Lay that Pistol Down (Prologue Crime) by Richard Powell

Author:Richard Powell [Powell, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781440555466
Publisher: F+W Media, Inc.
Published: 2012-08-01T06:00:00+00:00

Nine

I GOT down on hands and knees to follow the pattern more carefully. The mud immediately ruined my pants, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t going downtown after all, because this would give me more evidence than I needed. I crawled slowly, watching the marks of the narrow footprints become fainter … fainter …

Then, without warning, the next footprint, six inches from my nose, sprouted a high-heeled shoe and a slim bare ankle.

My nose almost made a print of its own. I looked up slowly, observing a slender leg with a flicker of muscle under warm toasted skin. By the time my glance reached kneecap level I was feeling brave again. The only real danger in a leg like this is the kind a man usually runs to meet.

“You might at least,” Arab’s voice said, “give a low admiring whistle.”

“Gosh,” I said, getting up, “you certainly startled me.”

“I didn’t notice you taking to your heels.”

“My duty was to stay and investigate.”

“My hero.”

“You certainly get around. The way I’m always meeting my wife you might think I married a harem.”

“If you had, you wouldn’t be meeting this wife.”

“Where did you come from?”

“I saw you prowling around our front entrance, and followed you. Honestly, darling, you’ll never be a great hunter. You’d track a wild animal right into its clutch.”

“I’ll risk it,” I said, “as long as they’re wild blonde animals. Listen. I’ve figured out what happened here.”

“So have I. Kit came down the road and Stuart’s car was hidden here and he grabbed her and they fought. What are you going to do about it?”

“Call the cops. Right away. And this time I have plenty to go on. You can’t talk me out of it.”

“But what happened after they fought?”

“He threw her into the car and drove off. You can see the prints ending right beside the tire marks.”

“Yes, darling, I do see. And I’m curious. Her footprints still show. That means she wasn’t dead or unconscious. The prints are evenly spaced, so she wasn’t struggling at the end. She walked to the car by herself.”

“Quit it, will you? Let me call the cops.”

“Why did she walk?”

“He had a pistol at her back.”

“Then he must have had a. pistol right at the beginning, but it didn’t keep her from struggling.”

I said sullenly, “I want to call the cops.”

“You’ve been so close to the ground that you haven’t noticed things, Andy. What about those scraps of paper beside that bush?”

I looked where she pointed, and saw some torn white bits of paper just beyond the tire marks. “Some picnicker left them,” I said. “Or they were thrown out of a car and blew in here.”

“The paper is dry, darling. Did somebody hold a picnic here after that rain early last night? How did the scraps stay so close together if they blew in here?”

Just at that moment I couldn’t think of the answer. I watched glumly as she collected the scraps and began to play jigsaw puzzle. I growled, “She wrote an appeal for help while battling for her life.

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