Love for Sale

met. Where would she have met him?
    “He has to drive up here from town. I think I hear his car now.“ Coatless, they both stepped out the front door.
    Howard Walker had done a better job of throwing on his clothes than Edward Price had, but he hadn’t bothered to shave and looked quite fierce. He was a relative newcomer to Voorburg. He had one Delaware Indian in his heritage, who had married into a Dutch family in a nearby town. Walker’s appearance was a genetic throwback to the Indian. A very handsome man, nearing thirty, with thick black hair, he was a favorite of the ladies in town, not only because of his looks, but also due to his good manners.
    He glanced at the fair-haired young man and pulled Lily aside to whisper, “Lily, I couldn’t find Ralph. Could you come with me to take notes? I don’t want to be scribbling down what people say. I want to be looking at them like a hawk.”
    Lily stared at him.
    “You won’t have to look at the body,“ Walker reassured her. He then approached the young man. “Where’s the body? And who is it?”
    Edward Price replied, “It’s Charles Pottinger. You’ll have heard of him as Brother Mark Luke Goodheart.“
    “The radio preacher?“ Lily asked.
    Price nodded, and as the three of them started upstairs, he introduced himself by name to Chief Walker and said he was Brother Goodheart’s secretary.
    Lily stood outside the door to the master suite while Walker took a look at the body. The other guests began appearing in the hall. “What’s going on?“ asked an elderly, highly scarred man with a very lumpy visage and a gravelly voice.
    “I don’t think I’m allowed to say, but I believe you ought to go back to your own rooms for a while. Someone’s been injured.”
    As if summoned by this remark, Dr. Polhemus, the town doctor, joined the group, saying cheerfully, “Lily, you left the front door open. Walker’s told me he’s got another stiff.“ And without another word, he went into the suite, shutting the door firmly behind him.
    “A stiff!“ the old man exclaimed. “Who’s dead?“
    “The chief of police will tell you later,“ Lily said to the group. “Please go back to your rooms.”
    As soon as they wandered up to the third floor, heads together, whispering, Lily ran down the hall and roused Robert.
    “Get dressed as fast as you can and guard the stairs. Our main guest, who turns out to be that nasty radio guy Brother Goodheart, is dead, and I’ve made his cronies go back to their rooms. I have to take notes for Howard Walker, and someone needs to see that none of the others try to make a break for it.”
    Robert was already putting his trousers on over his pajama pants. “Brother Goodheart! I can’t believe we let that man in the house. Pretty Boy Floyd would have been a more welcome choice.”
    As Lily headed back down the hall, one of the other guests was, in fact, trying to depart, suitcase in hand.
    “Get back to your room right now!“ Lily snapped.
    His mouth opened, but no words came. He merely scowled and did as she said.
    As a disheveled Robert joined her, she told him that one of their guests, a heavy man with dark reddish hair, had already attempted to bolt. A moment later Walker opened the door and asked Lily to come inside.
    “Robert’s standing guard,“ she explained. “I sent the rest of them upstairs and one has already tried to get away.”
    She entered the room, half expecting, against what Walker promised, to see a corpse. But there wasn’t one.
    She sat down next to Walker at the head of the big table and reached for one of the notepads the men had apparently brought with them. Walker stopped her hand before she picked it up, and tore out the blank pages at the back of the pad and handed her one of the pens on the table.
    “Okay, Mr. Price. Tell me about this,“ Walker said.
    Edward Price was sitting hunched over on a chair in the corner. Lily hadn’t even noticed him. He stood up, took a deep breath, and joined them at the table, sitting opposite Lily.
    “Where do you want me to start?“ he asked.
    “For now, when you found the body,“ Walker replied.
    “I was sleeping in the servant’s room beyond the hall and the bathroom. I opened the bathroom door and saw him in the tub. I was nearly sick in the sink. I went for help, ran into Miss Brewster, and asked her to call you.“
    “You knew he was dead? You didn’t try to help him?”
    Edward Price snorted. “With a knife in his back, bent forward