I wanted to pace or crack my knuckles or do anything other than sit and listen to those two babble on. Most of all I wanted to join Lynda at Mac’s house. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore and I eased myself out of the studio. After all, I’d done my duty just by making sure that Nakamora had arrived on time. I was sure he could find his way back upstairs.
The glass door to the studio had just closed behind me when I heard, “Cody! Hold it right there.”
It was the law. And he was wearing a deerstalker cap.
Chapter Twenty-Nine - Police Procedures
“Popcorn told me I’d find you here.”
“Oscar, you look ridiculous in that deerstalker,” I said.
“I’m just trying it on.” At least he had just enough taste to sound a little defensive. “You liked the Panama hat better?”
I ignored that.
We started walking toward a bench across from the studio.
“How’s the investigation going?”
“It’s continuing.”
Wow, that was informative. “Throw me a bone here, Oscar. For instance, did you find out who it was your witness saw coming out of Matheson’s room, wearing the deerstalker?” He hesitated, as if he didn’t want to tell me, so I went into persuasion mode. “Come on, Oscar. I have a stake in this. We’re on my turf here. I just want to know where things stand.”
He shook his head. “Nobody admitted it, and it could have been just about any clown in this carnival.”
We sat down.
“Including a woman?” I pressed. “You said ‘he’ when you told me about it, but couldn’t it have been a woman, like Molly Crocker, for example?” I was having a hard time letting go of that particular bone, even though I liked her.
“I guess so, if she were dressed in a man’s clothing or something that could pass for it - gender-neutral, I guess you’d call it. Funny you should mention the judge, though. We had an interesting conversation, for reasons I won’t get into. I think she’s clean. If she hasn’t killed that lunatic she’s married to, I figure she wouldn’t kill anybody.”
I could see his point. That would make an interesting defense strategy.
“So you’re nowhere on the deerstalkers?”
“I didn’t say that and don’t put words in my mouth. I got the names of the five people who bought deerstalkers from that guy selling them along with the books. I’ve got Gibbons working the list.”
Damn. I should have pressed Pinkwater on that.
“Five not counting you, I presume. Anybody I know?”
“I don’t know who you know, but I’m drawing the line there, pal. I’m not giving you any names. Besides, it may not mean anything anyway. We’ve got a new witness, a woman on the housekeeping staff, who got a better look at a guy coming out of Matheson’s room.”
Now he tells me. In the news business, that’s what is known as “burying the lead.”
“He was a redhead,” Oscar added. “That’s all I know right now. What I wanted to tell you is, I’m going back to the Winfield right now to interview the witness myself.”
Somebody saw me. Fighting panic, I tried to pretend my hair wasn’t the color of a carrot and this couldn’t possibly have anything to do with me.
“Al Kane is a red-head,” I mused, hating myself for casting suspicion on one of my favorite writers. “And we know he likes guns.” I was thinking of all those years of National Pistol Association commercials that ended with him pointing a Magnum .357 right at the viewer.
“He claims he’s never even owned a gun,” Oscar said. “I’ve got a search warrant to have all the hotel rooms checked. We’re looking for a .32 revolver. The bullet was still in the body, didn’t go right through. That and the fact that there were no powder burns - ‘tattooing’ they call it - probably means the killer wasn’t too close to the body. Now, that’s kind of odd. How far away can you get in a hotel room? But it doesn’t tell us much. And, of course, the killer wiped the place clean of fingerprints.”
Happy as I was that I hadn’t missed any of my prints or Lynda’s, I also felt guilty that I’d possibly destroyed important evidence. But what were the chances of that, really? In detective stories, fingerprints are almost always false clues that get the wrong people in trouble. Surely whoever killed Matheson knew enough to wipe up afterwards.
“But I have a hard time figuring Al Kane for this,” Oscar went on. “From what I can tell, he’s about the least popular guy here but that’s just because he isn’t one of those Sherlockian wackos. I don’t see a motive. In fact, I don’t see a reason for anybody to kill Matheson. But then again, I also don’t see why a guy with all his dough would steal the stuff from that collection. Kleptomania, maybe?”
“What!”
Oscar looked puzzled. “Didn’t Ed Decker tell you? I told my guys to let him know. We found two of the missing books in Matheson’s hotel room.”
Chapter Thirty - Not Tonight, I Have a Headache
My surprise was a put-on, of course. Oscar’s force is small but not incompetent. I knew they would find the books sooner or later, or the housekeeping staff would.
But Oscar wasn’t within a mile of solving this murder. And so far as I could tell, neither was Mac - never mind his mysterious pronouncements designed to give that impression.
That left it up to me - and Lynda. Having no more real questions for the chief, I wrapped up the conversation and walked out of Muckerheide Center as casually as I could muster.
Then I broke into a jog.
Not much more than fifteen minutes later, taking a few shortcuts along the way, I arrived at the old McCabe house on Half Moon Street. I didn’t have my key, having given it to Lynda, so I banged the iron door knocker. A long minute passed without the door opening. I banged again, loud enough to wake the dead. Still no answer.
Finally I turned the doorknob and gave an experimental push. The door opened.
“Anybody home?” I yelled, standing in the hallway. The words seemed to echo off the brass hall tree, the antique secretary, the framed paintings. Everything was familiar, yet somehow ominous. The silence was creeping me out. “Lynda!” I called
No response.
She might have completed her reconnaissance mission in Mac’s guest suite and returned to St. Benignus already - except that I’d seen her yellow Mustang in the driveway outside my carriage house apartment.
I moved through the house slowly, like a thief in the night. That made no sense at all after the racket I’d already made, but I was functioning on the level of raw nerves and instinct now; sense or nonsense had nothing to do with it.
Within several feet of the guest suite I could see that the door was open. Nothing surprising about that, but it made the hair on the nape of my neck do handstands. I walked even slower, trying to prepare myself for whatever I might find in the room.
It didn’t work, of course; nothing could prepare me for the awful sight of Lynda lying just inside the guest room, limp and lifeless as a marionette with its strings cut. Her body was curled almost in a fetal position, with her legs bent back and one of her blue-gray shoes off.
Unsteady on my legs, I dropped to my knees and felt her pulse. It was strong.
Satisfied that she was in no danger of dying, I held her hand and kissed her on the forehead. “Lynda, Lynda,” I murmured, not expecting her to hear. “If we could get back together, I’d never be a jerk again.”
Her eyelashes flickered. Her lips parted and a sound came out, halfway between a moan and a mumble.
“Lynda! Easy now,” I said. “Don’t strain yourself, honey.”
She muttered something. I put my left ear next to her lips.
“Jeff.” She swallowed.
“Yes?”
“What you just said. Was that a promise?”
“Well, I could try.”
She managed a rueful grin. “Nice loophole. Listen, Jeff, I want you to know that Maggie didn’t really break her ankle in a parachuting accident. She barely strained it.”