Free Obit Delayed by Helen Nielsen Page B

event was on.”
    It was more coffee The Duchess needed now. More coffee and time to frame her next episode. Her face was tired and haggard above a bright-orange blouse, and her hand shook a little with the cup. But Mitch couldn’t escape the feeling that she was enjoying herself immensely—and at his expense.
    “You didn’t drag me over here to tell me Virginia had her appendix out,” he said. “What is it? What have you come up with?”
    “Don’t get fidgety!” The Duchess snapped. “It’s my story and I’ll tell it my way!”
    It sounded easy to say she’d checked at the hospital and learned the truth about Virginia’s illness, but the general hospital at something like ten p.m. was no open fount of information. A less insistent character than The Duchess would have let the whole thing ride until morning; but this was murder with a man hunt thrown in for good measure, and she’d never had so much fun in her life. So she badgered nurses, cooled her heels and warmed her temper in waiting-rooms, buttonholed a doctor who had more important things to do, and finally came up with the case history of Virginia Wales. One try and one miss. Mitch Gorman would want to know about this.
    Mitch’s apartment was at the opposite end of town, and The Duchess wasn’t feeling too happy as she drove down Main Street for the second time. A peculiar old woman with a Ouija board and a terse hospital record weren’t much to show for a night’s effort, especially when you were looking for sinister clues and excitement. And look at this street! Dark and sleeping as if murder were just a word in the dictionary. Not a car on the street. Not a light showing except for the street lamps and that one dim bulb in Pinky’s kitchen.
    Suddenly The Duchess slammed on the brakes. A light in Pinky’s kitchen? There’d been no light there a few hours ago because Pinky was closed Tuesday and his door was locked. And even if he had been open, this was long past closing-time. She made a U turn and drove back to investigate.
    There was a service entrance running along the side of the restaurant that led to a narrow alley in the rear. The Duchess parked in front and walked back, moving quietly to pick up the furtive noises in the kitchen. It might be Pinky coming in to clean up for tomorrow, but why so late? If she could just pull herself up to that high kitchen window—
    “What did you kick over?” Mitch interrupted.
    “The garbage can. The light in the kitchen went out and somebody tore out of the back door like the devil was on his tail. We didn’t have time for introductions, but it was a man.”
    “Not Pinky?”
    “Naturally! Would he be prowling around in his own kitchen? This character drove off in a car he had parked in the alley. A wicked looking convertible that looked like a wasp and took off like a buzz bomb.”
    It took all of ten seconds for Mitch to realize what The Duchess had said. “Dave Singer!” he yelled, and almost fell off his chair. “That was Dave Singer prowling through Pinky’s kitchen!”
    “I thought you’d be interested,” The Duchess observed.
    “You didn’t follow him by any chance?”
    “On what? A broomstick?”
    It didn’t matter. Dave was back in circulation again, and that in itself was interesting. But Dave prowling about in Pinky’s kitchen was a lot more incriminating than Dave making remarks over the counter. This boy just couldn’t seem to stay out of the picture—and then Mitch remembered something Rita had said in Mexicali. Maybe he wasn’t and maybe he was. Maybe he was making a play for Virginia for the obvious reasons; but there was another possibility that pulled Mitch off his chair in a hurry.
    “Sit down!” The Duchess ordered. “I haven’t finished.”
    “Neither have I,” Mitch said. “I just remembered an invitation I got down in Mexicali a few hours ago. Dave’s girl friend is lonely. I think it’s only neighborly of me to go over and talk to her awhile.”
    The