Lawrence Sanders - The Fourth Deadly Sin

Monica and Delaney balanced their plates on their laps, but the young people insisted on sprawling on the floor. The television set was turned on so they could watch the mob scene in Times Square.

At about ten minutes to twelve the phone rang. Monica and Delaney looked at each other.

"Now who the hell can that be?" he growled, set his plate aside, and rose heavily to his feet. He went into the study and closed the door.

"Mr. Delaney, this is Detective Brian Estrella. Sorry to bother you at this hour, sir, but something came up I thought you should know about as soon as possible."

"Oh?" Delaney said.

"What's that?"

"Well, right now I'm in Sylvia Otherton's apartment and we've been working on the Ouija board. You read about that in my previous reports, didn't you, sir?"

"Oh, yes," Delaney said, rolling his eyes upward.

"I read about the Ouija board."

"Well, the first question we asked, weeks ago, was who killed him. And the board spelled out "B-L-I-N-D.

Then, the second time, we asked if it was a stranger who killed him, and the board spelled out "NC N-U' "Yes, I recall," Delaney said patiently.

"Very interesting.

But what does it mean?"

"Well, get this, sir…" Estrella said.

"Tonight we asked the spirit of Simon Ellerbee whether it was a man or a woman who killed him, and the Ouija board spelled out "Wiman."

W-I-M-A-N. Now that didn't make much sense at first. But then I realized this board has a slight glitch and is pointing to "I' when it means '0."

If you follow that, you'll see that the killer was blond, not blind. And the board meant to say "No' instead of "Ni' when we asked if the murderer was a stranger.

And the final answer should have been "Woman' instead of "Wiman." So as I see it, sir, the person we're looking for is a blond woman who was not a stranger to the victim."

"Thank you very much," Delaney said gravely.