Free Confidentially Yours by Charles Williams Page A

Her name’s Frances Kinnan.” I gave him a description. “She was born in Orlando, in 1934, went to high school there, and attended the University of Miami for two years, according to the information on her personnel card. Around 1953 she went to work as a salesgirl in the women’s-wear section of Burdine’s, and later became assistant to the head of the advertising department. In 1955 she married a man named Leon Dupre who’d been some kind of minor executive with one of the dress shop chains—Lerner’s, I think—and the two of them opened a shop on Flagler Street. It was called Leon’s, and specialized mostly in resort clothes. In 1958, she and Dupre were divorced, and they sold out. That should be enough information for you to pick up the trail, and what I want to know specifically is whether she’s ever been in any kind of trouble, if there actually was a divorce, where Dupre is now—if possible—and if she ever knew a man named Dan Roberts.” I gave him a description of Roberts. “Can you handle it?”
    “With that much to start on, it’ll be easy. How much time do we have, and how do you want the report? By mail?”
    “No. Wire it to me at my office in Carthage. By five P.M. tomorrow at the latest.”
    “We’ll do it, or break a leg.”
    I hung up, dialed the long distance operator again, and put in the call to Houston. Cates’ line was busy and I had to wait five minutes and try again. This time I got him. I told him my name and address, made the same arrangement for payment I had with Crosby, and asked for a report on Roberts. “I don’t know where he lived in Houston,” I said, “or how long ago he moved away, but he still has a brother living there. The brother’s name is Clinton L. Roberts, and he should be in the book, for a place to start.”
    “That’ll do,” he said. “And just what is it you want to know?”
    “What business he was in there, whether he’s ever been in trouble with the police, why he left, whether he has any known enemies, and whether he’s ever lived in, or been in, Florida. Wire it to me at my office, not later than tomorrow afternoon if you can swing it. Okay?”
    “Right. We can do it.”
    I went out. At another bank I bought the two cashier’s checks, ducked into a drugstore for airmail envelopes, addressed them and marked them special delivery, and plastered on a bunch of stamps from the vending machine. Dropping them in a mailbox, I headed out Rampart, looking at cheap used cars on lots decorated with whirling orange-colored propellers. It was nearly one P.M. now, and I was beginning to feel naked on the street. Picking out an accessory-cluttered and fox-tailed old 1950 Olds, I gave my name as Homer Stites of Shreveport, paid cash for it, and drove it back uptown to a parking lot.
    I took a taxi back to the hotel, checked out, and carried the suitcase up the thronged sidewalks of Canal Street, cut over to the parking lot, and locked it in the trunk of the car. It was two-fifteen P.M. I couldn’t wait any longer; any time now the police would have men covering the bus station, railroad terminals, and the airport, and they’d know I couldn’t have got away after that. I ducked into a phone booth and called Norman.

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    “O H,” HE SAID. “I wasn’t expecting you quite so soon.”
    “I won’t be able to stay in town as long as I’d thought,” I explained. “Have you come up with anything yet?”
    “Not much. The man working the hock shops hasn’t got any lead on the coat so far, but I had a call about twenty minutes ago from Snyder, who’s covering the Devore Hotel. So far, of course, all he’s been able to talk to is the day-shift crew, but he has uncovered one or two items. Several bellmen and the doorman remember seeing her in the coat from time to time when she first checked in, but nobody recalls seeing it in the last two or three days. If it was lost or stolen, though, she never reported it to anybody in the hotel or to the police, as