That did it. Without turning his head, Scanlon
snapped to Mulholland. “Get that girl in here.”
Mulholland went out, on the double. When Scanlon
used that tone, he meant jump, and jump fast.
I turned to George. “I realize I’m probably making
your job tougher, but it was necessary.” Obviously,
Doris’ confirmation of the telephone call to me would
nail down the two things the prosecution would be
overjoyed to prove: motive and premeditation. “But
since I didn’t kill her,” I went on, “it doesn’t make any
difference anyway.”
They all looked at me pityingly—everybody except
George. He took a cigarette from a silver case,
studied it thoughtfully as he tapped it on a thumbnail,
and said, “Well, my hands are more or less tied here,
Duke, since I can’t interfere with the investigation,
but perhaps it would have been better. . . .” He let his
voice trail off. In other words: I’ll do my best, but
you’ve probably already hanged yourself.
We waited. I wondered if I could break her down
when she got here; if she managed to brazen it out,
it’d just be my word against hers. Maybe I could get
some help from Scanlon; he was too brainy an
investigator to ignore a lead in an unsolved murder
case, even if it came from an obvious madman. In less
than ten minutes they pushed through the crowd in
the corridor and came in; Mulholland apparently
hadn’t given her time to do more than throw some
clothes on. She had on no makeup, and her hair was
sloppily combed, which probably wasn’t going to help
her morale any. I could tell she was scared, all right;
she was trying to look tough and assured, but was
merely defiant as they came over to the desk. She
glanced at me and then quickly away before I could
meet her eye.
“I didn’t want to file any charges,” she said sullenly.
“He’s just a nut.”
“That’s not what we wanted to see you about,”
Scanlon told her. “Are you the girl who called here the
The Long Saturday Night — 123
other night and told us Mrs. Warren had been visiting
Dan Roberts’ apartment?”
For a moment I thought she was going to deny it.
Then she looked bitterly at me, and said, “I suppose
he accused me of it?”
“Never mind. Did you?”
“All right, what if I did? It’s true.”
“I see. And you also called Warren, and said the
same thing?”
“Yes.” She was in now, so there was no use denying
that part.
“Was it before you called us, or after?”
“It was before.”
“Do you remember the time exactly?”
“Not exactly, but it was between ten and eleven.
About twenty minutes before I called you.”
Scanlon nodded. “And you’d be prepared to testify
to that under oath?”
“Will I have to?’
“Probably. If it’s the truth, there’s no reason you
shouldn’t, is there?”
“No-o, I guess not. It’s the truth, all right.”
Scanlon was silent for a moment, just watching her.
Then he asked, “When you called Warren, did you
identify yourself?”
“No,” she said.
“I see. Then how did he know it was you?”
“I guess he recognized my voice.”
“But when he broke into your room this morning, he
didn’t say anything about that? He just tried to rape
you?”
She hesitated. She wasn’t a very imaginative liar.
“Well, he started tearing my clothes off—”
“Don’t you think it’s more likely he intended to kill
you? Your testimony might convict him of murder.”
She brightened. “Yes, maybe that was it. I bet that’s
why he grabbed me.”
The Long Saturday Night — 124
“Probably. How long would you say he’d been in the
room when he made this grab for you?”
“Maybe five minutes. Not much longer.”
“That’s a little odd, isn’t it? Why do you suppose he
wasted so much time?”
You could see her realizing she’d made a mistake,
after it was too late. “Well, I don’t know. Maybe it
wasn’t that long.”
“Ummm. It was more like—three minutes, maybe?”
“Yeah. That was probably it. About three minutes.”
“I see. But that still seems like quite a while for a
man to horse around with small talk when he’s going
to kill a girl in an apartment house with people asleep
just on the other side of the wall. You’d think he’d
want to get the show on the road before you could
scream. And, incidentally, why didn’t you? No—wait—
at that time you didn’t know he intended to kill you.
You just thought he was going to rape you.”
“Uh—yes. That was it.”
