Hire a Hangman by Collin Wilcox Read Free Book Online

be right with you.”
    “Thank you.” As Hastings sank into the luxury of the chair, he glanced around the room. It was a small study. Two walls, floor to ceiling, were bookshelves. A third wall was dominated by a huge, multicolored, leaded-glass window that was certainly an authentic antique. There was a library table and a leather-topped desk, also antique. Another leather lounge chair matched Hastings’s chair. The desk chair, on casters, was also leather. The wall behind the desk was covered with framed pictures, certificates, and mementos.
    “Would you like some coffee?” the maid asked. “Rolls?” She was Filipino; her café au lait face was as smooth as polished stone, and just as bland. Her voice was expressionless.
    “No, thanks.”
    “Mrs. Hanchett is with …” The maid hesitated, searching for the right word. As the silence lengthened, she began to frown. “She’s with the undertakers.”
    “Ah.” Hastings nodded. “Yes.”
    The maid nodded politely in return and turned toward the door, which she left open as she walked out into the spacious entry hall with its curving staircase that led up to the second floor. The door was carved oak, thick enough to have come from a castle. The massive handle was brass.
    A maid; a Pacific Heights town house; bookcases filled with leatherbound books; a Jaguar; a young, beautiful lover: Hanchett had had it all.
    But the Jag was in the police lab. And Hanchett was in a drawer at the morgue, awaiting the autopsy surgeon’s knife.
    From the hallway came the sound of voices, hushed male voices, a restrained woman’s voice. Contracts in their pockets, the morticians were departing. Through the open door, Hastings saw two men in dark suits gravely shaking hands with a dark-haired woman wearing beige slacks, and a loose-fitting brown sweater. Slim but full-bodied, carrying herself with the arrogance of a desirable woman aware of her own desirability, Mrs. Brice Hanchett bore a remarkable resemblance to Carla Pfiefer. Had Hanchett’s choice of lovers followed a pattern?
    She was coming toward him now. With her dark, elegant, arrogant good looks, with her chin raised, shoulders and hips working together, moving as provocatively and as economically as a model might, she came into the study, swung the door closed, and took one of the two deep leather chairs facing him. All of it—the entrance, closing the door, sitting down, crossing one slim leg over the chair—was accomplished as if it were one movement, smoothly choreographed, flawlessly executed.
    Carla Pfiefer, the girlfriend, was a sensual, exciting woman.
    But the wife had the class.
    After Hastings introduced himself, Mrs. Hanchett said, “I’ve already talked to a homicide detective this morning. Do you know that?”
    Hastings nodded. “Inspector Canelli. Yes. This is a—a follow-up. I’ve just finished talking with Inspector Canelli, as a matter of fact.”
    Watching him with her dark, calm eyes, she made no response. Her face revealed nothing. It was a lean, aristocratic face. The mouth was small and firmly set, the nose aquiline, slightly pinched.
    Like I’d delivered a load of smelly fish, Canelli had said.
    Score another one for Canelli.
    As, still, she waited calmly, her eyes effortlessly meeting his.
    “I’m sorry it had to be so late when Inspector Canelli rang your doorbell,” Hastings began. “But it’s departmental policy to notify the next of kin in person, not by phone.”
    She nodded. “Of course.”
    “Is there anything I can do, Mrs. Hanchett? Anything I can help you with?”
    She smiled, a slight, humorless movement of her impeccably drawn lips. “You can catch whoever did it.”
    “That’s why I’m here, Mrs. Hanchett.”
    She frowned. It was the first spontaneous expression she’d revealed since she’d made her entrance. “I don’t understand.”
    “It’s beginning to look like your husband might’ve been killed last night for personal reasons.”
    The frown deepened, the