Read Online While My Pretty One Sleeps by Mary Higgins Clark - Free Book Online Page B

smile became insolent. “Number-three shoes go with beige suit. Carry number-three purse and wear box-A jewelry. Do you do that for everyone?”
    Neeve felt her jaw harden. “Miss Lambston is a very good customer and a very busy woman. And I’m a very busy woman. Is she here, and if not, when is she coming back?”
    Douglas Brown shrugged. Something of the animosity left him. “I have no idea where my aunt is. She asked me to meet her here Friday afternoon. She had an errand for me.”
    â€œFriday afternoon?” Neeve asked quickly.
    â€œYes. I got here and she wasn’t around. I have a key and let myself in. She never came back. I made up the couch and stayed. I just lost my sublet, and the Y isn’t my speed.”
    There was something too glib about the explanation. Neeve looked around the room. The couch on which she’d laid the clothes had a blanket and a pillow piled together at one end. Piles of papers were thrown on the floor in front of the couch. Whenever she’d been here before, the cushions were so covered with files and magazines it was impossible to see the upholstery. Stapled clippings from newspapers were jumbled on the dinette table. Because the apartment was street level, the windows were barred, and even the bars had been used as makeshift files. At the opposite end of the room, she could see into thekitchen. As usual, the countertops looked cluttered. The walls were haphazardly covered with carelessly framed pictures of Ethel, pictures that had been cut from newspapers and magazines. Ethel receiving the Magazine Award of the Year from the American Society of Journalists and Authors. That had been for her scathing article on welfare hotels and abandoned tenements. Ethel at the side of Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson. She’d worked on his 1964 campaign. Ethel on the dais at the Waldorf with the Mayor the night Contemporary Woman had honored him.
    Neeve was struck by a thought. “I was here early Friday evening,” she said. “What time did you say you arrived?”
    â€œAbout three. I never pick up the phone. Ethel has a thing about anyone answering it when she’s not here.”
    â€œThat’s true,” Tse-Tse said. For a moment she forgot her Swedish accent. Then it came back. “Yah, yah, it’s true.”
    Douglas Brown slipped his tie over his neck. “I’ve got to get to work. Just leave Ethel’s clothes, Miss Kearny.” He turned to Tse-Tse. “And if you can find some way to clean this place up, that’s fine, too. I’ll pile my stuff together just in case Ethel decides to favor us with her presence.”
    Now he seemed in a hurry to get away. He turned and started for the bedroom.
    â€œJust a minute,” Neeve said. She waited until he stopped and looked over his shoulder. “You say you came around three o’clock on Friday. Then you must have been here when I was trying to deliver these clothes. Would you mind explaining why you wouldn’t answer the door that night? It could have been Ethel forgetting her key. Right?”
    â€œWhat time did you get here?”
    â€œAround seven.”
    â€œI’d gone out for something to eat. Sorry.” He disappeared into the bedroom and pushed the door closed.
    Neeve and Tse-Tse looked at each other. Tse-Tse shrugged. “I might as well get busy.” Her voice was a singsong. “Yumpin’ Yimminy, you could clean Stockholm faster than this place with all the junk around.” She dropped the accent. “You don’t suppose anything happened to Ethel, do you?”
    â€œI’ve thought about having Myles call for accident reports,” Neeve said. “Although I must say the loving nephew doesn’t seem frantic with worry. When he gets out, I’ll hang these things in Ethel’s closet for her.”
    Douglas Brown emerged from the bedroom a moment later. Fully dressed in a dark-blue suit, a raincoat over