Two men in black raincoats and uniform caps with plastic rain covers got out, one of them going out of sight in the direction of the cottage next door. The other was turning this way. I dropped the curtain back in place just in time. A heavy step sounded on the porch, and then the door moved slightly beside my hand as he tried the knob. He rattled it once, and checked the window. I held my breath.

He tested the window at the front of the kitchen. I heard the padlock on the garage doors rap against the wood as he went by and slapped it with a hand to be sure it was fastened. He was going around the side of the garage. The hat, I thought. Somebody had found the damned thing, and now they knew they had me pinned down in this jerkwater town. No, maybe it was just a routine check-up of unoccupied summer cottages—

Then fear hit me in the back like icy water. I’d forgotten that broken pane of glass. And the kitchen door was unlocked!

Somehow I put the coffee cup on the desk without dropping or rattling it and sped toward the kitchen. My bare feet made no sound on the tile. Just as I reached the door I heard him call out to the other one.

“Hey, Roy. Come here!”

He’d discovered the broken window.

I shoved a finger against the button in the center of the knob and pressed. There was only a faint click as it locked, but it seemed to hang there in the silence forever. I breathed again, afraid to move or even take my hand away from the knob.

“Look at this,” I heard him say then. “I think he’s been here.”

Somebody had found the hat. And even with the rain, there’d still be tracks and my long skid marks in the mud, so they’d know I had unloaded from the freight. They probably had the town surrounded by now.

“Knocked it out so he could reach the latch,” said a purring and very Southern voice. Roy had come over. “You look inside?”

“You think I’m nuts? He may have a gun.”

I wondered where they thought I’d got one. My muscles ached from the tense and rigid position I was in. The cigarette in my left hand was beginning to burn my fingers. I was afraid even to let it fall to the floor; it might sound as if somebody had dropped a piano.

“Come out of there, Foley!” Roy ordered. There was a moment of complete silence, and then he said, “Let me have your flashlight.”

“Take it easy, will you?” the other replied. “He’s already killed one cop; one more ain’t going to bother him.”

“We got to see in there.”

“Christ—”

“Stand clear.” There was another instant of tense silence, and then Roy’s voice said, “He’s gone. But he’s been here. See all that water on the floor?”

“Yeah.”

The voices dropped to whispers.