“That’s what they all say. Some of them are eventually surprised to find they are just that — and then it’s too late.”
She flared contritely, “I certainly don’t want to marry a detective.” I presume you can appreciate the irony in those words for me, Louise? The unintended paraphrasing of your own words were so nearly accurate, they stung. She must have been looking at my face again; she caught something.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized.
“Doctor,” I stated, “when it comes to a detective, your fifty-fifty chance of getting married becomes unbalanced. The odds are stacked heavily against you.”
“What’s her name?” she asked me.
I told her.
“Is she nice?”
Which is something of a foolish question to ask a man in love. I’m prejudiced. And I’d rather not repeat to you, Louise, my description of you. You probably wouldn’t agree with half the lavish natural gifts I heaped upon you, and I would refuse to take a single one of them back. Let’s leave it at that. If you don’t know by this time that I think you’re the most wonderful woman that ever walked the earth, you haven’t been listening for the last several years.
She suggested, “Let’s change the subject.”
I agreed. “Were you around when the Chinese girl’s belongings were itemized?”
“Yes. I signed as a witness.”
“What was in the handbag?”
“She had none.”
“No handbag? Not even a compact or something? Wasn’t anything found on the lake bank?”
“Not even a something, Chuck. Nothing.”
“Then how was she identified?”
“She wasn’t.” Elizabeth glanced at her wristwatch. “Or at least, she hadn’t been up until about eleven o’clock.”
“Nothing at all. Are you sure?”
“Do you doubt me, Chuck? There wasn’t a single thing except the identification bracelet on her wrist.”
“But you said—”
“The bracelet carried no identification. Mr. Thompson had pinned his hopes on that, too.”
“Blank?”
“Practically.” She wiped her lips with a paper napkin and a smudge of lipstick came off. “Except for a good luck token engraved on it.”
“Good luck!” I echoed bitterly. “She had precious little of that. First there was the — Elizabeth!”
She jumped. I half rose from my scat.
“Elizabeth, that good luck token, what was it like?”
“I don’t recall. Just a token.”
“Was it a Chinese token? A Chinese symbol?”
“What else? She was Chinese.”
Her words so elated me I impulsively leaned across the table and kissed her. She sat back, startled. I slid out of the seat, leaving the partly-eaten remains of the second waffle on the plate. I grabbed my hat and coat with one hand and her nearest arm with the other. The yank nearly pulled her to the floor. She made a wild grab for her purse.
“If you’re always like this,” she complained crossly, “you can take back your proposal. If that kiss was a proposal.” She got to her feet.
Still holding her arm, I sped up the aisle between the booths. She was struggling to button her coat and still hold onto the purse. I didn’t bother to put my hat and coat on.
Mike emerged from the kitchen in time to catch her last words. He watched the exodus, shouting advice.
“He’s always like that, lady. You betta’ not propose.”
“Never mind the offstage noises, Mike. We’re going to the county jail.” And I pulled Elizabeth out the door.
She dug her heels into the snow and dragged me to a full stop. “You’re inhuman,” she cried breathlessly. “Here are the keys.”
“Never mind the keys. We’ll walk. Only a few blocks.”
“But why the jail? The body is at the undertaker’s.” I had already started walking and she struggled to keep up with me.
“I don’t want to see the body. I want to see that bracelet. And unless someone has claimed the body, she’s a county liability. She’ll be buried in potter’s field and her possessions — that bracelet — will be on file at the jail.”
“But maybe someone
“And opened themselves to police questioning? In view of the fact that sooner or later some smart cop will tie the Chinese girl to the abandoned car? Oh, no!”
“But there’s no harm in that!”
“There is when you must be one of the parties who figured in a premeditated murder. Accessory before the fact.
Just outside the jail entrance I stopped the girl.
“You’ll have to front for me, Elizabeth. My license ran out yesterday. I don’t expect them to do anything nasty, but if they do, you’re the one who wants to see the bracelet. Understand?”
“Just leave it all to me, Chuck.” And then she added bluntly, “I like you, Chuck.”
“Sure. Let’s go in.”
Leaving the cold, clean air of a biting winter dawn and walking into a jail is like... well, walking into a jail. The place smelled like a jail. It had the overpowering suggestion of a dirty, unsanitary, nostril-offending
The jailkeeper turned off a small radio when we entered and arose from a creaky rocking chair.
“Why, hello, Doc.” He grinned a toothy welcome at Dr. Saari, exhibiting teeth stained yellow with tobacco. “What can I do for you, Doc?”
