A. Fair - Shills Can't Cash Chips

“We’re driving her back?” I asked.

“We are not,” Sellers said. “We’re sending her back home with an officer and by God, if I catch you trying to talk with her and influence her testimony in any way, I’ll slap you in a dungeon where you won’t know whether it’s day or night, and where you’ll be living on bread and water for thirty days. I get so damned fed up with you stepping in and masterminding my cases, that it’s hard for me to keep my hands off you.

“We fool around with a lot of methodical police work and solve our cases by good, hard intensive work and you come along with some hocus-pocus and pull a rabbit out of the hat.”

“And I take it,” I said, “that now we are going to look up Vivian Deshler.”

“What a genius!” Sellers exclaimed sarcastically. “Now, who would ever have thought of that? That’s sheer genius, Lam. Here we have two parties testifying to an automobile accident and you come along with the bright idea that the accident never happened, that it was a cover-up for a hit-and-run, and we get a witness who indicates that you’re right. And then you surmise or deduce that we’re going to talk with the other party involved in the accident.

“Now, isn’t that just too clever?”

“You don’t need to be so damned sarcastic,” I told him. “As Mrs. Troy said, I was just trying to be polite.”

“Well, you don’t need to bother,” Sellers said, biting down on his soggy cigar.

“I notice it doesn’t cramp your style any,” I told him.

“What doesn’t?”

“Trying to be polite.”

“You’re damned right it doesn’t,” Sellers said. “Hang on, Pint Size, we’re going to interview Vivian Deshler before some cooperative s.o.b. gets the word to her and she starts clamming up or consulting an attorney.”

Vivian Deshler came to the door in response to our ring, opened it a crack, looked out and saw Frank Sellers. “Oh, how do you do, Sergeant?” she said. “My heavens, I’m dressing and— Well, Donald, too! Is everything straightened out all right?”

“We’d like to come in and talk with you for a minute,” Sellers said.

“Well, I’m sorry. I’m just not presentable, that’s all. I... I’m dressing.”

“Haven’t you got a robe?” Sellers asked.

“I have it on.”

“Well, then, what’s holding you back?” Sellers said. “Open the door. We just want to talk for a minute.”

“I’m hardly presentable.”

“We’re not trying to judge a beauty contest,” Sellers told her. “We’re trying to clean up a murder case.”

She pouted a bit and said, “I like to look my best when good-looking men are calling on me, but... well, come in.”

She opened the door.

We went in and Sellers jerked his cold cigar toward a chair. “Sit down,” he said. “We’ll only be a minute.”

She seated herself, and the robe slid smoothly back along one bare leg. She gave a little kittenish gesture, retrieved the robe and pulled it back over the flesh.

“See what I mean?” she said.

“What?” Sellers asked.

“About not being dressed.”

“I don’t get it,” Sellers said.

She started to say something, then looked at me and smiled. “Donald got it,” she said.

“All right,” Sellers said, “let’s quit beating around the bush. I want to know about that automobile accident.”

“Heavens, not again! I’ve told that so many times.”

“What time?” Sellers asked.

“Now, I can’t be absolutely certain about the time,” she said, with her eyes downcast and counting on her fingers with her thumb. “It was along in the afternoon and it might have been... well, now I just don’t know. I’ve been trying to think back on what happened that day and I can’t remember exactly the time. You see, Sergeant, I was pretty well shaken up and I didn’t realize at the time I’d been seriously hurt. I started driving to my apartment and then somewhere along the line I guess I blacked out. The next thing I knew I was in my apartment and then everything went blank and— Well, of course by that time I knew I was shaken up and injured but I certainly didn’t think it was anything real serious. I thought I was just excited and— Well, I’ve read about fainting spells and what can happen from an emotional shock and I thought that’s what I was experiencing.”

Sellers said, “All right, I’m going to put it to you cold turkey. Was there an automobile accident?”

“Was there an automobile accident?” she echoed. “Why, what in the world do you mean? Of course there was.”

“I want to know just this,” Sellers said. “Did Holgate run into the back of your car or is it a cover-up?”

“What do you mean, a cover-up?”

Sellers said, “There’s evidence that Holgate was mixed up in a hit-and-run deal and had the front end of his car smashed in, that you and Holgate cooked up a deal by which he could account for his smashed front end on the car and you could help him out and present a claim to the insurance company for—”

“What in the world are you talking about? The accident took place just as I have described it. I wouldn’t try to defraud any insurance company and I had never met Mr. Holgate prior to the time that he ran into the rear of my automobile and we exchanged names from our driving licenses.”

Sellers looked at me thoughtfully. “Want to ask any questions, Pint Size?”

I said, “Who prepared the claim you submitted to the insurance company, Miss Deshler?”

She regarded me with a head-to-toe sweep of the eyes and her manner suddenly changed. “That,” she said, “doesn’t have anything to do with the accident or anything else. In short, it’s none of your business, Mr. Lam.”

I said, “I’ll ask you one other question. Have you ever been in an automobile accident before?”

She looked at Frank Sellers and said, “Do I have to sit here and submit to this kind of questioning? After all, you’re trying to solve a murder case. What difference does it make if I’d been in a thousand automobile accidents?”

“He was just asking,” Sellers said.

“Well, I’m just answering,” she snapped. “It’s none of his business. And now, gentlemen, I don’t have all afternoon to sit around here in my underwear and swap words with you. I’ve got to get busy and dress. I’m going out tonight. I’ve had a hard day and I want to look my best when I go out.”

Sellers said, “We’re not making any accusations but you know things could get awfully sticky if you started playing tag in a murder case. Now I’m going to ask you this: Did you hire a detective agency to do anything?”

“Heavens, no.”

“To keep tabs on Lamont Hawley, the agent of the Consolidated Interinsurance Company?”

“No, I told you. No, no, no! Ten thousand times no! I didn’t hire any detective agency, period. Now will you people please get out of here?”

The telephone rang.

She crossed over to the instrument to pick it up and answer it. She didn’t bother about her robe, which fell open to show she was wearing a bra and panties.

Sellers looked her over, looked at me and said, “You want to try any more questioning?”

“Of course,” I said. “You haven’t skimmed the surface yet. What did you think she was going to do, break down and tell you, yes, I worked this thing out in order to defraud the insurance company and it led to murder? Do you usually get confessions that easy?”

Sellers said, “There’s something about this thing that doesn’t ring true to me. I don’t like it. We’re skating on thin ice.”

She said, “This is a telephone call for you, Sergeant Sellers. It’s from a Captain Andover in Traffic. Says he has to speak to you right away on a matter of the greatest importance.”