Richard Deming - This Game of Murder

She must have deliberately pulled the wide top of her off-the-shoulder blouse down even more, for its sides were halfway down to her elbows. Her large breasts, totally bared, bulged toward him, thrusting their pink tips within kissing distance. Her knees had fallen apart and her skirt had worked up clear to her hips. She smiled at him blearily, obviously drunker than a kitten full of catnip.

He couldn’t decide whether to be amused or exasperated. Though he happened to be a sparing drinker, he had an enormous tolerance for alcohol, and the eight ounces of Scotch he had consumed had merely put a warm glow in his stomach. But apparently Gail Thomas’ capacity was as low as his was high.

No wonder she had gotten drunk the first time she was with Bruce Case, he thought. She looked on the verge of passing out from two drinks.

“You should have stuck to ginger ale,” he said. “You shouldn’t try to get other people drunk until you learn how to drink yourself. Did you ever drink Scotch before?”

She moved her head slowly from side to side, continuing to smile at him. She seemed to have difficulty keeping her face in focus.

Rising from the sofa, he took both her hands and pulled her to her feet. Staggering against him, she threw her arms about his neck, pressing her naked bosom against his chest.

Disengaging himself, he gently forced her over to the wall and leaned her against it. “Stay right there,” he commanded.

“Okay,” she said cheerily.

He drew the cocktail table out of the way and examined the sofa-bed. It was the type where you merely pulled the seat forward, the back flattened out level with the seat, and you had a double bed. As he made it into a bed, she regarded the operation with alcoholic interest.

“Where do you keep your sheets and blankets?” he asked.

“Unnerneath.”

He assumed she meant underneath the bed. Investigating, he discovered that the front of the sofa opened downward to disclose a space behind it, but it was empty and had no bottom. After contemplating it, he came to the conclusion that you had to remove the bedclothes before making the contraption into a bed. He pushed it back to its sofa position, looked again and was pleased to learn he was right. Beneath the seat was a storage chamber running the width of the sofa.

He drew out folded sheets, two pillows and a blanket, pulled the contrivance out into a bed again and efficiently made it up.

When he straightened from this endeavor and glanced over his shoulder to where he had left the girl, there was nothing there but a skirt and blouse lying on the floor. Swinging the other way, he found her swaying on her feet in the center of the room, stark naked except for her toeless sandals.

She lifted one foot to remove a sandal, lost her balance and started to topple on her face. He made a dash and caught her beneath the arms, just in time to prevent her crashing to the floor. Heaving her erect, he led her over to the bed and made her sit.

In that position she managed to get the sandals off without falling off the bed. She gave him a vacant smile and leaned her head back on one of the pillows, her legs still dangling over the sides and her feet on the floor. He lifted them up onto the bed and drew the top sheet and blanket up over her.

Momentarily her eyes closed, then opened again. “Will you be long?”

He saw no point in telling her he had no intention of joining her, since he suspected that within a few minutes she wouldn’t know whether anyone was in bed with her or not.

“I want to wash up,” he said.

“Okay,” she said sleepily. “I’ll be here.”

He found the bathroom off the kitchenette and waited for five minutes, smoking a cigarette. When he came out, she was sound asleep.

He put the last letter Bruce Case had written her into his pocket, rebound the others with the piece of string and put them back in the desk drawer. Then he turned out the lights, set the spring lock and quietly let himself out.

Checking his watch, he saw it was only nine-thirty. She had managed to knock herself out in an hour and a half.

At eleven o’clock the next morning he sat across from Betty in the visitor’s room. “How’s Bud?” she asked as usual.

“The same,” he said. “He went to camp with the Cub Scouts over the weekend.”

“Oh, my!” she said. “I forgot all about that. I never even mentioned it to Aunt Audrey.”

“Max Lischer phoned an hour before the bus left, and she managed to get him there in time. It worked out okay.” He added casually, “Bud told me about the wire across the top of the stairs.”

Her color gradually faded.

“I don’t understand you,” he said. “You’ve known all along that Bruce came to your room to kill you that night. Why did you keep silent?”

“He can’t ever know his father was a would-be murderer,” she whispered. “His grandfather a murderer and his father a murderer. What girl would ever marry a boy with a family background like that? She would lie next to him at night in terror of her life.”

“You don’t inherit a proclivity for murder, Betty.”

“I’m not saying you do. All I’m saying is that it would wreck Bud’s chances. I don’t think for a minute that Bud will grow up to become a murderer just because he comes from killer stock. But other people would wonder. If you had a daughter, would you let her marry him?”

“If he grows up as nice as he is now. I certainly wouldn’t object to the marriage on his father’s and grandfather’s account.”

“That’s because you know him and are fond of him. Would you let your daughter marry some young man you didn’t know as well, if you found out he came from a family of murderers?”

The question made him pause. After a moment he said honestly, “I probably wouldn’t. But I’m not going to let you go to prison for life in order to assure a pick of girls for your son ten or fifteen years from now.”

“Please let me handle it my way, Kirk. I’m willing to take my chances.”

There was something he didn’t understand. He could grasp her concern over what it might do to Bud if it became widely known that both his father and grandfather were wife killers. It would place the boy at a decided social disadvantage, and undoubtedly parents would steer their daughters clear of him. But her willingness to risk life imprisonment, or even the electric chair, in order to protect him from this disadvantage seemed all out of proportion to the possible gain.

“You don’t have any chances, your way,” he said. “Look, Betty, we may be able to handle this thing quietly, without releasing the whole story to the press. All we have to do is convince Arn Ross you’re innocent in order to get charges dropped. We don’t have to convince the general public.”

“You know better than that, Kirk. He’ll have to give some explanation to the papers. If he didn’t, the public would howl for his impeachment.”

“I suppose,” he admitted. “But at least we might be able to suppress the story about Bud’s grandfather. I’m going to show Arn the evidence I have that Bruce meant to kill you.”

“You mean make Bud be a witness against his own father?” she asked indignantly.

“I think Arn will accept my word about the wire without dragging Bud in for questioning, because I have some even more convincing evidence than that. I have a letter Bruce wrote to Gail Thomas before she ever moved to town, indicating he planned to kill you.”

“You mean she was in on it?”

He shook his head. “She’s just a dumb blonde who badly wants a man so that she can be ordered around. She wouldn’t have realized the significance of what he said in the letter. Here, see for yourself.”