Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 34, No. 5, April 1974

“All right, then. I’d been doing... well, like a strip. It was a little game we played sometimes. What we’d do, we’d have a drink together, and then I’d take my dress off. And then we’d have another drink, and I’d take off something else. And so that’s what we were doing this morning when somebody knocked on the door. I went out to the bedroom because I didn’t have anything on. And poor Larry — he went to the door to open it.”

“You didn’t actually watch him open it?”

“No.”

“And then?”

“Well, I’d no sooner got into the bedroom when I heard the shots. I almost died. I thought whoever had shot him would come in the bedroom and shoot me, too.”

“Why?”

“Because when he saw my clothes out there, he’d know I had to be somewhere around. He’d think I saw him shoot Larry, and he’d have to kill me too to keep me from telling.”

“You say ‘he.’ You hear a man’s voice?”

“Well, no. I... Well, naturally, I just assumed it was a man.”

“But now that you think back on it, there’s no reason to think it couldn’t have been a woman?”

“Well, no. I guess not.”

“How long was it before you went up on the roof?”

“Just a few seconds. Just as soon as I could move again.”

“Weren’t you afraid the killer might still be in the living room, or out in the hall?”

“I didn’t go out that way I went out the bedroom window and climbed up the fire escape.” She paused. “After that, all I remember is trying to yell for help. But I couldn’t say anything. Any words, I mean. All I could do was scream.”

“What do you do for a living, Miss Hagen?”

“Whatever I have to,” she said. “Sometimes I model a little. Sometimes I do other things.” She shrugged. “You know how it is.”

I looked over at Stan. “Feel like knocking on a few doors?” I asked. “Maybe some of the other tenants saw or heard something.”

“There aren’t any other tenants,” Miss Hagen said. “Larry was the only one.”

“In a house this size?”

“It belongs to Old Lady Gotrocks, herself. She’s in Europe. And if you want to meet a real nut, she’s your girl. You ought to see her apartment downstairs. She’s got it painted even crazier than this one is.”

“Let’s get a little information on Mr. Yeager,” I said. “He married?”

“No.”

“Divorced?”

“Not that I know of. He never said.”

“You know any of his family?”

“There isn’t any. At least, that’s what he told me.”

“What kind of work did he do?”

“He was an actor.”

The phone rang, and Stan walked over to answer it. “Hello?... Oh, hi, Barney... They did? Fine... He was, eh?... Yeah... uh-huh... Yeah, I’ve got it. Mrs. Reba Daniels, Paragon Apartments... You too, Barney, and many thanks.”

“What was that all about?” I asked as he hung up and returned to the hassock.

“Barney asked BCI for—”

“Asked who?” Miss Hagen said.

“The Bureau of Criminal Information,” Stan told her. “Barney is Pete’s and my boss, Miss Hagen. He asked BCI for checks on you as well as your Mr. Yeager.”

“How nice of him,” she said. “And what’d he find out?”

“About you, nothing,” Stan said.

“What about Yeager?” I asked.

“He had a yellow sheet. Not that it amounted to much. He got into a hassle with his wife once and—”

“Wife?” Miss Hagen said. “What wife?”

Stan ignored her. “This was way back in 1950, Pete. All that happened was that Yeager and his wife got into a pretty loud argument, and the neighbors called the police. Yeager was drunk and took a swing at one of the cops — which explains the yellow sheet. BCI figured we’d be asking for a check on the wife, too, so they went ahead and made one. Her first name’s Reba. Since she was married to Yeager, she’s been married and divorced a second time. A contractor named Arnold Daniels. She’s living at the Paragon Apartments, under the name of Reba Daniels.”

I wrote down the name and address and turned back to Miss Hagen. “Mr. Yeager in trouble of any kind?” I asked.

“Not so far as I know, he wasn’t.”

“He have any enemies?”

“Well... not enemies, exactly. He wasn’t getting along so well with Mr. Eads, though.”

“Who’s Mr. Eads?”

“He’s the man who wrote the play Larry was going to have a part in. Warren Eads. I don’t know what the trouble was, but Larry sure didn’t like him. I heard him blessing Mr. Eads out on the phone one day. I never saw Larry so mad in all the time I knew him.”

I put my notebook away and got to my feet. “That’ll do for now, Miss Hagen,” I said. “Stan, let’s see what we can find.”

Stan took the living room and I took the bedroom. I was just finishing up when Stan called from the living room. “C’mere a minute, Pete.”

He was down on his hands and knees, about two feet to the left of the hall door. “Take a look,” he said, pointing to a narrow, inch-and-a-half shard of green glass lying propped against the edge of the carpet. “Miss Hagen swears it wasn’t there when she vacuumed this room, just before she and Yeager started their little strip game.”

I knelt down beside Stan, picked up the shard, and turned it over in my fingers. “It’s a piece of lens from a pair of sunglasses,” I said.