"RICHARD_M_ELLIS_-_THE_DARK_WELL" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ellis Richard M)

"Not yet," the sheriff said.

"Helluva note," Henderson fumed. "Could just as easy have been my wife. I worked late at the store last night, and she was here alone!" Henderson glared accusingly from Carson to me and back again.

"Are Miss Baker and Mrs. Denman still here?" I asked.

"What? Yes, yes, come on in. They're back in the kitchen with Noreen. Anytime women get in a tizzy, they head for the nearest kitchen. You can count on that." A moment later we entered a big, sunny kitchen and found three women sitting around a plastic-topped table that was cluttered with coffee cups and an overflowing ash tray.

"About time," snapped Mrs. Mary Denman, a middle-aged, leathery woman with beady eyes and pugnacious jaw. "Keep me and Aggie waitin' here half the day."

"Now, Mary," said the tall, rather willowy Agatha Baker, sitting to Mrs. Denman's left.

The third woman, Noreen Henderson, suddenly quavered, "It's all so awful! That going on next door, and me here alone. Awful!"

Henderson, standing behind her chair, dropped soothing hands on her shoulders. A plumply pretty blonde, young enough to be her husband's daughter, she leaned forward to avoid Henderson's touch. I'd heard stories about plump little Noreen.

Carson said, "We'd like to hear again how you two ladies come to find the bodies. Miss Baker?"

Agatha Baker nodded hesitantly. She had a rather faded-rose prettiness and guileless air but she also was known as a shrewd business woman. Her father had left her well off, and she had at least doubled the inheritance on her own, so I had heard around town. She said, "There's not much to tell. Today is Saturday and Mary, Blanche, and myself planned to go downtown to shop for the weekend. Mary and I came by for Blanche at nine, something over an hour ago."

"That's right," Mrs. Denman horned in. "I got out of the car and went to the door myself. Didn't get no answer when I rung the bell. Then I tried the door. It was closed, but not locked." She paused abruptly.

I prompted, "You pushed the door open?"

"Yes and there was Lloyd Parmeter. First, I thought he was passed out, drunk it wouldn't be the first time but then I seen the blood on his chest."

Miss Baker grimaced. "Mary screamed. I went to see what was wrong. There was Lloyd, and over on the far side of the room what appeared to be a a spatter of blood. It didn't seem likely that it was Lloyd's blood, so we went into the house, calling for Blanche. We found her."

"Uh huh," said Carson. "And you came over here to phone."

"We knew we shouldn't touch anything in there, even the telephone," Miss Baker said. "Besides, we wanted out."

"Couldn't believe what they told me, when they come runnin' up on my front porch," Henderson growled. "I went over and had a look-see myself. Then I believed it.

His wife shuddered. "And I, I was here alone."

"It happened sometime durin' the evenin', before midnight. You notice anything at all?" asked Carson.

Noreen Henderson vigorously shook her blonde head. "I was in my room, watching television. Until J.C. came home."

"That was about nine o'clock," said Henderson. "The lights was on over there when I drove in, but everything looked same as usual."

"And you didn't hear or see anything after that?"

"Not a thing. Me and Noreen went to bed early, and," Henderson broke off, his lowly face reddening.

Agatha Baker filled the silence, after a faintly disgusted glance at the blushing Henderson. "I spoke to Blanche on the phone late yesterday afternoon. She mentioned that Lloyd would be out for the evening, and she."

"She was plannin' to stay home and nurse a sick headache," Mrs. Denman said. "I talked to her when was it? About seven o'clock, I guess. Anyways, she told me she'd see Aggie and me this mornin'."