Design for Dying Read Free Page B

appreciated.”
    â€œYou’re a stout judge of character if you didn’t care for Tommy Carpa.”
    â€œYou know him?”
    Morrow nodded. “Guy’s an operator.”
    Hansen clucked from the other side of the room, evidently favoring stronger language.
    â€œFirst time we’ve heard his name in connection to Miss Carroll,” Morrow said. “No one at the boardinghouse mentioned him.”
    â€œHe may be out of the picture by now. I didn’t keep up with Ruby’s social calendar.”
    â€œRight. Six months since you last saw her.” Morrow eyed Hansen. “Figure a call on Tommy is in order?”
    â€œTonight,” Hansen said. “When his club’s open and his high-hat pals are in attendance.” He chuckled, the sound like a match strike near dry brush.
    â€œThe newspaper said Ruby was wearing an evening gown and a lot of jewelry.”
    â€œThey laid it on a bit thick to play up the Alley Angel angle,” Morrow said. “The jewelry was paste, costume stuff. Now the dress was something. Looked pricey to me, but what do I know? You work in a department store. Maybe you’d have an idea.”
    â€œI can tell you Ruby never had her share of the rent on time. The gown could have been a gift from an admirer. She did tend to collect men friends.”
    â€œMaybe the Shark bought the duds for her,” Hansen said.
    I turned to him. “The Shark?”
    â€œCarpa. Fair-sized fish fancies himself a bigger one. Still a minnow swimming in Mickey Cohen’s wake, but growing bigger all the time.”
    The gambit was a long shot, but I played it anyway. “Perhaps if I saw the gown, I could tell you something about it.”
    â€œYou’d be willing to do that?” Morrow asked.
    â€œIf there’s any chance I could give you an idea of when and where Ruby got it.”
    Morrow nodded thoughtfully. “Sure. And while you’re at it, you could take a gander at Ruby’s jewelry. Look for that pilfered brooch of yours.”
    I felt my skin flush. “You saw right through me.”
    â€œYes, Miss Frost. Truth be told, it wasn’t that mighty a challenge.” Now, though, he seemed to be weighing the idea’s merits. “It couldn’t hurt to have you look at the dress. And at the station I could scrounge up enough chairs for everybody.”
    We made quite the procession heading toward the escalators, the curious faces of the other salesgirls staring after us. My notoriety had spread across the second floor, and I was the center of attention. For an instant, I felt like Ruby.
    *   *   *
    THE POLICE STATION did not live up to my expectations. No gaggle of wisecracking reporters, nary an immigrant mother begging to visit her son before he went up the river. The movies had deceived me again.
    Hansen lingered in the parking lot to crack knuckles with another detective. Morrow escorted me inside, shouldering a door marked R OBBERY H OMICIDE D IVISION . The masculine aroma beyond, a potent combination of sweat, smoke, and hair tonic, nearly KO’d me. Shirtsleeved men raised their heads as we walked by. Behind me I heard, “Nice going, Gene. Got one for me?”
    Morrow sat me down next to a desk that, compared to the others we’d passed, was immaculate. He placed a folder in front of me.
    â€œWhat’s this?” I already knew the answer. Photographs of Ruby in the alley behind Keshek’s Meat Market, lifeless in black and white.
    â€œYou said you could identify Ruby’s clothes.”
    â€œYes, but I thought you’d show me the clothes themselves.”
    â€œEither you recognize them or you don’t,” Hansen said, the bad penny turning up again.
    â€œWith a picture there’s no way to see the fabric’s color, examine the … the warp and weft.” That sounded almost believable, even to me.
    Morrow gave me a skeptical look and then walked