When I was halfway up the top lift, the snow began to come in light flurries. I thought I might make it down before it really started, but by the time I pushed back the safety bar, it was coming thick enough to warm any sentimentalist’s heart on Christmas Eve and to freeze any intermediate skier’s on an icy mountain top. The LIFT SKI TIPS sign could only be read when it was too late. I hoped no people were standing at the bottom of the lift exit because I’d hit them as soon as I saw them.
There were five or six people all right, but they were standing well back from the exit. There are no dummies at the top of the mountain. I joined them at the edge and peered down through the kind of snowfall that looks like a heavy fog. Whiteout. I wouldn’t be able to see a damned thing till I got below the snow line. Two young hotshots with jeans and curly locks let out a whoop and pushed off like downhill racers. The rest looked more tentative. They started down slowly, angling among the ghostly pine trees. The snow had already covered the yellow ice patches which had been clearly visible in the noonday sun. I slipped my pole straps over my wrists and started down too.
Thick snowflakes beat against my goggles and the wind howled in my ears. Those two kids must know the mountain very well. For a skier like me, it was a question of keeping the speed down and skiing entirely with the legs. You couldn’t see the configuration of the terrain, only feel it when you hit it; your knees had to be your shock absorbers. You couldn’t be too low on your skis.
I descended the steep slope, swinging around each tree as it suddenly loomed in front of me, and finally came out on the Meadow, a long, wide, almost treeless area that would take me a good distance toward the midway lift. The Meadow was all big moguls. I couldn’t see anyone through the veil of white. I swung down through the giant hills, the snow powdering from my chattering skis, and discovered that the old legs still had enough left even for conditions like these. That was gratifying.
Near the bottom, the Meadow leveled off and smoothed out, and I stood up on the skis to relax my muscles a minute. That’s when I saw something low, grey, and bulky through the white veil just ahead. A rock. There was no time to avoid it and I hit it straight on and went over the tips in the worst kind of fall. I sailed across it into a bone-cracking collision with the icy snow, head first. The bindings gave, or I might have been missing a leg or two.
My mouth and nose were full of snow, my goggles were banged back into my hair, and my right hand hurt like hell where I’d fallen on it. But otherwise I was in reparable condition. I lay for a few seconds, breathing heavily in the thin cold air, and then pushed myself warily to my feet. Everything hurt. I looked back at the rock, but now it didn’t look like a rock.
I backed up a bit, dragging my loose skis by the safety straps, to see what it was.
Under a thin layer of snow lay the hunched body of a man. Something about his absolute and final immobility told me he was dead.
When I bent over to examine him more closely, I found bullet wounds — three of them, in a tight pattern in the lower chest. His face had the calmness of contented sleep — eyes closed, skin still warm. He was about thirty-five, goodlooking, and judging from his outfit, well-heeled. He looked like a man without any problems, except that he had been shot to death.
Five minutes later I finally got my skis, boots, poles, and goggles straightened out and was starting down the slope once more. There didn’t seem to be anybody else left up on the mountain. I reached the spot where the trail cut off to the left through some scattered trees toward the midway lift. Here there was a smooth icy stretch I remembered from earlier in the day, and I schussed it. Suddenly a stationary figure materialized out of the white just in front of me. I pulled up. It was a woman, resting. She regarded me curiously through her yellow goggles.
“There’s a body back there in the snow.” I spoke loudly because of the wind.
“What?” she said.
I pointed back toward the Meadow. “A man — shot.”
“Are you crazy?” She lifted her goggles. She was young, pretty, brunette, a ski bunny type, even to the powder blue outfit that showed off her curves.
“Forget it,” I said and pushed off toward the lift. When I reached it, there were only a few skiers gathered there and they weren’t going back up — the lift had been shut down because of the weather on top — they were taking a break before continuing down. But the lift operator was sitting in his shack, and I yelled to him to telephone to the bottom for the ski patrol with a sled; someone was seriously hurt above. He put down his magazine, picked up the phone, and asked me how seriously hurt. I let his question sink in and told him he’d better telephone for the cops too.
Two hours later I was sitting in the town police station. There were three others in the office: the police chief, another cop, and my buddy Joe Scully, with whom I’d driven out to Colorado for five days’ vacation. That made four cops in all. Joe and I work in the Missing Persons Division back home.
