Fletcher Flora - The First Golden Age of Mystery & Crime MEGAPACK™ - 26 Stories by Fletcher Flora

“All right, you bastard. So I’m the kind who ought to stick to the little words. So I only went to the eighth grade myself. Go ahead and ridicule me.”

“You’re wrong. I wasn’t ridiculing you. I never ridicule anyone. The trouble your theory has is the same trouble that the other theory has, and the trouble with both is that they leave loose ends all over the place. I can mention a few, if you’d care to hear them.”

“Mention whatever you please.”

“All right. Where’s the body?”

“I don’t know. You’re the detective. Work on it”

“Where’s Constance? Did he kill both of them? If so, why? He had no reason to hate her. As a matter of fact, they should have been on the same team. You, not Constance, would have been the logical second victim.”

“I know. Don’t you think I’ve thought of that a thousand times? Maybe she knew he killed Regis. Maybe she learned about it somehow or even actually witnessed it. Damn it, I’ve told you something you didn’t know. I’ve told you about Regis and me. I’ve told you he was not really in love with Constance and would never have run away with her for any longer than a weekend. I’ve told you this, and it’s the truth, and all you do is keep wanting me to be the detective. You’re the detective, brother. I’ve told you that too.”

“Sure you have. I’m the detective and all I’ve got to do is explain how someone killed a man and a woman and completely disposed of their bodies. That would be a tough chore, honey. Practically impossible.”

“Silas Lawler’s been doing the practically impossible for quite a few years. He’s a very competent guy.”

“He Is. I know it, and I’m not forgetting it. However, I can think of a third theory that excludes him. It’s simpler and it ties up an end or two. You said Regis didn’t love Constance. He just had an affair with her. Suppose he tried to end the affair and got himself killed for his trouble? She was a strange female, I’m told. Almost psychotic, someone said. Do you think she was capable?”

Robin Robbins stood up abruptly. She carried her glass over to the ingredients and stood quietly with her back to me. Apparently she was only considering whether she should mix herself another or not. She decided not. Depositing her glass, she helped herself to a cigarette from a box and lit it with a lighter. Trailing smoke, she returned to her chair.

“Oh, Constance was capable, all right,” she said. “She was much too good to do a lot of things I’ve done and will probably do again and again if the price is right, but there’s one thing she could have done that I couldn’t, and that’s murder. And if you think that sounds like more eighth grade psychology, you can forget it and get the hell out of here.”

“I don’t know about the psychology,” I said, “but I’m pretty sure that you don’t really think she killed Regis. If you did, you’d be happy to say so.”

“That’s right.” She nodded in amiable agreement. “I wouldn’t mind at all doing Constance a bad turn, but she didn’t kill Regis. That’s obvious.”

“I’m inclined to agree. In the first place, she couldn’t have got rid of the body. In the second place, if she could and did, why run away afterward? It wouldn’t be sensible.”

“Well, it’s your problem, brother. I guess it’s time you went somewhere else and began to think about it.”

“Yeah. I’m the detective. You’ve told me and told me. You haven’t told me much else, though. Not anything very convincing. You got an idea that Silas killed Regis because you and Regis made a kind of illicit cuckold of him, and you lure me here with free bourbon and tell me so, and I’m supposed to be converted by this evangelical message. It’s pretty thin, if you don’t mind my saying it. Excuse me for being skeptical.”

“That’s all right. I didn’t expect much from you anyhow. I just thought I’d try.”

“Try harder.”

“I’ve got nothing more to tell you.”

“Really? That’s hard to believe. You’re not exactly inexpensive, honey, and I’ll bet you have to earn your keep. What I mean is, you and Silas surely get convivial on occasions. Even intimate. Men are likely to become indiscreet under such circumstances. They say things they wouldn’t ordinarily say. If Silas killed Regis because of you, I’d think he’d even have an urge to gloat. By innuendo, at least.”

She moved her head against the back of her chair in a lazy negative. “I’m a girl who knows the side of her bread the butter is on, and I earn my keep. You’re right there. But you’re wrong if you think Silas Lawler is the kind who gets confidential or careless. He’s a very reserved guy, and he protects his position. He tends to his own business, and most of his business nowadays is on the three floors of the building we just left. To be honest, he’s pretty damn dull. He works. He eats and sleeps and plays that damn piano, and once in a while he makes love. Once a month, for a few days, he goes to some place called Amity.”

“Amity? Why does he go there?”

“I wouldn’t know. I guess he has interests.”

“Do you ever go with him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m never invited, thank God. Who wants to go to Amity?”

I took a deep breath and held it till it hurt and then released it.

“That’s right,” I said. “Who does? Incidentally there’s something else that nags me. It seems to me that you’re trying to ruin a good thing for yourself, and I don’t understand it. What happens to you and all this if Silas turns out to be a murderer?”

“Whatever it is, I’ll try to bear it. I may even celebrate. In the meanwhile, on the chance that I’m wrong about him, I may be as well be comfortable.”

I stood up and looked down, and she stayed down and looked up, and because she was a shrewd and tough wench with looks and brains and queer attachments and flexible morals, I though it would be pleasant and acceptable to kiss her once in return for the time she’d kissed me once, and that’s what I did, and it was. It was pleasant and acceptable. It even started being exciting. Just as her hands were reaching for me, I straightened and turned and walked to the door, and she came out of the chair after me. She put her arms around my waist from behind.

“It’s worth developing,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve decided.”

“Sorry,” I said. “My own mind isn’t made up yet. I’ll let you know.”

I loosened her hands and held them in mine against my belly. After a few seconds, I dropped them and opened the door and started out.

“You ugly bastard,” she said.

“Don’t call me,” I said. “I’ll call you.”

“Go to hell,” she said.

I got on out and closed the door softly and began wishing immediately that I hadn’t.

The next morning I checked a couple of morgues. The newspaper variety. I turned the brittle bones of old dailies and disturbed the rest of dead stories, but I learned nothing of significance regarding Constance Markley. She was there, all right, briefly and quietly interred in ink. No one had got excited. No one had smelled anything, apparently, that couldn’t eventually be fumigated in divorce court. I left the second morgue about noon and stopped for a steak sandwich and a beer on the way to my office. In the office, sitting, I elevated my feet and began to think.

Maybe thinking is an exaggeration. I didn’t really have an idea.

All I had was an itch, a tiny burr of coincidence that had caught in a wrinkle of my cortex. It didn’t amount to much, but I thought I might as well worry it a while, having nothing else on hand or in mind, and what I thought I would do specifically was go back and see Faith Salem again, and I would go, if I could arrange it, when Faith and the sun were on the terrace. She had said to call ahead of time, and so I lowered my feet and reached for the phone, and that’s when I saw the gorilla.