The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks - lanyon Josh. Страница 4

“Let the cops decide if they’re clues or not,” Nick returned.

“More brandy?” offered Jane. He held out his cup, and she topped off his coffee.

Perry stared down at his mug. He knew the other two were irritated with him for insisting on phoning the police; it was like they were operating in an alternate universe. Of course he had called the police. Any normal person would call the police.

So now the three of them sat waiting for the law to finish, drinking spiked coffee and eating decorated cookies hard enough to crack a tooth on. The brandy was getting to Jane; she was flirting with Nick.

Perry’s gaze wandered around the room. There were two Christmas cards on a table. One was from an insurance company. The other was lying face down. Jane was not the Suzy Homemaker type. Her apartment was a mess. She must dress and undress walking from room to room, he decided, eyeing a silk blouse draped over a lamp shade. The tabletops were dusty, and there was cat hair on the overstuffed furniture. His chest tightened as he noticed it.

“How are you feeling now, sweetie?” Jane asked Perry, as though reading his expression.

“Fine.” He shot a diffident look at Reno and then looked away. Nick Reno was staring at him like he was a dork.

“What happened while I was upstairs?” Reno questioned suddenly.

Jane shrugged and pulled at the shoulder of her slipping dressing gown. “Nothing.”

“Mr. Center came out of his rooms,” Perry offered.

“For about half a minute. He went straight back inside,” Jane clarified. “Everyone did. Miss Dembecki went back in her apartment and locked the door. Ditto Mrs. Mac. It’s not like anyone thought you would find anything.” She patted Perry’s hand apologetically, asking Nick, “Why? What did you expect?”

Nick Reno had the kind of face that gave nothing away. Instead of answering Jane directly, he asked, “How many people live here?”

“Seven, now that poor Mr. Watson is gone.”

Nick’s eyes narrowed reflectively. “That’s the guy who died in the village? And Stein is the fatso on the second floor?”

“That’s right. He works as a security guard at the mall most nights. It used to be Mr. Stein, Mr. Center, and Mr. Watson on the second floor. On this floor, it’s been me, Miss Dembecki, Mrs. Mac, and Mr. Teagle since…well, it feels like forever. I’m sure you’ve met Mr. Teagle. He makes a point of meeting everyone.” Her smile was sardonic. Mr. Teagle did not approve of Jane. “And way up on the third floor, it’s just you and Perry in your twin towers.”

Perry was trying to work out a timetable. There was no way anyone could have entered the house from the outside, or if already inside, use the main staircase without coming into view of the tenants crowded in the lobby. That meant that whoever had moved the body must have still been on the third floor during the time between Perry’s flight and Nick’s trip upstairs. Maybe the intruder had been in Perry’s rooms when Perry found the body. Maybe he had been watching from behind the door the whole time.

It was an unsettling idea. “The body must be hidden somewhere on the third floor,” Perry told them.

Jane quit tapping her carmine nails on her cup and stared.

“Where? My rooms?” Reno suggested dryly.

Perry’s eyes narrowed, focusing on the notion. That was the most obvious explanation: there was no body because Reno had carted it off to his own rooms. He had been outside when Perry came downstairs. Could that mean anything?

Watching him add it up, Reno commented, “You’ve got a hell of an imagination, kid.” And strangely enough, Perry was reassured.

“Maybe it went down the laundry chute. The corpse, I mean.” Jane handed round the plate of wreath-shaped cement cookies.

Nick declined cookies with a shake of his head. “Describe this dead man to me,” he ordered.

Perry thought hard. “He was about fifty, heavy-set. He needed a shave. His hair was reddish, like he dyed it. He was wearing a yellow and brown checked sports coat and mustard-colored socks. He had a hole in his left shoe.”

Nick went on alert. “What kind of shoe?”

“A brown loafer.”

“You’re sure there was a hole in the left sole?”

Perry nodded, then gripped by sudden memory said, “He had bushy hair in his nostrils and a mole on his chin.”

“More than I needed to know,” Jane murmured.

A heavy hand pounded on the front door and she jumped. Perry faded to the color of one of the corpses in his tough guy novels. “It’s the police,” he got out.

“No kidding. We called them, remember?” Since the other two seemed paralyzed, Nick rose and opened the door to the deputies.

Tired and grim, the two officers of the law regarded them.

“I feel I gotta ask. Were you folks drinking this evening?” questioned the senior partner. In his rain slicker and hat, he strongly resembled the Gorton Fisherman -- after hauling up an empty net.

“We had a little snort for medicinal purposes,” Jane volunteered over Perry’s indignant protest. “We weren’t together all evening, so I can’t say beyond that.” She stretched comfortably, and the deputies’ gazes trained on her gaping neckline.

The Gorton Fisherman harrumphed. “There’s nobody upstairs. No body.”

“I told you that much,” Nick said. “What about the blood?”

“Who says it was blood? Could have been…mud.”

“You seen a lot of blood?” the second deputy sheriff queried. He was younger and seemed a little more pugnacious about being dragged out on a wild-goose chase.

“Enough.”

Perry said, “What about the scuff marks?”

“Scuff marks don’t mean diddly,” said the deputy. “And I didn’t see any mud.” He glanced at his partner. “Did you see any mud?”

“Nope. That tub was clean as a whistle. Like someone just scrubbed it down.”

“What does that tell you?” Jane put in.

The older man eyed her calmly. “That someone just scrubbed it down.” His dark eyes rested for a moment on the brandy bottle in the midst of the coffee table clutter.

Perry insisted, “There was a dead man in my bathtub. He didn’t get there by accident.”

“Maybe he wasn’t dead,” the sheriff said. “Maybe he was a vagrant, and he left after you found him.”

There were so many holes in that theory, Perry didn’t know where to start. He protested, “My apartment was locked. How could he have got in?”

“How would a dead man get in? A vagrant would have a better chance of breaking in than a dead man.”

Inescapable logic. Still Perry persisted. “But he was dead. Someone brought him in and took him away again so you wouldn’t believe me.”

“It didn’t take that,” the deputy said. The older officer gave him a reproving look.

“Listen,” Reno said. “I didn’t believe in that dead body myself, but I saw a streak of something in that tub that sure as hell appeared to be blood to me. And there were black marks, probably scuff marks, on the floor tiles. Also, Foster said the dead man was wearing a shoe with a hole in the sole. I found that shoe. I left it on the windowsill.”

“We didn’t see any shoe with a hole in it.”

“Did you check the bedroom?”

“Sure. We weren’t looking for footwear specifically.”

“Did you see the shoe on the windowsill?”

The deputies exchanged doubtful looks.

“I didn’t see any shoe,” said the Gorton Fisherman. “You want to check for yourself,” he added, “be my guest.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Jane said. She smothered a yawn and said to no one in particular, “Gentlemen, I hate to be a party pooper, but I need my beauty sleep.” She made a lazy shooing motion, and the minions of the law obediently retreated further into the hall.

“You’re damn right I’ll see for myself,” Perry said, rising. But he couldn’t help checking to see if Nick was along for the ride.

Nick was on board all right. He marched up the stairs, kid and cops trailing, and let himself into the Foster boy’s apartment for the second time that evening.