Read Online Seven Ways to Die by William Diehl - Free Book Online Page B

another cup?” she asked.
    “I’m fine, thanks. So these were kind of like ramblings, getting something off his chest?”
    “Exactly. When I was through he’d smile and pay me and go back over to his place.”
    “Anything else you can remember?”
    She shrugged. “He was a nice guy. He was polite. He said ‘Thank you.’”
    “And you never asked him about any of these things?”
    “He wasn’t a Chatty Cathy. I’ve got some clients who like to chat. Talk about movies, casual talk. There was nothing casual about Raymond. His monologue was part of his working out emotional kinks. He was there to get the knots ironed out, period.”
    “I’ve got to ask you this. Where were you last night?”
    “Here. I was reading. Sitting over there.” She pointed to a chair near the door.
    He could see her sitting there, and the thought oddly pleased him. “Did you hear him come in?”
    She shook her head.
    “Would you have heard him? If he had come in?”
    “Probably. We just heard your people.”
    “What time did you go to bed?”
    “I finished reading about quarter to eleven. Went back, turned on the TV. Watched the top of the news and then put in the plugs. I was asleep by, I don’t know, eleven-fifteen maybe.”
    “What kind of slippers do you have?”
    “Slippers?”
    “You know, for your feet?”
    She smiled, a big smile for the first time since he had entered the apartment.
    “Big fuzzy ones with little balls of stuff on the top. You want to see them?” She gave him an elfish grin.
    “I’ll take your word for it.”
    “I didn’t kill Raymond, Captain,” she said almost sternly.
    “Okay,” he answered.
    “I mean, I hardly knew him personally,” she said, still staring straight into his eyes.
    Cody smiled. “You probably knew a lot more about him that a lot of his friends.”
    Amelie didn’t disagree with that. She blurted out the rest of what she knew until Cody finally stood up to leave. “Thanks for the coffee,” he said. “It was good.”
    “Where’s your tape recorder?” she asked.
    He tapped the fountain pen in his breast pocket. “This is the mike. The recorder’s in my pocket.”
    “Isn’t that cute,” she answered, following him to the door. He took out his card and handed it to her.
    “My name and number is on that. You can call anytime, I’m always available. If you think of anything else.”
    She flipped the card with a finger, smiled and took her card out and slipped it in the breast pocket of his jacket.
    “May I ask a question?”
    “I suppose so.”
    “What’s with the ponytail?”
    He stared at her for a moment and said, “My barber cut my ear with his scissors so I never went back.”
    She shook her head and giggled. “Little wonders. A cop with a ponytail and a sense of humor. I bet you’d eat nails for breakfast if you had to.”
    “It’s never come up.”
    She stared at his neck and shoulders and then back into his eyes.
    “You’re tight as a fist, Captain Cody. You could use a good loosening up. Give me a call. I’ll work you in. On the house. Civic duty and all that.”
    “Thanks. Goodbye, Amelie.”
    “So long for now. If I don’t hear from you I may just make up something and call you.”
    “That’s against the law.”
    “Then you can come over and give me a ticket.”
     

7
     
    Cal Bergman was still intent on the black book he had found in Handley’s briefcase. He was seated sideways on the sofa in the hallway with the case opened beside him, a forefinger sliding down a page in the book as he dictated information into his headset.
    It was not a little book. It was custom-made black leather, six inches wide by eight inches long, with a twenty-four-carat gold lock flap. It was indexed with colored dividers and was about four inches thick. He snapped around, startled, as Cody left Amelie Cluett’s apartment.
    Cody laughed. “A little jumpy, aren’t you there, cowboy?”
    Cal laughed along with him.
    “Nothing wrong with having fast reflexes,