1965 - The Way the Cookie Crumbles Read Online Free PDF Page A

comfortably furnished with a big TV set in one corner. There was a double bed in the bedroom and fitted clothes closets. On the dressing table were two silver framed photographs: one of a handsome, dark-haired man in his early thirties; the other of a girl around sixteen or seventeen years of age, her blonde hair in an urchin cut. Her thin, sharp features, pert little nose and large mouth, made her elfin-like and attractive.
    A careful search of the various drawers in the apartment revealed very little except a collection of unpaid bills and a number of letters that began: Dear Mummy and ended: all my love, Norena. The address at the head of each letter was Graham Co-Ed College, Greater Miami.
    Hess found several specimens of the dead woman’s handwriting which he compared with the suicide note. They seemed to have been written by the same hand.
    Beigler, who had been reading some of the letters from the girl, Norena, looked up at Hess.
    ‘I guess she must be the daughter,’ he said and nodded to the photograph on the dressing table. ‘Nice looking kid. I wonder who the father is.’
    ‘Maybe the midget knows. Let’s go talk to him. He’s just across the way.’
    Leaving the apartment, the two men crossed the landing and Hess rang on the front door bell of Edris’ apartment.
    After a brief delay, the door opened and Edris looked inquiringly up at them.
    ‘Oh,’ he said and moved back. ‘Come in, gentlemen. I’m just making coffee. Will you have some?’
    ‘Sure,’ Beigler said and the two detectives entered the living room.
    Hess said, ‘Why aren’t you in bed, Ticky?’
    ‘Can’t sleep without coffee. I won’t be a second,’ Edris said and with a hop and a skip, he bounced into the kitchenette.
    ‘Sort of cute, ain’t he?’ Hess said. He looked around the room. ‘For Pete’s sake! He’s got himself his own goddamn armchair!’
    ‘Why shouldn’t he?’ Beigler said, lowering himself onto the settee. ‘Would you like to be a dwarf?’
    Hess thought about it, shrugged and sat down.
    ‘Why should I care? I’m not a dwarf.’
    Edris returned carrying a tray with coffee things. He poured three cups and handed them around, then he sat in his armchair and put his feet up on the footstool.
    The three men drank a little of their coffee. Beigler, who considered himself a connoisseur, nodded with approval.
    ‘Fine coffee,’ he said. ‘You’ve got it just right.’
    Edris smiled.
    ‘Not much I don’t know about coffee.’
    ‘Never mind the coffee,’ Hess broke in. ‘Let’s hear what you know about this woman. That her husband’s photo in her bedroom?’
    Edris was far too smart to fall into that obvious trap.
    ‘I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been in her bedroom.’
    Hess stared at him, then got to his feet, crossed the landing and collected the two photographs. He came back and offered them to Edris.
    ‘Who’s he?’
    ‘That’s not her husband. That’s the fella she ran away with years ago. His name was Henry Lewis. He got killed in a car crash some fifteen years ago.’
    ‘This her daughter?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘Where’s she?’
    ‘The Graham Co-Ed College, Greater Miami.’
    ‘Her husband alive?’
    ‘He’s alive.’
    ‘Who’s he?’
    ‘Melville Devon.’
    ‘Know where he lives?’
    ‘Somewhere in Paradise City. I don’t know where.’
    ‘You said she ran off with this guy Lewis? She leave her husband for him?’
    ‘Yes. From what she told me, she couldn’t get along with Devon. He was a serious sort of fella, always working. After they had been married less than two years, she met Lewis. He had money. So she ran off with him. That was fifteen years ago. She took the baby with her. Lewis liked kids. They had a pretty good time together for a year, then he got killed.’
    Hess stared thoughtfully at Edris.
    ‘She tell you all this?’
    ‘Yes. Not all at once. When she got blue she would come in here and sit, saying nothing for hours. Then she’d start talking