5 Detective Novels Magazine Cover — page 14: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

14 rolled up and locked. He didn’t want to drive into the basement garage. If it was possible to get in the house without waking Betty, he was in favor of that. She had a talent for being miserable when he came in with liquor only on his breath. He didn’t have to fall over the threshold or crawl! in on his hands and knees. Betty meant well. but she suf- fered from an urge to make him a better man than he was, a better man than comes in the stock-model husband. Ted let himself into the house as quietly as he could, tiptoed upstairs in the dark. As his eyes came level with the floor of the hall, he saw it was wasted effort. There was a light under Betty’s door. She’d be sitting up in bed with a maga- zine, smoking a chain, poised to tear him apart. Any second now, her shrill, angry voice would challenge him. A board groaned under his weight. “That ought to do it,” he sighed to him- self. “I might as well kick in her door and be done with it.” He settled for drumming lightly with the tips of his fingers, said, “Are you awake, Betty?” There was no sound from her room. The door wasn’t latched; it opened un- der his touch, slowly. The room was lighted by twin lamps on either side of Betty’s huge, Holly- wood bed with its pink brocade head- board. Ted’s first thought was that he’d startled her. Betty sat bolt upright in the bed, her eyes bulging, jaw hanging open. “What’s the matter, honey? Didn’t you hear me come in?” he asked, forcing a smile. She didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge him in any way “It’s me. Ted, ”" he added, stepping out of the dark hall. ‘1 There was something around her throat, almost buried in the crepey flesh under her chin. He hadn’t been able to see it from the door. He could make out a knot just below her ear and the empty foot of a nylon stocking. “Betty, what—” He froze where he was, trying not to accept what he saw. Betty’s unchanging, rigid expression, her terror-struck eyes, bulging and glassy—and dead. The blueness of her mouth. FIVE DETECTIVE NOVELS MAGAZINE Ted drove himself to the side of the bed, touched her hand. It was cold, life- less, heavy on the coverlet. He felt her throat above that twisted nylon noose. There was no pulse. She had been gar- roted with one of her own stockings. That was the meat of it. Murdered— Betty had been murdered. Ted’s eyes were hot, dry; his throat ' tight. His body felt light, suspended, as ° though his legs didn’t quite reach the ' floor. He had to hold onto himself, he realized dimly, go downstairs to the tele- phone in the hall. The instrument was in his hand and he was dialing before he remembered Steve. Ted dropped the phone back in- its cradle. He had to do something about Steve. Ted turned on the basement light and ° ran down the steps to Steve’s room. It was small and a little short on view, but it gave Steve a place to stay anda lot of privacy. After five years at different military hospitals, Steve had_ said,’ “Fella, I can live in a clothes closet as: The: long as it’s my exclusive place.” room wasn’t that bad. T HAD been originally intended for servants’ use and had a private bath. The furnishings were as good as any- thing else in the house; they’d brought most of the things from upstairs when they learned Steve could leave Letter- man Hospital. Ted knocked on the door, heard Steve groan, “Yeah. Who is it?” “Ted,” he replied. “Can I come in?” Steve Milner rumbled sleepily, “Wait’ll I turn on a light.” Steve was sitting up in bed, trying to adjust his eyes to the sudden brightness of the reading lamp. He was a power- fully built man with thick, loose-hung shoulders that were covered with kinky black hair. His naturally dark skin had turned walnut from working around Ted’s yard with his shirt off. Steve had blue-black hair and small, deep-set blue eyes; heavy, black brows. “What cooks, Pappy?” he grinned at Ted. “Mama kick you downstairs?” Ted shook his head. “No,” he said bleakly. “I just came in—found Betty.” “Found her?” said Steve with another smile. ‘‘Was she lost?” COMmMiICcooOo @ S (CCC) mM