Free Wife or Death by Ellery Queen Page B

now doesn’t know that on or about the night of the Hallowe’en Ball she’d given you the heave-ho in favor of a new boy, identity unknown; that that night—the night, let me remind you, that she disappeared—you were drunker than a skunk; that you kept chasing her and she kept dodging you; that at the Wyatts’ afterward you made a nasty scene in full view and hearing of a couple of dozen top-echelon witnesses; that you were so foully insulting to her that I had to knock you down, and Norm Wyatt took you home. Now let me ask you, Mr. District Attorney: how’s that for the makings of a case against you ?”
    Crosby was a dirty yellow color. “Chief Spile,” he said thickly, “put this man under arrest.”
    â€œWhoa,” said the chief. “Seems to me you two have a personal thing going here. How about settling down so we can discuss this sort of calmly?”
    â€œI won’t discuss anything with the sonofabitch,” Denton said flatly. “If you want to arrest me for homicide, Augie, go ahead. But I’m swearing out the same charge against Crosby. You take it from there.”
    The district attorney was beyond speech. His mouth kept opening and shutting and opening again. Nothing came out but a few gargly sounds.
    â€œJim,” Chief Spile said. “Step into the anteroom a minute, will you? You just wait there.”
    Crosby managed to squeak, “You’d allow him to go out there unguarded? You’d …” His voice failed him again.
    â€œIf he took off it would be like confessing, wouldn’t it?” the police chief said mildly. “And where would he go, anyway? We’d have him back in an hour. Get out of here, Jim.”
    Denton went into the anteroom. The secretary was typing away as if nothing had happened. Well, Denton thought, to her nothing has. He sat down stiffly and waited.
    He waited almost an hour. Once Augie Spile opened the door for a quick look. By the time the door opened again, the district attorney’s girl had long since covered her typewriter and gone home.
    â€œOkay, Jim,” the chief said.
    Denton went back in. Crosby was still sitting at his desk. He looked up and said in the coldest voice Denton had ever heard, “The chief has spelled out to me the yarn you told him the other day, Denton. I will be frank with you. I don’t personally believe a syllable of your story about Angel’s running off in the middle of the night with some man. And I don’t believe you were just marking time or trying to avoid gossip when you told and printed that self-confessed lie about her having gone off to visit her parents.”
    He leaned forward, and with a glare as steadily cold as his voice he went on, “It is true, however, that we don’t have enough evidence yet to hold you, and that if we did hold you you’d be out on a writ of habeas corpus ten minutes after we threw you into jail. So I’m temporarily releasing you in your own custody. You are not—I repeat, not —to leave the jurisdiction of this county. Do you understand?”
    â€œIs that all?” Denton said.
    â€œFor now.”
    Denton walked out.

10
    Denton’s car was parked across the square outside the Clarion office. He made a beeline for it, angry with himself for walking so fast. He sat in the car for a while, thankfully.
    The thought of going home to a frozen-food dinner had no appeal for him. A moment’s reflection, and he knew it was not the food. It was her bedroom. Not now, he thought; not just yet.
    Dinner in a local restaurant was out of the question. He was bound to run into people he knew. By now the discovery of Angel’s body would be common knowledge; the last thing he felt like facing was sympathetic looks—or questioning ones, the question being: Did you kill her?
    So he started the car and drove out of town. Twenty miles away, on the outskirts of Loch City, he stopped at a