The chief, named Hewitt, was an old cop who spent most of his time worrying about drunken kids tearing up the local bars. Maybe he had an occasional incident of wife beating or a traffic accident, but I didn’t think he’d seen many homicides.
We were all drinking coffee.
“Quite a coincidence, your being a cop,” the chief said.
“Cops ski too,” I said.
“How come your buddy wasn’t up there with you?”
“I quit early,” Joe said. “I get cold.”
“He prefers to do most of his skiing at the lodge bar,” I explained.
The chief lit another cigarette. He smoked a lot of cigarettes. “Did you hear anything like shots?” he asked. “That guy hadn’t been dead long when you found him.”
“I didn’t hear any shots,” I said. “The wind might have carried the sound in another direction.”
“You may have been too far up the mountain,” the chief said. “There was nobody around the body at all?”
“No. Everybody was scooting down. There was no visibility whatsoever near the top.”
“Funny place to shoot somebody,” the chief said.
“I’d say it was a damned near perfect place,” Joe offered.
“You guys ever worked a homicide?” asked Hewitt.
“I was in Homicide three years,” I said.
“Not me,” Joe said.
“Maybe you’ll be able to give me a few pointers, Timothy,” the chief said to me. “I’ve only been on three killings — all family stuff, no mystery about them. This one will take some work.”
“What have you got so far?” I asked.
He slurped a cup of coffee. “His name is Claude Wingfield, age thirty-seven, lawyer, comes from Des Moines. He drives a ’79 Honda Accord — my boys located it in the parking lot. Seems he was out here alone, which is unusual. I don’t know if he’s married — we’re checking on that. Waiting on the autopsy for more information. But we found three spent .32 automatic cases near the body.”
“Where was he staying?”
“At Green Pine Lodge. We found the key in his pocket. I sent someone down there.”
The door opened and another cop appeared. “The victim’s married, chief. I talked to his wife on the phone. She’s flying out. She’ll get here sometime this evening.”
The chief looked satisfied. “When were you two planning on leaving?”
“Tomorrow,” Joe said.
“Well, keep in touch until then, will you? You might be able to help us out.”
“Sure,” I said. I wrote down our hotel and room number and slid it across the desk to him. “We’ll check back here after dinner,” I said.
“Good.”
Joe and I went down the street to the first bar we saw and had a couple of beers. The bartender, a big red-faced Scandinavian type, asked us if we’d heard about the murder on the mountain. We said we had. At six o’clock we walked back to our hotel, showered, and then went out to dinner at a place called the Top Sirloin, with a phony Old West decor. By the time we finished eating it was almost eight. We returned to the police station. Chief Hewitt was sitting behind his desk drinking coffee.
“Sit down.” He motioned us toward two empty chairs. “We have the results of the autopsy.”
“Is Mrs. Wingfield here yet?” I asked.
He shook his head. “She has to change planes at Denver. It’ll take a while.”
“What does the autopsy say?”
“Three in the lower chest from a .32. Very close range, a yard or so at the most. One pierced the heart. Death was almost instantaneous. What do you think? It sounds to me like it might be a woman: a small-caliber gun at such close range. The guy was married; he came out here skiing without his wife, wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.”
“Men also carry .32 automatics,” I said.
“I think he was hustling,” the chief said. “The hotel says he arrived alone, rented a single room.”
“How long had he been in town?”
“Three days.”
“Did he bring any girls to his room?”
“Who knows? The place is too big to notice that sort of thing.”
“There’s not much you can do until you talk to his wife,” I suggested.
He grunted assent. “She should be here in a couple of hours.”
“Where’s an interesting place to have a drink in the meantime?”
“Try the Red Lantern. Nice atmosphere — like a club. It doesn’t get too many kids.” He gave us directions.
It was still snowing outside. The town, a former mining center, looked postcard-picturesque under the snowfall. The streets were full of skiers, bar-hopping in noisy groups, but the Red Lantern was a more sedate place. It had chandeliers, a long dark wood bar, plush stools, and candles on the tables. Behind the bar an ornate mirror reflected the chandeliers. The wallpaper was red with black arabesques.
“You like this place?” Joe asked me.
“It’s quiet.”
“Too grand for my taste,” he said.
“Do you feel like walking through the snow some more?”
“No,” he admitted.
