“Then this is a treat just for me, and that makes it all the better,” Debbie told her. She Watched Mavis study her reflection a moment. Then—“You know, it’s still hot in here,” she observed.
“Yes, it is, isn’t it? Well, I can fix that. Give me a moment.” Mavis started for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Into my office. There’s a window-fan in there. I usually keep it in the bedroom. But it was so warm tonight that I hooked it up in my office for the group therapy session. I’ll go get it.”
“Can I help you?”
“No. I can manage. It isn’t heavy.” Mavis automatically closed the door behind her.
Debbie lay back on the bed and relaxed. This was nice. Real nice. As pleasant a trick as she’d ever turned. The lamp was shining in her eyes. She reached over and turned it off. Now the room was dark. And very still.
Suddenly a long chain of lightning whipped around the walls. It was followed by a sustained roll of thunder. Pause. Silence. And then two sharp, distinct cracks, echoing off into a short, high whine.
The sequence frightened Debbie. She bolted from the bed and ran to the door. She opened it and scurried down the hall towards Dr. Golden’s office. “Mavis?” she called, her voice shaky.
No answer.
She ran into the foyer. It was dark. Something brushed against her. A scream caught in her throat and died there. She shrank back against the wall. Whatever it was kept going past her. The door to the outer hall opened. Light blinded Debbie from the entryway. It shut quickly. She was alone in the dark again.
She crossed to the door to Dr. Golden’s office. She pushed it open. Again she was temporarily blinded by the overhead light shining down from the ceiling. Her vision refocused and she stared at the scene before her, stunned.
Chairs were arranged in a circle in the center of the room. Dr. Mavis Golden stood inside the circle. She was sucking for air and her naked breasts, framed so enticingly by the terrycloth, were squeezed together, straining with the effort. Just beneath them, where the white material pushed up against their under-surface, a bright red stain was beginning to spread out and reach downward toward her belly. As Debbie watched, horrified, the stain erupted into a spurting gush and Mavis began slowly to sink to her knees.
“What—? How-?” Debbie’s brain formed the questions, but her vocal cords failed her.
As if in answer, Mavis looked at her from helpless, dying eyes. “The group!” she said. “Ask the group. The group knows! The group! The group!” She toppled forward, the blood pouring from the wound with the last of her life. And then she was still, not breathing, staring at Debbie from dead green eyes.
Debbie screamed. Again. And again. She didn’t stop. She would never stop screaming. She would scream and scream and scream until the city roused itself to the violent death of a lady who had been packaged for murder!
CHAPTER 3
All Join Hands and Kill Her!
“THE GROUP! Ask the group. The group knows! The group! . . . ”
“Now what do you think she meant by that?”
Detective Lieutenant Tomas Durango spoke the question loud, although it was purely rhetorical and he expected no answer. He got none. Debbie, still clothed only in the blue silk kimono Mavis had loaned her, stared at him across the length of Dr. Goldenls office as though she hadn’t heard. He stared back.
Some piece! She sat carelessly, the robe parted to reveal her tantalizing legs. A button had slipped loose at the top, and Durango could see the shadowy outline of her breasts nuzzling the quilted material. Her face was still frozen with fear, but her body exuded sex appeal.
Durango was far from invulnerable to that appeal. He took his eyes from her long enough to notice that dawn gray had infiltrated the slats of the venetian blinds. The rain had stopped, but the sun was not yet risking the possibility of being quenched by its resurgence. Outside, the rumble of a truck and the clatter of tin testified to the beginning of the garbagemen’s working day.
Inside, the garbagemen had already departed. They’d carried off the corpse, sucked up the blood into carefully labeled test-tubes, dusted the premises with fingerprint powder, blotted up the results, and gone on their way. The last to leave was Sergeant Connors, who worked the homicide detail with Durango.
“Gonna take the broad in?” he’d asked before he left, jerking his thumb at Debbie.
“I’m not sure. Haven’t made up my mind yet.”
“Want me to hang around ’til you make it up?”
“No need to. I can handle her without any help.”
“I don’t see why you’re waitin’. You’re gonna have to book her sooner or later,” Connors told him.
“How do you figure that? You think she did it?”
“Who else? She was alone here with her, wasn’t she?”
“That’s not her story,” Durango pointed out.
“She’s a pro hooker. She must have a million stories. I wouldn’t give a plugged nickel for any of them.”
“Maybe.” Durango shrugged. “Then again, maybe not. I can’t see that she had any reason to bump the lady off and then just stand here screamin’ ’til the cops got here.”
“A hooker don’t need no reason. They’re all hopheads. You know that.”
“You on the needle?” Durango asked Debbie.
She shook her head and continued staring at the floor.
“She says she isn’t,” he told Connors.
“And you believe her?”
Durango crossed over to Debbie and lifted her arm. He pushed back the material of her robe and examined the skin. Then he repeated the maneuver with the other arm. “No hypo marks,” he told Connors.
“I don’t care. I still think you oughta book her.”
“Oh what charge?”
“Suspicion of murder. Material witness. Prostitution. What’s the difference what charge? Just so’s we got her on ice when we need her.”
“Well, maybe I will bring her in,” Durango said. “But there’s no rush. Right now I’m more interested in solving this murder.”
“All right, Sherlock, you go on playing games. Me, I’m going home and grab some sleep.” On that note, Connors left.
So they were alone now. Just Durango and the girl. And Durango was having a hard time keeping his mind on the case. Every time she made the slightest motion of shifting in her chair, he’d find himself licking his lips and daydreaming about what it would be like to roll her around the rug.
“What’s your name?” he asked to get his mind off the vision.
“Debbie.”
“Debbie what?”
“Debbie—” She paused. “Smith,” she said finally.
“Oh, like that, huh?”
“Just like that. I had experience with cops before.”
“I’ll just bet you have. Well, I had experience with tramps like you, too, Miss—Smith. I worked the Vice Squad for two years.”
“Really? And how many girls did you shake down?” Debbie asked sweetly.
“Look, girlie, don’t get smart with me. You oughta be in the lock-up right now. Only reason you aren’t is out of the goodness of my heart.”
“Don’t make me laugh! I see the way you’re looking at me. You just figure you can grab yourself a piece before you take me downtown. That’s why you got rid of your partner and the others, and don’t think I don’t know it. I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“It’s a thought,” Durango admitted. “Except I don’t dig dykes.”
“I’m not a dyke!” Debbie protested.
“No? Then what were you doing with the dear departed? Swapping recipes?”
“Look, I admitted I turn tricks. I’m on call. Whatever the job is, I do it. That’s all.”
“So you’re a switch-hitter,” Durango told her. “Same difference.”