Killing the Goose Read Free Page A

a—”
    Suddenly he broke off, with an odd expression in his eyes. And then, softly, he said that he would be damned. He said it slowly and with some surprise. Then he was back at the telephone and dialing; then he was speaking into the telephone with a new tone in his voice.
    â€œWeigand,” he said. “Get me Mullins.” There was a moment’s pause. Then Bill Weigand spoke again. “Mullins?” he said. “Read me that again.” He waited. “Are they sure?” he asked. He did not wait to be answered. “Don’t ask them that, Mullins. Of course they’re sure.” He held the telephone for a moment at a little distance from his ear and tapped on the table with the fingers of his free hand. Then he made up his mind.
    â€œMullins,” he said. “Let up on the boy. Hold him; put him in storage somewhere. And give him a cigarette and something to eat.” He listened. “Right,” he said. “Screwy is the word for it, Sergeant. I’ll be along.”
    He put the telephone down and turned and looked at the others, but not as if he saw them clearly.
    They waited for him to speak and when he did not, Pam spoke.
    â€œWhat’s the matter, Bill?” she said. “Is it blowing up on you? Didn’t the boy do it?”
    Weigand shook his head, slowly.
    â€œI don’t know,” he said. “Mullins says it’s screwy. You see—she’d eaten a baked apple.”
    He looked at the others, who looked back at him, evidently unenlightened. He gave them time. Then he explained.
    â€œIt’s a catch,” he said. “I told you we knew everything, even what she had to eat. Maybe we knew too damned much. You see, she didn’t have any baked apple. She wanted one, and there weren’t any. So she took a custard. And now the M.E.’s office finds out she had a baked apple. Where’d she get it?”
    â€œProbably,” Dorian said, reasonably, “she went back to the counter and had another try and got a baked apple. I don’t see—”
    â€œRight,” Weigand said. “I don’t either. Not certainly. Maybe she did just that. And maybe somebody else was there and brought her a baked apple. Because the kid—this Franklin Martinelli—swears she didn’t leave the table while he was there, and he’s confirmed—a dozen times, probably, that she had a sandwich and a cup of custard and coffee.”
    â€œBut,” Jerry said, “you didn’t believe him before. Why believe him now?”
    Weigand nodded, and said it was a point. Maybe the Martinelli boy was a very bright boy; maybe he’d figured something out. But he would have to be very bright to know that it would matter whether Frances McCalley had a baked apple with her lunch.
    â€œIt would take figuring,” Bill said. “I doubt whether the kid figures that way—figures that if she didn’t have a baked apple with her regular lunch, didn’t leave the table during the time he was there, showed up with a baked apple in her stomach—that all this would mean maybe he didn’t do it after all.” He paused, considering. “It’s funny,” he said. “Where did she get the apple?”
    â€œSomebody brought it to her,” Pam said. “Maybe the person who killed her. Maybe somebody else. Or did she leave the table, but perhaps after the boy had gone, and got the apple herself. Could she see the counter? Where the things were, I mean? From where she sat?”
    Weigand shook his head. He admitted he hadn’t noticed.
    â€œBecause,” Pam amplified, “maybe she saw somebody bring the apples in. And went and got one. Anyway, it isn’t so routine as it was, is it? Perhaps it wasn’t the Martinelli boy.”
    â€œRight,” Weigand said. “So we’re giving him a rest. And instead of sitting here, basking comfortably, telling sad stories of the death