The Venus Death: A Ralph Lindsay Mystery. Ben Benson

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      There was a wooded area for half a mile with no houses at all. Then a light gleamed through the trees.

      “There,” she said.

      I pulled over and stopped in front of it. The house stood alone. Two stories and a high gabled attic. The house was old Victorian, with rotting shingles and a tangled unkempt high hedge. It had diamond-patterned windows. On the lawn was an old-fashioned post lantern. It cast a weak yellow light.

      “You’re a long way from the bus,” I said.

      “Oh, no. The bus goes right by here to Staleyville. And the driver always stops at the house.” She picked up her bag. She put it down again. Her hand reached for the door handle. She turned to me nervously.

      “Well,” she said. “I really have to go in.”

      “I hope to see you again some time.”

      She moved over in the seat, closer to me. “Don’t you like me?” she asked suddenly.

      “Why, sure, I like you,” I said, startled. “I–”

      She put her arms around my neck. I could feel the soft resiliency of her body, the cool, scented cheek and a tendril of blond hair. I felt her warm breath on my face.

      “This is what I meant,” she whispered. Her lips came to mine, hot and moist, clinging. She broke away, picked up her bag and pushed on the door handle.

      “Wait a minute,” I said, catching my breath. But she was out of the car. I slid across the seat and came out on the road beside her. I took her by the shoulders and turned her around. “I want to see you again, Manette.”

      “That’s better,” she said. “When?”

      “Sunday,” I said. “My first Sunday off since I was assigned to the troop.”

      “What time?”

      “In the morning. I have the whole day.”

      “In the afternoon,” she said.

      “Well have dinner together,” I said. “Maybe I’d better phone you to make sure.”

      “You don’t have to. But the number is Danford 6–1530. Do you have a pencil?”

      “I don’t need any. 6–1530. I’ll remember it like my own badge number.”

      I went up the crumbling flagstone walk with her. The house windows were dark. She took a key from her bag and put it in the door lock.

      “Until Sunday then,” she said. “Good night, Ralph.”

      “Good night, Manette,” I said.

      She opened the door and stepped inside. The door closed. I stood there for a moment. Then I went back down the walk and got into my car. I looked at the house. A light had gone on upstairs. I saw her come to the window and draw the shade. I started up the car and drove back to the turnpike.

      I drove steadily, not fast. She had left a perfumed scent in the car. I was staring at the road, but I was thinking of the strangeness of her actions. She was like no other girl I had ever known. She had told me nothing of herself. And the more I thought of it, the pickup at the bar didn’t seem like plain luck. It was almost as if she had expected me. And while I was trying to figure things out I missed the blue neon sign that said State Police. I had to go along the turnpike to the next cutoff.

      I drove back, crossed over, went around the arched driveway and into the rear parking area. I put the car away, went in through the garage and up to the first floor.

      It was quiet in the barracks. I crossed the asphalt-tiled, antiseptic-smelling corridor. The guardroom was empty and the television screen was dark. The cellblock and its four cells stood open and vacant. In the communications room I saw the civilian dispatcher. The shortwave radio was mute, but I could hear the rhythmical clacking of the teletype machines.

      I went into the office. The duty sergeant was Stan Maleski. He looked up at me from behind his desk. He wore the pale blue worsted uniform shirt with the dark blue sergeant stripes on the sleeves. The sleeves were sharply creased and at the right shoulder yoke was the State Police patch. His necktie was black silk and fastened to his shirt with the silver tie clip that carried the state shield on it.

      “What are you doing in?” Maleski asked. “Didn’t you go home?”

      “No,” I said, signing in. “I went to Danford and hung around.”

      Maleski stood up and went to the bulletin board. He put up a notice on the clip stand. He was carrying a short-barreled S&W revolver in a hip holster. His trousers were the dark blue uniform slacks with a broad stripe down the side.

      I went over and looked at the bulletin board. “Quiet tonight?” I asked.

      “Pretty quiet,” he said. “There’s coffee in the kitchen if you want it, Ralph.”

      “I’m restless enough as it is,” I said. “Coffee would only make it worse, Stan.”

      He looked at me with puzzled eyes, his square jaw pushed to one side. Then the telephone on his desk rang. He went over and picked it up.

      “State Police,” he said. “Troop E Headquarters. Sergeant Maleski. Yes, sir . . .”

      I left him and went upstairs to my room. It was a bare room. It contained two narrow steel beds, a chest of drawers and a mirror and nothing else. I switched on the light. The bed near the window was mine. It was covered with a squared, taut, dark blue blanket, a white pillow and a six-inch border of the top sheet showing. In the other bed, next to the locked closet, was the huddled, blanketed form of Patrolman Philip Kerrigan. I went over and shook him. “Wake up,” I said.

      He groaned, twisted under the blanket and covered his head. Then his head poked out. He blinked his eyes. “What time is it?”

      “Eleven o’clock,” I said.

      “Dammit,” he said. “I just got in from a patrol and I’ve got another one at six A.M.” He buried his head again.

      I shook him once more. “I met a girl tonight, Phil.”

      “I thought you had a girl named Ellen,” he mumbled.

      “This is a little different,” I said.

      “I know. The other one is sixty miles away.”

      “A beautiful blonde,” I said. “The most beautiful girl I ever met in my life. Her name is Manette Venus.”

      “Hurray for you,” he grunted. “Now breeze off my ear and let me sleep.”

      “I’m going to see her again Sunday.”

      “That’s just peachy,” he said. Then he wrenched himself up on one elbow. One eye opened. He pushed his dark hair away from his forehead. “You tell her you’re a trooper?”

      “Sure.”

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