“Why? At that time, he still hadn’t grabbed you.”
“Well—I really didn’t know what he wanted.”
“But you must have wondered? I mean, there didn’t
seem to be much chance he was looking for the bus
station, or just wanted to borrow something to read.
What did you talk about during this period? He must
have said something.”
“Well, just some of his nutty stuff, I guess; he’s
crazier’n a bedbug. And I was too scared to remember
—”
“But what kind of nutty stuff? You must remember a
word or two. Did he mention Junior Delevan?”
Her eyes avoided his as they began that
characteristic circuit of the wall behind him, seeking
some way out. She said nothing. I shot an oblique
glance at George. He’d realized long since where this
was heading, but his face expressed nothing but an
intelligent professional interest.
“Well, did he?” Scanlon prodded.
“Well—”
The Long Saturday Night — 125
“Did he?”
“I guess—maybe he did—”
“Why?”
“Well, how would I know?” she asked sullenly.
Scanlon’s cigar had gone out. He removed it from
his mouth and regarded the wet end of it thoughtfully.
“You run into some weird ones in this business, Doris,
but this one may take the Scanlon Award for 1961.
How are you going to account for a man breaking into
the room of a pretty girl like you at three o’clock in
the morning and tearing her clothes off just to talk
about Junior Delevan?” Suddenly, without any
warning at all, his flattened hand came down on top of
the desk with a sound like a pistol shot and his voice
lashed out. “What did he ask you about Delevan?”
That was all it took. She came apart like a cheap toy
that’d been left out in the rain. In less than five
minutes he had the whole conversation.
“Did Junior ever ask you what that shop took in on
an average Saturday?” he demanded.
She was crying now. “Well, he might have. It was a
long time ago.”
“Did he have a key to the place?”
“No,” she said. “I m-mean, I don’t know.”
“Did you have one?”
“No. Of course not. She lived there, so she always
opened up.”
“Then how did Delevan get one?”
“He d-didn’t.”
“I think he did. There has to be some reason you
never did tell us you suspected he was killed in the
back of that shop, something that involves guilty
knowledge on your part. Either you planned the
burglary with him, or you had reason to believe he
was going to do it himself. Maybe it was only the fact
you didn’t want to have to admit you knew he had a
key. Where’d he get it? Did you steal it for him?”
“No! I didn’t do any such thing.”
The Long Saturday Night — 126
“Did he ever have a chance to get his hands on her
keys?”
She hesitated fearfully. “Wh-what will they do to
me?”
“I can’t make any promises, but probably nothing, if
you tell us.”
“All right. But I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Just tell us.”
“It was one day when she was out somewhere and
she’d left her keys on the showcase next to the cash
register. Junior was there, talking to me, and then a
customer came in. While I was waiting on her, I
happened to look over where he was, and he’d taken
out his chewing gum and was pressing one of the keys
into it.”
“And when was this?” Scanlon asked.
“About two weeks before—before he was killed.”
“And you never did tell her—Frances Kinnan, I
mean?”
She began to cry again. “I was afraid to. Junior
could be real mean when he wanted to.”
Scanlon gestured wearily. “All right, you can go.”
She went out. He relit his cigar, and sighed. “We’ll
never be able to prove a word of it.”
“That’s right,” I said. “Unless you catch the man
that was in the apartment with Frances that night, the
man who killed him. And for once you can look
somewhere else. I was in Tampa, Florida.”
He gestured impatiently. “Hell, it hasn’t got
anything to do with this, anyway.”
I banged my manacled hands on the desk. “Dammit,
it has everything to do with it!”
“Oh, cut it out,” he snapped. “You killed Roberts
because you thought he was having an affair with
your wife. And you killed her for the same reason. All
this guesswork about Delevan and where he was or
wasn’t killed that night doesn’t change the facts in the
slightest. You haven’t got a chance in the world, so
why don’t you come clean and get it over with?”
