Martin stared hard at her, but the expression on his face was quite unlike the looks he had been giving her earlier in the day. “Elaine?”
“My name is not Elaine—” she began.
“Just as it’s not Nancy, I’m sure,” I put in.
Her green eyes sparked, and she spun on her heel and stalked back into the bedroom. Without a word, she began to don her discarded items of clothing.
Martin walked half as far and was reaching out towards her when he stopped and looked back at me. “All right, Victor. Let’s have it. And it damn well better be good, or you’re in a world of trouble.”
“To begin with, there’s no such publication as Curious Casebook. It’s a name she made up, probably on the spur of the moment. She wanted an excuse to get close to you so she could quiz you about current cases. Hers, in particular. That way she would know how much danger she was in.”
“But Elaine had blonde hair,” Martin protested. “And the Ferrari.”
“The red hair was just a red herring. She could just as easily have been a brunette, the bottles are on the same shelf at the drug store,” I pointed out. “Either the green eyes are contacts, or the blue ones were. Perhaps both, for all I know. The Ford is a rental car. It’s a great deal less conspicuous than a Ferrari.”
Elaine, or Nancy, or whatever her name was, was ignoring us. Moving efficiently, she pulled on her blouse, buttoned it, and reached for the various items of jewelry on the nightstand.
“But why stay in town? Why come after me?” Martin cried.
“Call it Tom Sawyer watching his own funeral. Call it a thrill seeker wanting the adrenaline rush of taunting fate. Call it a pro wanting to keep tabs on the progress of the search for herself. My guess is that she was in the process of setting up a new persona, and decided that, as long as she was in the area, she might as well see how close you were getting.”
Martin frowned. “But why set up an alias here? Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Certainly, but it does have a few points going for it. One is that this is the last place anyone would think to look for her. After all, everyone immediately assumed that she had hit the road—not once did we even consider that she might be under our very noses. Another benefit of staying here is that if someone wants a previous address, she can give one that will actually check out, should anyone bother to call.”
Martin rubbed his temples wearily. “Nancy, do you have anything to say?” Poor Martin was torn. On one hand, he didn’t want to be wrong; didn’t want to have been played for a fool. On the other hand, he was beginning to see the logic behind what I was saying.
She carefully applied fresh lipstick, checked her hair in a mirror, and turned to face us. “Really, there’s nothing to say. I’ve been tried and convicted by that,” here she gestured disdainfully at me, “one-eyed kangaroo court from some hellhole planet.” She swept past Martin, but paused at the bedroom door, smiled provocatively back at him and said, “Besides… you can’t prove a thing.”
She began walking rapidly towards the front door, heels clicking briskly. Unable to resist the parting gesture, she paused with her hand on the knob and said, “It’s been nice knowing you, Martin—you’re actually kind of sweet. I wish I could say the same for your pet fire hydrant.”
She opened the door, turned… and ran face first into the broad chest of Sebastian Michael Grombaugh III.
He looked down at the improbably perfect lip prints on his immaculately tailored shirt, then back at her and raised an eyebrow sardonically. “Going somewhere, Elaine?”
Late the next afternoon, Grombaugh dropped by the office, smiling broadly, if a bit wistfully. “Good afternoon, Victor. I hope you’re doing well.”
“Quite well. And you?” I responded formally.
The sad smile he gave me spoke volumes. “To be frank with you, I rather wish that things had turned out differently. I really was quite taken with her, you know.”
Martin appeared in his office door. “Ah, there you are,” Grombaugh said. “I thought I would drop by and pay my bill in person. It would be difficult to explain to Bird if it were to come to the house.”
“So the Ferrari was where she said it was?” Martin asked.
Grombaugh nodded. “In a rental garage across town, yes. And the vast majority of the money was in the trunk, just as she claimed. She had spent a few thousand, but I can make up that much without trouble. As of this moment, it is safely back in the safe, so to speak.”
“You remembered to change the combination?” I asked.
“The first thing I did,” he assured me. “All the locks have been rekeyed, too. I told Bird that I had heard something about thieves.” Again, he smiled ruefully. “Rather closer to the truth than I care to admit.”
“What did you do with Elaine after you retrieved the car and the money?” Martin asked.
“Turned her loose, unfortunately. There wasn’t much else I could do without bringing the law into the picture.”
“So she’s free to do it again.”
“Yes, I’m afraid so. However, I’m confident that some day she’ll meet her match. For the moment, I’m content to have come that close to the fire without being burned—at least not seriously, anyway. It was a learning experience, and for that I should be grateful, I suppose.”
He slipped his hand inside his jacket and brought out an envelope, which he gave to Martin. “There’s your fee, as we discussed. I would like to express my gratitude for the prompt and professional job that you did on this matter.” He reached back into his jacket and brought out another envelope, which he placed in Martin’s other hand. “This is a little bonus, for which I would like to ask a favor.”
Martin, eyes wide, said, “Of course.”
“Due to the delicate nature of the situation, should Bird ever find out that I was acquainted with Miss Hinds, I would appreciate it if you would assure her that I met Elaine through you—that Elaine was your, er, friend, rather than mine.”
Martin, blushing furiously, nodded, clearly not trusting himself to speak.
“We’ll be more than happy to do so,” I told Grombaugh.
“Good. I’ve followed you two for quite some time and, as Bird will attest, I am sometimes given to prattling on about your exploits. I’m just lucky that she never found out that anything was amiss, as she would have known who I would turn to. Shortly thereafter she would have been asking embarrassing questions. Still might, should I have unwisely left any loose ends. For that reason, I thought that it would be wise to arrange our stories ahead of time.”
“If Bird should get in touch, we’ll simply explain that you wanted to meet Victor in person and that Elaine chanced to be there at the time,” Martin said.
“And never let on that the meeting was at your apartment in the wee hours of the night, following a call from Victor,” Grombaugh said, winking. “I think that will do admirably.” He smiled again and turned towards the door. “I’ll be going now. I wish you both well.”
And with that, he was gone.
I looked at Martin. “Well, that clears up my one remaining question.”
“And that was?” he prompted.
“How Elaine knew to come after you, as opposed to any other detective in town. Clearly, Grombaugh must have talked about us to her, the same way he does to Bird.”
“And I thought it was my good looks,” he said dejectedly.
“Just be glad that you didn’t have anything worth taking. If she had done the same job on you that she did on Grombaugh, it would have set you back ten years just to buy another car.”
“I suppose you want me to thank you for saving me from her,” he groused.
“It was a near thing,” I agreed, rubbing it in. “Realistically speaking, we were dead in the water as far as tracking her. That would have cost us Grombaugh’s case. And there you were, about to become the barracuda’s next meal.”