Death in Dirty Dishes

Начало книги

It began very simply with an unmade bed and a few dirty dishes.

At six minutes after five o’clock Bill Aiken returned from Washington to his apartment house. He knew it was six minutes after five because he consulted his watch, thinking that it would be forty-five minutes before Mary got home from work and he could see her again. They had been married only two months, and she insisted on keeping her job with Jacob Shuler, a lawyer with offices in the exclusive Standard Building. This was Bill’s first trip away, a three-day trip that had seemed like a lifetime.

In an expansive mood he handed the cab driver a couple of bucks, said airily, “Keep the change, old man.”

Humming softly, he went up the front steps, into the apartment house, and rode the self-service elevator to the third floor. He hummed Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, Mary’s favorite tune, as he turned the key in his apartment door.

He went inside, crossing the cozy living room, toward the bedroom, where he’d deposit his bag. After that, he was thinking, he’d pour himself a short one, sprawl in a living room chair, and when Mary came in, he’d give her the small, gold locket that nestled in his coat pocket. She had wanted a locket like that for a long time. A locket with a photograph of Bill’s grinning mug on the inside of it.

Читать дальше →