Free Night Corridor by Joan Hall Hovey Page A

boyfriend being at the top of the list. He had an ironclad alibi. So far, nothing.
     
    Serial killer?
     
    He didn't really want to go there. Such cases were almost impossible to solve; the guy could go on for years and remain invisible. Just an ordinary looking man, someone's neighbor. 'He was always so nice,' the neighbor would invariably say ten years from now, 'If you needed anything, he'd be right there.' Or he could be a transient, staying a month or two in one place, moving on.
     
    "What did you think of Caroline Hill?" Detective Aiken asked. "Think she knew anything?"
     
    "No. Like her landlady said, why would she? But we needed to talk to her anyway. Eliminate any possibility. You never know. Winters could have visited someone at Bayshore Mental Hospital. Someone who had a connection to the killer. Maybe the killer himself. Though they'd gone through the list of recently released patients and no one grabbed his attention.
     
    "Pretty woman," he said of Caroline Hill. "A little vague."
     
    "I didn't see vague," Glen said. "Anxious, maybe. Wary. Who could blame her?"
     
    ***
     
    Caroline sat on the sofa with her hands folded in her lap, fretting about the landlady being mad at her again.
     
    In a little while she heard someone overhead playing the piano. Awkward, hesitant notes. Not the piano player. And she remembered that he gave lessons. She thought it would be lovely to be able to play the piano.
     
    At a knock on the door, she jumped up from the sofa
     
    "Caroline, could I talk to you please."
     
    The landlady.
     
     
     
     
     
    Twelve
     
     
     
    On Monday morning, Caroline rose two hours early for work, took a quick bath in the big apple-green painted claw-foot tub at the end of the hall, and dressed in a navy skirt and white blouse. In spite of her nerves, resulting from both fear and excitement, she managed to get down a cup of tea and a slice of toast.
     
    It was a fifteen-minute walk to work and she used the time to work on her nerves. The day was sunny and bright, which also helped. She'd do fine. It was just a dishwashing job and she knew how to do that, for Heaven's sake. Her step became almost light as she drew nearer her new place of employment.
     
    Yet, at the door, she had to take a couple of deep breaths and let them out slowly, before she could bring herself to open the door and walk into the warmth and cheery sounds of the restaurant. Enticing smells filled her senses—eggs, bacon, and toast, blending in with the aroma of rich coffee. Unlike before, when she'd stood outside the door with Mrs. Bannister, Caroline wasn't hungry, only anxious.
     
    The place was a hive of conversation, laughter, the clattering of cutlery. In the background, Helen Ready sang I am Woman .
     
    Caroline straightened her shoulders, and looking neither left nor right, made her way down the aisle past occupied blue-leather upholstered booths toward the swinging doors that she'd been told led into the kitchen. Just as she got there, the doors flung open and Caroline had to jump out of the way to avoid two waitresses coming through, balancing orders on their upturned palms. Caroline mumbled her apologies. The red-haired one with the ponytail grinned at her, said 'no problem'.
     
    On entering the kitchen, she could feel the heat from the grill on the other side of the windowed partition. Heard the sizzle of things frying.
     
    Was she late? Glancing at the big round clock on the wall, she saw that she still had ten minutes before she was to start, and breathed a sigh of relief. It wouldn't be good to be late on her first day.
     
    She could see people working behind the partition. Two men, one with his back to her, the other an older black man in a cook's hat, a shade whiter than his hair, and an older woman with a flushed face and wearing a blue and white head scarf. This was Ethel Crookshank who, she would learn, had been there since Frank's opened, over a decade ago. Ethel would become a friend to