his hip and inserted the key in one motion and they entered through the rear door.

  There was no one in the office and the Venetian blinds on the front window were closed. A massive desk sat catercorner facing the door. There were two telephones on the desk and that was all. Beneath a bulletin board decorated neatly with wanted posters was a table with shortwave radio transmitter and an electric coffeepot on it. The walls by the desk were lined with filing cabinets, metal bookshelves, and a cherry wood gun rack with a padlocked chain running through the trigger guards of the dozen or so rifles and shotguns it held.

  “Looks efficient,” Ellie said. She knew what to say.

  “It is efficient,” Boadeen said proudly. “It’s a firm step upward.”

  “Will you remember me when you get to be governor?” Ellie asked with her quiet smile.

  Boadeen smiled back. “Why, I reckon that sort of depends on you, Ellie.”

  “I suppose you’ll remember me,” Ellie said. She walked to a bookcase and examined the leather-bound books. There were titles on law enforcement techniques, legal decisions, judges on the Supreme Court, firearms, civil liberties.

  “Did you read all these?” Ellie asked, running her fingernail across the bindings of the books as a small boy might run a stick along a picket fence.

  “They’re reference works,” Boadeen said. “All written by experts. I’m a self-educated man. I never wasted my time with the tripe they’re teaching in colleges.”

  “You must know a lot,” Ellie said, taking in the book-lined walls with a toss of her head.

  Boadeen’s professionally bland face broke into a smile. “I make what I know work. I campaigned myself to get a bond issue passed that’d buy all this equipment, so I could do the job right to the letter.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Ellie said.

  Boadeen cocked his head at her. “You want to see the holdover?”

  “Holdover?”

  “The cell block, where I keep dangerous criminals until the State Patrol transfers them to prison. It’s through that door there.”

  Ellie hesitated. “Is there anyone…in there now?”

  “No, no,” Boadeen said reassuringly, walking to the thick wooden door and opening it. “If there was I surely wouldn’t take you in there.”

  A few feet beyond the wooden door was a door lined with sheet metal and held shut by a sliding bolt lock. Sheriff Boadeen slipped the bolt and switched on a light.

  The cell block was windowless, odorless. Steel and concrete bounced back the sound of their footsteps. Boadeen turned another light switch to reveal harshly shadowed rows of gleaming steel bars forming an aisle that lead to a blank cinder block wall.

  They took a few steps forward and Ellie saw that each cell contained a porcelain wash basin, a toilet and a small bunk covered with a gray woolen blanket.

  “It looks escape proof,” she said admiringly. She’d decided to do a good job of alleviating the sheriff’s suspicions, of making him not want to be suspicious. It wouldn’t be all that hard for her to put her heart into her work.

  “No one has ever got out,” Boadeen said, the echo taking the softness from his Midwestern drawl. He stepped forward and opened the section of bars that was the door of the cell nearest them. His free hand pressed on the small of Ellie’s back and he drew her to him. He began to kiss her warmly on the ear.

  Ellie didn’t struggle. “I thou
ght you lived upstairs.”

  “Why, I do,” Boadeen whispered, “but this is better. This is the most private place in town. Bars are made to keep people out as well as in, you know.”

  “If you say so, Sheriff.”

  Practiced fingers ran down the buttons on the back of her white blouse and unfastened her brassiere strap. She gasped involuntarily as one of her breasts was suddenly cupped in Boadeen’s broad hand. He fondled her for a moment and then let go of her, nudging her gently into the cell. Ellie let her blouse and bra fall to the cement floor as she turned and sat down on the edge of the bunk.

  Sheriff Boadeen stepped into the cell. On his face was a vague smile that came and went with his heavy breathing as he stood looking down at Ellie. That stiff, backward motion of his arm, and the cell door slammed shut loudly with an echoing, metallic clank.

  “Makes a hell of a sound, doesn’t it?” Boadeen said, and he began to undo his belt buckle.

  For Boadeen it was conquest; for Ellie it was mere expediency.

  Roebuck stood and watched from the cabin as Ellie parked the station wagon, watched her sit for a long moment before getting out and looking toward the lake to draw the fresh breeze into her lungs. He let the screen door slam behind him as he sauntered off the plank porch and walked toward her.

  “Get your shopping done?”

  “Sure.” Ellie smiled and nodded.

  Roebuck opened the tailgate of the station wagon. “Only one bag?”

  “Our sheriff was exaggerating about the low prices at Blatkin’s,” Ellie said, “but I had to buy a few things just in case he did some more checking on us. Besides, there were some things we needed.”

  They went into the cabin and Roebuck sat at the kitchen table while she put the groceries away.

  “Did you happen to see Sheriff Boadeen?”

  Ellie squeezed a head of lettuce experimentally. “I saw him, but he was on the other side of the street and he didn’t see me. I was glad to leave it that way.”

  Roebuck felt a bead of sweat run down the inside of his arm, zigzag to a stop, then continue toward his elbow more slowly. He clenched the fist of that arm with his thumb inside his fingers. He wanted to believe her, but there was just no way to know for sure. He should believe her, he told himself; there was really no reason not to believe her. Roebuck turned the whole thing over and over in his mind like a mental diamond, choosing his facets. Again he was at that most agonizing of crossroads, the pause of the pendulum, the moment of noncommitment.