“I wanted to go back and hear what Tim was saying, so I’d know where I stood, but I was leery of being the first one there. So I had to wait till the girl got to him, listening all the time to his squawking, but too far away to make it out. When she got to him, I ran over and got there just as he died trying to say my name.

“I didn’t think about that being Whisper’s name till she propositioned me with the suicide letter, the two hundred, and the rock. I’d just been stalling around, pretending to get the job lined up⁠—being on the force then⁠—and trying to find out where I stood. Then she makes the play and I know I’m sitting pretty. And that’s the way it went till you started digging it up again.”

He slopped his feet up and down in the mud and added:

“Next week my wife got killed⁠—an accident. Uh-huh, an accident. She drove the Ford square in front of No. 6 where it comes down the long grade from Tanner and stopped it there.”

“Is Mock Lake in this county?” I asked.