We took stools at the bar. Joe ordered a Coors and I asked for a margarita — the setting may have suggested it. The bartender was a slightly built man in black bow tie and white shirtsleeves — and red arm garters. I thought that was overdoing it.
When we ordered a second round, the bartender asked us if we were skiers.
“Isn’t everybody?” Joe said. “Why do you ask?”
“I heard you talking,” the bartender said. “I thought you might be cops.”
“Do you get to see a lot of cops?”
“Not here, but I tended bar in Chicago for twenty years. I got to know cops pretty well.” He wiped the clean bar with a clean cloth. “And I figured, well, what with the murder—”
“You’re right,” I told him. “We are cops. But we came out here to ski.”
“I saw the guy,” the bartender said.
“What?”
“He was in here last night.”
“How do you know it was the guy?”
“A fellow who works at the hospital dropped in earlier this evening. He told me his name was Wingfield — tall, goodlooking, mid-thirties. Well, a guy named Wingfield following that description was drinking here last night.”
“How’d you know his name?”
“He paid the bill with a credit card. But that’s not the main reason; it was the blonde on his arm that made him stick in my mind. She was wearing one of those see-through blouses.”
I could see cop-curiosity in Joe’s face. I was leaning across the bar myself. “Yeah?” Joe asked.
“They weren’t here too long, maybe forty-five minutes. They were both pretty high. It looked like they were making a round of the night spots and they’d been to several before they got here.”
“Chummy?” Joe suggested.
“Couldn’t be much chummier. I thought you guys were out here to ski,” the bartender said.
“What’d she look like?” Joe asked.
“Like everybody’s dream. Long blonde hair, blue eyes, the kind of figure you imagine but don’t often see.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” I joked.
“I’m only forty-five,” he said. “My knee still jumps when you hit it with a hammer.”
“Did you hear any of their conversation?” I asked.
“No. They sat at a table. That table.” He pointed to one in a corner under a red wall lamp. “There was one other thing that made me remember him. When they left, he told me to add five dollars for the tip.”
“Trying to impress the blonde,” I suggested.
“She didn’t seem to need any impressing.”
“If you see her again, I think Chief Hewitt at the station would be interested to hear.”
“I don’t like getting involved.”
“This was a murder,” Joe reminded him.
“You’re right,” the bartender said. “If I see her, I’ll tell the chief.”
After the second drink, Joe wanted to move on. We tried two more bars, but the first was full of young kids and loud music and the second had sawdust on the floor and barrels for stools. It also had piped-in country and western music. But we ordered two beers. While I was paying for them, a girl walked up and gave me the once-over.
“You’re the madman from the mountain.”
“I’m the what?”
“I recognize your jacket.” She gestured to my ski jacket, red with yellow stripes. “I thought you were nuts when you told me about a man being shot.”
I recognized her then. She looked even prettier without her cap and goggles and in her tight black sweater, but still like a ski bunny.
“Hello again,” I said. “Do you want to join us?”
“All right.”
Joe made room between us. He also shot me a very meaningful, if not envious, look.
“What’s your name?”
“Connie Petersen.”
“Bob Timothy. My friend is Joe Scully. What are you drinking?”
“Beer’s fine.”
I ordered it.
“I suppose I should apologize,” she said.
“Under the circumstances it was very understandable,” I said.
“All anyone’s talking about is the murder.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“You must feel funny, being the one who found him.”
“I felt pretty funny then,” I admitted.
She crinkled her lovely blue-grey eyes. “I like you. How long are you staying?”
“We’re leaving tomorrow morning.”
“Oh,” she said, disappointed. Then, abruptly, “I’d better be going. My boyfriend’s waiting for me.”
“How come he’s not with you?”
“He’s not my jailer,” she said flippantly.
She grabbed her coat from a peg near the bar. “Well, maybe I’ll see you around.”
“Could be.”
She went out through the swinging doors and pushed open the glass door beyond.
“You blew it,” Joe said. “I’ll be damned if you didn’t blow it.”
The bartender came up with Connie’s beer. Joe and I shared it, then I suggested we go back to the police station.
Mrs. Wingfield had arrived fifteen minutes before us. She was in the chief’s office. He’d given instructions to send us in if we turned up.
