CHAPTER 20He put down the phone. “Well, that’s that,” he thought. “That’s telling ’em.” Then, in a moment or two, the bitter glow of satisfaction he felt at so telling them lost its glow and left nothing but the bitterness prompted by a sneaking suspicion that he Jonas Smith had acted like a first-class skunk. If she hadn’t known about the shot, if she’d heard it and thought it was a car back-firing in the street, he’d certainly done a fine job telling her. A skunk, a louse, he thought—the victim of wounded ego trying to get even.
It was a filthy trick. He reached for the phone again, wrung by a sharp contrition, and let his hand drop to his side. There was nothing to tell her. The damage was done. He couldn’t make her stop worrying now that she knew. And maybe it was best she did know. S
