Clint caught a cab in front of his hotel and gave the driver the address of Eliza Johnson’s house. The neighbor lived right next door, and he hoped to be able to talk to her without having her run off screaming. There was also a man who lived on the other side of her who said he’d seen John Taylor around back of the house. The police said the back door had been forced.
What Clint found odd was that Eliza Johnson lived in the house alone. That in itself wasn’t odd. Women did live alone in houses, but they were usually women who had been widowed and remained in the house where they’d lived with their husband. Eliza had been twenty years old and unmarried. Apparently, that was the reason John Taylor did odd jobs around her house for her.
The cab left Clint in front of the Johnson house. There was no point in going to the front door and knocking, since the lady of the house was dead. Instead, he went around back, where John Taylor was supposed to have broken in. The door was solid wood, the lock a good one, but someone had forced it with enough strength to crack the door frame. John Taylor was certainly strong enough to have done it. So were a lot of men. Clint thought he could have done it, as well.
He decided not to go into the house. He couldn’t imagine what he would find there that would be helpful. Better to talk to the witnesses. He decided on the man first. Just in case the woman got frightened and sent for the police. If that happened, at least he’d have questioned the man already.
He walked back around to the front and over to the front door of the man’s house. He knocked. When it opened and a man appeared in the doorway, Clint asked, “Are you Mr. Warren Knox?”
“I am. What can I do for you?”
The man filled the door frame from shoulder to shoulder. He glowered at Clint from beneath bushy black eyebrows. Clint guessed his age at mid-forties. He also noticed that he was certainly big enough to have forced a door.
“I’d like to ask you some questions about, uh, the murder that took place next door.”
“They already got the guy.”
“I understand, but I still have some questions.”
“Are you with the police?”
“No, but—”
“Then I don’t have to talk to you, do I?” Knox asked.
“Not really, but—”
“No buts.” The man took a step out, which forced Clint to take a step back and almost slip on the steps. “I don’t want to talk about it.” He spoke like a well-educated man, was dressed for a day at home, Levi’s and a plain shirt. Clint remembered that the notes said he was a storekeeper. Clint wondered what a storekeeper was doing home at this hour.
“Mr. Knox—”
“It’s time for you to go away now,” Knox said. “Unless you want to force me to talk to you.”
“I have no intention of doing that, sir,” Clint said. “If you want me to go, I’ll go. I was just—”
“Go!”
“Fine.” Clint put his hands up, palms out, and backed away. “Fine.”
He decided not to push it. If he could convince the woman next door to talk to him, maybe she could tell him something about Warren Knox.
Knox watched Clint as he walked away down the walk, then backed inside and closed the door.
The woman’s name was Gertrude Hollister. She was in her thirties, was married to a banker, and apparently spent a lot of time at home, alone. It was during that time she had befriended Eliza Johnson.
Clint approached the front door of the Hollister house. The banker husband should be at work. He’d have to approach this very carefully. A woman home alone who had already suffered a trauma was bound to be . . . fragile.
He stepped up to the door and knocked.
Sergeant Ben McCloud had picked Clint Adams up at the courthouse and followed him. He’d been there long enough to find out about the changes in the situation—changes he knew his superior would not be happy with. When Clint left the courthouse, McCloud followed, knowing that something had to be done.
He’d almost taken Clint Adams when he was behind the Johnson house, but he noticed the next door neighbor, the woman, at her window. Then, when Adams had gone next door to the Knox house, he thought the big neighbor was going to do the job for him, but that hadn’t happened.
Now he watched Adams walk up the walk to the Hollister house. McCloud knew the story of the Hollister woman and John Taylor. If Adams spooked her and she started yelling, it would give him an excuse to move.
If, for some reason the woman didn’t react that way, McCloud was just going to have to make his own excuse.
TWENTY-ONE
Clint knocked on the door and waited for Gertrude Hollister to answer. He was still wondering about Knox’s hostile attitude when the door opened and the woman appeared.
“Yes?”
He was surprised, expecting a timid, meek, mousy woman who was just moments from screaming or flight. What he got was entirely different.
“Can I help you?” she asked, then added, “I hope.” Gertrude Hollister was a statuesque brunette, tall, full breasted, pale-skinned, exuding sex appeal from every pore. She was wearing a man’s shirt, a pair of Levi’s, and what looked like riding boots.
Or maybe he had the wrong house. Or perhaps this was a neighbor answering her door.
“Um, Mrs. Hollister?”
“That’s right.”
Maybe this was a sister-in-law.
“Gertrude Hollister?”
She made a face.
“God, I hate that name,” she said. “My friends call me Mandy.”
“Mandy?”
“My middle name,” she said. “Gertrude Amanda Hollister. My mother used to call me Gertrude Amanda when she was upset with me—which was almost always. Are you here looking for me, I hope? Or my husband?”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Hollister,” Clint said. “Did I come at a bad time? Were you going riding?”