She was handsome and slightly overweight, in her early thirties. She was wearing charcoal grey slacks, a heavy cream-colored sweater, and a suede coat lined with lamb’s wool. She turned to the door as we entered and the chief introduced us. Her eyes were dry and she looked very self-possessed.
“Mrs. Wingfield was just telling me about her husband,” the chief said. He gave me a quick glance that implied it was an earful.
We sat down.
“So he left on Friday morning,” the chief continued, “and arrived here Saturday night. Was he in the habit of taking vacations alone, Mrs. Wingfield?”
“We both have, for many years now.” She had a dry, grating voice.
“You didn’t get along very well?”
“We’d been married for eleven years. The first two were all right.”
“Do you think it’s possible your husband was involved with another woman here?”
“Quite possible.”
“He’d done that sort of thing before?”
“Oh, yes. Claude was a womanizer. He preferred big-chested, blue-eyed blondes. You notice I’m dark.”
“Your husband was seen with a blonde woman last night, Mrs. Wingfield,” I interrupted.
The chief raised his eyes at this. This time his eyes said it wouldn’t have hurt if I’d filled him in first.
Mrs. Wingfield shrugged her shoulders. “It might have been Marilyn Losser.”
“Who’s Marilyn Losser?” the chief asked.
“His most recent flame, as far as I know. Somebody else’s wife. One of my friends was kind enough to tell me about it.”
“All the indications are that your husband came out here alone,” the chief said.
“Then I’m afraid I can’t help you,” she said.
“Do you know the address of this Marilyn Losser?” I asked.
“No. You could try the Des Moines telephone book.”
“Do you have any children, Mrs. Wingfield?” I asked.
“No. I suppose you’re wondering why I stayed with him. The answer’s very simple. Money. I’m not used to doing without it and I’m not very good at making it myself.”
“You’re very blunt,” I said.
“It facilitates things, doesn’t it?” she replied bitterly. “What else would you like to know?”
“Did Mr. Wingfield have any enemies who might want to kill him?” the chief asked.
“You mean besides Marilyn Losser’s husband? Yes, quite a few, I imagine.” She paused and asked the chief for a cigarette. He passed the pack across and lit one for her. “Claude wasn’t an especially likeable man. He wasn’t a bad person, but his manner was a bit too self-confident, distant, forceful. He smelled of success. He’d made a name for himself in Des Moines, especially after the scandal two years ago.”
“What was that?”
“There was a big political scandal — misuse of municipal funds, bribes, kickbacks. One of the people involved committed suicide.”
“What was your husband’s part in that?”
“He exposed it. He wasn’t a professional do-gooder, but he had information on some people and saw that it would suit his career to make the mess public, so he did.”
Chief Hewitt cleared his throat.
“Do you want to see the body now? We need positive identification. But it can wait till tomorrow.”
“I’ll see it now,” she said.
He rose. “I’ll have one of my men take you.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you have a hotel room?”
“I hoped you could help me with that.”
“Of course,” the chief said.
“I’m willing to stay here as long as you need me,” Mrs. Wingfield said, “but I don’t want to stay any longer than that.”
“I understand,” the chief said and went to fetch one of his men.
Joe wanted to get an early start next morning. I wanted to see Chief Hewitt first.
“I’ll start packing the stuff on the car,” Joe said. “Don’t take all morning. It’s not your case.”
I met Hewitt and another cop coming out of the station as I was going in.
“You’re just in time to join us for a walk,” Hewitt said.
“Where to?”
“Green Pine Lodge.”
“What’s up?”
“Wingfield had a fight with a guy in a bar Monday night. The bar’s just down the street from the Green Pine. The fight, apparently, was over a woman — a blonde.”
“How did you get that information?”
“Three people volunteered it after they saw Wingfield’s picture in last night’s paper. One of them knew the other guy. He’s staying at the Green Pine. Same as Wingfield was.”
For an older man, the chief was a fast walker. We covered the four blocks to the lodge in as many minutes.
Green Pine Lodge was a three story affair with a lobby full of big-leafed plants. It had oiled wooden walls, a shiny red-tiled floor, and, to the left of the reception desk, a brick fireplace. Two youngish clerks stood behind the desk.
Chief Hewitt asked to see Mrs. Muller.
One of the clerks knocked on a door behind the desk and a woman opened it from inside. The clerk spoke to her a moment and pointed to us. She called, “Come on in, chief. I’ve been expecting you.”
