5 Detective Novels Magazine Cover — page 75: what you’re looking at

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

THIS WILL Charlotte wasn’t the type. So he changed the routine. Kitty followed the Cobbs to San Alpa, registered herself as a schoolma’am from Iowa, and _ pulled something new in the shakedown line. She told Charlotte she’d vacationed in California three years ago. She said she’d gone to Tijuana on a sightseeing jaunt, had met a guy there at the races, and their evening had turned into an all-out bender. When she woke up in the morning, she was married to a total stranger. Ashamed of the mess, she’d sneaked across#the Border alone and tried to forget. It wasn’t until just now she’d found out she was married to a millionaire named Leland Cobb.” “Wait!” Gleeson said. “Are them things legal?” “Mexican divorces aren’t always,” O’Hanna’s voice said, “but marriage is matrimony anywhere. You can See where it left Charlotte, if true. She wasn’t even legally married to the guy, let alone entitled to a divorce and a Set- tlement. She was over a barrel where Kitty could demand any kind of a price. Yeah, so far?” “Yeah. So far.” “She arranged to meet Kitty in her suite at a quarter to five. Kitty had a forged, phony Tijuana certificate taped to the underside of a bureau drawer. She took it with her. Charlotte went to the closet, supposedly to get the money, whirled, and used the ice-pick she had hidden there. She pushed Kitty’s body deep back behind the suitcases in the closet, then she hid the certificate inside a picture frame in her own room.” “Why didn’t she destroy it?” (Bess said: “She thought she was framing Cobb. She could black- mail him out of a hell of a big divorce settlement by waving that paper under his nose. People would think Kitty had been shaking him down, and that’d be his motive for murder.” “Yeah.” “About ten of five, she got Cobb out of the lobby. She made the frame-up more binding with that catsup gag. It isn’t hard to sell a drunk an idea and make him think it’s his own.” : Gleeson said, “That happens to plenty of sober guys. But what was her alibi?” SLAY YOU 75 “A damned smooth one. She told the truth about her time table, and made everyone believe she was lying to pro- tect her hubby.” O’Hanna laughed grim- ly. “She must have ducked out of the cocktail party a few minutes before six. Wanted to powder her nose, you know. Actually, she had to slip up- stairs and make sure Cobb went through with his gag. He’d just got his Dutch courage up to sprinkling the catsup around. That’s when she moved the body from the back of the closet. Since she entered through her own room Cobb didn’t even see her. She hurried down- stairs, then came up ‘in the elevator with Tolan.” “Yeah. Yeah.” O’Hanna’s voice wound up, “It blew up in her face the minute Fencer hauled Rocky in, and started talking about 637. I socked Fencer, and Tolan took a pow- der. Charlotte was smart enough to see then that Tolan and Kitty were in it together. Tolan had left the cocktail party for five minutes, gone up to Kit- ty’s room, to find out whether Kitty had collected the shakedown cash. He’d have to come clean to beat the murder rap himself, and that would involve Char- lotte.” “Why?” “Hasy. He knew Kitty was black- mailing her, not Cobb at all. She had to silence Tolan, but fast. She dived into the living room, grabbed the phone, and talked to Doc Raymond. Posing as the operator, she told Doc I wanted him downstairs in my office. She ran back, grabbed a scalpel from his instrument bag, and followed Tolan to 637. He was making sure about that certificate, you see. -Tolan made a pretty bloody job, and she got stains on her dress. That’s why she scratched her arm and made up a yarn about a mystery man trying to knife Cobb. What she really went. back to the Cobb suite for, though, was to get rid of the Tijuana certificate, know- ing by then it was forged.” Gleeson said, “Yeah.” He said, “But, Mike, where in hell are you, and what other angle are you working on?” “I’m not,” O’Hanna’s voice denied. “I’m down the road a ways, grabbing myself some vacation. Before some other damned thing happens.” © @ @ CoOnniclooo S (C(O) im