It's a Sin to Kill Read Free Page A

thing wasfor sure. The blonde Mrs. Camden believed in sinning deluxe. The corners of Ames’s mouth turned down. He hoped he’d had a good time. He wished he remembered it.
    He cracked the seal of a rum bottle with his thumb nail and allowed a quarter of a pint of rum to trickle down his throat. The rum wet the dryness and eased the constriction. Ames screwed the cap back on the bottle and returned it to the cabinet. The thing was done. There was no use poor-mouthing about it. The thing for him to do was get to Mary Lou and try to explain that he hadn’t meant it to happen.
    He picked his skivy from the chair and pulled it over his head. There was a brown splotch on the garment he didn’t remember being there. Fish blood probably, Ames thought.
    He rebuckled his belt and sat on the chair to slip his feet into his sneakers and a wad of something in the hip pocket of his dungarees pressed into his flesh. He fished it out and looked at it. It was a thick wad of bills folded once. The top note was a fifty dollar bill. So were the bills under it. Ames wet his second finger on his tongue and began to count. He counted to two thousand dollars and stopped. His mouth was dry again. He hadn’t enough saliva to wet his finger. Still, over half the bills remained to be counted.
    His hand shaking slightly, he refolded the wad of bills and returned it to his hip pocket. The blonde Mrs. Camden had a lot to explain. He debated taking another drink. He decided against it. He hadn’t eaten since supper the night before. The one drink he’d taken was roaring in his head.
    He stooped and tied his sneakers. The laces of his right one were gummed with some sticky substance. So was the deep maroon carpet on which he was standing. Ames wiped his fingers on his skivy and strode back to the canopy covered cockpit. Before he attempted to make his peace with Mary Lou, he wanted to talk to Mrs. Camden — now.
    The stern of the cruiser was ten feet from the pier. He gave the forward rope slack then pulled on the aft ropes until he could scramble up on the wood. One of the fishermen on the next pier recognized and hailed him.
    â€œHi, there, Captain Ames.”
    â€œHi,” Ames said and walked rapidly down the pier to the palm tree studded lawn of the rambling Camden beach house.
    The front door opening off a flagstone patio was closed. Ames walked around to the back of the house. There was asecond smaller patio, screened by purple bougainvillea and yellow allamanda. He could hear the French girl speaking. She sounded excited. Ames rang the bell then rapped impatiently on the wood of the kitchen door.
    A small gray-haired man crossed the kitchen and looked at him through the screen.
    â€œWho are you?” Ames asked.
    The gray-haired man looked frightened. He said, “Go away, please.”
    Ames rested his weight on one hand. “I asked you a question. Who are you?”
    The man wet his lips by gnawing at them. “I’m Phillips.”
    â€œMrs. Camden’s butler?”
    â€œYes.”
    Ames realized he was breathing heavily, as if he had run a long way. It was an effort for him to speak. He said, “Tell Mrs. Camden I want to see her. And don’t give me any crap about her not being in the house. I know better.”
    The man on the far side of the screen had trouble swallowing the lump in his throat.
    â€œDon’t just stand there,” Ames said. He felt as if he were shouting. He was. “You heard me. Tell Mrs. Camden that Charlie Ames wants to see her.”
    The man who’d said his name was Phillips shook his head. “I — can’t.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œShe isn’t here.”
    â€œYou’re sure?”
    â€œWe’re positive,” Phillips said. “Celeste and I have just finished looking in every room.”
    Ames’s knees felt suddenly weak. He leaned against the jamb of the door. “Don’t give me that.”
    Phillips