Page 145 - Labelle Gramercy, Detective

Airtight

Blanche was desperately trying to find a way to exonerate
everybody. “Yes, she could have. But that means she had to know
about the BugOff. Did she?”
“I already said it was impossible to prove she didn’t,” Waldo
replied wearily.
“Then what about other fingerprints? What did she say about
that?” Blanche should have been as tired as the rest of us, but
caffeine was pumping her up.
“The good detective did not take me into her confidence. You
were with her when she found the bottle, weren’t you, Kelly?”
I nodded—or was I nodding off? “Well, sort of. I didn’t go into
the tool shed with her.”
Waldo pressed his rather minor point—pathetically, I thought.
“Then it might have been moved from where I put it.”
“Hey, don’t burden us with information only the murderer would
know,” objected Ray.
“We already know more than we should,” mused Blanche.
“Say, what about Ben? He went into the dome after we came out,
on some flimsy pretext.” Larry was getting into the swing of things.
This was turning into a parlor game.
“Well, what of it?” said Waldo, sensing a dead end. “All he could
have done was removed it or wiped it clean. But he didn’t. He
couldn’t put my fingerprints on it, for God’s sake. And I’m pretty
sure the bottle the police have is the same one I smuggled into the
dome twelve months ago.”
I suddenly felt the urge to go to the bathroom. I stood up. Blanche
caught my eye. “Let’s go to the ladies’ room,” I said to her, and
added, “Gentlemen, you are free to solve the world’s problems while
we’re gone.”
Not the best exit line in history, but effective. Blanche and I crept
past the interrogation room without a word. Once in the presumed
sanctity of the washroom we both breathed a sigh of relief.
“Those guys are chewing on this thing like dogs on a bone,” said
Blanche as we repaired our sagging coiffures in front of the mirror.
I murmured something about boys playing cops and robbers.
“Well, between us,” said Blanche, patting down the frizzier parts
of her hairdo, “I think Toro has been very quiet during the whole
affair.”

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