5 Detective Novels Magazine Cover — page 26: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

26 Ted looked at the gun in Loreen’s hand and grinned. “I didn’t think I was.” He raised his eyes to her face, wondered what he’d ever seen there, what he’d ever thought was soft and kind and ex- citing. He said, “If we have time for you to tell me, Loreen, I’d like to know what set this off. I know Betty called you yesterday at the office. What did she say ?” “She told me she was going to get a divorce,” Loreen answered, her eyes level, cold. “She’d had a detective fol- low us, knew everything.” Ted laughed and commented acidly, “Now don’t tell me, Loreen, that all this homicide is to protect your reputation as a good girl!” “No, Ted.” Loreen wagged her head. “Betty had something else to say. She told me she knew you were involved in some racket—had been stealing from the company right along—and she could prove it. She was going to see that if I got you, I’d have to wait for you to be released from jail.” VI Bowerr said, “What did you do, Owen, tell your wife what a big shot you were?” Ted shrugged. “Elizabeth wasn’t a total idiot. Last night, after the police left the house, I discovered she’d ap- propriated all my canceled checks for the last five years, had them locked in a cabinet in her room. She’d added them up, to support her claim for a fat settle- ment when she sued for divorce. It took no great mathematical talent to figure that if I was earning five or six thou- sand dollars a year selling meat for the Crest Company and was spending fif- teen, something was more than slightly wrong. She knows I don’t play the races or the stock market. If I made it at all, I had to make it out of meat. And, in my bracket, you don’t knock down that kind of money legitimately.” “Too bad you left your canceled checks where she could find them, honey,” Loreen declared. “It made her a lot of trouble.” “Yeah,” agreed Ted, “I see it did. I suppose, after you hung up on Betty, FIVE DETECTIVE NOVELS MAGAZINE you went to Bennett’s office. The two of you put your busy little heads to- gether, figured she’d have to be stopped, because if she had evidence that’d send me to jail, it would also involve both of you. I know Bennett was at the meet- ing last night, so I guess that leaves you, dear,” he added. “You got into the house and garroted Betty.” “How clever can you be!” Loreen taunted. “I called Betty, told her I wanted to talk to her—about us. She let me in, and then I persuaded her to take me upstairs to her room.” Loreen waggled the gun meaningfully. “It was so easy it was frightening. I told her to get in bed, sit there. I was behind her. I believe she thought I meant to shoot her. She never looked back at me. I think she had her eyes shut.” Ted shuddered. “You’re a sweet kid!” “We tried to keep you clean,” Bennett declared, “to make sure you had a per- fect alibi. If you had let Milner take the rap for you, nobody would have been hurt.” “No one, except Betty,” corrected Ted. “And Steve.” “No jury would ever have sent Steve to the chair,” Bennett stated. "He was a psycho. A few years in a mental hos- pital, and he’d have been out, as good as ever.” Ted felt sick. There was a hard, ur- gent knot below his diaphragm. He had trouble breathing. He could still hear Bennett. “Loreen was trying to do what was best,” Ben- nett was saying. “It took guts. But she went through with it because she loved you.” Ted got a grip on his nausea, snorted. “It’s too bad we can’t live happily ever after, looting the company and squash- ing anybody who got in our way. A real happy couple!” They had run out of the flat orchard country, were climbing into the hills back of Los Gatos. They passed a few vineyards, the grapevines cut back, the gnarled stumps marching across the side of the brown hill. Then the big trees closed in. The road petered out to a narrow, graveled lane pitted with chuck- holes. Bennett’s Cadillac took it all in good grace. He didn’t slow down per- CoOnniclooo SH (C(O) mM