“No,” Lisa told him. “But we know neither of us could have done it because we were together last night from about one-fifteen on.”
“Together how?” Durango asked insinuatingly.
“All right then, in bed together! Are you happy now that you know? I’m not ashamed of it,” Lisa shouted. “And it’s probably the only time I don’t have any reason to be ashamed either .
“And just how did that come about?” Durango asked.
“We met at Dr. Golden’s,” Lisa admitted in a low voice.
“You mean at the group session?”
“No. Later. I told you. About one-fifteen.”
“And just what were you doing there?”
“I went there to kill a girl,” Thurmond’s voice was calm and even as he spoke. “I followed her there and I was going to kill her. She was a prostitute. A Lesbian. And so was Dr. Golden.”
“And that’s why you killed Dr. Golden instead!” Durango shot back at him.
“No. I didn’t kill her. Lisa came out of the elevator just as I was about to go into Dr. Golden’s apartment. She probably doesn’t even know it herself, but she stopped me from killing one or both of them. You see, When I saw her, I decided she was the one I really wanted to kill.”
“Bloodthirsty fellow, aren’t you?” Durango observed mildly. “Well, tell us about that in a minute. First,” he turned to Lisa, “suppose you tell us what brought you back to Dr. Golden’s apartment.”
“I’m not sure. I’d had a rough night. A very rough night. I was very confused. I might have been going to her for help. I might have been going to a showdown. I’m just not sure.”
“A showdown? What kind of a showdown?” Durango wanted to know.
“I felt she'd somehow fouled me up worse than I was before I went to her for treatment. I was all shook up and mad as a wet hen. I suppose I thought I was going to have it out with her.”
“And so you joined forces with caveboy here and killed her.”
“No. After we bumped into each other in the hallway there, neither of us went inside. Neither of us killed her.”
“Why not?”
“Because Vance had something I wanted. And I guess I had something he wanted.”
“He says he wanted to kill you.”
“Maybe. But he didn’t. I’m still very much alive.” Lisa inhaled deeply and thrust her breasts out toward Durango with a flirtatious wink.
“Where did you go?” Durango ignored her.
“Down to my place. It was quite a night.” Lisa looked at Vance and they both grinned.
“I can’t think of any good reason why I should believe either one of you,” Durango said frankly.
“I can.” All eyes turned to Brenda Haley as she spoke. “You can believe them because they’re telling the truth and I can vouch for it.”
“You can? How?” Durango asked.
Lisa and Vance looked at each other, as surprised as the others at Brenda’s interruption.
“Because I saw them,” Brenda said calmly. “They didn’t see me, but I saw them in the hallway outside Dr. Golden’s apartment. They were too busy necking and petting up a storm to notice me.”
“And just what were you doing back at Grand Central Station?” Durango asked wearily.
“I’d been visiting a friend on another floor in the building,” Brenda explained in her deep, mannish voice.
“I pushed the button for Dr. Golden’s floor instead of the lobby—by mistake.” Her voice faltered at the lie of the last two words.
Durango’s experienced ear caught it. “And so the long arm of coincidence just manages to goose you into an alibi when you alibi the other two,” he said succinctly. “Very convenient, but what does it prove? If they didn’t see you, how can you prove you were there? And if you can’t prove you were really there, I can’t see how you can substantiate their story.”
“I’can prove I was in the building,” Brenda objected. “I’ll give you the name of the friend I was visiting.”
“Assuming you can, that still doesn’t prove you left the building.”
“Maybe not, but if you check the time with her, it will prove I could have seen Lisa and Vance when I said I did.”
“They said this was about one-fifteen. Is that the time you say you saw them?” Durango asked.
“I think it was about five or ten minutes later. But judging by the progress they’d made, they must have been there a little while at least.”
“What exactly did you see?” queried Durango.
“Now, wait a minute—-!” Vance interrupted.
“Yes, What difference does it—?” Lisa chimed in, her voice trailing away as the look on Durango’s face told her it was futile to protest.
“They were really going at it hot and heavy,” Brenda remembered. A touch of crueltly came into her voice and she began obviously to enjoy embarrassing the pair under discussion. “Lisa’s sweater was pushed up over her shoulders and she wasn’t wearing anything underneath it. Vance was squeezing and biting her naked breasts and they were getting all red and bruised. There was as much flagellation as sex in what they were doing, but Lisa seemed to be enjoying it as much as Vance. They were standing up, but she was wearing these stretch pants and they were so soaked through she might just as well not have had them on. She’s opened his pants and she was doing her damnedest to get him to do it to her right then and there.”
“Right there in a brightly lighted public hallway?” Durango asked disbelievingly. “Did you two really do that?”
“Yes,” Vance Thurmond admitted in a low voice.
“But why?” Durango wanted to know. “Why didn‘t you go somewhere where you could have had some privacy?”
“We did later,” Lisa told him. “But at the moment we were too hot to wait.”
“I’ll be damned!” Durango shook his head in amazement. “Go on,” he told Brenda.
“Well, I don’t know whether they pulled it off or not, because just then they were sidetracked into a bit of dialogue, and by the time it was over the elevator doors had closed and I’d left.”
“Let for where? No, wait a minute! Let’s get something cleared up first. You say they had a conversation and you overheard it?”
“Just an exchange of a few words. But it was sort of funny, and I remember it. It almost made me laugh out loud, and that’s why I left. I didn’t want them to see me.”
“Do you two remember what you said?” Durango asked Lisa and Vance.
They looked at each other. Vance grinned. Lisa giggled. “Yes, I think we do,” Vance said.
“All right. Don’t say it out loud,” Durango instructed. He handed each of them a pencil and a sheet of paper. “Just write down what you remember and give it here,” he instructed.
He read what Brenda wrote first. “Lisa bent way over and stuck her derriere out and said ‘Beat me!’ ” she’d penned in a neat, precise script: “Vance raised his hand, and then seemed to change his mind. He said, ‘No! You’d enjoy it too much!’ and his voice was very cruel. Then they both burst out laughing and went back to kissing and petting each other.”
Durango compared the other two statements to Brenda’s. “Well, they check out all right,” he said grudgingly. “I guess you all three were there some time between one-fifteen and one-thirty. But that still doesn’t prove you left.”
“I can prove we left,” Brenda said. “You see, I rode the elevator up-one floor, got out and stood there watching the indicator until the rang for it. It went down to the lobby. I waited another moment, then pushed the button for it and went down to the lobby myself. When I got there, the doorman was sitting on the couch looking like he was sleeping. I wanted him to call me a cab, so I walked over to wake him. But his eyes opened before I reached him and he greeted me by name.”
“Greeted you by name?” Durango asked.
“Yes. You see, he knows me both because I’ve been going to Dr. Golden for treatments for a long time and because I frequently visit this friend of mine in the building. Anyway, he remarked that Dr. Golden must he having a late night because two of her other patients had just left together. I knew he must have meant Vance and Lisa. I even kidded him about sleeping with one eye open.”