Strange Embrace Read Free Page B

Ripper.”
    “That leaves the question open, friend. Keep going.”
    “Reuben Flood is the lead’s father. The name won’t even ring a bell, but you’d recognize the face. He’s been in a few hundred movies and God knows how many plays. A trouper all the way, one of the best damn character actors in the business. Stan Harris plays the lead’s older brother. He’s a young kid, just starting out. The part is a small one and he’s right for it and that’s about all I know about him. Tony Foy has a bit part—he’s another young hopeful—and there are maybe five or six walk-ons. That takes care of the cast.”
    “Understudies?”
    “Uh-huh. But don’t ask me who they are, because I’d have to look them up to tell you. And don’t think that Elaine’s understudy killed her to inherit the part. She wouldn’t get it. The understudies are just insurance in case one of the cast comes down with a bad hangover or something. They wouldn’t serve as permanent replacements.”
    Johnny drummed his fingers on the desktop, pausing to think things out. The little recitation he’d given was fine for Haig’s notebook—it filled up plenty of yellow paper. But it wasn’t going to nail any killer to the wall.
    Hell, it was just a matter of form. In the morning the Medical Examiner would establish that Elaine had been raped and then murdered and the killing would be designated a pointless sex slaying. That would make fine copy for the tabloids, but it would also mean that there would be no way he could help. If the killer were caught at all, it would be police procedure that did the trick—not one Johnny Lane.
    “The director is Ernest Buell,” Johnny continued. “A temperamental guy maybe a little bit nuts. He’s been in one rest home or another off and on for fifteen years. He isn’t a complete nut, though. It’s just that he gets depressed. It seems to be an occupational disease. A few weeks away from Broadway and he’s all right again.”
    “What they ought to have,” Haig said, “is a rest home for cops. Lieutenants in particular. For days when I get depressed.”
    Johnny laughed. Then he thought about the girl, Elaine, and about the fiend who had killed her. The laughter died.
    “To hell with it,” he said. “I could tell you what color cat our assistant stage manager has and who planned the lighting and a million other damn fool things and it wouldn’t get us anywhere. What it boils down to is that I don’t know anything. Somebody killed her. I wish he hadn’t. Period.”
    “Sure, Johnny. It’s a mess. I ask questions because I have to. Then we find out it was a sex killing and we have to start all over again. We throw out a net and catch perverts, and we make all the perverts tell us what they were doing at the time and with whom, and maybe we get the bastard and maybe we don’t.” He held up his sheet of notes. “This,” he said, “I could throw it in the garbage and it wouldn’t matter.”
    “I’ll see you,” Johnny said. He stood up. “You’ll have to solve this one without me, Sam. But let me know when the ME report comes in, right?”
    “Of course,” Haig told him. “And you keep your crew of hams in town until they’re cleared.” He smiled sadly. “You won’t be able to go into action for a while in any case, will you? Not with your leading lady waiting to be replaced. I guess it’s been a bad night all around, huh?”
    Johnny agreed with him.
    Ito was still up. Johnny got rid of his hat and coat and found a chair to sink into. Then he gave Ito a full summary of the night’s activities. The butler’s face remained impassive.
    “Hell of a thing,” Ito said. “If whoever raped her waited one more day she’d have been all right. She’d have been out of town.”
    “I know. It’s quite a coincidence.”
    “What do you think?”
    “I don’t know. Somehow I can’t swallow the sex-killing bit. I’ve got a theatrical mind, Ito. I want a plot to dovetail neatly. The police