Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 105, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 640 & 641, March 1995

Kat pulled a notebook out of her black leather handbag and flipped it open. With her ballpoint poised, she said, “I found Yellow Pages listings for just three carpet installers. There are only three?”

“That’s right. There’s me, there’s A-One Carpets over on Gulf Road, and there’s Redhen Layers up on Riveredge Street.”

“Redhen Layers? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“It’s for real. Named after the owner, Gustave Redhen. Play on words gets him remembered, but it’s the quality of work that counts.”

“How’s a carpet-laying job handled?”

“Teams of two. It’s real specialized work. I’m lucky to have three teams on the payroll.”

“Have you had any contracts over on Malabar Island in the past week?”

“Huh uh. Wish I had.”

“None of the teams was assigned over there?”

“I told you, no.”

She slipped the pen in the notebook’s spirals and put both back in her purse. “I thank you, Mr. McNair. You’ve been a help.”

He squinted up at her. “What’s all this about, anyway?”

“Just routine,” she said with a hint of a smile. She loved delivering that vapid Hollywood exit line.

A-One Carpets was in a more congested part of town, sandwiched between Kentucky Fried Chicken and Shoney’s. The little clapboard one-story building was painted a wretched flamingo pink with sea-green trim. She parked in one of the empty spaces out front, not difficult because all four spaces were empty. The day’s heat had reached the simmer level as she read the typed notice stuck on the aluminum entrance: door with masking tape: Closed for vacation, August 15–31.

That took care of A-One Carpets, unless one of the company’s teams was freelancing. She’d try to check into that if Redhen Layers — Lord, what a name — didn’t, uh, hatch out. C’mon, Kat, get real!

The place reeked of cigarette smoke. Gustave Redhen looked a lot like... Well, he was as tall as she, had a cockscomb of rust-colored hair, a scrawny neck, and he carried his beak-nosed head thrust forward with a king-sized smoke stuck in the corner of his small mouth.

“What possible interest can the Malabar police have in my little operation?” His voice was high and scratchy. The cigarette bounced as he spoke.

“Maybe none, Mr. Redhen.” Hard to say the name and keep a straight face. “How many teams of carpet layers do you employ?”

“Three. Wish I had more. Good layers are hard to find.”

She glanced around the office. Walnut-framed eight-by-ten glossies adorned the stark white walls, photos of Redhen shaking hands with satisfied clients, she presumed. She recognized one of them as a former senator. Another was the current mayor.

“You seem to have an illustrious clientele.”

“I do all right.” His beady little eyes stayed right on hers. “You’re not here on carpet business.”

“In a way, I am. Have your people done any work on Malabar Island in the past week, Mr. Redhen?”

“One job, four days ago, big one. On Strangler Fig Road, for the retired head of OT & T. Had to send a helper along with them to carry the carpeting in. More than three thousand feet of it.”

“I’d appreciate the customer’s name, Mr. Redhen.”

He walked to a green steel desk, riffled through a box of file cards, and handed one to her.

“May I use your phone?”

“Sure. Right there on the desk.”

Beside the phone was a coffee-can lid brimming over with stained butts. She pushed it to the farthest corner of the littered desk and dialed the number he’d given her.

“Mrs. Oliphant? This is Detective Katherine Curtci, Malabar Police.”

“Yes, Detective?” Mrs. Oliphant’s contralto voice was that of a woman not at all intimidated by a call from the police.

“I understand that you had new carpeting laid several days ago.”

“Yes, last Wednesday.”

“By a crew of three men?”

“There were three when they started. I went out for several hours, and when I returned, there were only two. They told me the third man had come along only to help them move the furniture and carry the new carpeting in and the old carpeting out. He wasn’t needed to help with the actual installation.”

“You left the crew in the house by themselves, Mrs. Oliphant?”

“Well, I hadn’t planned to, but an emergency came up. My daughter lives here on the island, and her son had fallen and severely cut himself. I babysat her youngest while she took the boy to the doctor.”

“And when you returned to your house, there were only two carpet men?”

“Yes, as I’ve already told you.”

So she had. Kat thanked her and hung up with her thought process in overdrive.

“Where is the crew that did the Oliphant work?” she asked Redhen.

“Back on the island. Woody and Tiny.” The cigarette joggled in his mouth. He squinted against its eye-searing smoke tendrils. “They’re installing carpet in an unfurnished spec house. Four thirty-six Paperbark Lane.”

“They’ll be there now?”

Redhen shrugged. “Should be. It’s an all-day job.”

She got out of that choking atmosphere and in the parking area took her first deep breath since she’d gone in.