We walked through the hinged counter and into the office. The chief shut the door after him and introduced me to Mrs. Muller. She took a seat at her desk and we dropped into comfortable armchairs.
She was a woman of about fifty-five — vigorous-looking, with long limbs and fancy inlaid eyeglasses on a gold chain. She looked as if she could handle not only Green Pine Lodge but half of the rest of the town as well. “Well,” she said, “I suppose it’s about that killing.”
“I’m afraid so, Mrs. Muller.”
“First time we’ve ever had anything like that here. The place is fifteen years old.”
“It didn’t happen here,” the chief said. “It happened up on the mountain.”
“Still, it was one of our guests.”
“True. To tell you the truth, Mrs. Muller, I’m here to check out another of your guests. I don’t know his name, but he’s about five feet ten, has black hair and a bad complexion. Maybe a hundred and seventy pounds — age thirty or so.”
“Staying here alone?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll ask the desk clerk.”
She went out and returned about three minutes later. “It sounds like a man named Aaron — Room 26 on the second floor. He shares the room with a man named Kozinsky. Why are you looking for him?”
“Just a routine inquiry,” the chief said.
“I’m not anxious to have the place become notorious,” she said.
“It won’t, Mrs. Muller. We’ll just see if Mr. Aaron’s in.”
The chief unsnapped his holster and motioned to the other cop to do the same. We walked down the hall to 26 and Hewitt knocked. There was the sound of footsteps and the door swung open. A man in a T-shirt and ski pants stood looking at us. He matched the chief’s description perfectly.
“I’m the chief of police,” Hewitt told him. “Do you mind if we come in a minute?”
The man backed off to let us enter. “What’s this about?”
“Could I see some identification?” the chief asked.
The man pulled his wallet out of a back pocket in his pants and handed it to Hewitt, who checked the driver’s license. “Frank Aaron, San Francisco,” he verified.
“So?” Aaron said.
The chief handed him back his wallet. “You’re here with a friend?”
“That’s right. Ralph. He’s already out on the slopes. I’m on the way there myself.”
“You had a fight at the Silver Lode a couple of nights ago, I understand.”
“Maybe. What about it?”
“Know who the guy was?”
“Sure — that dude that’s staying down at the end of the hall. The one who thinks he’s a movie star.”
“Know his name?”
“Nope. I never asked him.”
“I guess you haven’t been reading the papers,” the chief said. “His name was Wingfield, and he was shot to death up on the mountain yesterday afternoon. How come you don’t know about it?”
“I haven’t been out of this room since four o’clock yesterday afternoon. I was beat. Slept for twelve hours.”
It was the wrong reaction. Too pat. He was lying.
“What was the fight about, Mr. Aaron?” the chief asked.
“If you know about the fight, you should know what it was about.”
“You tell me.”
“It was over a woman, for God’s sake. I was drunk and I tried to move in on the blonde he was with. I wouldn’t have tried it if I’d been sober. He got sore. I guess I was pretty obnoxious. But it never got beyond some shouting and a couple of broken glasses.”
“Who was the blonde?” I asked him.
“The best-looking woman I’ve seen in a long time. She was wearing a see-through blouse.” He looked from me to Hewitt, then back at me. “Why the hell are you asking me? Ask at the desk. She’s staying here.”
“It’s all coming together,” the chief said.
“Do you own a gun, Mr. Aaron?” I asked.
“No,” he said. Then he looked down at his shoes. “All right, so I own a gun. You’d find out anyway. What does that prove?”
“You have it with you?”
“It’s in the glove compartment of my car, in the lot.”
“Show this officer your car,” the chief told him. “Let’s see if the blonde lady love is in,” he said to me.
Aaron went out to the lot with the other cop while the chief and I checked back at the desk. The blonde in question was registered as Jill Howells, Room 9. We walked to the room and knocked. There was no answer and the door was locked.
“Would you know where the lady in Room 9 might be?” Hewitt asked the desk clerk.
“She may be gone. She’s only paid through last night.”
“You didn’t see her go out?”
“No.”
“I’d like to have a look at the room,” the chief said.
The clerk pulled a key from a hook below the counter and we returned to Room 9. But there wasn’t a thing there except an unmade bed, used towels, and the door key on the bureau.
