So Long As You Both Shall Live (87th Precinct) by McBain Ed

Author:McBain, Ed [McBain, Ed]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: AmazonEncore
Published: 2011-12-24T06:00:00+00:00

By twenty minutes to midnight, Fat Ollie Weeks had almost reached the end of the trail. With the help of Kling, Cutler, and Pike, he had matched up photographs of husbands and wives, boyfriends and girl friends, boyfriends and boyfriends, and (in one instance) girl friend and girl friend. He had been left with pictures of four unidentified men and three unidentified women, and he had then gone over the invitation list in search of men and women who had been invited alone to the wedding and reception. There were eighteen such names on the list. Kling told him that all of the invited singles had been encouraged to bring a guest if they liked. So when Ollie left the hotel, he had a list of the eighteen in his pocket, together with photographs of the unidentified seven. By twenty minutes to midnight, he had checked out seventeen of the eighteen names, and had identified all but one person—a blond young man who’d appeared in several of the photographs taken at the church, but in none of the photographs taken at the reception. Ollie’s task might have been a tedious one had it not been for two things: (1) he actually liked legwork, and (2) all of the women he spoke to that night were beautiful.

The last person on his list was a woman named Linda Hackett, and he knew she wasn’t beautiful because she’d been pointed out to him in photographs taken at the wedding and the reception. “Miss Linda Hackett,” as she’d been referred to by both Cutler and Pike (as though they were somehow referring to royalty), was the editor of a fashion magazine, a formidable-looking broad in her early sixties, substantial of bosom (the way a pouter pigeon is), harsh of eye, fierce of visage, and (according to Cutler) probably cloven of hoof as well. Ollie was tired. All he wanted to do was go home, pour himself a drink, watch some television, and then go to sleep. But the possibility existed that Miss Linda Hackett had needed an escort for the festivities yesterday, and had asked the blond young man to serve in that capacity. Ollie rang the doorbell.

“Who is it?” a woman’s voice asked.

“It’s the police, miss,” Ollie said.

“The police?”

“Yes, miss.”

“Just a minute.”

He waited. He heard her unlocking the door, and then the door opened just a crack, restrained by a night chain. He held up his shield. “Detective Oliver Weeks,” he said. “I’d like to talk to Miss Linda Hackett, please.”

“I am Miss Linda Hackett.”

“Miss Hackett,” he said, “I would like to ask you a few questions, if you wouldn’t mind taking off the chain and letting me in.”

“It’s almost midnight,” she said. “I was just getting ready for bed.”

“I shall try to be as brief as possible,” Ollie said, and cleared his throat.

“Well…”

“Please, Miss Hackett, this is of extreme importance.”

“All right,” she said. “But you’ll have to wait a minute.”

“Certainly,” he said.

She closed the door. Ollie figured she was going to put on a bathrobe or something.

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