“Yes, I’m sure of it.”
“Wait a minute.” He thumbed rapidly through a pile of typed papers. “Here’s the description you gave me this morning. Um. Fits, all right.” His eyes went to Mr. Halloran.
“What’ve you got to say, Halloran?”
“She’s a-lyin’!”
“Sure, she’s a-lyin’. I bet she was stealin’ herself!” bleated Mrs. Halloran.
“Stealing, eh? So that’s what you were doing, Halloran?”
“She’s a-lyin’!”
Lieutenant Strom lifted himself from his chair, leaning forward over his desk to tower above the cringing little man.
“Shut up! No one needs to tell me you’re a thief. I know you’re a thief. How many times were you up for theft when you were bellhoppin’? Now, come across! What were you lookin’ for in that cellar?”
Mr. Halloran cowered back. “What if I was?” he whined. “What if I was? I got a wife, ain’t I? I got to feed a pack o’ children, don’t I? I’m a poor, disabled veter’n, lost my health fightin’ for democ’ercy. While you guys at home was cleanin’ up big, livin’ on the fat o’ the land—”
“Aw, tripe.”
Mr. Halloran began sniveling. “That’s what they say to the soldier boys now. They didn’t say that when we was—”
“You get around to Mrs. Garr’s cellar!”
“I couldn’t see my wife and chillern starvin’ to death before my eyes, could I?”
“Hell, your wife was at a movie.”
“Our last cent, that took. So I knew the old lady had a lot of dough and she wouldn’t give us a cent, wouldn’t give a cent to the poor out of her riches. All I wanted was one dollar. Fifty cents even, so my wife and chillern—”
“Oh, for God’s sake, shut up.” The lieutenant fell back into his chair, weariness and disgust on his face. He turned to me.
“How long ago since you saw this man come out of the cellar?”
“Quite a while. Several weeks.”
“Um. Then the question is, did he try it again when he thought the coast was clear Friday night?”
He picked up a phone on his desk, called an extension, barked, “Check those Halloran alibis again with a fine-tooth comb. Especially his. But get a man on checking if she really went to Chicago.”
He brooded over the Hallorans a moment after that, made up his mind.
“Lock him up for the night. Send her home to those blasted kids. They may be president someday.”
The Hallorans were cleared out quickly. Lieutenant Strom, one other policeman, and I were alone in the room.
“Bring Kistler in,” the lieutenant ordered.
Mr. Kistler came in stepping as blithely as if he were here on a social call. Lieutenant Strom swung back in his swivel chair, his eyes lurking behind the heavy lids.
“So you two have an excursion ticket to Chicago for Memorial Day. Well, well, isn’t life interesting? I suppose the old lady gave it to you for a valentine?”
“That’s almost the story,” I said coldly.
“Your story?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll get it from the source, thanks. Okay, Kistler.”
“Well, sir, when I told you where I was Friday night I left out a few bits. You know, unimportant.”
“Yeah, unimportant.” The lieutenant lifted his receiver again to call another extension.
“Any more reports on the Kistler alibi?” He listened impassively, said, “Okay,” hung up, swung back to Mr. Kistler.
“Unimportant. Yeah. So we found out.”
They were checking alibis, then. I had a vision of the flurry there’d been at the advertising department at Benson’s, with a plainclothes man questioning Hilda Crosley and schoolmarmish Miss Caddy, the advertising manager. I’d bet I was washed up in that office.
Hodge Kistler was looking at the lieutenant with his face very red.
“How about some privacy?”
Lieutenant Strom looked at me, and for an instant, I saw a grin: on the inside of his face.
“Nope. Talk.”
“Well, in general, Lieutenant Strom, it was like I told you this morning. Les Trowbridge and Brown and I got through at the Guide around five o’clock, which is late as our Fridays go. We circulate on Thursdays, you know. We all dropped in for a couple quick ones in the West Street bar, because Brown is married; he had to go on home.
“A couple of girls were putting ’em down in the next booth. They looked approachable so we joined ’em. They said they were going on this excursion so they needed some fortifying. They took it. After a while Brown went home—that was about six o’clock. About seven the girls began talking about going to the station, but Trowbridge and I had a couple other ideas.” He slid a glance at me.
“Yeah,” said Lieutenant Strom dryly. “Unimportant ideas.”
“God, yes. Well, the girls didn’t go to Chicago. They were only going there to meet a couple men anyway. We left the bar. And sometime or another during the evening this one gal dragged this ticket out and said, ‘See what I’ve given up for your sake.’ So she wanted me to keep it to remember her by.”
Lieutenant Strom turned sober eyes on me.
“You believe this story, Mrs. Dacres?”
“Oh yes, I believe it.” I made it bitter.
“Why?”
“Because it makes me so mad.”
The lieutenant leaned far back in his chair, the better to roar. The other policeman helped him out. I didn’t think it was so frightfully humorous.
“Oh, God, why is sudden death so funny?” The lieutenant wiped his face. “You’re a God damn good storyteller, Kistler, but you’ve got to admit it looks suspicious. What was this girl’s name?”
“Uh—Toots.”
The lieutenant chortled again.
“Toots what?”
“Hell, I don’t know and I don’t want to know.”
“It’s bad for your story you don’t. Where did you go after you left the bar?”
“Here.” Mr. Kistler reached forward, picked up the pen on the desk, wrote briefly on a slip of paper, pushed it at the lieutenant.
“We’ve had a hint or two about that joint,” the lieutenant said. “Bill, take this down to Thwaite and give him the background. I’m going to hold you, Kistler.”
“Aw, Lieutenant, have a heart! I’ve got a date to see an important chain-store guy about a contract tomorrow. Do you know what that means? Money! And gosh, how we need it!”
“Got a partner, haven’t