The Long Saturday Night — 127
It had all been for nothing, I thought. I wondered
where Barbara was and what she was trying to do.
Well, it really didn’t matter; nothing would help me.
“Listen to me a minute,” I said wearily, knowing
before I started it was futile. “I’ll try to explain it in
words of one syllable. Roberts was blackmailing her.
Not because of Delevan, because he didn’t know
anything about that. But because of something else
that happened before she ever came here; the thing,
whatever it was, that made her change her name. If
we ever find out who she really was, and who brought
her here—”
“We know who she was,” he said.
I stared at him. “You do? How?”
“The F.B.I, identified her from that photograph you
gave Norman. They’ve got quite a file on her.”
“Embezzlement?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No. I thought that myself, when
I heard about the ponies, but it’s not that simple. As a
matter of fact, in 25 years in this business, I don’t
think I’ve ever seen a package quite like it. Her
name’s Elena Mallory—or that was the one she
started with; she’s added to it from time to time.”
I shot a glance at George. Other than well-bred
curiosity, his face showed nothing at all. Maybe we
were wrong, after all.
Scanlon went on. “She seems to be wanted, under
various names and at various times since 1954, by the
State of Nevada, the State of California, the Internal
Revenue Service, the F.B.I., and the U.S. Immigration
and Naturalization Service, for fraud, evasion of
income tax, hit-and-run driving, manslaughter, illegal
flight to escape prosecution, bigamy, and deportation
as an undesirable alien. I suppose if she were still
alive they’d have to cut cards for her.”
My gears became meshed at last. “Bigamy?”
“Yes. She seems to have been a girl who was easily
bored. As I get the picture, she was a Guatemalan
citizen, of Irish and Spanish parentage, educated in
the United States—that is, until she ran away from the
The Long Saturday Night — 128
last school they put her in and married some horsetrainer
on the California racing circuit. He lost his
license for giving stimulants to a horse—which he
says she did—and later, without bothering to divorce
him, she married a Southern California used-car
dealer who was pretty well-to-do, or was until she got
her scoop into his bankroll and started heaving it into
the pari-mutuel windows at Santa Anita and
Hollywood Park. Then she wrote several thousand
dollars worth of rubber checks at casinos at Las
Vegas, and ran over and killed a man with her sports
car, and took it on the lam. This last item was in
October, 1958. They’ve been looking for her ever
since, waiting for her to drop the other shoe; sooner
or later she figured to be back in the headlines. She
was reported to have been seen at a Florida horse
track in December, 1958, but disappeared before they
could get their hands on her. That would have been
just a few weeks before she showed up here.”
That tied it all together, I thought—and we’d never
prove a bit of it. He really must have hated her. He’d
picked her up broke in Florida and set her up in the
dress shop. Then in less than six months she’d ditched
him and married me, sold the stock and fixtures, and
kept the money herself, so all he’d got out of it was to
put himself at the mercy of a reckless and
irresponsible girl who might some day get him sent to
prison for the death of Junior Delevan. With her
record of unbuttoned and uninhibited behavior, there
was no telling what she’d spill if the police ever
caught up with her. And on top of that there was no
doubt he’d had to keep paying Roberts off—through
her—because she’d probably told him she’d already
given Roberts everything she had. And then he
learned from Denman she’d just dropped six or seven
thousand dollars at the racetrack in New Orleans.
I looked at him now; he seemed perfectly at ease.
Nothing would ever crack him. Well, Roberts was
dead, and she was dead; he really didn’t have much to
be afraid of. Except maybe turning out the light at
night.
The Long Saturday Night — 129
At least I had to try. “All right,” I said to Scanlon,
“that accounts for Paul Denman. This man, whoever
he was, knew the police would always be on the
lookout for her around racetracks, so he hired
Denman to follow her.
And of course he found out it was exactly as he’d
suspected; she was on another gambling binge, and
sooner or later she’d be recognized and picked up.
When she came home, he killed her. He even
destroyed her photograph—the big one in the
bedroom—to keep the newspapers from running it.
