Free Dressed to Killed by Milton Ozaki Page A

for you."
    I followed him out. When we were on the stairs, I said: "Thanks, Trottmann."
    "No thanks due," he told me shortly. "The captain is on the hook and is apt to rush into things, especially when he thinks he'll get some good publicity out of it. I just happen to think it's a good idea to make sure before we leap."
    "You'll try to get the Kent girl?"
    "We'll get her," he promised. "But if she doesn't back you up, you'd better take Matthews' advice and confess."
    "Like hell," I said. "Like hell!"
    He shrugged and banged the cell door behind me.
    The hours crawled like invalid eels. I paced back and forth, avoiding three drunks who were sleeping off a cheap jag, and tried to find a chink in the wall of evidence against me. The more I thought, the less I blamed Matthews—and the more grateful I felt toward Trottmann. I kept telling myself that Giselle Kent would back me up. She had to. Once they heard her story, they'd have to believe that Richmond had planned the frame.
    The cell door opened briefly and a guard tossed the rest of my clothes to me. I tried to question him, but he gave me a grin no wider than a toothpick and went back upstairs. I put the clothes on, wondering if Trottmann had really gone to the trouble of having a lab analysis made. I decided he was as fair-minded as a cop could be and that he must have had my stuff vacuumed, at least. Which reminded me: What about Richmond's vacuum cleaner? Had it occurred to anybody to check it?
    The guard reappeared after a while, bringing a paper plate on which two cold wieners huddled against a mound of warmish potato salad. It was tasteless, but I stuffed it down to appease the growl in my stomach.
    More pacing, more mind-beating, even more frustration.
    At last a cop appeared. "Captain wants you," he announced brusquely, unlocking the cell.
    "What's going on?" I asked.
    "Ask the captain." He waved me toward the stairs.
    Lieutenant Trottmann avoided my eyes when I entered Matthews' office. My heart sank. Matthews was slumped in his chair, his mouth clamped hard on the end of an unlighted cigar.
    "Sit down, Forbes," Matthews growled. He took the cigar from his mouth, searched for a match, lit it. Trottmann got out a pack of cigarettes, took one for himself, offered the pack to me. I ignored it.
    "Well?" I asked. I realized that my lips were trembling.
    "We got the Kent girl." Matthews dropped the words into the silence slowly, as though he were counting peas into a pan.
    "She corroborated my story?" For a moment, hope surged within me.
    Matthews' eyes bored into me. "No," he said succinctly.
    "You lie!" I half-rose. "She had to! She—"
    Trottmann shifted his feet. "She couldn't, Forbes," he said quietly. "She's dead."
 
    SEVEN. The Law and the Lady
    IT COMPLETELY stunned me. I gasped, "Good God."
    "Yeah," Trottmann nodded. "A squad picked her up in an alley out on the west side." He gestured toward his neck. "Strangled. The doc says it happened about two hours ago."
    "The poor kid!"
    "You're in a bad jam, Forbes," Matthews said heavily.
    "My God, you don't think I killed her, do you?" I cried. "Why, she was—"
    "No," Trottmann interrupted. "We know where you were at the time. It's something in your favor, as a matter of fact, but that doesn't mean you aren't in a jam." He pursed his lips. "We checked your clothes. There were some foreign fibers in evidence which could have been from rope, as you said, but they don't prove a damned thing, not unless we nab Richmond with the rope—and can match the fibers. A damned small possibility, you'll agree."
    "It shows I wasn't lying, doesn't it?" I demanded.
    "Not necessarily. To be completely frank with you, Forbes, virtually all the evidence is against you. Captain Matthews and I are agreed on that. We're also agreed, however, that something stinks. It's something intangible, nothing we can put a finger on. See what I mean?"
    "No," I admitted.
    "We're going to give you a break," Matthews interrupted. "We're going to make a