Free Fit to Die by Joan Boswell Page A

twirled her stool back towards Ketcheson, but she wasn’t looking at anybody. Her eyes were on her lap and she was playing with the clasp of her little bag.
    â€œIt was one of those crazy things. A few days after the fight, I was celebrating and got in a little spat with a lady’s husband. Could’ve happened to anyone.” A spat, thought Gunboat. The hard-done-by husband was shot in the leg and nearly bled to death, and Ketcheson’s payday was a ticket to Kingston Pen.
    â€œBut you said you were here doing business that night,” said Miss Doyle. “So if you didn’t get your money, Harry Pilgrim must have tried to stiff you. That would be your motive for killing him.”
    â€œNow wait a minute,” Ketcheson said, leaning back on his stool. “There’s no need for crazy talk. I just want what’s coming to me.”
    â€œYou’ll get what’s coming—” Miss Doyle said “—if the cops ever find out you were still here when Harry died.”
    â€œI lit out long before the old crumb got topped,” said Ketcheson. “The boatman backed me up on that.”
    â€œThen how did you know the housemaid had grass stains on the back of her dress? Surely it’s not the kind of gossip you hear around the chain gang. No, you must have collected already. That’s how you could pay the boatman to say he took you home earlier. Clearly you had the dosh to go out on the jag that ended you up in the slammer.”
    â€œNow slow down, honey,” Ketcheson said. “Okay, I was on the back porch finishing my smoke when that girl and her lover boy charged right past me and into the house. But it wasFancypants here,” he pointed a calloused finger at the boss, “who took off out the back door like a bat out of hell.”
    â€œTo investigate the screams,” said the boss smoothly.
    â€œWith a shotgun?” Ketcheson said.
    â€œAh, so that’s the pay-off you’re after tonight,” said Miss Doyle. “Reggie pays the piper and you won’t play a little tune in Mr. Policeman’s ear.”
    Stevie’s voice cut in, yipping like one of those pug-dogs well-off American wives carted about. “Dempsey hit Firpo so hard that he lifted him in the air! Boom, Firpo’s hit the canvas!”
    â€œThings have changed while you were up the river, and Reggie would be nuts to pay you,” Miss Doyle said cheerfully and began ticking off the reasons on her little fingers. “First, he’s a big-time bootlegger, he’s got cops on the payroll now. Second, the suckers up from Syracuse love that murder bit, it brings them in by the boatload. And third, you saw Reggie leave the house after the dead body was found. Why, Reggie has a better alibi than you do. Maybe you killed Pilgrim that night and kept all the dough.”
    â€œYour logic astounds, my dear,” said the boss. “Like your charm, it bowls one over like a careening motor car.”
    â€œYou rat, Ashe!” cried Ketcheson, his work-hard hand snaking towards his baggy pocket. “Put the frame on me, will you?”
    Gunboat felt things slow down, like when he was in the ring, and his left foot travelled forward in a long falling step. As his weight shifted, his half-opened left hand came straight out from his shoulder, chin high across the top of the bar, and his fingers began to close with a mad clutch, his knuckles lining up like soldiers.
    â€œNo, Gunboat!” the boss barked.
    The boss could not stop him, no one could stop him, no one but Miss Doyle, who leaned in to plant her little gun in Ketcheson’s side. Gunboat lurched to the left, and a punch that could have killed her breezed past, catching the tip of her silly hat and knocking it a little off kilter.
    â€œReach for the sky, pardner,” Miss Doyle said. “I always wanted to say that, like one of those Zane Grey posses arriving in the nick.”
    â€œYou