Home is the Sailor by Day Keene Read Free Book Online Page A

looking for anything of Wolkowysk’s I might have missed.
    “I’ll buy a new rug the first thing in the morning,” she said.
    I found his gun on the floor and put it in my pocket. Then I found a few spots of blood where he had leaked through the rug.
    Corliss got to her feet, tense with strain. “Now what, Swede?”
    I told her to wipe the table, the lamp, the doorknob, anything that he might have touched, while I wiped up the blood on the floor with cold water.
    I was glad the deck was asphalt tile and heavily waxed. As far as I could tell, none of the blood had sunk in. When I finished wiping the floor I wrapped the rag I had used with newspaper and put it in my pocket, along with Wolkowysk’s gun.
    My shoes squished when I walked. My heavy uniform coat was as wet as if I’d swum a mile in it.
    Corliss was as nervous as I was. She tried twice to fasten the straps of her silver sandals. I finally had to fasten them for her. She caught her fingers in my hair and pushed my head back. “Have you thought of anything, Swede? I mean, about him?”
    “No,” I admitted. “I haven’t. How clean are we to start with?”
    “What do you mean by that?”
    “Did anyone see him come in here?”
    Corliss’ fingers tightened in my hair. “No. At least, I don’t think so.”
    I stood up and gripped her shoulders. “Be positive.”
    “I am. Wally had been gone a good five minutes when I heard the knock on the door. I thought it was Wally coming back. That’s why I unlocked the door.” Her face screwed up as if she were going to scream. “Then he—”
    I shook her until her head bobbled. “Stop it. It’s over. He’s dead. Forget it.”
    Corliss’ fingernails bit into my forearms. “I’ll try. Honest I will, Swede.”
    “What time was it when he came in?”
    “I’d say half past two.”
    “The bar was open or closed?”
    “It should have been closed a half hour. Mamie always closes it promptly. She doesn’t like to work back of the bar.”
    “What’s her last name?”
    “Meek. She manages the court for me. Her husband is the gardener.”
    “A little man in blue dungarees and a gray sweater?”
    “That would describe him. But why the interest in the Meeks?”
    I said, “I’m just trying to cover all the angles. Mamie was in the bar tonight. So was Wolkowysk. Would he be apt to confide in her that he was going to call on you?”
    Corliss shook her head. “No. I only went out with Jerry the one time. Mamie wouldn’t know him from any other customer in the bar.”
    I got her a camel’s-hair coat from the closet and walked her out to the green Cadillac. Then I eased out of the carport as quietly as I could and pointed the car north on U.S. 101, a vague plan forming in my mind. I drove for perhaps five miles, neither of us speaking, being careful to observe the legal maximum. Then I thought of something I should have remembered and jammed on the brakes so hard that a big Diesel trailer almost rammed us.
    Corliss caught at my arm. “Now what?”
    I gasped, “His car. It’s a cinch Wolkowysk didn’t walk from Laguna Beach to the Purple Parrot. His car has to be back there.”
    Fear had numbed her brain. “Back where?”
    “In front of the Purple Parrot.” I shouted the words at her as I swung the car in a sharp U turn and drove back the five miles we had come at ninety miles an hour, cursing the big Diesel trucks making the night haul up to Los Angeles, their drivers blinking their lights and blasting their horns at me.
    There were two cars in front of the dark bar. One was a beaten-up Ford. Corliss said it belonged to Wally. The other was a ’47 gray Buick super with the keys in the ignition and a pink registry slip made out to Gerald Wolkowysk in a glassine case on the steering column.
    I leaned against the Buick smoking a cigarette, listening to the sounds of the crickets, getting my breath back, letting my idea grow.
    Then in a lull between trucks I took Wolkowysk out of the turtle back. I unrolled