marry before the year was out and live in comfort for the rest of their lives. But he was going to need her help in carrying out the plan. He needed someone in the hospital to supply him with the names of new patients, especially well-heeled ones in private suites.
“Did you help him, Ella?”
She shook her head emphatically. “I certainly did not.”
“Then how did you get the diamond ring and the watch?”
“He gave them to me before I broke off with him. I guess he thought it would change my mind. But after I found out about him, I didn’t want any part of him or his plans. A nurse who would take advantage of her patients like that should have her uniform torn right off her back.”
“But you didn’t tell the police about his plans.”
“I just couldn’t.” She hung her head. “I was stuck on him, I guess, for a long time after I broke with him. Larry was my first real crush. It made me do crazy things. Like last week-” She interrupted herself again.
“What happened last week?”
“I kept reading about these houses and stores being broken into in town. I couldn’t believe Larry was doing it. At the same time I knew he was mixed up in it. I had to do something, settle my mind one way or the other. I borrowed a car from a girl-friend and went out to Larry’s place. I intended to ask him outright if he was the burglar. He wouldn’t tell me the truth, probably, but I wanted to see the look on his face when I asked him. Then I’d know what to do.
“There was a light in the house. I left the car down the road and sneaked up on it, kind of. I could hear voices inside. He had a woman with him. I knocked on the door-I didn’t care what happened. I saw her when he opened the door. She was sitting on the studio couch, a blonde in a Japanese kimono-the same one I used to wear. It sort of set me off, and I called him a name.
“Larry stepped outside and closed the door on her. I never saw him mad before. He was so mad it made his teeth chatter. He said if I ever came there again, or bothered him in any way, that he would tell a friend of his to put a knife in my heart. I was scared. My knees were shaking so that I could hardly get back to the car.”
“Did he mention the friend’s name?”
“No.”
“It wasn’t Gus Donato?”
“I never heard of any Donato. All he said was a friend. Some friends he must have.”
“You should have gone to the police, Ella.”
“I know I should. You think I should talk to them now, don’t you?”
“Decidedly.”
“You honestly think they’ll let me go if I talk?”
“It won’t be quite as simple as that, I’m afraid. If you satisfy the District Attorney, he should consent to a lowering of your bail at least. It was set very high.”
“Yeah, five thousand dollars. I can’t raise that kind of money, and I haven’t got the five hundred to pay a bail bondsman. How low do you think you can get it down?”
“I won’t make any promises. It depends.”
“Depends on what?” she said impatiently.
“On whether or not you’ve told me the whole truth, and tell the same to the police and the prosecutor.”
“Don’t you believe this is the truth?”
“I’ll be frank with you, Miss Barker. One or two things about your story bother me. Why did you sell Broadman the ring that Larry gave you?”
“I wanted Larry to know what I thought of him and his lousy ring. Broadman was a friend of his, and I thought he’d probably tell him.”
“How would Broadman know where you got the ring?”
“I told him.”
“You told Broadman?”
“Yes.”
“He knew that Larry gave you the ring?”
“After I told him, he must have.”
We sat and looked at each other.
“You think Larry killed Broadman, don’t you?” the girl said.
“Or had him killed.”
chapter 4
I GOT IN TOUCH with Wills and a Deputy District Attorney named Joe Reach. We convened with Ella Barker in the interrogation room on the first floor of the courthouse. Ella went through her story again. It was recorded on stenotype and wire by an elderly court reporter named Ed Gellhorn.
There are some quite honest people who make poor witnesses because they can’t tell the same story twice with any degree of conviction. Ella’s story hadn’t been too plausible in the first place. The second time around, told in surges of hysterical assurance with stretches of dismal self-doubt in between, it sounded like something she was making up as she went along. Wills and Reach didn’t believe her. To make matters worse, they assumed that I didn’t, either.
Wills kept bringing up the name Donato, trying to make her admit that she knew the wanted man. Reach kept insisting that she had been fully aware of Gaines’s activities, and probably accessory to them. You didn’t shack up with a guy-
I stopped him there. “That’s enough, Joe. Miss Barker has made a full and voluntary statement. You’re trying to twist it around into a confession.”
“Any twisting that’s being done, I think I know who’s doing it.”
“What’s this about a blonde woman?” Wills put in. “This one you said you saw at Gaines’s place in the canyon.”
“I saw her, all right,” Ella said.
“Can you describe her?”
She looked around the circle of male faces, half despairing.
“I said, can you describe her?”
“Give her a chance to collect her thoughts, Lieutenant.”
Wills turned on me. “You don’t have to
“Why would I lie about her?” Ella said.
“Just in case she never existed, for instance. If she existed, describe her to us.”
“I’m trying to. She was very good-looking. Not so fresh, if you know what I mean, and not a natural blonde, I don’t think, but very good-looking. You ever go to the movies?”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“You ever see this new actress they have, name of Holly May? The woman that Larry was smooching with looked like Holly May.”
Wills and Reach exchanged incredulous glances. Reach said: “What would a movie actress be doing with riffraff like him?”
“I didn’t say it was her. I said it looked like her.”
“You’re certain she existed?”
I got angry at this point, told Ella to say no more, and left the room. Wills and Reach followed me into the anteroom.
“You’re making a mistake,” the Lieutenant said. “This is a murder case now. That little client of yours is dipping her tootsies into very hot water. You better lay out all your cards on the table.”
Joe Reach nodded agreement. “You owe it to your client to instruct her to tell the whole truth. I know what it means when a witness starts picking faces off of movie screens. I’ve had a lot more experience-”
