Meet Me at the Morgue Read Free Page B

high laurel hedges and overarched by eucalyptus trees whose fallen leaves crackled under the wheels. I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Miner’s face in the rear-view mirror. There was remembered horror on it. She might have just seen the dead man in the road.
    A couple of miles further on, she said: “You better slow down, Mr. Cross. It’s a sharp turn into the drive.”
    I did as she suggested, and turned between stone gateposts onto fresh gravel. A weathering stone gatehouse stood behind a planting of Monterey cypress. Its small geometric garden was vivid with flowers.
    Ann turned to speak to Mrs. Miner: “Do you want to get out here? Isn’t this where you live?”
    “I guess not after today. We’ll be out in the street.”
    “You’d better come along with us,” I said. “You know Mrs. Johnson and I don’t.”
    “All right.”
    “Are you employed by the Johnsons?” Ann asked her.
    “Not regular. She don’t—she doesn’t like regular servants around the house, she’s very independent. I help her with her cleaning, though. And when she throws a party I always pitch in.”
    The main house stood a few hundred feet below the gatehouse, near the edge of a ravine. It was a flat-roofed structure of redwood and stone, built around three sides of a patio. I parked on the turnaround at the rear. There were two cars in the garages, and places for two others. One was the heavy black Lincoln sedan that had killed a man.
    A red-haired woman in a green dress opened the back door and stepped out onto the small delivery-porch. She carried a light shotgun under her arm. When I was halfway out of the car, she leveled it at me. I got back in and let the door close itself.
    Her voice rang out: “Who are you? What do you want?”
    An echo from the hillside repeated the questions idiotically.
    “I’m the County Probation Officer.”
    She called again over the steady gun: “What do you want?”
    “To help you if I can.”
    “I don’t need any help.”
    The woman in the back seat leaned forward to the window: “Mrs. Johnson! It’s me. Mr. Cross drove me out.”
    The red-haired woman showed no enthusiasm. “Where do you think you’ve been?” But she lowered the gun.
    Mrs. Miner poked me timidly between the shoulder blades. “Is it all right if I get out?”
    “We all will.” I was feeling a trifle let down. Johnson’swife had none of the earmarks of a damsel in distress. She handled a gun as if she knew how to use it.
    On closer inspection, however, she showed her strain. Approaching her rather gingerly, I saw that her skin was bloodless, almost paper-white. Her eyes were opaque and too steady, like green stones. A tremor ran through her body spasmodically.
    I looked to see that the safety was on the shotgun. It was.
    “Why the armament, Mrs. Johnson?”
    “I didn’t know who it was. I thought if
they
came—”
    “The kidnappers?”
    “Yes. I intended to kill them.” She added quietly: “I only have the one child.”
    With her fiery hair and fair bold brow, her rather heavy lower lip pushed out, she looked capable of killing. She was like a young lioness robbed of her cub. She stood with her legs braced apart, holding the gun at waist level in front of her like a bar. Her body hadn’t yet learned from her mind, or had forgotten, that we were friends.
    “It’s really true, then,” Ann said.
    “I told you,” said Mrs. Miner.
    The red-haired woman turned on her: “You weren’t to call the police! Haven’t you got it through your skull that Jamie’s life is in danger?”
    “I’m not the police,” I said. “Mrs. Miner has been trying to trace her husband’s movements. He came to our office this morning.”
    “Was Jamie with him?”
    “Yes. As a matter of fact, he introduced me to Jamie. I’m no mind-reader, but he didn’t act like a man planning a kidnapping.”
    Mrs. Miner gave me a grateful look.
    “I’m not one to jump to conclusions,” Mrs. Johnson said.
    “My husband did, I’m