Private Dick Casefile 01 - Lily White Rose Red

always wake me up if it was an emergency.
    My mind was spinning; why would Captain Woods even allude to a potential boyfriend at the club if he weren’t prepared to back it up?
    Or did he mean this other joker she ran out to meet? Could it be Bert Guthrie after all? Did Captain Woods care about him enough to protect him? Maybe just because he was a cop and a cop had to be protected at all cost?
    “What are you going to do next?”
    “Miss McIntyre gave me the keys to Miss Saint-Ville’s place,” I said.
    “If there’s anything you need, anything at all,” Mr. Hamilton said 112

    CATT FORD

    heavily, “I have resources.”
    “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”
    Mr. Hamilton nodded and swiveled his chair to stare out the window. The meet was over. I got up and left. And felt lucky to be able to.

    ONE more errand before I went to Marguerite’s apartment. Of course, if it had panned out, I might not have had to go.
    I found Frankie’s Florist on South 5th Street. If only Frankie had been one of us, meaning queer, I might have gotten a better description of the jasper that sent Marguerite the roses. But there was no Frankie.
    Instead, there was Fannie, an older lady, plump and friendly but so farsighted that her eyes looked huge behind her glasses as she peered at me across the counter. She must have needed them for her flower arranging, but I’m sure she would never have recognized me if she’d seen me on the street.
    She was willing enough to flap her gums. Fannie told me that the man who ordered the nightly roses was tall and dark-haired, but as she barely cleared five feet herself, that could be considered a very relative description. It could have been me. I was just an inch short of six feet.
    It could have been Phil Martin or Jazz Morgan. Hell, it could have been Stevens, the fireplug.
    She also told me that Frankie had been her brother, who had died five years ago. She’d always meant to change the name but never got around to it. Frankie and Fannie. You have to wonder about some parents, maybe trying to get up their own vaudeville act.
    Okay, chalk one up for the killer of Rose Red. He’d chosen a blind florist with seeming care, and it appeared that was going to pay off in protecting his identity.
    I thanked her and left.
    Fannie did give me the names of several other men who had sent flowers from her place to Marguerite. Given what Suzy the topless dancer had said about Margie liking them married, that gave me and the Lily White, Rose Red: Grey Randall, Private Dick Casefile #1
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    cops a lot of space to move around in. Plenty of married men in Vegas who ran around on the side.
    With the help of the phone book, I tracked down the few names Fannie had given me. These guys were nervous, scared of their own shadows. They didn’t qualify as bad boys, and I couldn’t imagine they’d held Margie’s interest for long, seeing as she went for a challenge. They also didn’t seem the type to strangle a dame in an alley, although I wasn’t ready to strike them off the list without an alibi.
    The last guy got blustery with me and claimed he’d already given this information to the cops, and what was the deal? Without actually telling him I was with the cops, it amused me to leave him with the impression that I was checking up on them. But he had a good alibi with long legs and saucy eyes that he didn’t want his wife to find out about. I checked her out, and he was in the clear.

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    CATT FORD

    Chapter 6: Hide and Seek, and Sprung

    THE art of disguise can be as simple as you make it. False beards are old hat. I’d found that if you carried a clipboard or a toolbox, most people thought you were there on legitimate business, and they wouldn’t stop to ask questions no matter what you did.
    I found Marguerite’s apartment building in a nice neighborhood, with big trees lining the streets. Quiet. Neighbors were at work and kids were in school. There weren’t a lot of people visible. I parked around the corner and walked back wearing my disguise, which consisted of coveralls and a jacket with Rick’s Plumbing spelled out on the back to cover my holster. I had a toolbox in my hand as I approached the downstairs door. But it wasn’t just plumbing tools I had with me.
    Using the key Lily had given me, I unlocked the vestibule door.
    The bank of mailboxes was on the left, before you reached the elevator.
    Margie’s was stuffed. I guess Lily hadn’t thought to have the mail forwarded. I