“Not even a stray bobby pin,” the chief remarked after we had a look around.
Back at the desk we asked to see the registration card again. Mrs. Muller came out of her office and watched us. The card gave a home address in Omaha. The part about car information was blank.
“Where’s her car information?” I asked the clerk.
“She must have come in by plane,” he said.
“Then she’d need a taxi to get back to the airport this morning.”
He shrugged. “She didn’t ask for one at the desk.”
“You’re interested in this woman too?” Mrs. Muller asked.
“She seems to have known Wingfield,” the chief said.
The policeman entered the lobby with Aaron. In the cop’s hand was a Colt .38.
“Did you find anything else interesting in the car?” the chief asked him. He shook his head no. “Put the gun back,” the chief said. He turned to Aaron, who looked cold after his excursion outside in his T-shirt. “Okay, that’s all. When are you planning to leave town?”
“Friday.”
“Fine,” the chief said. “If we need you for anything, we’ll get in touch.”
Aaron walked upstairs. The chief thanked Mrs. Muller for her help and we started back toward the station.
“Aaron’s lying about not knowing about the murder,” I said. “But I don’t think he’s involved — just scared.”
“Not unless he owns two guns,” Hewitt said.
“The girl’s Omaha address is a phony. Check Des Moines. But I don’t think you’ll turn up much. The name’s a phony, too.”
“It might just be a coincidence, their being in the same hotel,” Hewitt said.
“Might be.”
“What time are you leaving?”
“An hour ago. Joe must be frothing at the mouth.”
“Well, thanks for your help,” he said.
“Good luck.”
He just frowned and kept on walking.
We drove through the mountains with snow twelve feet deep beside the road. We drove through slushy Denver. It was a clear afternoon and we watched the blue Rockies dwindle on the horizon for a hundred miles. That night we stayed at a motel in Ogallala. The next morning we continued northward across flat, dull Nebraska, where we hit a blizzard around North Platte, then through Omaha and on into flat, dull Iowa. The weather was grey and dreary the second day. We ate at truck stops. Joe consistently exceeded the fifty-five-mile speed limit. He said that driving under seventy on Interstate 80 was like shoveling snow with a teaspoon. Every three hours we switched the driving. By nine in the evening we were passing Des Moines.
“About time to stop for a motel,” I suggested.
“Don’t you want to push through?”
“Why strain ourselves?”
“Saves some money,” Joe said.
“The tab’s on me,” I said.
“You know what I think?”
“No. What?”
“I bet as soon as we reach a motel you’re going to make a phone call to a local blonde named Marilyn Losser.”
“Could be.”
“I’d be willing to bet quite a lot on it,” Joe said.
There were only two Lossers in the phone book, and I hit her on the first try. Luckily she answered and not her husband.
“Mrs. Losser, my name’s Lieutenant Bob Timothy. I’m a policeman.”
“What is it?” she said anxiously. “Has someone had an accident?”
“In a way,” I said. “The person involved is Claude Wingfield.”
“I never heard of him,” she said, still sounding worried. “What is this?”
“He’s been involved in an accident. I’m on the case. I realize you can’t talk on the phone.”
“No,” she said, “I can’t.”
“I can come by your place in the morning while your husband’s at work. Or, if you prefer, we can meet somewhere.”
“How do I know you’re on the up-and-up?”
“I’m trying to avoid any problems for you,” I said.
“I’d prefer the second alternative,” she said after a pause.
“You have a car?”
“Yes.”
“What about in the coffee shop of the Colonial Motel? It’s near the interstate.”
“I know where it is. All right.”
“Ten o’clock tomorrow morning?”
“That’s fine,” she said. “I’ll be wearing a yellow coat.” She hung up.
Joe had been listening from his bed. “I think it would be better if I met her alone,” I said. “Two of us might scare her. She’s half expecting a shake-down.”
The next morning was grey and chilly. We had breakfast in the coffee shop, then at a quarter to ten Joe went back upstairs and I waited, watching through the window. Almost exactly fifteen minutes later, a blue Nova pulled up outside and a very pretty blonde in a yellow coat got out. She was alone.
When she came through the door, she looked around uncertainly. Her eyes fell on me, and I signaled her toward the table. She angled through the crowded restaurant, and all the men in the place accompanied her with their eyes until she slid into the seat across from me.
