Ричард Деминг - The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK®

Incredulously Ross wondered if the woman had resorted to police influence to get to him. “What the hell for?” he asked.

“She’s allowed one five-minute call,” Redfern said. “Instead of a lawyer, she wants you. Ballistics tagged a gun I found at her house as the murder weapon, and we have a witness who saw her shoot her husband. Want to talk to her?”

“Never mind,” Ross said. “I’ll be down and talk to you both.”

At headquarters Ross found Lieutenant Redfern in his office with a young redheaded woman the lieutenant introduced as Renee Desiree. This was obviously a stage name, and after glancing at the woman’s figure, Ross guessed that her field was burlesque. She was tall, probably five-ten, with long, full-calved legs, a flat stomach, well-padded hips and an enormous torso. She wore a green knit dress under which there seemed to be nothing but skin, at least no brassiere, for her fine, upstanding breasts jiggled like molded Jell-O with every movement.

She must have been proud of both their size and their ability to hold themselves up without artificial support, for even seated she held herself in an erect, shoulders-back posture which thrust them out in front of her like twin battering rams.

“Miss Desiree’s the witness I mentioned over the phone,” Redfern explained. “She was coming from the Tailspin Cocktail Lounge right across the street from your place when Stoneman got it.”

Ross looked at the woman and she gave him a brilliant, white toothed smile.

“Why’d you wait so long to report what you’d seen?” he asked.

“I didn’t want to be involved in it if I didn’t have to,” she said glibly. “The notoriety, you know. I’m an actress, you see, and…” She let it drift off into a charming shrug which made Lieutenant Redfern’s eyes jump to her jiggling torso.

“Then why’d you report it at all?” Ross inquired.

She gave him another brilliant smile. “I hoped the police would catch the woman without my help. I gave them forty-eight hours, then decided I had to tell my story.”

Turning to the Lieutenant, Ross said, “Sam Black was outside seconds after the shots. He didn’t see anybody across the street.”

“I ducked back into the Tailspin,” Renee Desiree said quickly. “I didn’t want anybody to see me.”

Ross glanced at her, then back at the lieutenant. “You said something over the phone about a gun.” Reaching into a drawer, Redfern brought out a .38 revolver and laid it on the desk.

“Ran across it in one of Benny Stoneman’s dresser drawers while Mrs. Stoneman and I were going through his things,” he said. “Ballistics tagged it as the murder weapon.”

“What did Mrs. Stoneman have to say about it?”

“The gun, you mean?” Redfern shrugged. “Denied ever seeing it before. Says she’s certain her husband never owned a gun. But I wired Chicago at noon, and the gun’s registered up there in Benny Stoneman’s name.”

Ross reflected for a moment, then asked, “Doesn’t it strike you as silly for her to insist it isn’t Benny’s gun if she really thought it was? What would it get her?”

“Nothing. She’s just being contrary. Records don’t lie.”

“I’ll bet they did this time,” the gambler said. “Just as your witness here is lying.”

The woman’s gaze jerked at him angrily. Ross smiled at her. No one said anything for a few moments, Finally the lieutenant, in an obvious attempt to get Ross alone in order to have him explain his last remark, said, “You want to go back to the women’s section and talk to Mrs. Stoneman?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Ross said. “I already know everything I have to. This is a frame, Lieutenant. If you’d like to take a little ride, I’ll introduce you to the framer. If my hunch is right, you’ll have your killer in an hour. If it’s wrong, I’m not sticking my neck out for defamation of character. Take it or leave it.”

Because he couldn’t do anything else, the lieutenant decided to take it.

Before the three of them left headquarters, Ross phoned Marion Vandeveldt using the public booth in the lobby because he didn’t want Redfern to hear the conversation.

When the woman answered the phone and the gambler had identified himself, he asked, “Were you in love with Benny, Miss Vandeveldt?”

“Of course,” she said. “Would I have been his mistress otherwise?”

“Willing to help trap his killer?”

“Certainly,” she said without hesitation. “I’ll do anything I can.”

For five minutes Ross explained what he wanted her to do, and why.

At the end of that time she said in a steady voice, “All right, Mr. Ross, if you think that’s the only way they can be brought to justice. I’m willing to tell the lie.”

“Turnabout’s fair play,” Ross said. “They told some pretty whopping lies in trying to frame Helene Stoneman. Got the suite number okay?”

“Seven-o-seven. And I’m to wait in the hall until you come out to get me.”

“You’ve got it right,” he said, and hung up.

They took Ross’s Lincoln instead of a police car, Ross, the lieutenant and Renee Desiree all three riding in front. Ross drove straight to the Park Plaza.

There was no conversation as they crossed the lobby to the bell captain’s desk, Ross leading the way and the lieutenant following with the red-haired woman.

The bell captain, a trim, middle-aged man with an alert expression, said, “Evening, Mr. Ross. Hello, Lieutenant.”

“Take a look at this woman,” Ross said without preliminaries. “Ever see her before?”

The bell captain had already looked her over thoroughly as she approached. He nodded without hesitation.

“She’s been in and out of seven-o-seven all week,” he said. “So have a million other women, but I couldn’t forget this one. Not with those…uh…she’s an exceptionally good-looking girl, and I couldn’t help noticing her.”

The redhead said icily, “What’s this supposed to prove? Any law against ladies attending parties in this hotel?”

Ross grinned at her. “It proves this. You’re one of Big John Quinnel’s girl friends. One among dozens. Now let’s go upstairs and see Big John.”

The door to suite seven-o-seven was cautiously opened by the sunburned man with the missing earlobe. When he saw Clancy Ross his face turned startled and his right hand darted toward his armpit. Then he saw Lieutenant Redfern behind Ross, and froze in that position, his hand halfway out of sight.

“Little jumpy, aren’t you, Horton?” the gambler asked dryly.

Redfern pushed forward then, shoving the door wide open so that the bodyguard had to step back to avoid getting it in the face. As the lieutenant strode inside, Horton looked sullenly from him to Ross, then spotted Renee Desiree still standing in the hall, and his expression turned wary.

Ross motioned the girl in, pushed the door shut and pointed after the lieutenant, who had stopped in the center of the room and was looking inquiringly at the closed doors on either side.

“Where’s Quinnel?” he asked the bodyguard.

Horton crossed to the door on the left and discreetly knocked on the panel. Renee Desiree seated herself in an easy chair. Ross and the lieutenant remained standing.

A heavy voice from within the other room called, “What the hell you want?”

“Lieutenant Redfern’s here,” Horton called back. “With Clancy Ross and some dame.”

There was the sound of creaking bedsprings, a lengthy silence, then the door opened. Big John Quinnel came out buttoning his coat. Under it he hadn’t bothered to button his shirt and he wore no tie. His oily hair was mussed and there was a streak of lipstick on one check.