King Coral - Honey Bare

“No,” I said, “I made a deal. I won’t leave your side until you’re on that plane.”

“I feel better now. It’s a, new day. I feel safe, with the doors locked.”

“I’ll help you pack, Sarah. And then we’ll stop off at my apartment on the way to the airport.”

“I’ll be all right,” she said. “Please don’t worry about me. I’ll finish packing while you’re out, and then we’ll both be ready at the same time.”

I wanted to believe her, I wanted to think that my first analysis of her had been correct. There wasn’t really anybody eager to kill her. Then I remembered the phone calls the night before. She hadn’t even been aware of the last one.

“Someone called again – after you fell asleep,” I told her. “But when I picked up the phone, nobody answered. Same routine. Only silence.”

“Maybe it was Lee,” she said lightly. “He used to pull that on me.”

“Lee? Who’s that?”

“Lee Harmon,” she said. “My ex-husband. It probably shock him to hear a man answering my phone.”

“Might he want to kill you?”

“Lee?” she laughed. “Not my ex-husband. Definitely not Lee. Now will you please get out of here before I rape you again?”

I saw her glance moving slowly up and down the front of me and then I realized that we’d been having our discussion while I’d been standing in the nude. I picked up my trench coat and slipped it on.

“You’ve got to promise me one thing, Sarah.”

“I’ll promise you anything.”

“Keep the doors locked, and don’t let anyone into the apartment while I’m gone.”

Her finger traced the outline of a huge X over her left breast. “I can assure you no one will enter this apartment.” She smiled. “I won’t have time to talk – I’ll be too busy packing.”

After I’d slipped into my wet shoes with some difficulty, I rolled the rest of my clothes into a ball and shoes them under my arm. Then Sarah was holding the door open for me and the sound of rain was filling her apartment.

I said, “I’ll be back as quickly as possible. In about an hour.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

The moment I’d stepped outside she closed the door after me. I remained there for several seconds until I heard her slipping the chain lock into place.

And then I was trotting out towards the street, keeping the trench coat wrapped around me so that my bare legs wouldn’t be too obvious. There wasn’t anyone on the sidewalks, and at the moment there weren’t even any cars going by.

I slid under the wheel of my car. With the light traffic it didn’t take me long to get home. After a quick shower and shave, I slipped into a new change of clothes. Then I was headed back to Sarah’s apartment again.

During my absence a couple of cars which had been parked at the curb ‘were now gone; and I was able to park much nearer the apartment house entrance than before. The rain had continued to come down steadily while I’d been driving so the moment I was out of the car, I ran up the walk. I bounded up the stairway to the door of Sarah’s apartment.

The moment I hit the landing my right foot skidded on something slick.

Momentarily I was off balance, I lurched forward, my hands outstretched to break my fall. The second my hands hit Sarah’s door, I felt it giving under the force of my fall. I tried to recover but I was off balance and the next instant I was stretched out on my stomach. The door was wide open and the sill of the doorway was in my middle.

“Sarah!” The sodden knit dress was still on the rug but the front room was empty. I jumped to my feet and sprint towards her bedroom.

When I got to the doorway of the bedroom I saw her. She was lying on her back on the bed, in the center of the disheveled stack of clothing that she’d wanted to pack. But where she’d gone she wouldn’t need any suitcase.

There was a nylon stocking around her neck. It had turned her lovely face into a terrible sight. She’d fought her attacker, I could tell, because the hem of her shift had worked itself lip to the juncture of her thighs. Then the thought came to me that her murderer might still be in her apartment. He wasn’t.

A quick tour proved that there was no one there. Nothing seemed to be disturbed. Her purse was still in the bedroom, closed, the way she’d left it the night before. I didn’t touch it. I didn’t touch a thing. With my back turned to her so that I wouldn’t have to look at her face I called the police.

I asked for Jenks, then I went out into the front room to wait.

I’d been away from her apartment slightly more than an hour. She’d promised me not to let anyone inside and not to unlock the door. No one broken it open.

That meant that Sarah had known her caller and for some reason she’d let the murderer into her apartment. Furthermore the sight of her caller must not have upset her because she and her caller must have gone into the bedroom while they talked. Remembering Sarah’s determination to get packed that was probably what she was doing when the murderer picked one of her nylons off the bed and strangled her.

She’d been murdered because I hadn’t really believed her, and I hadn’t done my job. When the police arrived that was the way I explained it to Jenks. He’d been in Homicide so long he only had a couple of more years to go before he retired. I’d known him for a long time. His son had passed the Bar and had been sworn in the same time as I.

Now Jenks was sitting in the chair in Sarah’s front room, staring across the coffee table at me. I was sitting on the couch, the way Sarah had sat yesterday evening when she’d offered me the five hundred to protect her from a murderer.

The police had checked for prints, taken pictures, investigated the entire apartment and already taken Sarah away.

Jenks said, “So that makes you the prime suspect, Link.”

“I wondered how long it would take you to tell me that,” I said.

“Unfortunately, I don’t have any proof,” he said. “Until I get the results from the lab.”

“I didn’t kill her.”

He nodded solemnly. “All right. But don’t try to leave town.” With a quick smile he added, “Barrister. I may want to recheck a few things with you.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll be around. I’d like to check out a few things myself.”

“We don’t appreciate that kind of help.”

“I know you don’t. Normally I wouldn’t get involved in this, but I feel responsible for her death.”

“We’ll work on it,” he said. “Why don’t you go home, stay out of the rain and just take it easy? No need for you to get wet, too.”

“Sure,” I said.

He got to his feet and then slipped into his wet trench coat. We left her apartment together, walked down to the street, and then paused on the sidewalk before parting for our separate cars. Jenks said, “I wonder who they’ll get to replace her in that TV series?”

I shrugged. “I haven’t even thought about that. Is that your angle? The possible motive?”

“You never know,” he said.

And then he was walking down the sidewalk towards his car, the back of his neck tucked down into his collar to keep out the rain.

While I was driving back to my apartment I thought about the phone calls the night before, trying to remember any minor thing that could tip off who might have been calling. There hadn’t been any noise audible in the background. I hadn’t even heard the sound of the caller breathing.

Last night the phone calls had frightened her. This morning she’d passed them off a bit lightly, it seemed. It was strange that she had mentioned the name of her ex-husband, Lee Harmon. Now I was glad that she’d told me about him. If he’d been married to her before, he probably knew a few things about Sarah that she hadn’t told me.