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

We found the manager in the office at the front of the courtyard. "Reynolds? Yes, sir, Sheila Reynolds is the way she registered. Checked in here little before eight last night. I wish she'd gone somewhere else."

"How's that?" asked Carson.

"Oh, not like you might think. She didn't try to run in any men customers. I don't stand for that kind of."

"Uh huh. What did she do?"

"Well, she'd barely got checked in and gone to her cabin when another woman showed up. Older woman seems like I've seen her around town, but I don't know her. Anyways, she went into Sheila Reynolds' cabin, and 'fore long they was havin' one hell of a cussfight in there. Got so bad that people on either side complained to me. I went down there and asked 'em to please hold it down to a roar." The manager paused for breath.

"What were they fighting about?" I asked then.

"No idea. Not long after I spoke to 'em, the older woman come bustin' out and took off in her car. That was at eight-thirty, or thereabouts."

The manager directed us to a cabin midway along the row on our right. As we approached the cabin, the door opened and a girl appeared, stopping short when she saw us.

"Miss Reynolds?" said the sheriff.

She hesitated, then nodded. She was young and pretty, with dark red hair spilling down over the shoulders of the rather tight sweater she wore. Her green eyes widened when we introduced ourselves.

"How about that?" she said. "I was just on my way to see you. You beat me to it. Come on in."

"We understand you saw Mrs. Blanche Ames last night," Carson said. "Is that right?"

The girl nodded. She took a cigarette from an open pack on a nightstand beside the rumpled bed that, with a single chair and a dressing table, made up the furnishings of the cabin we entered. She lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. Her bright green eyes flicked from me to Carson, and back again.

"Okay. You two evidently know who I am and why I'm here in your town, so there's no use horsing around. I heard just a little while ago what'd happened to Lloyd and that old witch. Heard about it at a cafe where I had breakfast. What do you want from me?"

She flipped ashes from her cigarette with a businesslike gesture and waited, her head cocked to one side.

"Tell us what happened here last night," I said.

Her plaid skirt ended well above her knees; it hiked up even farther as she sat down in the chair. "I don't mind telling you. But what's it matter? The way I heard it, the old woman and Lloyd were knocked off by some stray nut."

"Mebbe," said Carson.

Sheila Reynolds' finely plucked eyebrows rose. Then she shrugged. "Okay. I live at the capital. I met Lloyd when he was up there on business, and we hit it off pretty good. Better than pretty good... But when he told his sister about me, she like to've gone through the roof. Maybe she was one of those kinds of sisters, you know? The sick kind."

She punched out her half-smoked cigarette in an ash tray, then went on. "Finally I decided to come down here and meet this Blanche, face to face. Lloyd wasn't getting anywhere with her so I called her yesterday, long distance, and set it up to meet her here last night."

"Parmeter didn't know you were coming?"

"Not from me, and I doubt very much if Blanche told him. No, I planned to surprise him after I'd seen the sister. Big deal. She charged in here breathing fire, and let me have it with both barrels. You know? Accused me of being a lot of things. Even offered me money to get the hell out of Lloyd's life, and stay out. That's when I kinda lost my temper." She grinned ruefully.

I said, "The manager of this place told us it got a little noisy in here."

"What happened next?" the sheriff asked.

"Blanche left, just about a minute before I'd have thrown her out on her fat ear. Most maddening woman I ever saw, and I've seen some beauts. I'm a hostess in a cocktail lounge, you know, and some of the dames that come in there you wouldn't believe. But Blanche," She broke off with an eloquent shrug.