The district attorney ate up the rest of his thumb nails.
The sheriff had the bewildered look of a child who had held a balloon in his hand, had heard a pop, and couldn’t understand where the balloon had gone.
I pretended I was perfectly satisfied.
“Now we’re back where we started,” the district attorney wailed disagreeably, as if it was everybody’s fault but his, “and with all those weeks wasted.”
The sheriff didn’t look at the district attorney, and didn’t say anything.
I said:
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. We’ve made some progress.”
“What?”
“We know that Sherry and the dinge have alibis.”
The district attorney seemed to think I was trying to kid him. I didn’t pay any attention to the faces he made at me, and asked:
“What are you going to do with them?”
“What can I do with them but turn them loose? This shoots the case to hell.”
“It doesn’t cost the county much to feed them,” I suggested. “Why not hang on to them as long as you can, while we think it over? Something