The Price of Murder Read Online Free PDF Page B

merely knew that she had to have a great deal more than she had. Her desires were infantile. She wanted a glossy convertible, country club membership, a mink, travel, matched luggage, a fulltime maid, and one really good square-cut emerald. Lee obviously couldn’t acquire those things and never would. So Lee had cheated her. And her family felt Lee had cheated her.
    As he was unable to work at what he wanted most to do, he had filled his time as completely as he could with extra work. Any obligation was preferable to the endless evenings after eating one of those frozen horrors she purchased called “television dinners,” trying to read in the small living room while she lived the spurious life of the picture tube.
    The marriage had become a curious armed truce. In a small and very guilty corner of his soul he hoped that out of her ignorance and her boredom she would commit some act so monstrous that it would cancel his obligation to her and he would be free of her. Though he had the dark suspicion that there had been very few personable men in her home neighborhood who had not managed to trigger her quick physical responses, she seemed now to be utterly faithful. She spent a great deal of time with Ruthie Loftis, the plump brunette wife of a car salesman who lived three blocks down Arcadia Street. Ruthie was cut from the same pattern. When he was forced to over-hearfifteen minutes of any Lucille-Ruthie conversation, he felt like throwing his head back and roaring like a gut-shot bear.
    He glanced at Keefler and saw that the man was looking at Lucille with cold avidity and an overtone of astonishment.
    “Seems like your brother-in-law Danny has come up missing,” Keefler said easily. “When was the the last time you saw him? Now don’t look at him, honey. You look at me and tell me.”
    “Gee, I got to think. It was a
long
time ago. Lee, wasn’t it about your birthday?”
    “I told you not to look at him.”
    “I’m sorry. It’s like a game, sort of, huh? He was here the day after Lee’s birthday, when he was twenty-nine. I’m twenty-four. Let me see. He brought you something. I can’t remem … oh, that stuff for your desk. I don’t know why he had to bring junk like that.”
    “Have you seen him since?”
    Lucille’s eyes looked wider. She shook her head from side to side, with the slow solemnity of a child. “No, Mr. Keefler. We haven’t seen him at all.”
    Lee felt the tension at the nape of his neck. Lucille was a congenital liar, and a poor one. There were always reasons for her lies. Where did the change go? Gee, honey, it must have fallen out of my pocket. Those are new shoes, aren’t they? Are you crazy! I’ve had these for ages. Why didn’t you tell me Dr. Ewing called? But he didn’t, honest. Always with the same extra width of eye, the same slow shake of her lovely head, the slight abused pout of her heavy lips. He had seen it so many times that he knew beyond any doubt that Lucille was lying to Keefler. He looked narrowly at Keefler, who took out a cigarette and lit the match one-handed. Keefler stood up. “Well, you back up what your husband told me, Mrs. Bronson. I guess you folks are in the clear.”
    He started toward the screen door and turned sharply and said, “What work is he doing, Lucille? What work is Danny doing?”
    “Gee, I don’t know. Honest. He wouldn’t say.”
    Keefler stood by the screen door, nibbling his lower lip. “Go on in the house, honey,” he said.
    Lee saw Lucille obey with an unexpected docility. She never took readily to being ordered about. Keefler gestured to Lee. He got up and walked over. Keefler looked up at him. “Big bastard, aren’t you?”
    “Is that a question … sir?”
    “Don’t get porky. You can’t afford it. You don’t mean anything to me. I can step on you like on a bug. Now I’m telling you just what you’re going to do. You’re going to wait, and if you get any kind of word from Danny, you aren’t going to wait ten