* * *
I frowned into my coffee, and then looked up at Casey and Tilly.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You two were supposed....” They both turned to glare at me, and I decided I had best not make any accusations. I started again, soft. “How’d they get the diamond?”
They both pulled back and sunk a little in their chairs. Tilly took a sudden deep interest in his own coffee.
“We didn’t know she had the key,” snapped Casey, her face going red.
“Oh,” I said, but I waited and kept looking at them. Tilly kept still, so Casey let out a slow and exasperated breath.
“She said she’d lost some gloves and the hotel guy told her he’d put them in the office, and she had Tilly all distracted looking for them,” said Casey. Tilly looked up from his coffee to scowl at her. His face was getting a little red too.
“You were watching her.”
“I was watching her,” she acknowledged, though she kept on at me as if he hadn’t said anything. “But he was poking around the cabinet right there by the lock box, and the woman kept hanging on right beside him, and they both blocked my view. So I told her to step back, and she turned and started talking to me, only she had her hands behind her, so I took hold of her and pulled her away. But the box was still locked.”
“And since we didn’t know she had the key,” said Tilly, “we thought it was okay if the box wasn’t busted into.”
“No we didn’t,” said Casey. She narrowed her eyes at me. “Seeing as we didn’t have the key, we couldn’t take a look inside to be sure.”
Tilly filled in the rest; they waited for me to come back and when I didn’t, they got suspicious and busted open the box, and found it empty. That’s when they rushed out and started looking for that lady and looking for me. They heard about two ladies who left on the stage, and how those ladies had been seen around an empty store around the corner, and that was how they found me.
“And you,” said Tilly, narrowing his eyes and turning it back on me. “Those ladies smiled at you, and you just tore off your clothes and handed them that key.”
“I was still wearing them when I passed out,” I said. I was sure of that. I rubbed my head and took a long drink of the coffee. Tilly sneered.
“And you’re such a good lookin’ fella, they tore your clothes right off.”
“They were looking for the key,” cut in Casey. “You saw how his pockets were turned out.”
“No, they already had the key,” I said, with more honesty than sense. “They must have been putting it back.”
Tilly started laughing, and Casey looked hard at me, and then at him. Tilly shook his head.
“I know it’s hard to admit in front of your girl....”
“My wife,” I said.
“Okay, your wife, which makes it harder yet. Those ladies had you going, and you were so eager, you tore your own clothes off. But you passed out before you got your pants off.”
“His pockets were turned out,” said Casey, stubbornly.
“Okay, they did look for the key,” said Tilly, “but they didn’t tear his clothes off to get it. He did that himself.”
“They already had the key,” I said again. “They were putting it back....”
“Then why’d they tear your clothes off?” said Tilly.
I took a breath. I didn’t have an answer, and furrowing my brow hurt my head. Casey pushed the coffee cup toward me, and turned back to Tilly.
“They were looking for the seventeen dollars he had in his pocket,” she said. Tilly shook his head in disgust.
“They didn’t have to tear his clothes off for that,” he said. “Damn fool thinks with his di...private parts.”
“He was thinking with his stomach,” said Casey firmly. She pointed to the pie. I appreciated her faith in me, although I wasn’t sure it was real faith. If she wouldn’t admit to having cause for jealousy, then she wouldn’t have to let anybody know how she felt.
“I was fully dressed when I passed out,” I repeated. “I remember that. I remember realizing I was going to pass out, and I had to put the pie down safe before I fell....”
“See?” said Casey to Tilly, and then she shoved her shoulder at me to let me know she was still ignoring me.
All that talking helped to wake me up at last, and I drew a long draft of that coffee, and I stared at the pie. I’d been drugged, so I had been pretty stupid soon after drinking the coffee the older woman had given me. But I did have my clothes on when I passed out, so what about my hand in that silky blond hair? That hair that glinted...?
I swallowed and bit my lip, and felt suddenly more alert. I thought back to it again. I had moved the little counter, I had drunk the coffee, I had listened to the woman’s dreams. They already had the key at that point. And then the younger woman came back, looking flushed and excited, and I thought maybe she’d found another beau, and I smiled at her. She had something in her hand, and she wouldn’t have known I had drunk that drugged coffee.
“They were putting the key back,” I said. Casey and Tilly continued to ignore me, although Casey tilted her head. I thought a second longer before going on. I remembered the girl’s hair, and her funny smile, and how she’d come up too close, and I’d got suspicious.
