Passion Murders by Keene Day

Author:Keene, Day [Keene, Day]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Pulp
Google: kJlHuAAACAAJ
Publisher: Avon Publications
Published: 1951-06-15T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I STARTED TO TURN and walk out. Anywhere away from Sally. Then I realized what Sheriff White had said. “And why should I be in the next county by now?”

Doctor Handley stood up and spoke before White could get his thoughts reorganized. “About an hour ago, I’d say,” he said. “Death was practically instantaneous.” Handley stooped back of the desk and came up with Paul’s gold-headed cane. The wood was cracked and smeared with clotted blood. “Paul’s cane, of course, was the weapon. And while death was practically instantaneous, as I said,” Handley looked at me for the first time, “I would say from the condition of Paul’s hands and knuckles that he put up a terrific fight for his life.”

Looking at me, Sheriff White stroked one of his white moustaches.

I shook my head at him. “Uh uh.”

Both men and Sally watching me, I rounded the desk and looked at the crumpled figure on the floor. Paul was dead. And whoever had killed Paul must have hated him. His thin face was battered almost beyond recognition. His heavy black shoe, made especially for him, lay at a grotesque angle. The white index finger of his outstretched arm was pointed at the open safe built into the wall.

I was still shaking my head. “Oh, no,” I told White. “Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t kill Paul. Paul was my friend.”

Handley asked me if I could explain the-bruises and contusions on my face.

“Yes,” I told him. “I can. Five members of the local Klan broke into the old home place, took me down in the cane brakes and beat hell out of me.”

Neither Doctor Handley or Sheriff White said anything. What I’d just said had a hollow, unreal ring even to my own ears. It was the sort of thing a smart lawyer would think up.

Sally gave up waiting for me to kiss her and buried her face in her hands and cried.

White picked up the phone on Paul’s desk and asked the operator on duty to get him his office. The connection made, he said “White speaking, Jack. You can stop passing out guns. And locate Orin and tell him to call off the road blocks. That’s right. Hi just walked into Paul’s office. No. Let the men I deputized keep their rifles and bring them over here. When the word gets around, we may need them. Paul was well-liked.”

I could feel my face getting redder with every word, with every tick of the clock on the wall over the safe. I said, “Now, just a minute, fellows.” Before I could continue, high heels clicked across the reception room and, accompanied by Doc Curtis, the dentist who had the suite of offices next to Paul’s, May Mason burst into the room.

May hadn’t changed. Her hair was still too blonde. She still wore too much makeup. Her clothes had cost too much money. There was too much of her. She was still a very beautiful woman, but even her tummy bulged slightly.

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