Somebody might have recognized her. He didn’t know
I had a small one in my wallet.”
Scanlon shook his head. “He couldn’t have killed
her. Nobody knew she was home. Except you.”
The door opened then, and the Deputy on guard
called out to Scanlon. “Mrs. Ryan’s out here. She says
she’s got to see you or Mr. Clement.”
“What about?” Scanlon asked.
“She says some evidence.”
“All right Let her in.”
The Long Saturday Night — 130
12
I was conscious of the shallowness of my breathing as
I watched her come through the door. She looked
lovely, but very tired. She smiled at me, and then
nervously at the others as she came over to the desk.
“Excuse me for interrupting, Mr. Scanlon, but I think I
may have something important.”
“What is it?” he asked.
She turned slightly to include George. “I don’t know
whether it would be classified as defense evidence or
just evidence, but I thought the best thing would be to
come here right away.”
George smiled. “Any evidence is properly turned
over to the police, Mrs. Ryan. If it’s pertinent, we have
access to it too.”
Scanlon interrupted impatiently. “Sure, sure. But
what is it?”
“Well, I’ve just been talking to Mr. Denman—you
remember, the private detective. I called him last
night to ask if he thought he’d recognize this
Randall’s voice if he heard it again, but he didn’t think
so—that is, he wouldn’t be able to pick it out of a
number of similar voices, and his testimony would
probably have no value as evidence. So then I asked
him about the envelope Randall sent the money in, but
he said there was nothing there either. It was just a
The Long Saturday Night — 131
plain white envelope from the drugstore or dime
store, and the address was typewritten. There was no
return address, of course, and no letter with it. Just
the money. Then, a little while ago, it occurred to me
that typewriters can be identified too. They all have
their individual characteristics—”
“Yes, of course,” Scanlon broke in. “The F.B.I, can
do it, or any good police lab. But there’s not a chance
in the world he’d have it now. Nobody ever keeps an
envelope.”
“But that’s just it,” she said eagerly. “I think he does
have it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I just talked to him. At his home. He says he threw
the envelope in the waste basket, all right, but the
thing is he doesn’t have any janitor service in the
building where his office is, and he doesn’t think he’s
emptied the basket since then—since Tuesday
afternoon, when he got it. He’s going down to the
office in the next half hour or so, as soon as he’s had
breakfast, and he’ll look and see if it’s still there. I
asked him to call you, if it is, and you’d tell him
whether to turn it over to the F.B.I, or mail it to you in
another envelope.”
“Good. I’ll call the F.B.I. myself, if he finds it.”
Scanlon removed the cold cigar from his mouth and
regarded it musingly. He shook his head. “Faith is a
wonderful thing, Mrs. Ryan. For your sake, I almost
hope this doesn’t backfire on you.”
“I don’t think it will,” she said. She went out.
For a moment no one spoke. Then Scanlon relighted
his cigar and smiled grimly at George. “I think this is
one you’re going to lose, counselor. If they identify
that as one of the typewriters in Warren’s office, on
top of everything else we’ve got—there goes your ball
game.”
George shrugged easily. “Well, they haven’t yet,
remember. Don’t try to bluff us with an empty gun.”
I glanced at my watch. It was seven-thirty-five. The
next half hour or so—I wondered if I’d live through it,
The Long Saturday Night — 132
or if I did, whether I’d ever be the same again. My
nerve ends felt as if they were going to snap and come
out through my skin like steel wire. George didn’t
even bother to look at his watch. He merely lit
another cigarette and listened attentively as Scanlon
took up the questioning again. A telephone stood on
the desk between us like a silent black bomb, and
there was another on the desk where he was sitting,
next to his left elbow. He didn’t look at either of them.
Nor was there the slightest indication in his face that
he was avoiding them.
We must be wrong, I thought; nobody has that kind
of nerve. Or if we weren’t, he must have weighed the
possibilities and decided it was a bluff. No, I told
myself; there was still a chance he was only timing it
to get out gracefully, without suspicion. But, good
God, how long could he wait? How long could he
endure it?
