"An intensive search is being made for Fitzmartin and Miss Stamm. Full details of the case have not yet been released, but it is believed that there is some connection between Fitzmartin and the bodies discovered yesterday at the summer cottage. It is expected that federal authorities will be called in on the case today. Miss Ruth Stamm is twenty-six years old, five feet eight inches tall, and weighs about a hundred and twenty-eight pounds. She has dark red hair and gray eyes and was last seen wearing a dark green skirt and a white cardigan sweater. Fitzmartin is about thirty years old, six feet tall, weighs about a hundred and eighty pounds. He has very blond, almost white hair, pale gray eyes. He may be driving a black Ford, license BB67063. Anyone seeing persons of this description should contact the police at once. Listen again at eight o'clock to WRED for complete local news."
The disc jockey stopped and whistled softly. "How about that, folks? They give me this stuff to read and sometimes I read it and don't even listen. But that's a hot one. That one can grab you. Bodies under concrete. Cars in lakes. Suicides that aren't suicides. A red-headed gal and an ex-Marine. Man, that's a crazy mixed-up deal they've got down there in Hillston. That's got all the makings of a national type crime. Well, back to the mines. Got to spin some of this stuff. But before I do, let me tell you a little something you ought to know, you good folks out there, about the Atlas Laundry and Dry Cleaning people right here in Redding, over on Downey Street. If you've got clothes you're really proud of, and I guess we all got one set of those good threads at least, then you—"
The fat young girl behind the counter turned off the radio. "That character," she said amiably to me. "Ten minutes of commercials between every number. Drive you nuts. I just turn him on for the news. If you want, I can turn him back on or find something else."
"No thanks."
"How about that Stamm girl? I met her once. We had this dog, see. Got him when he was a puppy. But this highway, it's bad to try to have a dog when you live on the highway. He got himself hit and we took him to Stamm's. The girl was real nice. Pretty sort of girl. But Blackie was too far gone. Busted his back, so they had to give him a shot. Honest, I cried. And you know what I think? I think it's a big deal for those two. I think she maybe ran off with that Marine. You can figure she wasn't getting any younger. She'll hear about all the mess she's causing and she'll get in touch. That's just what will happen."
"Could be," I said.
"Of course it could be. You want more coffee, maybe? Sometimes I think I'd run off with anybody asked me just to get out of this rat race. That's on my bad days. Isn't this day a stinker, though? It keeps coming down like this, every creek in the county will be flooded. It gives me the creeps to think about those two buried under a garage floor all that time. I never knew her, but my sister knew her. She was in the high school with her, before my time. My sister says she did a lot of running around. The way I see it, mister, if a husband catches his wife and another man, he's got a right to kill the two of them. It's like what they say the unwritten law. When I get married, I'm not going to do any cheating. I guess it isn't so bad if a man does a little cheating. They're all alike, beg your pardon. But no woman with a home and husband and everything has any right to jump the fence. Don't you think so? He made his big mistake burying the two of them like he did. He should have just got on the phone and said to the police, 'You boys come out here and see what I did and why.' Then it would have been just what they say formalities. The way I look at it—"
I was saved by two truck drivers who came in from the big red combo that had just parked in front of the place. After she served them she came back, but I had finished.
As she gave me my change she said, "You remember what I told you, now. That girl and that Marine ran off some place. Drive carefully."
I drove on through the rain. The cars I met were proceeding with great care. It should have been full daylight, but it hadn't gotten appreciably lighter since first dawn. It was almost nine o'clock before I got to Redding. I parked near a drugstore and phoned her number from a booth in the back of the store.