Chapter Nine Susie #3
“I’m sure, and sorry if I came on too strong. Sam and I are just friends. Partners in detective work, you might say.”
“Partners? He tells you about his cases?”
“Not everything. Just the ones I’m allowed to know about.
Your secret papers are safe, don’t worry.
Although, anyone with half a brain could tell this has to do with some mysterious deaths, and since Washington is involved, it must be pretty serious.
Must have something to do with the government.
Or military, I guess, since you’re here. ”
He grunts and finishes the dregs of his coffee, eyes still on mine, nostrils still working in that peculiar sniffing way. “You are not Silverman’s mate? I mean—girlfriend?”
“Not exactly.” I cross my fingers behind my back.
“Then perhaps you’d come and get an early lunch with me? Show me around the town? It’s very picturesque. It reminds me of where I did most of my training, in fact.”
“How about that?” I beam. “Where was that?”
“In... In the woods. Of... The New Hamshire.”
“New Hampshire, huh? A regular green mountain boy?” I ask, the alarm bells ringing louder than ever.
I, Susie Spade, have a real live spy in my office. A foreign spy. Possibly a killer. Probably.
“Ah. Yes. I am a mountain boy, as you say. Although it was far more woods than mountains.” He smiles stiffly.
How long does it take those damn pills to work? “I’d love to go have some lunch, but I’ve had a few days off, and I’m sure I need to work on the end-of-month accounts.”
“The end of the month is not for another week. You have time.”
“You’re very persuasive. Weren’t you just saying I was faithless? A faithless female throwing myself at you?”
“It was my mistake. I assumed Silverman had laid claim to you.”
“You New Hampshire boys sure talk funny.”
“You Yonkers girls talk funny, too.”
“How’d you know I was from Yonkers?”
There’s a flash of something panicked in his eyes, and the fact that that little slip panics him, but the bit about wolves and pure women doesn’t?
This is a madman.
Or maybe...
This is a werewolf. And maybe Sam’s been the only one hunting him because it takes one to know one.
“You’d be surprised how much people talk in little towns.
A week with Silverman gone has given everyone time to wonder where he was, and where his secretary, Miss Susie Spade, the new girl from Yonkers, was.
Did he elope with her? Did he kill her and bury her body behind that old house of his?
” Wayne’s smile is genuine now, but genuinely pleased and self-satisfied in a sick way that makes my stomach turn.
“He’s not right since the war, you know, that’s what they say.
Did he leave for Washington? He’s a big shot down there, isn’t he?
Did the secretary go with him, his kept woman?
Or did she go home? A little trip to the woods of Windsor told me what I needed to know.
He was there. And you weren’t here.” Conrad suddenly blinks, then stretches his jaw as if he’s holding in a yawn.
“So, how could you get him to leave the professor unguarded? By luring his secretary back to town? Kidnapping her or something, so he’d have to come rescue me? Ha. That’s like one of the dime novels I love, I’ll give you that.”
“If you were only his secretary, I wouldn’t have bothered.
It’s knowing another wolf has his mate that will bring him running.
He won’t know what I’m doing to you, but he’ll imagine the worst. It’s not the full moon yet, so I can’t turn you into my kind, little Miss Spade, so arrogant, so unworthy of a man’s devotion—but there are a million worse things I can do. ”
I walk behind my desk, and he moves towards it. Slowly. Weaving just a little. I don’t go for the letter opener. I stand behind my typewriter. It’s a good, solid model. Heavy. “What’s this silliness about wolves? Is that some sort of code you picked up in the army?”
“For a moment I thought you were bright. It’s only the fools who believe exactly what they’re told.
Wolves, witches, vampires? They’re all real, silly girl.
And deny him if you will, but I can smell what a human can’t.
A wolf in rut has been with his mate in this room.
The scent of your breeding is all over this room in particular.
” He looks like he might vomit at the thought.
Well. Good. “Yep. Rutting. Right in the chair you were sitting in.”
“Ugh!” Wayne turns with a horrified gurgle to look at the seat he recently vacated—and I clobber him with my typewriter, throwing it with all my strength.
You don’t grow up as the big sister to three boys without learning how to pitch, let me tell you. That was a Royal fastball, straight and high, and it connects with the back of his big head. Between the sleeping tablets and ten pounds of typewriter, he’s down like a sack of potatoes.
Which makes it the perfect time for Sam to come bursting in, pistol in hand, hat falling off, and trenchcoat flying open.
“Susie!” he gasps.
“Oh, good,” I smile. “You got my cable.”