Scanlon was saying something.
“What?”
His eyes were bleak as he leaned over the other end
of the desk. “I hope we’re not causing you any
inconvenience, Warren, with all these silly questions.
But there have been a couple of people killed, and the
taxpayers always get into a snit about it and start
saying we ought to look into it.”
“All right,” I said. “What do you want to know now?”
“I want to know if you’re ready to make a
statement.”
“I don’t know your definition of the word,” I said,
“but to the best of my knowledge I’ve been making
statements ever since I was dragged in here.
Apparently they go in one corner of your head,
reverberate, and flow out the other, without causing a
ripple—”
Seven-thirty-nine.
“How long are you going to hold out?”
“As long as I’m breathing. I’ve told you what
happened.”
The Long Saturday Night — 133
“You’re the only one in town who knew your wife
was home. How could somebody else have killed her?”
“She called him. The minute I left the house with
Mulholland.”
“So she could get her head broken with an andiron?
Now, that makes sense.”
I explained about the fight. “Maybe she even
thought I’d killed Roberts, from the way I was acting
and from the fact I had the cigarette lighter, the one
Doris told you about. It was a new one she’d ordered,
but she didn’t know that. Anyway, she had to get away
—get away from me, and out of reach before you
could question her about Roberts. But she didn’t have
any money left, and couldn’t very well ask me for any,
the way I was raving and breaking down doors, so she
called this man, whoever he was.”
“But why would he kill her, if she was leaving town
anyway? She couldn’t spill anything.”
“Because he didn’t trust her, for one thing; she was
too reckless and unreliable. You read her record.
She’d be picked up somewhere. Also, he hated her.
You saw what he did to her face.”
Seven-forty-four.
My hands, manacled together, lay on the edge of the
desk. I could see the watch without moving my face. It
had been nine minutes now . . . ten. . . .
The telephone rang, the sudden sound of it like an
explosion in the room. If he doesn’t scream now, and
start across the ceiling, I thought, he has no nerves in
his body at all. Or he’s innocent. I glanced toward
him. His face was utterly calm, as though he hadn’t
even heard it. No, he had turned slightly and was
watching Scanlon as he picked up the receiver.
“Sheriff's office. Scanlon speaking—”
It didn’t mean anything. Everybody was watching
Scanlon.
“Yes, yes, I know,” he said.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw George take out a
cigarette. Then he realized he already had one
burning in the tray, and put it back.
The Long Saturday Night — 134
“. . . but, dammit, honey, I can’t get away. I realize I
haven’t had any breakfast. Or any sleep. I sometimes
notice things like that, without help. But I’m not going
to leave here till we crack this thing.”
If it were me, I thought, they’d have heard the sigh
of relief in Memphis. Nothing showed. Absolutely
nothing.
Scanlon hung up. Then he sighed, and said, “All
right, let’s get on with it.”
George glanced at his watch. “Speaking of breakfast
—how long do you think it’ll be, Sheriff, before I’ll be
able to talk to Duke?”
“Not for hours, at this rate,” Scanlon said
disgustedly.
George stood up. “Well, I think I’ll run over to
Fuller’s and have a bite.” He turned to me. “There’s
nothing I can do at the moment, Duke, and I’ll be back
in twenty minutes or so. You don’t mind?”
“No,” I said. I managed a sickly grin. “I’ll try to hold
off the wolves till you get back.”
“Could I have Fuller’s send you over something?”
“No, thanks. I couldn’t eat anything.”
He went out. There was a long moment’s silence
after the door closed behind him. Scanlon and
Mulholland exchanged a glance. Scanlon jerked his
head. Mulholland went out, and almost at the same
instant Barbara came back in. She must have been in
another room across the corridor. She came on
around the desk and sat down on my right
Scanlon spoke to Brill. “Get that line open to the
radio room.”
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