“You can—” He stopped for a couple of seconds and his voice was a cry of agony when he spoke again. “What bodies?”
“Don’t you mean ‘Whose bodies?’ Lieutenant?” I asked, like real polite.
“Who do those bodies belong to?” he whimpered. “Patty Lamont—she killed her sister and conned Marty Estell into killing Byers for her,” I explained. “So he hid out in her apartment and killed her in revenge. Then I kind of didn’t have much choice about killing him—it’s a very complicated deal, Lieutenant. Why don’t you come on out here and I’ll explain it in detail?”
“You move a muscle before I get out there and I’ll have you shot on sight!” he choked. “Maybe I’ll do that anyway!”
chapter eleven
I parked the convertible right out front of Elmo’s jewelry store and we got out. Schell was still speaking to me, but only just. When he’d gotten out to Patty Lamont’s apartment I’d altered the facts just a little—not so much the facts really—just the sequence of events. The way I’d told it to him, I hadn’t even remotely suspected that Marty Estell was hidden out in the apartment, listening to my every word from the bedroom. So I was stunned when he suddenly appeared from nowhere and gunned down Patty. But what choice did I have but to gun down him before he got around to me?—and I was lucky at that. I was almost sure the lieutenant didn’t believe a word of it, on principle if nothing else, but he couldn’t disprove it.
We stood on the sidewalk for a moment while he scowled at me. “I’ve strung along with you on this, Boyd,” he said bleakly. “But if you don’t deliver, so help me, I’ll—1”
“I’ll deliver,” I said, keeping my crossed fingers behind my back.
“I set up the appointment with Elmo,” he said, still not real sure. You would have figured the guy didn’t trust me or something. “You make me look like an idiot and I’ll—”
“I know,” I said with immense restraint. “You keep on telling me.”
We went into the store and were greeted by a magni-
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ficent redhead with a real way-out hair-do—or the lieutenant was greeted, to be accurate. 1 was ignored like a frozen clam that’s passed beyond its prime. “Mr. Elmo is expecting you, Lieutenant,” she said, smiling warmly at him. “Please go striaght in. Is that the murderer you have with you?”
“No.” Schell scowled at me. “Just a piece of garbage that’s been rejected by the city dump.”
He stalked ahead of me into Elmo’s office and I trailed along behind, too dispirited even to notice the taut curve of Tamara’s dress exactly where a dress should be tautly curved.
Elmo stood up to greeet the lieutenant and he looked like an overweight sparrow as he leaned across his desk to shake hands with the law.
“Always a pleasure to see you, Lieutenant!” The gold-rimmed glasses flashed warmly. “I see you had quite a night last night?”
“I’d call it that,” Schell grunted. “You know Boyd, naturally? It’s a misfortune shared by too many people in this town!”
“I thought I had seen the last of him yesterday,” Elmo said in tones of infinite sorrow. “But still—won’t you sit down?” He plunked back into his own chair before I could peek and see how many cushions it took to raise him above the level of the desktop.
The lieutenant sat in the pseudo-antique and I sat on something designed by a medieval torturer. There was a silence while Elmo looked expectantly at the lieutenant.
Schell finally cleared his throat irritably. “I’m humoring Boyd—the last time before I have him committed,” he said finally. “He figures he knows where that tiara is, but he’s got an obligation to tell you before anyone else —so we compromised and now he’ll tell both of us at the same time.”
“Indeed?” The glasses flashed in my direction. “This sounds most interesting, Mr. Boyd.”
“I hope it is,” I said politely. “You’ll have to ride along with some of it, Mr. Elmo, because it won’t make any sense to you, but it will be the lieutenant.”
“Maybe!” Schell muttered darkly.
I lit a cigarette, which is kind of hard with crossed fingers.
“Patty, complete with a blonde wig, set herself up with Willie Byers as her own sister Louise—right?”
“I got that,” the Lieutenant grunted.
“Everything was fine. Willie made the fake tiara and Patty passed it on to her sister. Then Louise and Marty told her the hell with her—they weren’t handing over the real tiara once they got their hands on it. They were going to keep it and whatever money they made on it. That put Patty in a real jam. She couldn’t go back to Byers and say Louise had double-crossed her—because she was Louise to little Willie—right?”
Schell’s face- contorted for a moment. “I guess so,” he said after a while.
“So she talked Willie into making a second fake tiara —she must have had a good excuse that some dreadful accident had happened to the first one. She’d tried it on in the bathroom and lost it in the plumbing or something—” “She’d need something better than that!” Schell said in a pained voice. “Oh, all right—she came up with something that was good enough for litde Willie to swallow.” “It wouldn’t be too hard,” I said. “Remember, he was crazy for her.”
“Are you talking about our Mr. Byers, by any chance?” Elmo asked suddenly. “It doesn’t seem possible!” “Willie was more sinned against than sinner, Mr. Elmo,” I said solemnly. “Anyway—” I turned back to Schell. “Then, I guess Patty worked on him some more —as Louise, she would have to make the switch—and told him it was too dangerous. Too many things could go wrong—what if she fumbled it at the crucial moment and was caught? What if the switch was discovered before she’d gotten out of the store and they insisted that everybody there be searched? She had a brand new idea, much better and much safer—foolproof in fact.” “Can’t you condense this a little?” Schell snarled at me. “I’m going around in circles already!”
“Patty knew from her good friend and confidante, Tamara O’Keefe,” I said cheerfully, “that Elmo’s jewelry store was in a bad way financially—like just about flat broke.”
“You are gravely misinformed, Mr. Boyd,” Elmo said acidly. “I shall investigate the source of these scurrilous rumors immediately!”
“You want to do it real fast, Mr. Elmo,” I said politely, “Because I have a feeling you won’t be around very long after this morning.”
“Get to the point!” the lieutenant snapped.
“She told Willie about this—suggested he approach Elmo with a nice snug little larceny proposition. That Elmo should switch the fake tiara Byers would give him for the real one, before the beauty contest people ever arrived. Then Byers should spot the fake in the window later that morning and it would appear one of the beauty contest people must have stolen the tiara. The insurance company would pay up and they would divide the money equally. Elmo would still have his tiara, and later, Byers could take the stones out of the setting and rework them into another piece of valuable jewelry.”
“Lieutenant,” Elmo said sorrowfully, “I’m afraid this man is insane.”
“So am I,” Schell said hopelessly. “Is there more to this, Boyd?”
“It was kind of cute,” I said in genuine admiration. “So the real Louise Lamont comes into the store with the first fake tiara, and neatly switches it for the second fake tiara. I bet Patty spent the whole day screaming with laughter. So when Louise got back to Marty Estell, the fake wouldn’t fool him for too long, right? So once he discovered they’d been gypped, he’d start looking for whoever double-crossed him. The logical suspect would be Louise herself—and that’s what Patty hoped for. But when Marty didn’t kill her sister, she had to do it herself.”