Mike shook his head. “I don’t follow you.”

“I’m trying something. A man can be quiet most of the time, but not necessarily always for the same reason. Suppose he cared for his girl friend and felt guilty over the way it turned out? You know what I mean. His reaction was so quick that night he came home bleeding, that you could believe that he had expected something bad. So he tried to make it up to her another way.”

“There’s no one like that on the lists, Joe.”

“You’re looking at me as if I had lost my mind.”

“She almost killed him. Why would he want to make anything up to her?”

“I said that I was only trying it. Suppose she didn’t know he was married? Suppose she did and he had led her to believe he was going to divorce Betty and marry her, and then changed his mind? That would make the best kind of woman act badly. That’s the thing, the kind of woman she was.”

“There’s no evidence of her anywhere. I think you ought to forget it.”

“I know how he felt about his wife. He was capable of just what I’m saying.”

“You think you know how he felt. How can you be sure? Some of these people in Rainbow have moved their operation into Clausen County. There are letters alluding to that. He started it. He had to expect it to spread. That was the kind of man he was.”

“I’ve been hearing things about Clausen. And there’s the possibility that it’s going into Manitou. Karen overheard a conversation on Monday. But I do know that stuff—how he felt.” He looked at Mike, wondering what he thought. “She’s not simply the nice kid she seemed to you.” He stopped. It was too general, too subject to misinterpretation.

“Look, Joe, don’t make the mistake of projecting yourself into the case. You may be the sort of man to feel guilty about driving a woman to attack you. I think you would want to make it up to her. That’s you, not him. All right, he had an attractive, interesting wife and a taste for luxury. Anyone could share those things. But I know how much time and effort he put into Rainbow. It isn’t something he toyed with. He was close enough long enough to know as well as he knew his name that it came down to stealing from his country, abusing the poor, and thwarting the hopes of honorable men who thought the law could work. He kept at it in the face of all those things. Bear that in mind. As I began to get the idea of the thing I was so dazzled I was envious. He was smarter than I am. I had to stop and put it in perspective. There were the cartons of evidence of the labor he put into a way to steal. Don’t place yourself in his class. He was something quite apart. I didn’t want to think that, but it’s true. You know me. He was something very different from the rest of us. I had to face it.”