Burden of Guilt by Carter Brown

Author:Carter Brown [Brown, Carter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Murder, Crime, Mystery, Detective, General Fiction
ISBN: 9780451042194
Publisher: Signet
Published: 1970-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

We lay in each other’s arms, sated for the time being. “That was great,” Moira murmured dreamily. “Just great.”

“We aim to please,” I said modestly.

“I am both complete and replete.” She sighed contentedly and began to play abstractedly with my limp organ. “I am consumed with the warmth of a sated afterglow. My body and mind both give you their heartfelt thanks.”

“We thank you for your kind words,” I said lazily. “Any written testimonial you may care to give will be highly appreciated by the management.”

I gently eased her riffling fingers away from my groin, and rolling over onto my side, felt for my watch, which I had left on the low table at the other end of the couch.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for my watch.”

“What time is it?”

My groping fingers finally located the watch, and I glanced at it. “It’s twenty after midnight,” I told her.

“Then that was quite a marathon,” she observed mildly.

I got up off the couch and walked across to the phone. The guy on the desk took a little longer to answer this time.

“This is Wheeler again,” I told him. “Did Sergeant Polnik get back yet?”

“Not yet, Lieutenant.”

“What time did he leave?”

“Right after you called him last time. Anything we can do, Lieutenant?”

“Not right now, thanks,” I said. “You call me the moment he gets back, huh?”

“Sure thing, Lieutenant.” The voice was very bland. “What number are you at?”

“My apartment,” I growled. “Where else?”

“No offense, Lieutenant.” The voice was blander than bland. “It’s just that the good word on the night shift is to always check with the lieutenant what number he’s at if the call is after midnight.”

“There’s got to be more to the good word than that,” I said suspiciously.

“Well, the way it goes, if a female voice answers you know you’ve got the right number!”

“That’s a riot,” I growled. “What’s your name?”

“Patrolman Stevens, Lieutenant.”

It hit a vague bell. A young guy with a college education who was that phenomenon, the model cop. He was all set for a meteoric career, unless he got smart and quit to get into some other line of work where they would pay him some real money.

“I think we have a mutual friend,” I said in a buddy-buddy voice. “Didn’t I see you the other night with a well-stacked chick called Avril Jones?”

“Would that be Monday or Tuesday night, Lieutenant?”

“Tuesday.”

“No, sir.” The voice was very smooth indeed. “That well-stacked chick was a certain little number by the name of Toni Del Guardo.”

“How about that!” I said in an awed voice, then turned my head slightly away from the phone and bellowed, “Hey, Toni! Small world!”

I hung up, turned around, and saw a pair of solemn gray-green eyes watching me over the back of the couch.

“I’d forgotten about the sergeant, I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

“Like I said before, the fastest he could have made the round trip would be ninety minutes, and that would be with everything going sublimely right for him,” I said. “So that makes him about an hour over the possible track record.

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