No Law Against Angels Doll for a Big House Chorine Makes a Killing by Carter Brown & Jeremy Yates

Author:Carter Brown & Jeremy Yates [Brown, Carter & Yates, Jeremy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery & Detective, Fiction, General, Hard-Boiled
ISBN: 9781944520700
Google: KMuwwAEACAAJ
Amazon: 1944520708
Publisher: Stark House Press
Published: 2019-03-29T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

Judge Bryan smashed his clenched fist into the open palm of his other hand. “This is what I’ve been waiting for,” he said. “With Miss Hertz willing to testify, then I can get the Grand Jury convened. You know what you’re doing, Miss Hertz?”

“I do,” Lois said tonelessly. “They murdered my sister. The only thing I have to live for now is revenge.”

“It will be dangerous for you,” he said. “I shall have to quote you by name. They will know of it. They will do anything they can to stop you testifying against them.”

“I guess Lieutenant Wheeler is in the same boat,” she said. “He doesn’t seem to be worried.”

Bryan shook his head. “He isn’t in the same boat. Until your sworn testimony clears him of the assault charge, he is valueless as a witness. Only your word can clear him and if they remove you before you can testify, then Wheeler’s testimony will be useless.”

She didn’t seem impressed. “It makes no difference,” she said. “I’ll testify. I want to. You can understand that, can’t you?”

“Yes,” he said softly. “I can understand that.”

“What happens now, Judge?” I asked.

“We’ll have to spirit Miss Hertz away somewhere,” he said. “Guard her until the Jury is ready to hear her testimony.”

“The police ...” I started.

He shook his head violently. “No. I can’t afford to have her where the District Attorney has access to her, or knows where she is. The police are useless at this juncture to protect her. We will have to hire men to do it. Guards twenty-four hours a day. We’ll have to find an empty house somewhere—a lonely place where people don’t go. And we’ll have guards around it every minute of the day. I don’t care how much it costs—if it costs a thousand dollars a day, it will be cheap at the price. That’s nothing for the city to pay to have scoundrels like Kirch swept from positions of power and their corruption cleaned away.”

Then he stopped suddenly and grinned at me. “I should have a soapbox, shouldn’t I?”

“How long will it take you to find a house and hire the guards, Judge?” I asked.

“Twenty-four hours, perhaps less. I have to get the machinery moving to convene the Jury as well. I shall have to name names to get the Jury convened. As soon as I do that, the press will have the story and Miss Hertz’s name will be a headline in the city. So we must have her tucked away safely before that happens.”

“What about the rest of tonight?” I asked him.

“I suggest Miss Hertz stays here,” he said. “My wife will look after her. And perhaps you would care to sleep on the sofa here tonight, Lieutenant? Just in case?”

“I would,” I said.

It was organized in the next twenty minutes. Mrs. Bryan, a gray-haired woman with a kindly face, took care of Lois like a mother and spirited her away upstairs.

The Judge finally went back to bed and I took the sofa. I slept like a log and was about as good a bodyguard as a girdle is to a catcher.

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