It took a second for his meaning to sink in. Then her eyes blazed; she struggled frantically toward the fireplace.
He had to grip her around the waist; hold her tightly against him.
They bumped into a side table, knocked it over, fell on top of it.
Shaner found them wrestling around on the floor.
“You don’t need this extinguisher personally, do you, coach?”
“Close the damper — in the chimney.” The marshal’s face was crimson. “Shoot against — back of fireplace. Want to save — papers that are burned. Don’t mess up — the burned leaves.”
When Leila heard the hissing of the extinguisher, she quieted down.
Pedley stood up, pulled her to her feet, held onto one of her wrists.
“You like to play rough, we’ll play rough,” he growled.
“Why do you want to pry into a girl’s diary?”
“You lied to me about how you got it and what was in it. I’ll take six, two and even right now it’s not a diary.”
“It is so.” She smoothed down her dress as well as she could with one hand.
“I’m not concerned with what’s written on those pages. It’s why they made somebody kill your brother and try to do the same thing to your arranger. If you feel like adding Hal Kelsey to the total, I won’t contradict you.”
She stopped trying to pull away; leaned close to him, gazing up under lowered lashes.
“Send that other man away,” she whispered, “and I’ll tell you, honestly, why I don’t want anyone to read the — diary.”
“You have no secrets from Shaner, anyway. He’s been delving into your private life for nearly twenty-four hours. Speak freely—”
“I will not!” She leaned against him. “I won’t talk about it in front of him!”
“Don’t believe that safety-in-numbers gag? All right, Shaner—”
“I been in the department fifteen years, skipper — this is the fastest ‘stop’ I ever made. She’s out cold. The fire, I mean.”
“Fine. Hop out to the kitchen. Get the biggest pan you can find; a roaster’d be the nuts — if it has a top on it.”
“I’m way ahead of you.” Shaner couldn’t forebear an appraisal of Leila with her dress pulled down over one bare shoulder, her hair disarranged, her cheeks flushed.
Pedley called after him, “Bring a flapjack turner. Be one in the drawer somewhere.” He nodded at the singer. “Go into your number.”
“Well—” She had to make one more dramatic gesture, darting a glance from one side to the other as if to be certain there was no one within earshot. “I’m married to Lieutenant Conover!”
“What is this? Confessions of a Young Bride?”
“Mm, hm.” She didn’t seem a bit reluctant. “Not the ordinary kind.”
Shaner bustled back with an aluminum roaster and a long nickeled spatula. “This’ll do it. Just the burned papers, coach?”
“Yair. You can leave the andirons.”
Leila wouldn’t continue until the deputy had finished transferring the bits of charred paper to the roasting pan.
“Ashes to ashes, coach. Some of the pieces crumbled. But I saved most of ’em.”
“Handle with care, from here in. Take ’em down to Broome Street. Tell the sarge I want every last word he can get out of ’em.”
“Can I wrap myself in the arms of morphium, after that?”
“Hit the hay hard’s you please. But don’t bust up those pages.”
Shaner carried the roaster away like a proud father holding his first baby, closed the door behind him. Leila wrenched her wrist free from the marshal’s relaxed grip. “If that’s the way you’re going to treat my confidence, I won’t tell you anything.”
“You’d still be smart to tell all. It’ll be up to me to say who sees what the lab-boys find on those pages.”
She strode back and forth in front of the fireplace, struggling to reach a decision.
“Dammit! I guess I’ll have to trust you.”
“You’re making slow headway.”
“I was married before. But nobody knows that.”
“Not even Conover?”
“No. My first husband left me. I never knew where he went. I don’t know where he is now — or if he’s still alive.”
“Divorce?”
“Yes. I got one of those Mexican things. I don’t know whether it’s legal or not. I don’t know if I’m actually married to Bill, or if I’m a bigamist — or what.”
He shook his head, morosely. “No soap.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“Nothing in what you’ve told me to cause this procession of arson and murder. Maybe some of your fairy tale is true. Might be all true, far’s it goes. Doesn’t go far enough. Isn’t important enough. What’s the rest of it?”
“That’s absolutely all there is.”
“If that’s your story, you’re going to be badly stuck with it. Because I’m putting you under arrest. Now.”
She backed away from him, eyes wide with fear. She wasn’t staring directly at him, but over his shoulder.
There was no mistaking the prickle at the back of his neck, now. It wasn’t imagination.
“Move the point of that knife down a little, Lieutenant. Or is it a razor?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Falling Into Darkness
“Stick your thumbs in your ears, dicky bird.” Conover jabbed the point of the knife deeper into the marshal’s neck. “Keep your flippers up in plain sight.” The lieutenant’s right hand came around, took the gun from Pedley’s armpit holster. “Now squat. Right on the floor, where you are. Cross-legged. That’s the pose. You can clasp your hands behind your head if your arms start to drop off.”
Pedley obeyed. No sense arguing with six inches of sharp-edged steel.
The lieutenant swung the gun to and fro by the trigger guard. “Forgot I’d have a key to wifey’s apartment, didn’t you?”
“Didn’t think much about it,” Pedley admitted. “I sort of thought Leila’d get word to you I’d be coming up here tonight, though.”
“Setting a trap for me, were you?” Conover laughed. “Look whose paw is pinched now. The pig stabs the butcher.”
“Temporary reversal of position, yair. But with ten thousand cops on the lookout for you, you won’t be able to pull stunts like that car smackup all the time. Fair to middling chance they’ll pick you up before you get out of the Riveredge.”
Leila put her arm on the lieutenant’s sleeve. “I’m supposed to be under arrest, Bill.”
“You won’t be, Li.” He sniffed. “What’s the matter with the chimney?”
“He closed the damper,” she answered. “I was burning some old papers in the fireplace and he thought he could put the fire out and find out what they were.”
Conover scowled, puzzled.
Pedley shifted his position to ease the strain of sitting with crossed legs. “The papers have gone down to the Headquarters Lab on Broome Street. Nothing you can do about that.”
The lieutenant held Pedley’s pistol by the barrel, swung the heavy butt in a suggestive arc.
“There’s something I can do about you, Hard-boiled Harry.”
“Yair. You can knock me on the head.”
“And toss you out a window so nobody could prove you were tapped on the skull before you fell.”
Leila cried, “Bill! Stop talking like that!”
He said, “I don’t see any other way out of it, shugie.”
“That’d be no way out.” Pedley put his hands down on his knees, slowly. “The police might stop hunting for a killer, now they’ve announced Kelsey committed suicide. If you bop me, nobody’s going to believe an old blueshirt fell out of a window accidentally. Only make things that much worse for the girl friend. She’s in over her head, already.”