Ричард Деминг - The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK®

“Why such an isolated spot?” she asked.

“Why not?” he asked. “Come on, let’s walk down to look at the water.”

He sounded as though he had romance in mind. The timing surprised her, but she was enough in love to be always willing. Agreeably she climbed from the car. It was a warm, pleasant night with a moonless but clear sky studded brightly with stars.

She took his hand as they strolled toward the water. “You were going to tell me how you simplified the pickup plan,” she said.

“Oh, yeah. When I phoned your husband this morning, he threw me a curve. He said, ‘I was hoping you would phone instead of write. I am in my private office alone, and no one is listening in. How would you like to make two hundred thousand instead of just one?’ When I asked how, he reeled off a telephone number and asked me to call it at seven this evening. ‘The phone won’t be tapped and we can talk safely,’ he said. ‘I don’t like this one because this call is going through a switch-board.’ I said okay, I’d call him at the number he gave me. When I hung up, I called information, said I was a cop and asked the name of the subscriber for that number. Turned out to be Marie Sloan.”

“My husband’s secretary?” Irma said in surprise.

“Uh-huh. That, plus the offer of an extra hundred grand, gave me a couple of clues to the puzzle. So I really wasn’t very surprised when I phoned him at seven and heard his proposition. I guess he’s decided to marry another of his secretaries. The extra hundred grand was to kill you.”

They had reached the water’s edge. They stopped and she turned to stare at him in the darkness.

“It’s foolproof from his point of view,” Cary said. “The cops listened in on our call from that phone booth, so there’s no question in their minds about it being an actual kidnapping. Kidnappers quite often kill their victims after collecting the ransom.”

“Why, that beast!” Irma said indignantly. “And to think I refused even to talk about killing that—”

“Yeah. Tactical error on your part. After his proposition, there wasn’t much point in going through all the rigmarole I’d planned for the payoff. I just had him leave it in an alley while I watched from across the street. I wasn’t afraid he’d try to set a trap, but I still didn’t want him to see me. The second pickup will be made just as simply.”

“The second one?” she said, her eyes widening. She withdrew her hand from his.

“Sure. He’ll pay it. He wouldn’t want to risk an anonymous note to the cops from the kidnapper explaining who suggested the killing, and I’ve already told him that’s what will happen if he tries to get out of paying the second hundred grand.”

Her eyes grew wider and wider. Even in the darkness she could see his expression. This time she would have had to give a different answer to the question he had asked her twice. She had never before seen anyone who looked more like a killer.

Originally published in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine , December 1979.

It was exactly three p.m. when the door chimes sounded, because the oven timer bell went off at the same moment. Coco Joe, as usual, made a beeline for the front door, barking his head off. Josephine was considerably longer getting there. She first shut off the oven, lifted the cookies from the oven with a pot holder, set them on top of the stove and hung up the pot holder. At sixty-five she was still slim and trim, but she no longer hurried.

The Pomeranian was still barking furiously when Josephine finally got to the door, indicating that the caller had not given up and gone away. Josephine said, “Hush! It’s only the lady from the doggie parlor, come to get you for your bath and trim.”

But it wasn’t, she saw when she peeped through the viewing hole. It was a man in a blue serge suit. She scooped up the little dog in her arms before opening the door.

Coco Joe, as always when a man came to the door, went into an absolute fit. Growling and snarling, he did his best to struggle from his mistress’s arms and fling himself at the intruder’s throat.

The man stood there examining the dog warily as Josephine repeatedly but lightly slapped his muzzle and said. “Stop it! He’s a nice man. Stop it now!”

When Coco Joe finally stopped struggling, and his performance tapered off to mere low, threatening growls, Josephine said. “I’m sorry. He thinks he’s a mastiff.”

The visitor, a stocky man of about forty, gave her a pleasant smile. Producing a wallet, he displayed a police badge pinned inside of it.

“Sergeant Dennis Cord, ma’am. Are you Miss Henry?”

“Yes.”

“May I have a few words with you?”

“Certain—” Josephine started to say, then Coco Joe suddenly went into another frenzy when he detected the presence of another man alongside the door.

The second man loomed into view, smiling apologetically. He was young, large, blond, and wore a blue police uniform.

When Josephine had quieted the dog for a second time, Sergeant Cord introduced the uniformed man as Officer Harry Dewey. He told Dewey to wait outside and stepped into the apartment with Josephine.

His entrance into the apartment brought on another display of ferocity from Coco Joe. Again Josephine had to slap his muzzle and say, “Stop it! He’s a friend. Be nice, now!”

When for a third time the dog’s performance had finally tapered off to occasional low-throated growls, Josephine said, “He’ll be all right in a minute. He doesn’t bite anyway. He just puts on a fierce show.”

Kneeling, she held the Pomeranian so that he could sniff the sergeant’s shoes. “Make friends now,” she ordered. “He’s a nice man.”

Sergeant Cord stood perfectly still while the little dog sniffed at his feet and trouser legs. When the growling finally stopped, Josephine cautiously released her grip. Coco Joe took a final sniff, then turned his back and trotted over to leap into his favorite chair. His tail had not wagged even once, but the sergeant had his permission to stay on a probationary basis.

Rising to her feet, Josephine said, “He’ll be all right now, Sergeant. Will you have a seat?”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

He took the chair farthest from Coco Joe. Seating herself on the sofa, Josephine looked at him expectantly.

“I’m afraid I have some rather disquieting news for you, Miss Henry,” the detective said.

“Oh, my. Has someone I know been hurt?”

“Oh, no, it’s not that—well, as a matter of fact someone you know has been hurt, but you didn’t know her well. Mrs. Ann Sommerfield.”

Josephine gazed at him blankly.

“One of your fellow jurors on the Pitton case,” the sergeant prompted.

“Oh, of course,” Josephine said. “That thin, rather humorless woman.” Then she looked puzzled. “I’m sorry to hear she’s been hurt, but I don’t understand—“

When she let it trail off, the sergeant said, “She was a little more than just hurt, I’m afraid. She’s been murdered.”

Josephine could feel herself turning pale. After a moment she said, “By James Clayton?”

“We think so.”

Josephine felt a cold, invisible hand squeeze her spine. James Clayton was the Clyde in the Bonnie-and-Clyde relationship between himself and Delores Pitton. Six months back, Josephine, along with eleven other jurors, had found Delores Pitton guilty of first-degree murder in the bank-robbery death of a bank teller. Because the jury had refused to recommend leniency, the woman had received the maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

James Clayton, who was still at large, mailed a letter postmarked the same date as the sentencing to the presiding judge. In it he threatened to kill the judge, the prosecutor and every member of the jury if his girlfriend was not given her freedom.