The Case of the Lady in Apartment 308 Read Online Free PDF Page A

have friends who do. They are having a joint showing down on the docks next week.”
    “Tell me when, and we’ll go.”
    “We?” Her eyes had become riveted.
    “You and I will go together so that I know if the artist is any good.”
    “Just look at the pictures.”
    He looked vulnerable. Men of thirty-seven can do that quite well. He told her seriously, “I have an older brother and three younger but I have never looked at any pictures except those in Playboy. How come you’ve never posed for any of the pictures?”
    She gasped.
    “I’ve looked at all the copies for the last five years and you’re not in any of them.”
    She straightened in indignation.
    He went right on. “I’ve noticed and you could qualify—easily. Hasn’t anybody else said anything about pictures to you?”
    She said a short, stopping, “No.”
    But he laughed. “You’ve got to be over twenty-five. You don’t blush or wiggle. You’re one of those new women who think—who consider they’re equal to any man. So you paint to prove you can do it, just like any man can.”
    She discarded the conversation and went back to her dainty, precise painting.
    She had no idea how many times he climbed those stairs to be sure she was all right. He kept track of every male who entered the building.
    She never seemed to look up. She apparently didn’t know he watched over her. She painted with the apartment door open. She’d placed a fan on the floor just inside the door. The windows were all open. Very little of the paint smell crept out into the hall.
    He began to worry about her diet. He stood near her as she continued to paint and asked her, “What’s your favorite food?”
    “Peanut butter.”
    He realized she never gave him more than the initial, brief, identifying glance.

3
    E d became concerned about Marcia’s diet. While peanut butter was a good staple, she needed other nutritional input. Input? Yeah. She ate it.
    But she needed more fruit and vegetables.
    He went to his mother and said, “What are some good, easy, balanced meals that you can take somewhere and eat?”
    His mother knew instantly he was interested in some female. At last. But obviously, she was not a cook. Hmmmm.
    His mother asked with such an innocent face that appeared not too interested, but only casual and kind, “What sort of things does he like?”
    Ed moved in the manner a man does when he sees a snake close by, but avoidable, and he said with a slow, casual hand opening, “‘He’ is me. I need some different foods to eat. Something I can carry with me.”
    He looked up with clear eyes to his radar mother and added in a gentle manner, “I’m out of work.” He began that way as if she’d forgotten his firing. “I need to make pots of things and freeze them. I could takethem out of the freezer as I need them. They’d be ready to eat when it was a mealtime.”
    His radar mother’s eyes narrowed slightly. Ed had explained too long and too much. It was a woman. He was interested enough to slyly feed that woman. Hmmmm.
    His mother reluctantly rejected sauerkraut and wieners for a delicate woman. That had taken real backbone not to be lured into doing something so overly maternal. But she didn’t know anything about this witch who was trying to lure—
    Actually, it was her son who was trying to lure some indifferent woman?
    How rude of the insolent witch!
    The senior Mrs. Hollingsworth told her second of five sons quite casually, “I have a loaf of my bread in the freezer. Your father sliced it a bit thick since he likes it that way—”
    “I was hoping you had some of your rolls?”
    “Well, yes, I do.”
    “Then, some of those, and do you have any of your stew?”
    “I…believe so.”
    No voice could be as reluctant as hers in her replies.
    Her sensitive, second son didn’t notice.
    His mother had recently assumed that—unlike his raucous, randy, older brother who already had five children—Ed would not marry. What the threeyounger boys did was