Murder in the Wind Read Free

sheets.”
    He stood up slowly. “Very efficient, aren’t you?” The way he said it made it unpleasant.
    “I’m a demon packer-upper,” she said lightly.
    He looked at her and then looked away. It was not often lately that he looked directly into her eyes. When he did she saw the lost look in his eyes, the uncertainty. “At least that bucket won’t overheat on us. It’s damn sticky feeling, though.”
    “I guess it’s the tail end of that hurricane.”
    “We’ll be out of the way of it soon enough.”
    “Hal, I’m sort of anxious to see autumn in the north. People raking leaves. Football weather. All that.”
    “How obliging of you.”
    “Please, darling. Don’t.”
    “Then stop being pollyanna and trying to make everything come out cozy and perfect. It isn’t coming out cozy and perfect, so why not admit it.”
    “And go around wringing my hands and moaning?”
    “Like I do?”
    “I didn’t mean that and you know it. Hal, let’s try to be a little bit cheery, even if it hurts.”
    He clapped his hands sourly. “Goody, goody. We’re going on a trip.” He trudged to the bathroom, head bowed, pyjamas too baggy on his body. She looked at the closed door and sighed again and finished folding the bedding. She put on her Dacron skirt and a light-weight blouse. She took the bedding into the kitchen and put it on the counter near the carport door.
    They left at eight o’clock. Before they left she went in and took one last look around. The house was bare and impersonal. It was as though they had never lived there. They dropped off the keys. They ate at the diner. Hal seemed to be making an effort to be pleasant. Stevie was naughty enough to merit the threat of a spanking. They drove out toward the Courtney Campbell Causeway and turned north on Route Nineteen. The heavy rain cut visibility. The quality of the light seemed more like dusk than morning. All cars had their lights on. The wipers swept solid water off the windshield. She touched Hal’s arm lightly and was relieved when he smiled over at her.
    A few miles from Clearwater they turned on the car radio. “… to give you the latest word on Hurricane Hilda. Hilda is now reported to be in the Gulf about a hundred miles west and a little north of the Tampa Bay area. The central West Coast is experiencing heavy rains as far north as Cedar Key. Though the experts predicted that Hilda would begin to lose force during the night, it is reported that wind velocities near the center have actually increased and are now as high as a hundred and fifteen miles an hour. After moving on a steady course for many hours, the northward movement has slowed and it is less easy to predict the direction the storm will take. The Louisiana and Texas coasts have been alerted. We now return you to the program already in progress.”
    Hal turned the radio off after two bars of hillbilly anguish.
    “Could it come back in to land ahead of us?” Jean asked.
    “Could what come?” Stevie demanded, leaning over the front seat. “Could what come?”
    “The hurricane, dear,” Jean said, knowing that it might take his mind off the woes of leaving Clearwater.
    “Wow!” Stevie said, awed.
    “This rain, Stevie,” Hal said, “always comes ahead of a hurricane, but we’re sort of on the edge of it. It’s going up the Gulf and I don’t think it will cut back this way.”
    “I hope it does,” Stevie said firmly.
    “And I most fervently hope it doesn’t,” Jean said.
    “It would be pretty improbable,” Hal said. Ahead of the car, in the gloom, he saw the running lights of a truck. He eased up behind it, moved out, accelerated, dropped back into his lane in front of the truck.
    I can do this, he thought. I can drive just fine. I can boil right along in the old wagon without endangering my three hostages to fortune. What else can I do? Shave neatly and tie my shoes and make standard small talk. And make a living in a very narrow and specialized profession.
    We went down