“Anyone else have a key to your apartment?” Dirkson asked casually.
Sheila’s eyes flickered. Johnny had a key. But that was none of their business.
“No,” she said.
Dirkson caught it again. But he didn’t press the point. He just made a mental note to find out to whom she’d given a key.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s get back to the letter. Can you think of any reason why this man would have sent you the letter?”
“I can’t think of any reason why anyone would have sent me that letter.”
The phone rang. Dirkson picked it up, listened and said, “Okay. Thanks. Send in Tucker.”
He hung up the phone and turned back to Sheila. “All right, Miss Benton. That’s all for now. I may need to talk to you again later. The police are finished with your apartment.”
Sergeant Tucker entered. Dirkson came around his desk, helped Sheila to her feet and gestured to Sergeant Tucker.
“Now,” Dirkson said, “if you’ll just let Sergeant Tucker take your fingerprints, you’re free to go.”
Sheila paled. “My fingerprints…”
“Well, now,” Dirkson said, suavely. “We’ve taken a lot of fingerprints from your apartment. We need yours so we can tell which of them are not yours.”
“I see,” Sheila said. She didn’t look happy.
Sergeant Tucker escorted her out.
Dirkson’s frozen smile lasted only until the door was closed.
“Damn,” he said.
Farron looked at him with a wry smile. “Helpful, isn’t she?”
“She certainly is.”
Farron cocked his head. “I would hate to comment on the veracity of the D.A.’s office, but I notice you mentioned there was nothing in the dead man’s pockets. I don’t believe you mentioned a key.”
“You’re damn right I didn’t, and you’re not going to, either. I want you to clamp a lid on this key bit, and I mean now. If it leaks out, I will hold you personally responsible. You got that? If I end up having to prosecute the girl, I don’t want her to know about it until I hit her with it in court.”
“You think we’ll end up charging her?”
“I don’t know. You got any other suspects?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Okay. Get on it. And get the dope on the girl. Find out if she really saw her uncle. Find out when she left. Trace the cab that took her back to her apartment. Get the driver to identify her. Pin him down on the time. Then dig into her personal life and give me everything you can. I want to know where she buys her food, who fixes her teeth, what kind of toilet paper she uses.”
“It’s already being done. Just routine.”
“Yeah,” Dirkson said. “Just like checking out that letter.”
Farron looked at him. “All right. Tell me something. If that girl walked into your office with that letter, and told you what she told me, what would you do about it?”
Dirkson considered. “Off the record?”
“Of course.”
Dirkson smiled and shook his head. “I’d say, ‘Fuck her,’ and forget about it.”
8
Sheila Benton rode uptown in the taxi and assessed her performance, which wasn’t easy to do, seeing as how she was a nervous wreck.
Well, she’d gotten through it. That was the best she could say about it. That damn district attorney, with his oily, ingratiating manner. He hadn’t believed a word she said, she was sure of it. Particularly the window-shopping part. That was so feeble. But she’d had to say something. She couldn’t have said, “No, I was out buying cocaine, so I couldn’t possibly have committed the murder.”
Shit. The cocaine. They hadn’t arrested her. They hadn’t searched her. She could have had it on her all the time. She hadn’t had to mail it to herself after all. And she really could have used it now. Christ, how long did the mails take, anyway? Forever, probably. But, hell, it wasn’t like she’d sent it to Alaska. The mailbox was half a block from her house. The post office was two blocks from that. So how long could it possibly take?
The answer was, no time at all. But that didn’t matter. Because there were no more mail deliveries today. And tomorrow seemed an eternity away.
The cab pulled up in front of her building. Sheila paid it off and noted with regret that after paying a hundred for the elusive gram, she now had only twelve dollars left. Well, that was the least of her worries.
Sheila looked at her mailbox on the way in. She couldn’t help doing it, though she knew nothing could be there. She went up the stairs, unlocked the door and went in.
Christ. What a nightmare. But it was real. The body was, of course, gone, but there was a chalk outline on the floor around where it had lain, just like in the movies.
Sheila stood, looking down at it, and shuddered.
Then it all came apart for her. She’d held herself together for too long, and now it all let go. She went over and threw herself on the couch, weeping uncontrollably.
She cried for several minutes. Finally she managed to stop. She went in the bathroom and splashed water on her face. She looked at herself in the mirror. God! She looked awful. Well, why not? Who wouldn’t, after all that?
She went back and sat down on the couch.
She reached an immediate decision. It was too much to take alone. She needed help. She needed reassurance. She needed Johnny.
He’d told her he was staying at the Wilshire. She called information, got the phone number and dialed.
There was no John Dutton registered there.
Sheila hung up the phone in a cold sweat. Jesus Christ, hadn’t he said the Wilshire? She was sure he had. So why the hell wasn’t he there? And where the hell was he?
She called information again, and told them to give her the phone numbers of all the hotels in Reno. The woman at information couldn’t believe it. Was she crazy? There were three whole pages of ’em. Sheila told her to forget it and hung up the phone.
Sheila thought fleetingly of calling Johnny’s wife. Her name was Inez. Inez Dutton. She’d probably be listed. But Inez wasn’t supposed to know about her, of course. Well, Sheila could pretend she was a secretary or something, pretend it was a business call, couldn’t she?
No, she realized, she couldn’t. She could never pull it off. Not in the shape she was in. She’d break down. She’d blow it. Inez would know she wasn’t a secretary. In fact, Inez might even know Johnny’s secretary.
Shit. Of course. She was being stupid. Johnny’s secretary. Sheila didn’t know her name, but that didn’t matter.
She picked up the phone, called the investment firm and spoke to a secretary who informed her that John Dutton was out of town and would be back tomorrow. She said it was urgent, and asked if there was any place he could be reached. The secretary said, sure, in Reno at the Hotel Wilshire.
Sheila hung up the phone as if in a fog. What was happening? Was it a conspiracy? Was everyone against her?
She shook her head to clear it, and got control of herself. Okay, she had to think. Her biggest problem right now was, sooner or later she was going to be arrested for murder. She was sure of it. The D.A. hadn’t bought her story, there were no other candidates and they were going to get her. She couldn’t reach Johnny, and she needed help.
A certain kind of help was immediately available, Sheila knew. All she had to do was call Uncle Max, and he’d take care of everything. He’d swing into action, hire teams of lawyers, call the commissioner, maybe even buy the
