Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries

“You think Susan’s boyfriend hid them here?”

“Yes.”

“And then killed her?”

Dullea shook his head. “His name was Lloyd Baker. He was found shot to death last week in the parking lot at Kennedy Airport.”

Susan sat down on the couch. “You think the same person killed Betty?”

“No, as a matter of fact, Baker’s killer is in custody. We were moving in on Betty Quint and obtaining a search warrant for this apartment. The easy answer is that she feared being caught with the counterfeit money and committed suicide.”

“She stabbed herself in the back? And where did she get the knife? She didn’t take it with her when she stepped into the shower. I was right there.”

“All right, then. If it wasn’t suicide, what happened?”

Susan recalled the scene vividly. “I don’t know. It was almost as if a shower of daggers hit her, instead of water.”

“Daggers? There was only one.”

Susan had gotten up and gone into the bathroom. She opened the cabinet that held the towels, then turned her attention to the shower itself. It was made of molded plastic, recessed into the wall. The plastic was solid and there was no clear sight line to the room’s only window, which had been closed in any event. The ceiling was smooth and unmarked, with the room’s only lights arranged on the wall above the mirror. The showerhead was normal. It had not dispensed daggers. The shower curtain was ordinary white opaque vinyl. “There were two daggers,” she called out to Dullea. “One in her back and another in the bottom of the tub.”

Susan turned on the water and couldn’t hear Dullea’s reply. Something caught her eye. She reached down and peeled it away from the bottom of the tub. It was a piece of Scotch tape, several inches long. Stuck fast near the drain, it had been all but invisible. “Look at this,” she called to him.

He came into the bathroom. “Tape. Where was it?”

“Stuck to the bottom of the bathtub. They could have overlooked it in their crime scene search.”

“What does it tell us?”

“I don’t know.” She stared around the bathroom. “You mentioned a search warrant. When were you planning to use it?”

“Last evening.”

Susan thought about it. “Someone named Roger phoned her in the car, before we arrived at my hotel.”

“I read that in your statement.”

“Maybe he was going to take the counterfeit money off her hands. With her boyfriend dead she’d need to do something.”

“You don’t just get a friend to deal in counterfeit.”

“Maybe it’s the same friend who was selling her pot. He might have been interested.”

“Roger?”

“Roger,” Susan agreed. “When she made the call from my hotel room she sounded a bit frightened of him. And she’d had other messages from him earlier. Maybe she was afraid he’d kill her for those counterfeit hundreds. Maybe he did kill her, but I’m damned if I know how.”

Susan still didn’t have a car of her own, and after Dullea left her off at the hotel she asked the room clerk where she could rent one. He directed her to a place just a few blocks away. As she was turning from the desk another thought struck her. “Do you keep a record of guests’ outgoing phone calls, with the numbers called?”

“Yes, ma’am, we do.”

“Could I see mine, please? I’ve mislaid a local number that I need.”

He brought it up on the computer and jotted it down for her. “This is the only call from your room.”

Susan glanced at it, a bit puzzled. “Yes, that’s the one. Thank you.” Dullea had told her that Betty Quint phoned Mayfield’s from her room, but the number at Mayfield’s new store ended in 6700. This number ended in 6743. Susan went up to her room and dialed it.

A woman’s voice answered with, “Store promotions.”

“Whose office is this?” she asked.

“I – it was Betty Quint’s office.”

“Sadie? Is this Sadie Shepherd?”

“Yes. Betty is-”

“I know. This is Susan Holt.”

“Oh! Miss Holt!”

Susan made a snap decision. “I’d like to speak with you after work today. Could we have a drink together?”

“I don’t know. I’m busy tonight.”

“I have to rent a car. What time do you finish up?”

“Usually five, but until the opening I can pretty much leave any time. Since Miss Quint’s death-”

“I’ll pick you up at five, Sadie. If you don’t want to go anywhere we can talk in the car.”

She was outside the store in a new Chevy when the young woman emerged, exactly on the hour. Sadie heard her beep the horn and headed over to join her in the front seat. “It’s good to see you again, Miss Holt. That was terrible news about poor Betty.”

“How do you think I felt, being right on the scene?” Susan left the motor off since Sadie had indicated she had no time for a drink.

“How did it happen?” the young woman asked.

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

Her face froze into a mask of ice. It could have been fright or defiance. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“How was Betty Quint killed in that shower, Sadie? You know, don’t you?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I think you were responsible for her death.”

Sadie Shepherd exploded into fury. “That’s a damned lie! I know nothing about it!”

“Calm down and listen. This is what I know so far. Betty’s boyfriend was killed after smuggling a large quantity of counterfeit hundred-dollar bills into this country from overseas. They had a flaw in them that made it necessary to pass them individually rather than in bulk, where they’d be closely examined. After her boyfriend’s death, Betty tried to find a buyer for the money and she went to a man named Roger who was supplying her with pot and maybe other drugs. You two became friendly and she confided all of this to you. Somehow Roger frightened her, perhaps by demanding the counterfeit hundreds for less money than she wanted. He phoned her yesterday and made more threats. Back at my hotel, she phoned you at the store to tell you what was happening. She phoned her own direct number, but of course you answered. At the store yesterday you gave her some messages you’d taken in her absence, so I knew you answered her phone. Just as you did when I called that number earlier.”

“You think you know everything, don’t you? We didn’t become friendly only recently, as you say. We’ve been friends for two years, since we were in a local theater production together. She got me the job as her assistant at Mayfield’s. I liked her. She was lots of fun, always joking and doing crazy things.”

“What about her drug problem?”

“She smoked a little pot, sure, but nothing more than that.”

“Roger was her supplier?”

She nodded. “I told her not to go to him about the money, but she had all these hundreds and she was afraid to pass them herself. She’d tried a few here and in New York, but it made her too nervous.”

“Her boyfriend had hidden the counterfeit money with her?”

“Sure. He thought it was the safest place, but it didn’t keep him from getting killed.”

“Roger followed us back to her apartment last night. He was parked across the street.”

Sadie turned away. “I told her what to do on the phone earlier.”

“What was your advice?”

“I said if he was at the apartment she should manage to make her escape somehow. If he went after her, I’d go up there and take the money before he got it. She’d given me a duplicate key.”

“She made her escape all right, by getting killed. Did you go there last night?”

“God, no! When I heard about her death on the news I knew there’d be cops all over the place.”