Obit Delayed Read Online Free PDF

an answer. Just a shrug.
    “What did Singer want with Virginia?”
    “Lots of customers ask for Virginia,” Pinky muttered.
    “That’s why she had this job.”
    “Isn’t Dave a little fancy to be taking his meals here?”
    “I get all kinds.”
    That could be, but Mitch was still unsatisfied. When Dave Singer was in the money—and that speedster hadn’t come out of relief checks—he liked his eateries on the plush side. It wasn’t likely he’d be patronizing the hamburger circuit without reason.
    “Was Dave a friend of Virginia’s?” Mitch tried again, but this time Pinky had enough. He slapped the steak on a plate and shoved it under Mitch’s nose. “I told you,” he snapped, “I don’t know anything about Virginia’s friends. I paid her wages; I didn’t hear her confession!” After that Pinky turned deaf and dumb.
    Imagination could be a dangerous thing, that’s why Mitch kept his on so short a leash. If he didn’t he could dream up all kinds of sinister implications from that scene at Pinky’s. Boys like Dave knew better than to display emotions. Either he was hit hard by Virginia’s death or was trying to give that impression, and either possibility was more interesting than the forlorn face on the front of the
Independent
. Mitch had a very vivid recollection of Virginia’s body. Sheer savagery had killed her, and Frank Wales didn’t look dangerous enough to butcher a lamb chop.
    But pictures can lie, and nosy people could get hurt asking too many questions in Dave Singer’s circle. It was much wiser to go back to the office and pretend to be useful. It was much easier to go home at night and plan on nothing more exciting than a cool bath and a long session with the mattress.
    But what about Norma Wales? Was she relaxing in that room at the El Rey? Was she all stretched out on the bed waiting for sleep to put out the lights? Neither was Mitch. An overdressed dandy who had to worry about how to file his income tax return had sounded off, and because of that Mitch couldn’t stay put. Maybe Dave had been leaping to conclusions, but what he’d almost said gave the distinct impression that he could tab the murderer if properly persuaded.
    There were two ways to proceed with such a problem. There was the direct approach, or “who needs two eyes anyway” method, and there was the more cautious means of learning more about Frank Wales. He might have been the man Dave had in mind, although that made the fast exit a bit ridiculous, and his wife might know a lot more about that mysterious letter than she claimed to know. Of course this was no time to be bothering Norma Wales. She had a rough night and day behind her, and God only knew how many more to come, and certainly wouldn’t welcome the press even if it was rooting for her side. But by the time Mitch got through telling himself all these things, he was all dressed up in his best tropical worsted and last year’s two-tone Oxfords and heading the coupé toward the El Rey. She couldn’t do any worse than slam the door in his face.
    A knock on the door means just one thing to a woman waiting for the police to capture her husband. “Oh, it’s you—” Norma said. It wasn’t anger in her voice; it was relief.
    “I know I don’t have an invitation,” Mitch began, “but may I come in for a few minutes?”
    “I—I was just going to bed.”
    Norma Wales was too nice a girl to lie convincingly. Over her shoulder Mitch could see the empty coffee cup and full ash tray on the radio table, and that little still life told a more poignant tale than the one a newscaster was telling.
    “What did you have for dinner?” Mitch demanded.
    “Dinner?” she echoed.
    “That’s right. That meal people eat every evening unless they’re tired of living.”
    This wasn’t the way Mitch had intended to open the conversation, but the walls were crowding together in that room and there wasn’t much left of the brave front Norma Wales had paraded in