The Road's End by Marvin H Albert

Author:Marvin H Albert [Albert, Marvin H]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fawcett
Published: 2013-12-14T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A chill spread through me like sudden death. I was frightened and cold. The world of sense that I'd slowly managed to draw into my brain was gone, leaving a blank as complete as the one I'd felt the moment I opened my eyes in Carol's bed.

Finally I tore my eyes away from the dead body. I picked up the desk phone and called Mack Fisher's office. Buddy Crown answered. I told him what I'd found. He didn't sound too surprised. He just said, "I'll go out and find the Sheriff," and hung up.

I looked down at the thing on the office floor. My chill was ebbing, leaving a saddened feeling in its place. Poor not-too-smart Jeff. There was no doubt now that he was mixed up in the murders and my beating. Only not as the central figure. He was still around me somewhere. Somewhere near, scared off momentarily by my gun. But how long till he felt he had to tackle me again?

I put my hand in my right jacket pocket and drew reassurance from the feel of the gun's cold, hard metal. I knew better than to touch anything till Fisher got there. But I'd already touched the safe. The door yawned open.

Remembering why I'd opened it, I went over and looked inside. The money I'd put in it the night before was gone. I sorted through the books and papers inside. Everything was there but the money.

Mack Fisher walked in with Buddy Crown. He closed the door carefully behind him, looked at me, then at the corpse of Jeff Hull. "Did you touch anything?"

"Just this safe. I opened it before I saw him. Yesterday's receipts are gone."

Crown sat heavily in a chair, breathing hard as he looked from the body to me. Fisher looked around the room before paying attention to the body. He stood over it, looking down, his face rigid. "Well leave him till Hurd Lennox gets here to check him. Now, Danny, tell me."

I told him.

Fisher examined the door leading from the office to the alley. He opened it and tried the knob from the outside. "It locks automatically if you close it," he said, "from either the inside or the outside. It's locked now. No window in this whole place except the plate ones out front. So the murderer came in and went out either through here or through the front door. How does the front door lock?"

"With a key from the outside," I told him.

"Who has keys to both doors?"

"Jeff and I are the only ones with keys for this door. Burt Kane and Salty Karlog have ones for the front door."

Fisher hummed softly to himself. He knelt by Jeff's body and gently tugged Jeff's key chain until the keys popped out of his pocket and clattered on the floor. I knelt beside him. "Yes," I pointed, "his keys to both doors are there."

We both stood up.

"Jeff was sitting in the chair behind this desk when he was stabbed in the back," Fisher commented.

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