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

I noticed that Agatha Baker frowned slightly, but she didn't speak. Instead, she pushed back her chair and rose to her feet. Carson took the hint.

"If that's all you ladies can tell us, there's no reason you can't go on home now."

"What I want to know is, what're you all doin' to find the the fiend who murdered poor Blanche and Lloyd?" cried Mrs. Denman, also getting up.

I said, "If you have any suggestions..."

"Why, you ought to be combin' out them beer joints down on Second Street, and over in shantytown. Certainly not messin' around here!"

She turned and bustled from the kitchen, clucking like an angry banty hen. Agatha Baker gave us an apologetic smile and followed her friend.

"She's right," Henderson growled a moment later. "Man that'd do a thing like this, he sure don't live in this neighborhood. Best people in Monroe," but his voice, if not his words, was tinged with doubt.

The sheriff and I left. Out front, the mid-November sun shone down from a cloudless deep-blue sky, but a chilly wind was blowing, plucking the last dead leaves from the big trees that lined the street, swirling them at our feet. The ambulance had left for the morgue. The crowd was still there, though; bigger and a good deal more vocal than before. So far, the town cops had managed to keep clear the area immediately in front of the Parmeter-Ames house.

Here, the chief of police met us. He was chewing on a frayed cigar, and looked both harried and pleased. "Me and the boys've heard from several people neighbors that Mrs. Ames and young Parmeter ain't been gettin' along."

"How come?" asked Carson.

"Dunno, but the talk is they've had some pretty fierce quarrels. So mebbe Parmeter."

"Lloyd Parmeter has a fair to middlin' alibi," Carson said. The chief blinked, then reluctantly nodded.

Carson and I went into the house. Though the ceiling light was on in the livingroom, after the bright sunshine it was like entering a cave.

A door on the far side of the room banged open and Buck Mullins lumbered in, followed by the sheriff's other deputy, Jack Avery. They saw us and stopped short.

"Found this under a hedge, way down at the east end of the alley that runs out back," said Avery. He held up a badly wrinkled brown wool dress. "Might not've spotted it, 'cept the sun was gleamin' on this here brooch pinned to the front of it."

Carson took the dress. As he examined it, his lips pursed into a silent whistle beneath his bedraggled mustache.

He muttered, "Name tag inside the collar... Blanche Ames. And there's what appears to be bloodstains all over the collar and shoulders of it."

He folded the dress and placed it on the chair that held the dead woman's undergarments and the robe.

"Now, why should the killer try to hide that dress," I said, "and try to make us think she was wearing the robe?"

"Why should he rip off the woman's clothes as he chased her down the hall if he did and then go to the bother of tuckin' a quilt real neat-like round her dead body?" replied the sheriff. He sighed and turned to Avery. "You hear anythin' from the people livin' on the block?"

"Nothin' much," said Avery, a tall, skinny man with puffy-lidded eyes that made him look as if he might topple over asleep any second. "Feller who was out walking his dog claimed he seen Mrs. Ames drive off, alone, about seven-thirty last night. That's the only thing."

Carson grunted. "Just a half hour after tellin' one of her friends she planned to stay home all evenin'. Well..."

I mentioned that I'd got the idea Agatha Baker might have known more than she told us on that point.

The sheriff grunted again. "Whatever, let's try to find out where Mrs. Ames went, and where Parmeter was at. Findin' that dress kind of puts a crimp in the idea the killer was just some passin' sex-pervert."

"Don't see why," grumbled Deputy Mullins.