J. Jance - Name Witheld

"You keep the gun loaded?" I asked.

Latty nodded again. "Just before Aunt Grace bought the store, her friend Dorene Lowell, the lady who owned it before, was robbed on her way to the bank. It was dumb for anyone to bother, because-in a store like ours-very little cash changes hands. Most of our business is transacted either by check or credit card. Dorene wasn't in very good health to begin with, and that incident scared her to death. In fact, I think it's one of the reasons she sold out. So ever since we opened, Aunt Grace has insisted that I take the gun with me whenever I go to make a deposit, especially if it's after dark. I usually did, although sometimes I forget."

"I see," I said. "And when you took it along, where did you carry it?"

"Sometimes, just on the seat of my car. Sometimes, if I'm wearing a coat or a jacket with a pocket, I slip the gun into that. It isn't very heavy."

"I don't suppose you have a license to carry a concealed weapon, do you?" I asked wearily. The idea of having multitudes of untrained people walking around loose with loaded guns in their pockets is enough to make every cop in the country turn prematurely gray.

"Aunt Grace said that since the gun was just for protection, we probably didn't need one. She says it isn't ladylike for a woman to have to have a license for that kind of thing."

"Aunt Grace needs to have her head examined," I put in. "For your information, ladylike or not, having a permit to carry a concealed weapon happens to be a law around here. That goes for you as well as your aunt."

"I didn't know," Latty said.

"No, I'm sure you didn't. Go on."

"Last Saturday night, when I went to make the night deposit, the gun was missing from the drawer. I tore my car apart looking for it, but it wasn't there. I even went upstairs and checked in the pockets of all my clothes. That's when I found out my coat was missing as well."

"What coat?"

"My good winter coat."

"When's the last time you remember having it?" I asked.

"That night," Latty said.

"What night?"

She paused, her eyes clouding. "The night I went dancing with Don. I must have left it there somewhere." She stopped.

Again I recalled the scene on the tape. Latty hadn't been wearing a coat when she first appeared in Don Wolf's office, but she might have dropped it in the reception area before she entered camera range.

"So you think the gun might have been in the pocket of the coat?" I asked.

"That's the only place I can think of."

I felt a catch of excitement in my throat. If the coat had been left in the D.G.I. offices, then the guy who had called himself prime suspect number one also had access to the murder weapon. And if Bill Whitten had been screening Don Wolf's activities, he might have had inside knowledge of when and where Latty and Don had scheduled their New Year's Eve meeting. That would give him access and opportunity. By his own admission, Bill Whitten had plenty of motivation. Thinking about the Whitten connection, I dropped out of the interview for a while and let Tim Blaine ask questions about Latty's connection to and knowledge of Virginia Marks. Other than the fact that Latty knew Grace Highsmith had hired someone to investigate Don Wolf, Latty seemed to know very little about the dead detective. Finally, when we stood up to go, Latty started toward the door, then she stopped. "Wait a minute. I need to give it to someone," she said. "I could just as well give it to you."

"Give us what?" I asked.

"Don's coat," she answered. "The one I wore home that night. Ever since I heard he was dead, I've felt weird about having it here in the house-almost like I had stolen it or something. But I didn't know what to do about it."

She disappeared into what was evidently a bedroom and came back carrying a double-breasted wool blazer. I took it, thanked her, and headed toward the door. Blaine was behind me, but at the top of the stairway he stopped and turned back.

"By the way, Miss Gibson," he said, "if you decide to get a replacement for that Seecamp, I can probably help out with the permit process."

When he said that, I'm sure my jaw dropped. Dumbfounded, I looked first at him and then back to Latty. For the first time since I had been in their presence, Latty Gibson gave Tim Blaine the benefit of an actual smile.

"Thank you, Detective Blaine," she said. "I'll remember that."

"Are you crazy?" I demanded after the apartment door closed and as we continued down the stairs. "That woman's still an active suspect in at least one homicide case."

"She didn't do it," Blaine declared. "I'm convinced she didn't."

He stepped out onto the sidewalk carrying the gift Latty Gibson had wrapped for his mother as if it were the most precious cargo in the world.

"She's gorgeous, isn't she," he marveled. "She really does look just like Marilyn Monroe. I wonder if she's ever entered any of those Marilyn look-alike contests. She'd win, hands down."

Which only goes to prove, once and for all, that women aren't the only ones who come from outer space. Men do, too.

At least some of them do.

Nineteen

W hen Tim Blaine and I came around the front of the building, I was eager to tell him where Latty's story about the missing coat might lead us, but Suzanne Crenshaw was waiting for us by the shop's front door.

"Miss Highsmith would like to see you before you go," she said.

That was fine with me, because I wanted to see her, too. And because group gropes are never a good idea in homicide investigations, I wanted to do it before Latty came back down to the shop from her apartment.

Folding Don Wolf's jacket over my arm, I stepped into the shop, with both Tim and Suzanne Crenshaw following behind. The door's bell gave three distinctly separate jangles. If I had been forced to listen to that thing day in and day out, I'm sure it would have driven me bonkers.

We found Grace Highsmith seated on a tall stool behind the counter. "Well?" she asked, assuming a certain regal air that implied we were lowly petitioners who had been admitted into her august presence to beg a royal favor, rather than police officers going about their sworn duties.

"Well what?" I returned.

"Are you going to arrest her or not?"

So we were off on the arrest tangent again. Yesterday, Grace had been focused on my arresting her. Today, her focal point was the probability of our arresting her niece.

"Miss Highsmith," I said patiently, "I think you have a slightly exaggerated idea of how we work. There's a lot more to our job than meets the eye-a lot of behind-the-scenes questioning-before an arrest ever takes place."

"I see," Grace said, but I wasn't at all sure she did.

"To that end, however, we do need to ask you a few questions about Virginia Marks, and about the work she was doing for you. Would that be all right?"

Grace glanced at her attorney, and Suzanne Crenshaw nodded her assent. "Of course," Grace said agreeably. "What do you want to know?"

"How did she come to work for you in the first place?"

Grace shrugged. "I've known Virginia since she was a child, but I had no idea what had happened to her or what she was doing until I saw her on television a few months ago."

"Television?"

"Yes, one of those television features they do from time to time on interesting or unusual people. They evidently chose Virginia because she was the only licensed private detective in Washington working out of a wheelchair. Later, when this thing with Latty and Don Wolf came up and I wanted someone to look into his background, Virginia was the one I called. There were things about Virginia that bothered me. I worried a little that she wasn't entirely honest with me from time to time, but still, she did a good enough job as far as Don Wolf was concerned. She's how I found out he was married."