Mildred Pierced by Stuart M. Kaminsky Page B

says we’re going to claim it was an accident, and if that doesn’t work, he’ll plea-bargain and if that doesn’t work, insanity. I don’t think he wants to go to trial.”
    “Shel, when we tell him that Greenbaum and Gorman are interested in your snore gadget, he’ll come up with other options.”
    Shelly shrugged.
    “I gotta go, Shel,” I said. “The woman who witnessed you killing Mildred is downstairs waiting for me.”
    “What? The one who identified me? Whose side are you on?”
    “Yours, Shel. I’m going to try to convince her that you didn’t do it.”
    “Didn’t I?”
    “Absolutely not,” I said, trying to sound like William Powell doing Nick Charles. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    Before he could say anything else, the white-haired man who used to teach English at U.S.C. said, “Technically, he didn’t kill her with a crossbow. He killed her with a quarrel, or bolt fired from a crossbow. To kill her with the crossbow, he would probably have to beat her over the head with it.”
    The well-dressed man with the slicked-back hair adjusted his tie again and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. I wondered what the professor was accused of—probably murder by boredom.
    Joan Crawford was sitting in the Crosley. I had left the door open. Her window was down. Her floppy hat covered her eyes, and she was smoking.
    “How well do you know that lawyer?” she asked when I got behind the steering wheel.
    “I’ve used him,” I said cautiously.
    “I think he suggested that I lie about seeing Dr. Minck shoot his wife,” she said.
    “Wouldn’t surprise me in the least,” I said, moving into traffic.
    “I will not be manipulated,” she said firmly. “I will not perjure myself. I intend to tell the truth.”
    She was glaring at me again. I smiled.
    “I wouldn’t want it any other way,” I said. “I didn’t have breakfast this morning. You want to stop for coffee?”
    She didn’t say no, so I headed for the drugstore where Anita works behind the lunch counter. I was hungry. Mrs. Plaut had told me I had to stay for breakfast. I told her I couldn’t. She was serving Eggs Benedict Arnold.
    “A hearty breakfast is the key to a fruitful day,” she had reminded me.
    I had apologized, dressed quickly and got out before she decided to barricade the door and spoon feed me.
    I had another reason for wanting to stop at the drugstore. Joan Crawford was Anita’s favorite actress. Rain was Anita’s favorite movie, but The Women was a close second.
    Crawford flicked on the radio. We listened to The Man Behind the Gun. I had a headache.

CHAPTER  8
     
    A NITHA WAS AT the far end of the counter carefully slicing a pie in preparation for the lunch crowd. There were no customers at the counter, and she finished slicing the pie before she glanced up, saw me, smiled, and then noticed the woman at my side with a floppy hat and sunglasses.
    Anita froze.
    Now Anita is, as Mrs. Plaut once pronounced her, a head-on-her-shoulders, feet-on-the-ground woman, but the sight of Joan Crawford swept away her practicality.
    I had known Anita for more than thirty years. I had taken her to our high-school prom in Glendale. I had lost track of her till a year ago, when I walked into this drugstore and ordered bacon, eggs, toast, and coffee on the twenty-five–cent breakfast special.
    Anita had been married, widowed and raised a daughter. I had been married to Ann, divorced, no kids other than me. Aside from Carmen, she of the ample bosom and placid exterior, who spent her days as the cashier at a deli I no longer frequented, there had been no other woman in my life until Anita. I had fruitlessly and uselessly pursued Ann, who was now on her third husband, a movie actor whose name was known but whose movies didn’t draw in big dollars. I wondered if Joan Crawford knew Ann’s husband. I decided not to ask.
    Anita wore little makeup, had dark blond hair, and carried her age on a good-looking open face that let you know the woman