Streets of Death - Dell Shannon Read Free Page B

at the same time as the
blonde and heard her say goodbye to Fleming, saw him in the
wheelchair in the living room. If you ask me, the blonde timed it to
have an alibi. And then she says, she had some shopping to do, she
didn’t come home till five o’clock and he was gone. Just gone."
    "Leaving the wheelchair," said Galeano. The
wheelchair had taken possession of his mind; the thing was like
a conjuring trick.
    "Look, it’s kind of like one of those
locked-room puzzles," said Carey, "and then again it’s
not. I mean, there’s people all around--apartments, busy streets.
Only nobody saw anything. And you remember it was raining like hell
all that day. On the other hand, why would anybody see anything? That
apartment house-everybody out at work except Fleming and old
Offerdahl dead drunk down the hall."
    "Yes, I see," said Conway. "Fleming
almost completely helpless, on the second floor. And there’s no
smell of him anywhere?"
    "Not a trace. And he’d be easy to trace, you
can see.
    If you’re feeling that energetic," said Carey,
"you can have all the pipes examined, but I doubt that the
blonde had time to murder and dismember him that thoroughly and feed
him down the bathtub, say, before she called us. She’s not a very
big blonde, she wouldn’t have had the strength to carry him
anywhere, dead or alive--he was six feet, a hundred and eighty. You
can see there’s just one answer, it hits you in the eye."
    "The boyfriend," said Galeano. "Yeah."
    "I haven’t turned one up, damn it. Good luck
on it. All I see is that Fleming has got to be dead. I don’t
pretend to understand females," said Carey gloomily, "but
however she may have felt about him once, here he was, a dead drag on
her. He’s no good to her as a husband, she’s got to support him
and take care of him, and he could live to be eighty. He didn’t
have any life insurance, he hadn’t converted it when he got out of
the service--that could explain why they didn’t try to fake a
suicide or accident. She d like to be rid of him, don’t tell me she
wouldn’t. She--"
    "And don’t anybody say, she could walk out or
divorce him," said Conway cynically. "The people we deal
with aren’t so logical. I suppose there’s got to be a boyfriend."
    "Go and look," said Carey. "They don’t
seem to have had many friends. They used to live over on Berendo in
Hollywood, but I couldn’t locate anybody who knew them. All I’ll
say is, the thing is obvious. There’s got to be a boyfriend. She
gave him a key, or he knocked on the door and Fleming let him in. He
knocked him over the head--there’s not a trace of blood in the
place--and there’s a driveway down the side to garages at back, he
could’ve driven his car back there and lugged Fleming down to it in
five minutes. Ten feet from the back door. Your guess is as good as
mine what he might have done with him--maybe he’s got a boat and
dropped him out at sea, or buried him in his backyard--all I say is,
Fleming’s got to be dead, so it’s your baby."
    "The logic I fol1ow," said Conway, "but
what a bastard to work. But if there is a boyfriend, somebody’s
bound to know. The other girls she works with?"
    "Four of ’em. They all say she’s a loner,
doesn’t confide all girlish."
    "What about her family?" asked Galeano.
    "I said, she’s German--married him over there.
Oh, I guess she could have some family in Germany. I don’t know."
    "If she does, it could be she’d mentioned
something in letters, but how to get at it--"
    "No bets," said Carey. "I’ll wish
you good luck on it."
    He got up.
    "Thanks so much," said Conway. "You
know it’ll end up in Pending--your files and ours."
    "Well, I kind of hope you nail her," said
Carey. "I don’t like having my common sense insulted.
Vanished, she says, batting her eyes at me--this blonde. A man in a
wheelchair, a cripple!"
    "And the empty wheelchair there. I like that,"
said Galeano. "It’s a nice touch somehow."
    "Do have fun with
it," said Carey.
    * *