The Case of the Murdered Muckraker by Carola Dunn Page A

ticket, and I know you’re in cahoots with Tammany. So forget it, buster. You’re not
gonna wring a nickel out of me, let alone two bits. Why don’t you take her to Reno?”
    â€œIt takes six weeks to get a Reno divorce,” snapped Elva Carmody. “Barton can’t leave his business that long. You can’t expect me to go through an ordeal like that without his support.”
    â€œAfraid you’ll lose him?” sneered Carmody. “Out of sight, out of mind.”
    â€œBastard! Of course not. I trust Barton absolutely.” Her voice changed to a coo. “We’re in love, aren’t we, honey?”
    â€œSure thing, honey baby. Come on, let’s go. It’s like talking to a brick wall.”
    The door to the hall had not quite slammed. Bridget heard the scrape of a match, then Carmody had drawled, “It’s safe now, girl. You can come out.”
    He was seated at his desk, smoking, apparently unruffled, when the chambermaid scuttled past him with her armful of dirty towels. She had not dared to face him since, making sure he was absent when she had to enter his room to perform her duties.
    So much for Sergeant Gilligan’s theory, Daisy thought. But that did not mean Mrs. Carmody’s lover had no motive for shooting her husband, especially if he truly loved her. Surely, though, it would have been much simpler to manage somehow to take her to Reno, wherever that was.
    Except that Tammany Hall had once again reared its ugly head. A Reno divorce would not solve that side of the equation.
    Or maybe something had been said on the return visit, of which Daisy had heard the end, which made Carmody’s death imperative. She wished she had seen more of Barton
Bender than the balding top of his head. Could he have been the man who escaped down the Flatiron Building’s stairs?
    â€œDid you see Mr. Bender?” Daisy asked Bridget. “Then or at any other time?”
    â€œNo, ma’am. ’Twas when Mr. and Mrs. Carmody first came to the hotel I saw her, before she up and left. I never seen Mr. Bender.”
    â€œNever mind. You can tell the police his name and they’ll find him. And however slow they are, I don’t think there’s much fear of your forgetting what they all said. You had every word down pat, and they won’t expect such accuracy.”
    â€œYes’m. I was listening hard ’cause I was scared, so it stuck in my mind zackly what they said. But the other time I heard Mr. Carmody quarrelling, I only heard a little bit and I don’t remember so well.”
    â€œThere was another time?” Daisy said hopefully.
    â€œI was going to make up his bed,” explained the chambermaid. “The door hadn’t been closed all the way. I stopped to knock, and I heard him talking to someone he called Willie. He said he couldn’t help him. Well, this Willie, he gets excited and says he could if he would. He says he has no loyalty to his family and he always was a bully. I remember that. ‘You always was a bully,’ he said.”
    â€œThat’s William speaking?”
    â€œYes. This Willie called Mr. Carmody a bully. Then Mr. Carmody, he said, ‘And you were always a little tick. A real pest you were, when we were kids, and you still are. Just like a burr under a saddle. I can’t do anything for you. Go away, do.’”

    â€œYou’ve remembered that very well,” Daisy commended her.
    â€œWell, when I thinks back on it, it all kinda comes back to me. Anyways, when Mr. Carmody told him to go away I thought as he’d be coming out, this Willie, so I went and did the bed in the next room, not this one, the other side. But he didn’t leave right away, ‘cause I heard him shouting, only I couldn’t make out the words. Did I oughta tell the police about this Willie, ma’am?”
    â€œCertainly. I suppose you didn’t see him, either?”
    â€œNo, but I reckon