Who Killed Bob Teal? and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

where we found a chair apiece. She sat facing us on a big blue settle.
    â€œWhere was your husband last night?” Dean asked.
    â€œHome. Why?” Her round blue eyes were faintly curious.
    â€œHome all night?”
    â€œYes, it was a rotten rainy night. Why?” She looked from Dean to me.
    Dean’s glance met mine, and I nodded an answer to the question that I read there.
    â€œMrs. Whitacre,” he said bluntly, “I have a warrant for your husband’s arrest.”
    â€œA warrant? For what?”
    â€œMurder.”
    â€œMurder?” It was a stifled scream.
    â€œExactly, an’ last night.”
    â€œBut—but I told you he was—”
    â€œAnd Ogburn told me,” I interrupted leaning forward, “that you called up his apartment last night, asking if your husband was there.”
    She looked at me blankly for a dozen seconds; and then she laughed, the clear laugh of one who has been the victim of some slight joke.
    â€œYou win,” she said, and there was neither shame nor humiliation in either face or voice. “Now listen”—the amusement had left her—“I don’t know what Herb has done, or how I stand, and I oughtn’t to talk until I see a lawyer. But I like to dodge all the trouble I can. If you folks will tell me what’s what, on your word of honor, I’ll maybe tell you what I know, if anything. What I mean is, if talking will make things any easier for me, if you can show me it will, maybe I’ll talk—provided I know anything.”
    That seemed fair enough, if a little surprising. Apparently this plump woman who could lie with every semblance of candor, and laugh when she was tripped up, wasn’t interested in anything much beyond her own comfort.
    â€œYou tell it,” Dean said to me.
    I shot it out all in a lump.
    â€œYour husband had been cooking the books for some time, and got into his partner for something like $200,000 before Ogburn got wise to it. Then he had your husband shadowed, trying to find the money. Last night your husband took the man who was shadowing him over on a lot and shot him.”
    Her face puckered thoughtfully. Mechanically she reached for a package of a popular brand of cigarettes that lay on a table behind the settle, and proffered them to Dean and me. We shook our heads. She put a cigarette in her mouth, scratched a match on the sole of her slipper, lit the cigarette, and stared at the burning end. Finally she shrugged, her face cleared, and she looked up at us.
    â€œI’m going to talk,” she said. “I never got any of the money, and I’d be a chump to make a goat of myself for Herb. He was all right, but if he’s run out and left me flat, there’s no use of me making a lot of trouble for myself over it. Here goes: I’m not Mrs. Whitacre, except on the register. My name is Mae Landis. Maybe there is a real Mrs. Whitacre, and maybe not. I don’t know. Herb and I have been living together here for over a year.
    â€œAbout a month ago he began to get jumpy, nervous, even worse than usual. He said he had business worries. Then a couple of days ago I discovered that his pistol was gone from the drawer where it had been kept ever since we came here, and that he was carrying it. I asked him: ‘What’s the idea?’ He said he thought he was being followed, and asked me if I’d seen anybody hanging around the neighborhood as if watching our place. I told him no; I thought he was nutty.
    â€œNight before last he told me that he was in trouble, and might have to go away, and that he couldn’t take me with him, but would give me enough money to take care of me for a while. He seemed excited, packed his bags so they’d be ready if he needed them in a hurry, and burned up all his photos and a lot of letters and papers. His bags are still in the bedroom, if you want to go through them. When he didn’t come home last night I had a