I made my way down a narrow aisle, turned right, and came out at a surprisingly modern-looking desk in the middle of a small clearing.
The woman working at the desk was somewhere in her late thirties, a redhead with very white skin, widely set green eyes, and a mouth that looked as if it could grow hard with no trouble at all. She was holding a small artist's brush, dusting carefully around the raised figures on what appeared to be some kind of urn.
I cleared my throat.
She glanced up at me and smiled. “I'm sorry,” she said, starting to rise. “I didn't realize anyone had come in.”
“Don't bother to get up,” I said.
She sank back down and her smile widened a little.” What can I do for you?”
I gestured toward the urn. “Very pretty,” I said.
She nodded proudly. “Yes, isn't it? Jasperware like this is all too rare. This is late eighteenth century.”
“Are you the proprietor?”
“Yes. I'm Mrs. Pedrick.”
“I'd like to ask you a few questions, Mrs. Pedrick.”
“About antiques? Why, of course.”
“About Nadine Ellison,” I said. “I understand you're acquainted with her.” I showed her my badge.
The smile stayed on her lips a full five seconds after it had left her eves. “You're a detective?”
“Detective Selby, Sixth Precinct.”
“But why in the world… What's happened?”
“We're not quite sure,” I said.
“Is Nadine in some kind of trouble?”
“No.”
I hadn't been wrong about her mouth; it grew hard with no difficulty whatever.
“Then just what is all this?” she demanded. “If Nadine's not in any trouble, then why—”
“It's generally best to leave most of the questions to the police,” I said. “When was the last time you saw Nadine, Mrs. Pedrick?”
She glared at me. “Not in ages,” she said, starting to get up again.
“Keep your seat, please, Mrs. Pedrick,” I said. “You saw her yesterday afternoon. It was somewhere around two o'clock.”
She sat down heavily, and suddenly her face seemed a great deal older. “That little dark-eyed witch down the hall!” she said, almost inaudibly. “She's the one; she has to be.”
“Maybe I'd better lock the door,” I said. “That way we won't be interrupted.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, perhaps you'd better.”
I walked back to the street door, threw the latch, pulled down the shade over the glass, and came back to the desk.
“Nadine a friend of yours?” I asked, sitting down on the edge of the desk.
She nodded. “In a way — yes.”
“You seem reluctant to talk about her. Why so?”
“It's so… well, so personal.”
“What's your first name, Mrs. Pedrick?” I asked.
“Iris.”
“And your husband's?”
“George.” She said the name firmly enough, but there was something about the way her eyes darted away from mine for an instant that made me decide to change the direction of my interrogation.
“George approve of Nadine, does he?” I asked.
“He — he doesn't know her.”
“In fact,” I said, throwing it away, “George doesn't even know about her.”
She glanced at me sharply, then looked away again and shook her head. “Of course he doesn't know about her,” she said. “There's no need to play cat and mouse with me, Mr. Selby.”
It was going much better than I'd had any right to expect. “There'll be no cat and mouse,” I said. “There'll be no trick questions and no fancy fencing technique. I'll ask some straight questions, and I'll expect some straight answers.” I paused. “Do we understand each other, Mrs. Pedrick?”
Her eyes were stricken. “Is there any way I can keep this from my husband?”
“You should have thought of that before,” I said.
“People are human,” she said. “They do human things.”
“Everything will depend entirely on how straight you talk.” I said. “We know a lot about Nadine Ellison, but we want to know more. We want to know everything you can tell us.”
“It's not myself I'm worried about,” she said dismally. “It's George. If he found out that I… “ She suddenly raised her hands to the top of the desk and clenched them together so tightly that the knuckles grew bone-white. “I'm not overstating it, Mr. Selby. If my husband found out about me, it would kill him.”
I didn't say anything.
“What — what do you want to know?” she asked.
“Everything,” I said. “You might begin with how you met her, and then give me sort of a freehand sketch of what happened, from then on up till now.”
“Can you promise me that George won't…?”
“The promises will depend,” I said. “I've already told you that.
“She bit at her lower lip for a few moments, then sighed resignedly and unclenched her hands. “I met her right here in the shop. I needed a girl to help out for a few days, and she was the first to answer my ad.”
“How long ago was this?”
“About six months ago.”
“You got along well, did you?”
“Yes. She's a very lovely and charming girl.” She hesitated.
“All right, Mrs. Pedrick, go ahead.”
“Well, we became friends — confidantes, really — almost right away. One thing led to another, and when she learned that I had a friend, she suggested that I might like to borrow her apartment.”
I nodded, as if she were merely confirming something I already knew.
“My husband has been ill for a long time,” she went on. “For several years. I… well, otherwise, I would have had no friend.”
“I'm only a cop, Mrs. Pedrick,” I said. “Not a judge.”
“To make it brief, I called my friend, and we went over to Nadine's apartment that same afternoon. From then on, we went there often — at least two or three times a week.”
“Right up till yesterday afternoon?” I said.
“Yes.”
“And always with the same friend?”
“Yes, always.”
“What's his name?”
“Do you absolutely have to know?”
“Yes.”
“Dycer,” she said. “Eddie Dycer.”
“Where can I find him?”
Her eyes strayed to the front of the shop and back again. “He tends bar across the street. In the Hi-Lo.”
I got out my notebook. “Miss Ellison seems to have been a very generous girl,” I said. “And not only with you.”
“You mean the way she loaned out her apartment?”
“Yes.”
“I paid her,” she said. “After the first two or three times we went over there, she began hinting around a bit.” She shrugged. “It was an inconvenience, of course-and I did appreciate it.”
“How much did she charge you?”
“The first few times it was five dollars. Then she raised it to ten.”
“For how much time?”
“An hour or two, usually. Sometimes it was even less. It all depended on how soon someone else wanted it.”
“Is that just about what she was charging the others?”
“I really don't know. She never told me.”
“Has she worked anywhere else, Mrs. Pedrick?”
“I don't think so.”
“Isn't ten dollars for an hour or two's privacy pretty steep? For only a little more than half of that, you and your friend could have rented a hotel room for twenty-four hours.”
“It's not a question of money,” she said. “It's simply that I couldn't take a chance on anyone seeing me at a hotel. My husband has friends all over town, and so do I. At Nadine's, I was safe.”