“You’re the policeman.”
“That’s right.”
“Let me see your badge.”
I showed it to her. She was nervous. She didn’t look at it closely enough to see that it was out of state.
“What’s this about Claude Wingfield? You ruined a night’s sleep for me.”
“He’s been shot.” I watched her face. Either it was a real shock or she was a wonderful actress
“Is it bad?” she said. “Who did it?”
“We don’t know who did it. That’s why I’m here. It’s bad.”
“How bad?” Her blue eyes searched my face.
“He’s dead.”
She started to cry. It was real crying — there was no faking that. I remembered, by contrast, what Wingfield’s wife’s reaction had been.
I waited for her to pull herself together. “Was your husband in town on Tuesday, Mrs. Losser?”
She blew her nose. “Jack? Don’t be crazy. Jack would never do a thing like that.”
“Are you sure?”
“I haven’t seen Claude since last summer. Women didn’t last long with Claude. Jack suspected — he hated Claude — but he’s not the type—”
“Was he in town on Tuesday?”
“Jack hasn’t been out of town since he went fishing in Canada last July.” She was clenching her wet, balled handkerchief. “God, I can’t believe it. How did it happen?”
“He was on a skiing vacation in Colorado. Someone shot him to death on the slopes.”
“And you have no idea who?”
“An idea or two — yes. Not much in the way of facts yet.”
“I never quite got over Claude,” she said as if talking to herself. “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you, Lieutenant Timothy. I can’t think who might have shot him.”
“Do you know of any other blonde woman he’d been seeing recently?”
“No. Do you think it was a woman?”
“He was with a blonde out there. She disappeared right after the murder.”
“I’ve been in town all week,” she said defensively. “I can prove that in two minutes.”
“You don’t have to prove it. I believe you.”
“And so has my husband,” she said.
“I’m sorry I wasted your time, Mrs. Losser. Do you want a cup of coffee?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Well?” Joe said as I came in.
“She’s not the blonde we’re looking for.”
“What about the husband?”
“She says he hasn’t left town.”
“Well, are you ready to go home?”
“Not yet. I want to call Mrs. Wingfield. She’s probably back in town. Throw me that phone book. And after I talk to her, I think I’m going to pay a visit to the Des Moines Register.”
“What for?” Joe asked.
“To look at pictures.”
We waited till six o’clock to drive over. Most people are home around dinnertime.
The apartment house was in a nice part of town. Joe was wearing his gun. There was a guard at the entrance, but when we flashed our badges he let us through. The inner lobby was marble and there were paintings on the walls. We took the elevator up to the sixth floor and got out into a carpeted hallway with indirect lighting. The apartment we wanted was the last on the right. We could hear the faint sound of a radio or stereo through the solid door. Joe stood off to the side against the wall. I planted myself in front of the peephole and knocked.
The first knock brought no response. I knocked again, louder. The peephole slid open. There was a pause, then the door opened a bit, and I saw her pretty face through the crack.
“You,” she said. “How in the world—”
“Mind if I come in?”
“I don’t know—” There was a chain on the door.
“It’s pretty uncomfortable talking like this,” I said.
She hesitated, then slipped the chain. I pushed through fast, and Joe was right behind me. Before she fully comprehended the situation, he’d closed the door behind us.
“What the hell is this?” she said angrily.
“You’re a pretty fearless girl,” I said. “But I guess if you can kill somebody you’ve got to be fearless.”
“Who are you guys?”
I took out my badge and so did Joe. She studied them carefully. “Aren’t you a little bit off your beat?”
“I’m on my beat,” I said. “You forget — I’m the one who fell over his body.”
“I don’t know what you’re doing here or what you’re talking about,” she said. She snapped off the radio. Her lovely blue-grey eyes were flashing. The beige negligee she was wearing showed enough of her figure to explain why that see-through blouse would make grown men do silly things.
“From what I hear, you must be even more fetching as a blonde, Miss Brower. Or do you prefer Petersen — or Howells?”
“Get out of here.”
“Why don’t we sit down?”
“I said get out.”
“All right, I’ll sit down.” Joe remained on his feet. So did she, fuming.
“You really had us running around,” I said. “That blonde hair was a neat, if obvious, idea. He was a guy who went for blondes. Whose idea was it to go out to Colorado separately?”
She stared at me.
