McNally's Risk by Lawrence Sanders Read Free Book Online Page B

woman or man. There’s an argument. She or he grabs up the nearest tool, the palette knife. I think it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. Not planned. They started out making love and then things went sour.”
    “Where do you go from here?”
    “Check his inventory of paintings. Check the alibis of wife, daughter, maid, agent, clients, friends, enemies, and everyone connected with him.”
    “When did it happen—do you know that?”
    “Tom Bunion figures it was about an hour before we got the squeal. That would put the time of death around nine o’clock, give or take.”
    “I was home,” I told him. “Upstairs in my rooms. I had just talked with my father in his study.”
    “We’ll check it out,” he said with ponderous good humor. Then, suddenly serious, he added, “You got any wild ideas?”
    “Not at the moment,” I said. “Except that it must have required a great deal of strength to drive a blunt blade into Hawkin’s throat. That would suggest a male assailant.”
    “Yeah,” the sergeant said. “Or a furious woman.”
    “One never knows, do one?”
    “There you go again,” he said.
    I returned home that night to find the house darkened except for the bulb burning over the rear entrance. I went directly to my quarters and finished that marc I had started aeons ago. Also my fourth English Oval. Then I went to bed hoping I wouldn’t have nightmares involving palette knives and oceans of blood. I didn’t. Instead I had a dotty dream about Zasu Pitts. Don’t ask me why.

Chapter 4
    I GLANCED AT LOCAL newspapers the next morning and watched a few TV news programs. I learned nothing about the homicide I didn’t already know.
    But after reading the obits on Silas Hawkin, I was surprised to discover that Louise was his third wife, and Marcia his daughter by his first. She was his only child. Wife No. 1 had died of cancer. Divorce had ended Marriage No. 2.
    I was even more startled to read of the professional career of the artist. He had studied at prestigious academies in New York and Paris. His work was owned and exhibited by several museums. He had been honored with awards from artists’ guilds. In other words, the man had been far from a hack. I had underestimated his talents because I thought him a dunce. But then the creative juices have no relation to intelligence, personality, or character, do they?
    Finally, a little before noon, I decided I needed a change of subject and a change of venue. So I determined to wheel down to Fort Lauderdale and have a chat with Shirley Feebling, the young woman who was causing Chauncey Wilson Smythe-Hersforth to suffer an acute attack of the fantods.
    In my innocence it never occurred to me the two investigations might be connected. But as A. Pope remarked, “Fools rush in...” Right on, Alex!
    Less than two hours later I was in a mini-mall north of Ft. Liquordale, staring with some bemusement at a large sign that advertised in block letters: TOPLESS CAR WASH . And below, in a chaste script: “No touching allowed.” The activities within were hidden from prurient passers-by by a canvas curtain slit down the middle. Customers’ cars were driven through the curtain to the interior, where vehicles and drivers were presumably rejuvenated.
    I decided my flag-red Miata convertible would be abashed by such intimate attention, so I parked nearby and returned on foot to push my way through the slit curtain. I was confronted by a woolly mammoth, who appeared to be either the manager or a hired sentinel assigned to halt sightseers who didn’t arrive on wheels.
    “I’d like to speak to Miss Shirley Feebling, please,” I said.
    “Yeah?” he said belligerently. “Who’re you?”
    “Andrew Jackson,” I said, proffering a twenty-dollar bill. “Here is my business card.”
    “Oh yeah,” he said, grabbing it. “I thought I recognized you. She’s over there washing down the Tuchas.”
    I turned to look. “Taurus,” I said.
    “Whatever,” he said, shrugging.
    I