Date for Murder by Louis Trimble Page A

blame for what had happened early in the morning.
    The Chief said, “Miss Manders, if you don’t feel like talking right now, we can give you a chance to rest, huh?”
    She smiled warmly. “Thanks, but I’m as up to it as I’ll ever be. I’d rather get it over with, too.”
    “Whatever you want. Could you tell us something about what happened this morning? I mean after you first went to bed?”
    “Clint told you?” She flushed a little. That was enough to tell Mark that her modesty and her lack of clothing were separate and distinct things with her. She was not all the brittle little sophisticate whose attitude she usually wore.
    “Jeffers had to tell me,” the Chief said. “Either that, or let someone else show him up as a liar.”
    “If course,” she said with a slight nod, and in a determined voice told the Chief exactly what had happened after she had gone upstairs at four that morning. Her eyes, though, were on Mark, not the Chief.
    “He was awfully drunk,” she said as if apologizing for him. “And I suppose I should have remembered to put on more clothing.”
    “Did you want to marry Link?” the Chief asked abruptly.
    Idell’s fingers contracted before she caught control of herself. She looked from Mark to the Chief. “I suppose,” she said, “that’s what is known as an incriminating question; one I don’t have to answer or some such thing. But I might as well tell you. The answer is easy to find.” Her voice was low. “I didn’t want to marry him. It was—an infatuation, you might call it. And then the bargain was made.”
    Mark knew that was too weak to hold water for very long. She had hesitated before stating she had been infatuated by Link. Girls didn’t keep bargains these days unless they wished to. He watched the Chief to note his reaction to the obvious lie, but he had apparently accepted her word.
    “After last night, you would have broken the engagement had he lived, huh?”
    “No-o,” she said. “No, Link was very drunk. I really don’t blame him overly much.”
    The Chief spit into the fireplace. When he turned around he switched his tactics. “How many people here knew Link liked dates, huh?”
    “Why, everybody, I suppose. He’s been here before. And this time everyone had been with him for a few days. Three days, to be exact.”
    “All but you.”
    “I was in New York.”
    “Doing what?”
    “It was a private matter,” she said with a trace of stiffness in her voice.
    “No connection with this, huh?”
    “None. I was simply winding up some of the Major’s unfinished business. I flew to Los Angeles and picked up Link’s car. He had left it there for me and come down with Grant. I had planned to be there for a while, but I changed my mind and came down as soon as I arrived.”
    Here was one person who evidently didn’t need prompting all of the time, Mark thought.
    “You were in a hurry to get here, huh?”
    “Uncle Frank wired me when I reached Los Angeles. He asked me to come right down while the others were all here.”
    “Funny place to come in the dead of summer, ain’t it?”
    “Grant and Uncle Frank had to be here to organize things after the Major’s death. The others were all going to be in Los Angeles anyway. It was convenient.”
    “Myra Cartwright too?” the Chief demanded.
    “Grant brought her up for Clint last night.”
    “Little young for her, ain’t he?”
    She smiled. “Myra seemed to think so.”
    He swung the subject again. “When did your father die?”
    That question puzzled Mark. The Chief knew as well as anyone when the Major had died, and how. Everyone in Indio knew all about it—or thought they did.
    “About two months ago. From a heart attack.”
    “Do you believe that?” the Chief demanded. His eyes caught hers. Mark began to see what he was driving at now. He remembered rumors … The Chief was saying, “I heard a few stories that maybe he didn’t have a heart attack.”
    Her eyes were candid, but her voice was