A Bullet for CinderellaMacDonald, John D. (John Dann)
General
A Bullet for Cinderella
MacDonald, John D. (John Dann)
American fiction -- 20th century; Detective and mystery stories
Now I took it out again and lay on the motel bed and looked at it in
the lamplight. And felt a tingle of anticipation. For the first time I
permitted myself to wonder if this pilgrimage to Hillston was in part
due to the picture of a girl I had never seen. And to wonder if this
picture had something to do with the death of love for Charlotte.
I put the picture away. It took a long time to get to sleep. But the
sleep that came was deep and good.
THREE
On Friday morning it was not until I opened the bureau drawer to take
out a clean shirt that I knew somebody had been in the room. I had
stacked the clean shirts neatly in one corner of the big middle drawer.
They were scattered all over the drawer as if stirred by a hasty hand.
I went over all my things and saw more and more evidence of quick,
careless search. There was nothing for anyone to find. I had written
down nothing about the elusive Cindy.
It did not seem probable that the maid or the woman who had rented me
the room had done this. Nor did it seem probable that it had occurred
on the previous day while I was out. I checked the door. I distinctly
remembered locking it. It was unlocked. That meant someone had come in
while I had slept. Fortunately, from long habit, I had put my wallet
inside the pillowcase. My money was safe. Some cool morning air came
through the door, chilling my face and chest, and I realized I was
sweating lightly. I remembered how Fitz could move so quietly at night.
I did not like the thought of his being in the room, being able to
unlock the door. I did not see how it could have been anyone else. I
wondered how he had found the motel so easily. I had given the address
to no one. Yet it could not have taken too long on the phone. Maybe an
hour or an hour and a half to find where I was registered. It would
take patience. But Fitzmartin had waited over a year.
I had breakfast, looked up an address and drove off to see the girl of
the cracked, treasured picture--the girl who, unknown to herself, had
eased great loneliness, and strengthened frail courage.
Dr. Buck Stamm was a veterinary. His home and place of business was
just east of town, a pleasant old frame house with the animal hospital
close by. Dogs made a vast clamor when I drove up. They were in
individual runways beside the kennels. There were horses in a corral
beyond the house.
Dr. Stamm came out into the waiting-room when the bell on the door
rang. He was an enormous man with bushy red hair that was turning gray.
He had a heavy baritone voice and an impressive frown.
"We're not open around here yet unless it's an emergency, young man."
"No emergency. I wanted to see your daughter for a minute."
"What about?"
"It's a personal matter. I was a friend of Timmy Warden."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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