“I stiff-armed her,” I said. “I was good, and I wasn’t thinking with my stomach either.”
They stopped and looked at me, and I stood up. I realized I hadn’t thought through it. What had happened next?
“She tried to put the key back, and I pushed her away, but then.... Then I saw she was up to something and I grabbed her arm to hold on and see what was in her hand, only then I saw the glint in her hair and I pulled her close, and I saw the pin in her hair. She had it tucked in so you couldn’t hardly see it, and I grabbed that pin out of her hair.” That’s when the eyes were close to my face. That’s when my hand had touched her hair.
“And then you passed out,” said Tilly.
“Yeah,” I said, and I held up a finger and tried to capture what had happened next. “Yeah, but....”
“But what?” said Tilly.
“He did something with it,” said Casey. “That’s why they stripped him down to the skin. They were looking for the pin.”
“And they found it,” said Tilly.
“No,” I said. “They stripped me down to nearly nothing because they couldn’t find it. Don’t you see? I did something with it, and they couldn’t find it, and they got desperate.”
“What did you do?” said Casey.
I wasn’t sure. I took a deep breath and looked at the finger I was pointing at Tilly with, and I then stuck out the thumb. They were both purple. Casey and I both looked at the pie together, the pie with the purple wound in the crust.
I stuck my fingers in and felt for something harder than a blueberry or cherry. And there it was. I pulled it out, and it now looked more like an amethyst than a diamond, but I thought that it would probably clean up okay.
I grinned at them, and held it up. Casey reached up and pulled off my bandana—so she wouldn’t soil her own—and then took the sticky and dripping diamond pin.
“So I didn’t lose it,” I said. “You did, but I didn’t.”
“You lost seventeen dollars,” said Casey, shortly. She wrapped up the pin, and stuck it in her breast pocket and buttoned the pocket, which made her look a little lop-sided.
“We’re gonna get two hundred for the pin,” I began.
“We were gonna get it before.”
“And I didn’t flirt with her.”
“Who said you did?”
Casey turned her shoulder to me and picked up her coffee.
“Well, he did, for one,” I said, pointing at Tilly.
“And I told him you were thinking with your stomach, didn’t I?”
She turned back toward me, and I saw her face was a little flushed, which told me she’d been worried. Just a little. And she was maybe embarrassed for having doubts about me, but that was okay. She did
n’t have to ignore me any more, and it was safe for me to grin. I was tempted to push it, and maybe make her admit she’d been worried, but then maybe she’d make me admit I’d been worried and I didn’t want to start that. So I pushed on safer territory.
“My stomach saved that pin,” I said. “Which is more than I can say for you two.”
She paused over her cup, and then shrugged.
“You got the pin back,” she acknowledged. Then she drank down the coffee, and looked at me again. We stared at each other for a moment. “And as soon as you’re up to it, you’re getting that seventeen dollars back too.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. I grinned at her. “We can do it now, if you want.”
“Like hell,” she said.
“Sure,” I said. “I’m ready to go. I’d like another look at that gal’s pretty brown eyes...OW!”
She had punched me in the arm, hard. I grabbed her elbow and leaned in for a kiss. I expected a duck, or another punch, but she let me and even kissed back a little, right there in front of Tilly. I don’t know if it was the kiss, the coffee, or just the relief, but I was feeling darn good, if I didn’t make any sudden moves. Tilly shook his head, and he reached over to pull the pie closer to himself.
“Quit kidding around,” he said. “You both know you’re taking that diamond back tomorrow.”
“After we get the money back from those ladies tonight,” said Casey. “Then we’ll take the diamond back.”
“They’re long gone....”
“And I’m long hungry.” She pulled the pie back with one hand and pulled out her knife with the other, and proceeded to cut it up. She took a sloppy handful and started eating it. I took a piece too, even though I wasn’t really quite up to being hungry. I paused to look at it. I didn’t see any plums in it, but I stuck in a thumb—and a finger—and pulled out a cherry and thought what a good boy am I.
* * * * *
Alibi
In this short suspense story, a killer may depend a bit too much on his elaborate alibi. (First published in Futures Mysterious Antholog, Spring 2006.)
Waiter, There's a Clue in My Soup! Five Short Mysteries Page 11