Free Lipstick and Lies by Margit Liesche

you have a file on Mrs. Barclay-Bly. There’s a connection?”
    Making a steeple with his hands, Connelly placed his chin on the point, staring at me with narrowed eyes. “It’s
Miss
Barclay-Bly. She reverted to her maiden name after several failed marriages. She comes from a privileged background. Big house in Grosse Pointe, tony neighbors, private schools…”
    He seemed to be implying that a privileged background was a detriment. The reasoning escaped me, but I was dying to hear more. “Uh-huh. And?”
    “Barclay-Bly attended college in the Twenties, during Prohibition. Duped her folks into leasing an apartment for her on the Detroit River. Then the good times rolled. Word got around she was hosting parties with bootleg booze. Purple Gang members began dropping in—”
    “Purple Gang?”
    “Local gangsters, active here in the Twenties. Built a reputation around armed robbery, hijacking, extortion, strong arm stuff. Big money, though, was in controlling the local wire service, providing racing stats to all the horse betting parlors and bookies.”
    “Is this Purple Gang connected to our investigation?”
    “The link’s not exactly direct.” Connelly’s tone held a hint of something intriguing.
    “Patrick…” Dante waited to be sure his partner got his message. He looked at me. “Let’s just say it’s a sidebar to the investigation. Leave it at that for now, shall we?”
    I didn’t see that I had any choice. “You mentioned a new assignment?”
    Dante had removed a smoke from the pack. He began twisting it with his fingers. “Two, actually. First, we’re going to re-arm you, give you another shot at the Countess.”
    “Go back to jail? You can’t be serious. I just got out.”
    The cigarette twisting stopped. “We are serious. Buchanan-Dineen claims she’s performed a wonderful service for our country. She wants to be honored, not punished. She complains of the mental torture she’s suffered at our hands. She wants people on the outside to know all this. So ask yourself, how could she do it?” Dante lifted inquiring eyebrows. “By talking to a reporter.”
    The Countess, we all knew, was thinking more along the lines of talking to a lawyer. Or her fiancé. “Hmmm…” I muttered.
    Dante plunged on. “This time, posing as a journalist assigned to record her story, you’ll play to her ego, convince her you’re the ideal conduit for bringing her side of the story public. Once she gets what’s in it for her, you’ll be home free. Free to delve into what she knows about spying, free to slip in a query or two about the contacts the
Abwehr
expected her to make once she arrived, even work in a question about Renner while you’re at it.”
    I looked at him admiringly. “So that’s why you posed as an attorney for the
Free Press
. You were planting a seed to help convince her that I was actually a journalist, all along.”
    “Ha!” Connelly scoffed. “What we should do is throw a real reporter at her. Let her tell her poor-me tale to one of the boys from the
News
or
Free Press
. Let them write it up. Our besieged little spy might be surprised at the reaction from Detroiters. They’d want to lynch her, not cry for her.”
    I cocked an eyebrow at Connelly, then turned to address Dante. “You want me to tell her I’ll get her story published. But, in truth, whatever she says will never get beyond our ears?”
    “Right. And depending on how things go, with your background in journalism, maybe you could actually write something up and we could print it. In a faux edition, of course.”
    “
Background
in journalism is stretching it. I majored in journalism in college, yes, but that’s the extent of—”
    “You were a writer in your job at Midland Aircraft,” Connelly butted in.
    “But I wasn’t a reporter. I cranked out instruction manuals and informational blurbs to help sell airplanes. There’s a difference.”
    “Lewis,” Dante snapped. “There are men out there right now who’ve