It's a Sin to Kill Read Free

the
Sally
.
    A small eye of light bobbled among the trees and a woman started out on the pier. Ames waited with clenched fists on his hips. The blonde had probably gone for another bottle. Who did she think she was? Since when was she so hard up that she had to shanghai a charter boat captain? He’d give her hell, then he’d crawl back to the
Sally
and try to make his peace with Mary Lou.
    â€œI was making a pot of coffee,” he’d say. “Mrs. Camden said she’d like a cup. I invited her aboard. We had two cups apiece.” Ames stuck there. Then what happened? He wished he knew. He’d have a hell of a time convincing Mary Lou that he didn’t.
    The woman hurrying out on the pier was wearing a flowered housecoat. The long skirt of her silk nightgown showed under the flowered material and swished around her ankles as she walked. When she was still a hundred feet away, she called:
    â€œMrs. Camden!”
    Ames cocked his cap on the side of his head. Whoever the girl was, she wasn’t Mrs. Camden. She was some years younger, for one thing. For another, she had black hair.
    â€œWho are you?” Ames asked her.
    The girl was holding a flashlight in one hand. She used her other hand to make sure her housecoat was fastened. “I am Celeste,” she said primly. “I am sorry if I intrude. But Madame’s Paris office is on the trans-Atlantic phone. So would you be so kind as to inform Mrs. Camden they say the call ees ver’ important.”
    The girl wasn’t asking a favor. She was making a statement.
    Ames shook his head at her. “Mrs. Camden isn’t here.”
    The maid’s eyes widened slightly. Her French accent was even more pronounced. “Mrs. Camden is not on the cruiser?”
    Ames took off his cap and ran a crooked forefinger around the leather sweatband. His finger came away wet. “No,” he told the girl. “There’s no one aboard but me.”
    The girl raised the beam of her flashlight and played itover his chest and face. Her tone was slightly incredulous as she repeated, “Mrs. Camden is not on the cruiser?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThen where is she?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Ames said.

Chapter Two
    H E LOOKED up at the girl. The girl looked down at him. The silence between them lengthened. The drip of the condensation from the roof of the cabin grew more pronounced. Somewhere along the rim of the basin an outboard motor coughed anemically a few times, then settled down into a high-pitched whine.
    â€œOh,” the maid said. “I see.”
    It was obvious she didn’t. She clutched her housecoat tighter and switched off the now useless flashlight. In the growing light of morning she looked frightened.
    â€œOh,” she repeated. “I see.”
    She hurried back down the pier toward the house, glancing over her shoulder from time to time as if she were afraid that Ames was following.
    Ames returned his cap to his head. He felt like a damn fool. When he saw the Camden dame again, he’d tell her plenty. There were men on the other piers now. Several of them had seen him. It would be only a matter of minutes before everyone along the waterfront would know he had spent the night just past aboard the
Sea Bird
.
    If he’d had the game he didn’t remember it. But he’d sure as hell have the name. And when Mary Lou heard about it she’d pack her bags and leave.
    He walked back through the smaller cabin to the master cabin in which he’d awakened. The cabin smelled strongly of perfume. The dryness in Ames’s mouth extended to his throat. His throat contracted. He was frightened and didn’t know why.
    He picked the rolling bottle from the floor in the hope there was still a drink in it. There wasn’t, but there were a half-dozen unopened rum and whiskey bottles in an open built-in liquor cabinet at the foot of the bunk.
    Ames hadn’t noticed the cabinet before. One