Manhunt. Volume 9, Number 1, February 1961

“I have only one favor to ask. Eunice is young and alone here in Los Angeles. This is going to be rough. Let me break the news to her.”

“Okay,” Lieutenant Davis shrugged and looked at his watch.

It was after two when Eunice walked in. Delaney rose to greet her. As Eunice settled into a chair, he said, “Miss Blair, this is Lieutenant Davis of the Los Angeles Police.”

“Police—?” Eunice’s face went white and her fingers fumbled with the clasp on her large leather bag.

“But I... I told you—” she faltered, her eyes wide with distress.

“Yes, I know,” Delaney said quickly, “and I didn’t call them in.” He hesitated, then cleared his throat. “Eunice, I have some bad news for you. I want you to be—”

“You’ve found her? You’ve found Mavis and something’s happened?” Eunice interrupted in a small voice.

Delaney nodded. “I saw Mavis this morning. But—”

“You saw her? She’s hurt?” Eunice started from her chair.

Delaney said slowly, “Mavis is dead. She was killed. I saw it happen and couldn’t prevent it.”

“Oh no. Oh, no!” Eunice whispered, shaking her head and sinking back into her chair. Her face was chalk-white and her hand moved into her bag. It came out with a piece of Kleenex which she mechanically shredded in her lap without being aware of what she was doing.

Lieutenant Davis said gruffly, but not unkindly: “You should have come to us, Miss Blair. But if it’s any comfort to you, we’ve got the man who killed her. His conviction is open and shut.”

“No, it isn’t,” Delaney said evenly.

“What the hell do you mean?” Lieutenant Davis demanded.

Delaney’s eyes narrowed and he was tense in his chair.

“The guy didn’t kill Mavis. She was already going down when he shot. Have you had the medical examiner’s report yet?”

“Not yet,” Lieutenant Davis admitted, slack jawed with amazement. “But what’s the—?”

Delaney interrupted harshly. “Oh the gunsel scored from the car all right. But I’m betting the medic’s report will show death resulted from a shot fired into her back!”

Lieutenant Davis glared at Delaney and banged his fist on the desk. “Are you out of your mind? Do you know who killed her?”

“You’re damn right I do!” Delaney came out of his chair like a steel spring uncoiling and dove across his desk.

Eunice screamed and grabbed her large leather bag, but Delaney savagely twisted her wrist and she let go. She sprang to her feet, clawing for his face and trying to fight her way free. Delaney slammed her back into the chair and dropped her bag into the Lieutenant’s lap.

Lieutenant Davis dipped into her bag and came up with a snubnosed .25 caliber automatic. For a moment he stared at the gun increduously, then his eyes went to Eunice. He turned back to Delaney.

“You mean—?”

“That’s the gun. It’s got to be,” Delaney said grimly.

Eunice gasped and her face was mottled. Her eyes strained behind her glasses and darted from Delaney, to Lieutenant Davis, to the door. She moved her feet as though to spring from the chair again, but a look from Lieutenant Davis stopped her.

Delaney lit a cigarette.

Lieutenant Davis had a speculative look on his lean, hawk-like face as he considered Delaney’s words. He challenged:

“Okay — how did she get to Mavis?”

“Me. I was the bird dog,” Delaney’s voice was charged with disgust. “Yesterday, I told Eunice I expected to contact Mavis. But I didn’t say where. Eunice must have followed me from my office. That gave her the location of Film Enterprises. The fact I spent the afternoon there, staked out in my car, told her that was where I expected to meet Mavis.

“This morning Eunice hid in the passageway between Film Enterprises and the vacant building next to it. I think she saw the two men in the car. She couldn’t know who they were gunning for — Mavis or me. But she didn’t care. When she saw the gun in the window of the car, she let Mavis have it — in the back. Her shot was unnoticed, or unremembered, in the shooting which followed.”

“It’s a lie!” Eunice hissed through clenched teeth, straining forward in her chair, her face livid.

“Is it?” Delaney looked at her coldly. Then he asked slowly: “Did you remember to pick up the empty cartridge ejected from your gun?”

Lieutenant Davis led Eunice to the door, his hand around her arm. Then he stopped and turned. “But the motive—?”

“Money. Lots of money,” Delaney sighed. “Money Mavis didn’t even know she had. Jim Kennedy left it all to Mavis when he died. Only Mavis didn’t know that — didn’t know he was dead. But this greedy little bitch beside you knew. And she knew, as next of kin, she and her mother would inherit if something happened to Mavis.”

As the door closed behind Lieutenant Davis and Eunice, Delaney muttered bitterly:

“Yeah — mother will be so worried.”

Last Payment by Ron Boring

Most newspaper men drink a little. Jim drank more than most... but then he had good reason.

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