“Lots of people have considered it,” I told him.
He seemed honestly surprised. “Really? A sweet kid like her? I can’t believe it.”
“Did you know her very well, Artie?”
“We dated a few times.” He looked up suddenly. “I’ve already told that to Sherlock Holmes. I don’t suppose it’s a secret, anyway.”
“Anything... serious?”
“No, just a few dates. I liked her company. She was levelheaded and intelligent, and I liked what she was trying to do with the show.”
I didn’t say anything because I’d been one of those who hadn’t liked what she was trying to do with the show. Artie sensed this and he added, “Hell, you can’t blame her for wanting to give it class.”
“I’m not blaming her,” I said.
“She gave you a rough time with your scripts, did she?”
“She did, but that doesn’t matter. Not now it doesn’t.”
“No, not now,” he agreed. He suddenly slapped the table top with his open palm. “Dammit, who’d want to kill her? You really think some stupid character would kill her because of the way she was running things? You really think that?”
“I don’t know, Artie.”
“You’ve got to be twisted to do something like that — really twisted, rotten inside.” He shook his head. “You can’t be normal and kill someone like Cynthia Finch.”
“I suppose not.”
Artie sighed wearily, passed a hand over his classic nose, and then gestured through the glass of the booth. “There’s Dave now,” he said.
“I’d better get down there,” I said.
“Sure. Ask him to let me know when he’s ready to test, will you?”
“Okay,” I said. I left the booth and went down to the floor. Dave was walking with his head bent, as if he were looking for clues in the concrete.
“Find anything?” I asked.
He looked up and shook his massive head. “I was looking for a blowtorch,” he said.
“The police didn’t turn one up, did they?”
“No. But they don’t know the studio as well as I do.”
“Did you find it?”
“No,” Dave said sadly. He looked at me solemnly for a moment, and said, “Come over here, will you?”
“Sure,” I said, surprised. I followed him over to the rocket ship interior set, and Dave pulled up an aluminum stool near the port blister. Outside the blister, a painted backdrop of black space and brilliant white stars showed above Dave’s head. “I... I want some advice.”
“Sure,” I said. “What is it?”
Dave reached for a pair of calipers hanging on a string from the ship’s plotting board. He held them in his beefy hands, opening and closing the pointed tips. “I’ve been wondering whether or not I should tell Hilton something. I figure he’ll find out anyway, but I sure as hell don’t want to get involved. Do you follow me?”
“So far. What is it you think he should know?”
Dave sucked in a heavy breath. “Cynthia and I were married,” he said.
“What?”
“Not now. I mean, not when she was killed. This was a long time ago, Jon. We were both kids, and it didn’t work out. I mean, well we went our separate ways. We were both in radio at the time, but Cynthia started fooling around with the theatre... well, I never guessed we’d both end up in television, and certainly not on the same damned show.” He looked at me mournfully.
“But you’re divorced,” I said.
“Yes. A long time ago. In fact, Cynthia had the marriage annulled. It was the best thing, Jon. We... we didn’t get along too well. I mean, we got along fine now, before she was killed, but it was different when we were married. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think I should tell Hilton?”
“I think so, yes.”
“You don’t think he’d misconstrue it? I mean, he won’t think I killed her because I was once married to her? You don’t think so?”
“He seems fairly intelligent,” I said, “if a bit obvious in his tactics.”
“That’s what I figured. But...” Dave shook his head again. “It’s a hard decision to make. I don’t want to get involved in this, you know. I mean, what the hell, she was the same to me as to anyone else. The marriage was a long time ago.”
“I understand, Dave.”
“Well, thanks,” he said heavily. “I guess I will tell him.”
“I think that’d be best.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” He still didn’t seem convinced. I left him to worry it out, telling him I was going down for a cup of coffee until the cast showed up. I was heading down the iron steps when I met Detective-Sergeant Hilton, minus his partner this time.
“Hello, Sergeant,” I said.
“Ah, Crane,” he answered, nodding. “Where you bound?”
“Cup of coffee,” I said.
“Mind if I come along?”
“Well...” I hesitated. “No, not at all.”
“Thanks,” he said. He turned, and we walked down the steps together, and out into the street. We didn’t say anything on the walk to the luncheonette, and the silence persisted until we’d both been served our coffee. Hilton stirred his, took a sip at it, and then put the cup back in the saucer.
“Got a few interesting items from the coroner and the lab boys,” he said, matter-of-factly.
“Oh?” I bit into my toasted English, sipped at my coffee, which was too hot, and looked at him interestedly.
“Yeah,” he said. His face was not as inscrutable now, nor did he affect the preoccupied, business-man cop attitude any longer. He could have been a close friend of mine discussing the plot for a new story. “Coroner says the burns didn’t kill her.”
This surprised me. I didn’t say anything, but I continued to look at Hilton. He nodded and said, “Back of her skull was cracked open. Coroner figures it happened when she hit the concrete floor.”
“But the burns...”
“Not really bad ones, and not enough to kill her instantly. Most burns won’t. We had a cop caught in a gas explosion once, and he came running out of the building like a goddamned torch. The pain was terrific, but he was conscious all the way to the hospital, and he didn’t go out until the doctors gave him morphine. And he didn’t die until four hours later. First degree burns, too. So even if a blow torch was used on Miss Finch, it’s doubtful she’d have been killed instantly.”
“What do you figure then?”
“Well, I’m not sure. I can’t picture someone deliberately setting fire to her, and yet it all points to that. She probably went up in flames, reared back, fell, and bashed in her skull.”
“Accidentally, you mean?”
“It’s still murder. I mean, if I show you a snake and you back away from it over the edge of a roof, that’s homicide. No two ways of looking at it.”
“Then a blowtorch was used on her?”
“No. Leastways, the lab boys don’t think so. They found traces of turpentine on her dress and in her hair.”
“Turpentine?”
“Yeah, highly inflammable, you know.” He looked at me like a man with a knotty storyline problem. “Does it sound screwy to you, too?”
“It does, yes.”
“I’m puzzled, so help me. Can you picture a guy throwing turps at her, and then lighting a match? What’s to gain? Was he trying to ruin her good looks? If so, he must have known the turps wouldn’t kill her. It’s screwy as hell.”
“Maybe the fire was an accident. Maybe she tripped over the turpentine or something. There’s always a lot of turps back there, guys painting sets, you know.”
“If she tripped over a can of the stuff, we’d have found traces on her stockings and shoes. She wasn’t burned below the waist, you know. It figures somebody threw a bucket of it at her. But why?”