“And whose idea was the separate rooms? His, I’ll bet. He liked to be careful. He was an up-and-coming man in this town. Up-and-coming as a result of what he’d done to your father and several other politicians here. But only your father broke down and committed suicide.”
A strange noise came from her throat.
“The idea of the Colorado trip suited you perfectly, didn’t it? You thought you’d never be connected with his being murdered out there. On the day you killed him, you redyed your hair to its natural color. That was necessary so that he’d recognize you before you shot him. Most revenge murderers need that satisfaction. It also facilitated your leaving town; you’d been seen around with him as a blonde — a very noticeable blonde. Are you ready to go downtown to the station?”
Suddenly she looked very tired — the way they look when they know they’ve had it. I saw Joe relax.
She went over to a wall table and plucked a cigarette from a pack lying on top. Then she searched for a light. I reached into my pocket for my lighter but before I’d brought it out she’d opened the table drawer and come up with a .32 automatic in her hand.
Joe spit out a nasty word and I dropped the lighter. She held the gun on us with remarkable steadiness.
“The penalty for being male chauvinists,” she said sarcastically. “You’d have been more careful if I were a man.”
“You can’t shoot both of us before one jumps you,” I said.
“Don’t underestimate me. My father trained me to use this. He said a girl needed to know how to protect herself.”
Joe repeated the nasty word.
“I don’t want to shoot you,” she said. “I just want to get out.”
“Where can you go?”
“I’ll take my chances. Move over there next to your friend.”
I got off the chair and did as she said. The gun was very steady. She reached behind her with her left hand, pulled open the drawer next to the one that had held the gun, and took out a handful of the sort of heavy hemp cord that’s used for tying large parcels.
“Tie each other’s ankles with this.” She threw the loose cord toward us. It made it only halfway. She came across the room and kicked at it. She was now about five feet from us, and Joe did a foolhardy thing: he made a hard kick for the gun in her right hand. With nine women out of ten it might have worked, but she had the shot off before his foot struck her hand. I saw him go down as the gun flew back over her shoulder, landing next to the sofa. We both dived for it, but she had her hand on it before we reached it. I grabbed her wrist with both hands and put on all the pressure I could. Her grasp on the automatic loosened quickly, but not before we’d tumbled around a bit and she’d dug her teeth into my arm. Even after she dropped the gun she didn’t stop fighting, lashing out at me with her hands and feet and landing one very good kick into my left shin. Finally I had to bear-hug her from behind to protect myself. Joe was getting to his feet. “Where’d it hit you?” I asked.
“Shoulder. I’ll be all right.” He held his hand against the wound. His face showed that the slug hurt.
“Get your gun out,” I said. “I can’t hold her like this forever.”
“I thought maybe you were enjoying it,” Joe said and got his gun out.
As I’d expected, she wasn’t very cooperative downtown, but we gradually got the story. It was essentially as I’d surmised. If ever a man had helped to arrange his own murder it was Claude Wingfield. He had made the play for her, had proposed the ski vacation, and suggested all the precautions. He’d had some paranoid notion that his wife was having him followed for an expensive divorce action.
On the day of the murder, she had said she was tired and would stay at the lodge. He’d gone up the mountain himself, and she had then redyed her hair brunette, left the lodge, and found him on the slopes. The snowfall had been providential, but she would have shot him in a deserted spot in any case.
While she was coming out with it, Joe put a call through to Chief Hewitt to tell him his homicide was solved.
The next morning we were on Route 80 again. I drove because of Joe’s shoulder.
“When did you suspect it might be the brunette?” he asked.
“That night at the bar. Some murderers are like a person with a scab — they can’t leave it alone. She had to have a few words with the man who had found her victim. But my real suspicion started when the Losser lead didn’t pan out. That’s when I rethought everything and decided to check the municipal-scandal angle. The call to Mrs. Wingfield gave me the information that the man who’d committed suicide had a daughter about the right age. The trip to the Register’s photo files told me the daughter was our brunette from Colorado. Then it was just a question of checking the phone book.”
“Too bad you didn’t do this on your own beat,” Joe said.
“Maybe Chief Hewitt will put in a good word for us,” I said. “You know, in one respect this has a happy ending.”
“How?”
“Mrs. Wingfield gets to keep his money without having to keep her miserable excuse for a husband.”