The Drowner by John D. MacDonald

afford?”
    “I sneaked a thousand dollars out of a trust thing, fifteen hundred actually, a thousand for this. The Boston office explained to me that it won’t… last very long. I was thinking a thousand dollars might be enough, but now I guess it might not, really. Five hundred for the trip and all. I’ve got my ticket back, and I can take the time off charged to my vacation. And money to stay here a while.”
    He lost some of his poise again, and it made him look younger. “I want to tell you one thing. It’s sort of iffy, but it’s something you should understand. Because if you understand it in advance and have time to think about it, then there’s less chance of you doing something foolish if it comes up.”
    “What in the world…”
    The blue stare was cold and direct. “Law is a power equation, Barbara. Think of the things in a criminal case as a kind of a chain. The links are called accumulating evidence, proving motive, booking and charging, grand jury indictment, trial, conviction, sentence, appeal, confirmation, punishment. Money and power are like big nippers. They can open any link at any portion of the chain and the whole thing is over. Big local names in this, Barbara. Hanson. Kimber. So don’t be idealistic. I might be able to get the raw material for a pretty good file and turn it over to the authorities and have it sag into nothing. It would have to be a perfect file, unless it’s against somebody of no importance. And this power thing works more effectively in semi-rural areas like this one. There’ll be no fearless officials and no valiant newspaper to rally to the cause of eternal justice. Too much give and take is involved. It isn’t the best of all possible worlds, but it’s the best we have, and we’ve nailed some big ones.”
    “Are you trying to tell me that you might find out who killed my sister and still not be able to…”
    “We might come up with a reasonable certainty, and it wouldn’t be enough. And you might have to live with it, knowing X is down here, fat and happy and unpunished. Could you live with it?”
    “Why, I would shout it from the housetops and…”
    “Do time for criminal slander, or get grabbed and committed to a mental institution. Barbara, we either play this cold and go as far as we can and then quit and drop it, or we don’t start it at all.”
    She looked down for a long time and then gave a small jerky nod. She looked up at him with a wan smile. “The education of Barbara Larrimore,” she said.
    “I’m sorry you have to find out these things this way.”
    “Will I be able to help you in any way?”
    “It might be possible. I just don’t know what will open up.”
    “Are you going to read the letters now?”
    “I’ll go over them tonight. By the way, I checked in here, too. I’m on the other side, in the back. Unit 51.” He glanced at his watch and stood up. “I’ve got an appointment to see Doctor Nile. Do you have a car?”
    “No. This is so close in. Just three or four blocks to the middle of town.”
    “And people looking at you and telling each other who you are, and the bold ones coming over to extend sympathy? Are you ready for that?”
    “I was… wondering about it.”
    “Why don’t you try to take a nap? I’ll pick you up sometime after six and we’ll go eat over in Leesburg or Ocala. They’re both about thirty or forty minutes away.” He smiled. “And the mileage won’t go on my voucher. Sound all right to you?”
    “Yes it does, Paul. Thank you.”

Four
     
    DOCTOR RUFUS NILE was a short man of fifty, plump but without any suggestion of softness. He was a rubbery, darting, bouncing little man, pink and scrubbed and starched. He had an Einstein shock of gray hair, eyes a-goggle behind thick corrective lenses, a wide range of explosive conversational tricks, expressions, gestures—puffing his cheeks, smacking his lips, rolling his eyes, slapping, patting, thumping himself for all the world, Stanial thought, like