Read Murder Can Ruin Your Looks for Free Online

out.’’
    ‘‘I won’t tell a soul; you have my word.’’
    ‘‘That includes your client, you know. We’ve even had the hospital put her in a special gown to conceal the chest wound.’’
    ‘‘Peter won’t find out about it from me. Hey, you don’t think—’’
    ‘‘No, I don’t. Otherwise we wouldn’t let him camp out in the room like that, even with a man stationed there. Although, to be honest, I’m not too comfortable about let
    ting anyone at all in to see her.’’
    ‘‘But you are allowing it.’’
    32
    Selma Eichler
    ‘‘The doctors tell us that, comatose or not, if the patient is Mary Ann, Winters’s presence could do her a world of good. And if it’s Meredith, his being there might still help some. At any rate, it won’t do any harm. Unless, of course, he’s our killer.’’
    I was about to protest when Fielding smiled. ‘‘Look, if I considered that to be a serious possibility, there’s no way I’d let him within a hundred feet of her,’’ he said. I suppose I must have been frowning then without even realizing it, because Fielding broke into my thoughts.
    ‘‘What?’’ he wanted to know.
    ‘‘This business about their both being shot in the face like that. What do you make of it?’’
    ‘‘I wish I knew. All I can say is that there’s something personal in an act like that. Something very personal.’’
    ‘‘I think so, too.’’
    ‘‘That’s another reason I can’t buy this thing as a bur
    glary. Although I gotta admit the pickings in that apartment would probably not be too shabby. You should see the place.’’
    ‘‘I’d like to,’’ I told him pointedly.
    Fielding ignored the remark, commenting instead that the death of their parents must have left the twins ex
    tremely well off.
    I tried again. ‘‘I’d really like to have a look at the apartment.’’
    ‘‘I’ll think about it—after we’re through with it. But I don’t know why you’re so anxious. I’m telling you every
    thing you could learn by going up there, aren’t I?’’
    I decided to drop it—for a while. ‘‘Who discovered them, anyway?’’
    A neighbor. Man named Charles Springer. He rang their
    doorbell around ten of eight. When no one answered, he couldn’t understand it. Seems he called ten minutes earlier and told Mary Ann he’d be by in a few minutes.’’
    Well, we’d finally gotten around to it! So that’s why Fielding was so sure Mary Ann was the twin in the living room! ‘‘Ohhh, now I get it,’’ I said, mostly to myself. He grinned. ‘‘See? Didn’t I tell you to be patient and I’d explain? Anyway, from Springer’s statement we know it was Mary Ann who came in at seven-thirty. She even said something to Springer on the phone about her sister not being home yet. By the way, Meredith left the theater a
    MURDER CAN RUIN YOUR LOOKS
    33
    little before seven, and she mentioned to this other woman in the cast who happened to be leaving the theater at the same time that she was going to run up to Macy’s and return a blouse. So I can’t see how she could possibly have made it home earlier than eight o’clock. And that would be cutting it pretty damn close.
    ‘‘At any rate, at some time after eight, Meredith opened the door to the apartment, hung up her coat in the foyer closet, and started to walk into her own living room. She never made it.’’
    Something about the sad, simple way Fielding said that made my stomach constrict and then drop straight down to
    my toes. I could picture Meredith lying there, with Mary Ann only a few yards away, both of them covered with blood, their beautiful faces all smashed up. . . .
    ‘‘Anything wrong, Dez?’’ Fielding asked anxiously. ‘‘You
    don’t look too hot.’’
    ‘‘It’s nothing. I’m fine. Tell me about Springer.’’
    ‘‘Yeah. Well, after a while he tried calling the apartment on the phone. No answer. Then, around nine o’clock, for some reason, he went back there again. The