A shrill noise now came from under the gag, as if Mrs. Havermann had swallowed a toy whistle. The whipping motion of her lower limbs was slowing down. She tried to push herself erect by means of her bound hands, but soon fell back.

Eddie had gone out of the room. “You just take a nice little nap,” Skip said to Mrs. Havermann, and kicked her foot back into the closet and shut the door.

They went back to the search. Skip looked through Mrs. Havermann’s room before leaving it, inspecting a sewing box, a big basket of mending, a small black trunk. Everything the old woman owned, he thought, stank of moth balls. When he lifted the trunk lid the odor was almost stifling. He noted that in the top tray there lay a large framed photograph, the picture of a stout man with an autocratic and arrogant expression.

Havermann, he thought.

He rifled the trunk, threw stuff back into it, shut the lid. Hell, there was no money in this room. Nor in this part of the house, either. He thought about the cupboard where he’d found the two packets hidden behind the dog food. There ought to be a clue there. Something had made her change her mind. She’d thought of a better spot. Skip tried to figure out what there was about the cupboard or the stored dog food to remind her of some better place, tried to think as Mrs. Havermann would have thought, and failed. Neither the cupboard nor the dog food reminded him of a thing.

There was an especially loud thump from the closet, as if Mrs. Havermann had made one last try for the door with a heel. Then there was silence.

Skip left the room, went downstairs, and then, taking care to move silently, he went out into the rear yard. He needed to reassure himself that Big Tom wasn’t out there. He scouted around the car, looked down the driveway to the street. It would be a hell of a note if Big Tom showed up and caught them here in the middle of the search. Skip pulled off the stocking from his face, smoked a cigarette, sheltering the lighted tip inside his palm, watching the street and trying to think his way past the stalemate. The old woman had outfoxed them, beaten them. Skip hissed the killdeer cry between his teeth and thought of what he would like to do to her.

All at once he saw Eddie in the porch used as a laundry room. Eddie moved over to the door and peered out and said, “Skip, we’ve got to get out of here!”

Skip walked toward him, pulling on the mask. “You can say that again,” he growled.

“I’ve been thinking. Mrs. Havermann’s going to have to tell us. Not by hurting her. But we could threaten to do something. Like burn the house down.”