“I didn’t do it,” he said.
“Do what?” I asked.
“Turn off the lights, kill Keller,” Leo bleated, looking at his mother for a mercy she had no intention of granting.
“Who did?” Phil asked.
“I don’t know,” Leo almost wept.
“You killed somebody?” Leo’s mother asked.
“Mrs.…” I said.
“Call me Cornelia,” she said.
“Cornelia,” I said. “Let us ask our questions. You’ll get your crack at junior when we leave.”
“That you don’t have to tell me,” she said, fixing her glare at Leo who looked away.
“I’m besieged,” he said. “All sides. This isn’t fair.”
“Do a trick,” said Phil. “Make us disappear.”
“What do you want?”
“One of you Dranabadurians got up before the lights went out,” I said. “Which one?”
I expected him to repeat the party line, say that everyone had been nailed to his seat when Ott was killed. Juanita’s warning came back to me. The man in the penguin suit. The lights on and off.
“He wasn’t sitting down,” Leo said.
“Who?” asked Phil.
“Melvin Rand.”
There was no Melvin Rand on Phil’s list.
“Who is Melvin Rand?” Phil asked.
Leo bit his lip. Cornelia shouted the same question loud enough to make me nearly jump. I think Leo did jump.
“He’s not really a Dranabadurian,” said Leo. “Believe me. Not yet. He’s new. Keller introduced him at the last meeting.”
“And he was at the Blackstone party last night?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Where was he sitting?” asked Phil
“He wasn’t,” said Leo.
“What was he doing, crawling around on the floor like you’re going to be doing?” Cornelia screamed.
Leo quivered and looked up to Phil and me for protection, which probably gives you an idea of who really scared him in this room.
“He was a waiter,” Leo said. “It was part of Keller’s plan I guess. He didn’t tell us. I just looked up when he brought the bread to the table and he winked at me. Like this. He was wearing a black wig and a fake mustache, but I recognized him.”
“Did the others at your table recognize him?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
Leo slumped back.
“Where was Rand when the lights went out?” I asked.
“Don’t know,” Leo whispered.
“Was he wearing red socks?” asked Phil.
“No. I looked,” Leo whispered even more quietly.
“Speak up,” Cornelia shouted.
“No,” Leo shouted back.
“Without the wig and the mustache is he blonde, thin?” I asked.
“That’s him,” said Leo.
“He was the waiter standing near the door who got us running after the kid,” Phil said.
Which meant he was nowhere near the table where Ott lay dead with a knife in his neck.
“Any idea of where we might find Melvin Rand?” I asked.
Leo shook his head “no.”
“Pathetic,” snorted Cornelia, getting up from her chair, arms still folded. She walked over to the couch as Leo slid away from her. She unfolded her arms and gently put his head against her ample chest. “Leo Benz, you are a pathetic creature.”
Phil and I left.
“Hotel Roosevelt?” I asked as we headed for the car.
“Stop at my house first,” Phil said.
We were only fifteen minutes from Phil’s. I parked on the street and started to get out.
“You’ve never had whooping cough,” he said, putting his hand on my arm. “Stay here.”
I stayed, tried to figure out what had happened when the lights went out last night, failed miserably and turned on the radio.
After I learned that Dewey had accepted the Republican nomination for President, Bing Crosby and I sang
“Dave and Nate both have it,” he said.
“Lucy?”
“She seems alright. Becky’s trying to keep her out of their bedroom. I told her to stay away from her brothers, but she’s five, takes after me more than Ruth.”
“What’s the doctor say?”
“Doc Hodgdon’ll be here in about an hour.”
Doc Hodgdon was eighty, retired, and working on a book. Phil had met him through me. We played handball regularly at the Downtown Y. The doc was slow, steady, straight-backed, and sure of hand. I rarely beat him.
I put the Crosley in gear and Phil said, “Stop.”
I stopped. He opened the door.
“Call me later,” he said getting out. “I’ll meet you. I’ll make some calls.”
He closed the door and started back toward the house without looking back at me. I shifted into first and made a U-turn.
Chapter 15
Show your victim three cards: a 6 of clubs, 8 of diamonds, and a 10 of spades. Ask them to pick one and not tell you which one they have chosen. Put the cards in your pocket, close your eyes and concentrate, and then pull out two cards and place them facedown on the table. Ask your victim to tell which card he or she had chosen. Reach into your pocket and pull out that card. Announce that you’ll gladly do the trick again. Solution: Arrange the three cards in order 6, 8, 10. You can use any three cards as long as they are numerical and increase in number. Put the three cards in your pocket where you already have two other cards. Pull out those two other cards and place them on the table facedown. When the victim tells you what card was chosen, simply reach into your pocket and pull it out knowing that the 10 is on top, the 8 in the middle, and the six on the bottom. You can do the trick again because you still have two extra cards in your pocket.
“Rand, Rand, Rand, Rand,” said the young woman in the serious suit and large glasses.
Her name was Miss Sanford. It said so on the pin over her right jacket pocket. Her hair was dark and pinned back. She was, young, pretty, and all business. She pointed her sharpened pencil at a name on the sheet of paper
