Bedside Murder

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He made me want to laugh. If my case of the jumps hadn’t been so bad, I would have laughed. Maybe he could have been at ease and charming with college girls. He had a face he could have used to be charming with. One of those Mephistopheles faces, but young and nice around the eyes. Crinkly. It was flattering the way he acted as though I were Helen of Troy, just hurled into his lap.

I had to repeat my name twice before it got by the glaze in his brown eyes. He stuck two fingers under the knot in his necktie and pulled it.

“Ah, yes,” he said hoarsely. “Henrietta Ryan.” He pretended as though it meant something. The name couldn’t possibly have meant a thing to him.

The office was new and dean and small. Kimberly Hale, Attorney-at-Law. No girl. I guessed he used the public stenographer whose sign I had seen in the lobby of the musty old office building on Fortieth.

I had no appointment I hadn’t even phoned. When you have the jumps as bad as I had them, you don’t consider the niceties. I sat in the chair he made the aimless gesture at.

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