Corpses in the Cellar (16 page)

He’d already called the station house, and they sat and waited for the cops to arrive. She was dressed now and he’d allowed
her to comb her hair and touch up her face. The makeup pretty much covered the bruises on her nose and chin, and except for
a funny something around the eyes, something hard and cold, she once again looked the part of the girl-next-door.

Brannigan didn’t have much to say when he and his crew arrived, lifting an eyebrow for an instant as Lockwood told him the
story, grunting when he saw Mack Grand’s lifeless body.

The Hook followed them down into the street, watched them put Debbie Grand into the back of a patrol car, handcuffed to a
young policeman. As they drove away he could see Debbie’s pert features turned up toward the cop who was regarding her intently.
She looked animated, alive, and the cop was eating it all up. The Hook shrugged. Evidently, she hadn’t completely lost her
touch.

Mr. Gray looked like a kid on Christmas morning, his watery blue eyes not exactly dancing, but at least clambering through
an awkward kind of jig. His long thin hands were wrapped together in ecstasy. “Wonderful! Wonderful!” he kept saying.

“Right, wonderful,” Lockwood murmured, thinking of the trail of dead bodies Debbie Grand had left behind.

“Why, Bill,” Mr. Gray responded, his voice wounded, “of course it’s wonderful. Why, Mack Grand didn’t do it, but he’s dead.
And his only next of kin, Debbie,
did
do it, so there’s no way she can collect on the claim, either.”

Lockwood looked at him for a long moment, saying nothing, and then spun on his heel and walked out of the office.

Down in the street he passed the newsstand at Sixth and Fifty-first. Arrayed along one side of the stand were scores of movie
fan magazines,
Photoplay, Modern Screen
, all the rest. He looked at the faces on the covers, each of them women, each of them beautiful. Hollywood. All those people
dead because of Hollywood.

He gazed at the covers for another moment. Ironic. When and if Debbie came out of the lockup, Hollywood would be too late
for her. Not because she’d killed. Hollywood wouldn’t care about that. No, the girl who’d so much wanted to be a movie star
could never be one after she left prison. She’d no longer be photogenic.

His gaze broke away, and he shrugged, and moved off into the crowd.

likes to walk topless

around the house when the weather’s hot.

It gets even hotter when a fire in a

New York nightclub leaves a roomful of charred cadavers.

And the owner of the joint is her sugar-daddy husband.

is burning to crack this case.

He’s Bill Lockwood, insurance investigator.

A man with an independent streak

and a killer instinct,

he packs a silver Dunhill lighter

and a Colt .38.

Thrillmaster of the 1930’s,

he can smell a woman in heat

and an arson scam clear across Manhattan.