Том Годвин: Ed McBaines 87th Precinct Mystery Magazine. Volume 1, No. 4. April, 1975

It was true, then. He was mad. She cringed on the floor of the cave, against the rocky wall.

Warren grabbed the barrel of the shotgun. It was double-barreled, and it went off, an ear-rupturing explosion in the confines of the cave.

They fought, struggling together, and she could hear them breathing, hear them curse, gasp. The flames leaped and wood popped. It was getting very hot.

Warren struck the man on the jaw. The man fell back heavily, still clinging to the shotgun.

Charlotte sent up a bitter prayer.

Warren again leaped at the man, and fell on him. They fought, rolling on the floor of the cave. She could not see the gun, it was between them. Abruptly, another explosion rocked the cave. The man fell back, his chest torn.

Warren stood up, breathing rapidly.

“He’s dead,” he said. He turned to Charlotte.

She could not speak. She lay back against the wall of the cave, her fingers picking at rock.

He stepped toward her quickly, took her arm.

“Honey,” he said. “You all right?”

“Get away!”

“What’s the matter, Charlotte? It wasn’t nice, I know. But it’s done. I couldn’t help it. I wanted him alive.”

“Alive?”

“Yes. He’s the killer, Charlotte. He’s the man who’s been doing all the raping around here.” He turned, went over to the body, ripped open a shirt pocket. “Got to be here. They are.” He brought something over to her. They were snapshots. He spread them before her in the firelight. She recoiled at the outrageous pictures. “You see?” he said. “His camera’s probably outside someplace. I’m sorry, honey. I lived here as a boy. I know this country. I’m a special investigator for the state. The governor sent me down.” He grinned at her. “You were a decoy. A dirty trick, but we had our eye on this guy. I knew he might show. See? That’s all there is to it.”

She stared at him, wanting to say something.

“Before he came,” Warren said, “I was trying to tell you about it. I couldn’t. I was trying to say you’re the only girl who ever really got to me. Out of all the girls. I mean it, Charlotte.”

She still could not speak.

He took her in his arms. “You’re frightened. You thought it was me, didn’t you?” He stood quickly. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

“Decoy!” she said. Abruptly, she reached out and slapped his face.

He looked stunned.

“You’re right, we’ll get out of here,” she said. “You’ll take me home, Warren Talley. And, believe me, I never want to see you again!”

It started out as a pretty good party, especially the kissing scene. Then Joan hauled out that revolver and I suddenly became a party-pooper. It was supposed to be all in fun, but the muzzle of that .38 wasn’t smiling.

I got into it by accident. I was driving down a busy suburb of Phoenix, admiring a blonde in a bikini across the street, when I drove through a red light and side-swiped a sheriffs department patrol car.

It made an awful crunching sound and the two bull-like faces that swung to glare at me were those of Smith and Jones — the two deputies who were already after my hide.

I took off. They swung around at the end of the block and came after me. We played cat-and-mouse until I reached the outskirts of town and finally lost them on one of the country roads. But I felt no relief — I knew they would hunt me for the rest of the day. Even worse than the side-swiping, they would remember how I had tried to be a shrewd amateur detective and show them a trick or two...

A couple of weeks before, there had been a big-time blackmail group operating in Phoenix, headed by a beady-eyed, thinlipped character called Cicero Sam. For three days I had tailed a beady-eyed, thin-lipped character who had to be Cicero Sam. Sometimes he would have mysterious callers at night — victims from whom he was extorting money, of course.

Well... I would rather not review the painful details. Let it suffice for me to say that I slipped into Cicero Sam’s house through the back door one night — bumping into a couple of his victims in the dark as they hurried out — with the intention of confronting him with my knowledge of his identity and holding him there until the police arrived.

I was still confronting him when Smith and Jones came roaring in like a pair of enraged lions, to tell me that he was Mr. K. J. Keningsworth, one of Phoenix’s more respected business men, and that he had been cooperating with them in laying a trap for the kidnappers; a trap that would have been sprung that very night if I hadn’t interfered.

They were very unhappy with me. I’m pretty sure they would have shot me if it hadn’t been against the law.

And now they were baying blood-thirstily along my trail, panting for revenge, while I had a tire with a slow leak and no spare, fifteen cents in my pocket, and a gas gauge that was just touching the E.

Through the dark cloud of worry I saw that I was driving up La Paloma Valley. This is a small and exclusive valley; estates of the rich scattered the length of it. The houses — mansions, rather — all set some distance back from the road, protected from the proletariat by high steel fences and locked gates.

I drove on, without much interest. I earn my groceries — usually hamburgers — as a mediocre fee-lance writer, but I couldn’t see any story in La Paloma Valley.

Then I came to a gate with a little sign that read: Brookson’s Rancho. A bell began to ring in my mind and I stopped, to stare thoughtfully at the locked gate. Beyond, among a grove of trees, was a rambling, ranch-type house that seemed to cover about an acre. The gravel driveway showed very recent travel.

I wondered if Joan Brookson might be there. Her father had died recently, leaving her several million dollars plus a string of supermarkets. She was rich — you know, the kind who can say to her chauffeur, “Hubert, T noticed some dust on one of my Lincolns this morning. Take it in and trade it off on a new one.”

She had been written up several times in the past six months with such baloney headings as: YOUNG MULTIMILLIONAIRE BUSINESS GIRL DISCUSSES PRICE LEVELS WITH TOP EXECUTIVES.

Actually, of course, she had highly paid managers to take care of her business for her and probably didn’t even know the price of her own Brookson Supermarket hamburger. Which, by the way, was forty-nine cents a pound.

I had my camera with me and I could see a story coming up. I would portray her as the poor little rich girl who yearned for the simple things of life; who hated the sordid world of business and million-dollar bank accounts; who loved to get away every week-end and relax on her rancho, doing her own cooking and sweeping; roping and saddling her horse every afternoon to go galloping across the fields with her golden hair blowing in the wind (I hoped there would be a horse of some kind around and she could keep from falling off it long enough for me to get a picture); the kind of girl who liked to read a good book in the evening as she petted the kitten in her lap (there would surely be a cat around somewhere) and who, in her more thoughtful moods, liked to walk barefooted in the rain as she communed with nature.

She belonged to some amateur theatrical group and would probably enjoy hamming it up for my story, especially walking barefooted in the rain even if it hadn’t rained for six months. And I would have a story that would bring me some steaks instead of hamburgers. I had reached the point where it turned my stomach even to think about another hamburger.