“I’m not sure what I was thinking when I got dressed this morning. Maybe I wanted to look my best in case a handsome stranger came to the door.”
She certainly had accomplished that. Her black hair shimmered as it fell to her shoulders, and her face was expertly done, as if she was going out for the night.
“Did I succeed?” She shot one hip and placed a hand on it.
“Definitely.”
“Right answer. You look stunned, sir,” she said. “What were you expecting to find?”
“Honestly?”
“Please,” she said. “Honesty would be refreshing coming from a man.”
He told her what he had expected.
“Oh my, mousy? Me?” She laughed, a throaty, sexy sound that sent chills down his spine. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
“Maybe I better introduce myself,” he said. “My name is Clint Adams. I have some questions about the unfortunate, uh, murder of your neighbor.”
“Poor, pathetic Eliza?” she asked.
“Uh, well, yes—”
“Then come in, Mr. Adams,” she said. “We can have a drink together while I answer all your questions.”
She stepped back to allow him to enter, then closed the door firmly behind them. She turned and put her back to it, as if ready to block him if he tried to leave.
“Your neighbor, Mr. Knox, was not this hospitable,” he told her.
“Oh, Rusty’s a little old bear,” she said. “You just have to get used to his rudeness.”
“Rusty?”
“He used to have red hair, before he started going bald. Did he kick you out of his house? Try to intimidate you with his size?”
“Well, I never got into his house.”
“I can’t imagine you would have been intimidated,” she said.
“I wasn’t,” he said, “but I also wasn’t about to force my way in. That’s not the way to get someone to talk to you.”
“And this is,” she said, spreading her arms, then bringing them back down, slapping her hands on her thighs. “Find a lonely woman home who’s looking for someone to talk to.”
“
Lonely? You?”
“I’m lonely,” she said, “but Eliza was pathetic.”
“Yes, you said that.”
“Come with me,” she said. “I need a big drink, and I hate to drink alone.”
She led him from the front door into a large living room. This house was in better repair than the Johnson house, and furnished rather expensively.
“My husband wants to move,” she said, as she noticed him looking around. “He says this house does not befit his stature at his bank anymore. If they only knew at the bank what his stature had shrunk to at home.”
She walked to a small bar setup and asked, “What will you have? Whiskey? Brandy? Port? No, you don’t strike me as a port man.”
“In the absence of beer,” he said, “whiskey will do—but only because you hate to drink alone.”
She poured two whiskeys and walked over to hand him one. Somewhere between the front door and the bar a couple of buttons had come undone on her shirt—the top two. He could see the swell of her pale breasts.
“Thank you.”
She sipped her drink and regarded him over the rim of the glass.
“Your name is familiar,” she said. “Why is that?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never been in Hannibal before.”
“No, no,” she said, “from somewhere else.” She sipped some more, and her full lips glistened with whiskey. At that moment she was possibly the most desirable woman he’d ever been in a room with. He was fully erect and hoping she would not notice.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “I’ve got it.”
“Mrs. Hollister—”
“You have to call me Mandy,” she said.
“Mandy—”
“And I’m going to call you . . . Gunsmith!”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“Am I right? You’re the famous Gunsmith?”
“I’m— Yes, I guess I am.”
“Wow,” she said. She backed up and looked him up and down. “Wow. A legend of the West in my living room. I can’t believe it. What would bring you here?”
“I told you,” he said. “The murder—”
“Ah, I get it,” she said. “You’re working for somebody. Who? The prosecutor? No, he has the police. So that leaves the defense. You’re working for John Taylor’s defense.”
She was beautiful and smart.
“That’s fabulous,” she said.
“It is?”
“Of course. It’s about time they got someone who knows what they’re doing to work for that boy.”
“You don’t think he killed her?”
“Of course not.”
“Then who did?”
She held her glass up in front of her mouth and touched her bottom lip with her pinky.
“You really want me to answer that question?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then I will.”
“Thank—”
“On one condition.”
“And what would that be?”
“Nothing you’re not used to, I’ll bet.”
He waited.
“I want you, Clint Adams,” she said, “Mr. Gunsmith, to take me to bed.”
TWENTY-TWO
Clint wasn’t sure he had heard her right.
“What?”
She leaned toward him and said, “I want you to fuck me.”
He stared at her.
“Am I being too forward for you?”
“Uh—”
“I can see that you’re not embarrassed,” she said. Then she stared at his crotch. “And I can see that you’re interested. So you must be . . . puzzled.”
“Well, uh, yeah . . .”
“Have you never had a woman throw herself at you just moments after you’d met?”
Well, actually, he had, more than once.
“Or is it because I’m married?”
He didn’t make a habit of it, but he had been with married women, too.
No, the problem was that this just made it harder to believe she was the woman who had fled the Johnson house screaming for the police.
“Look,” she said, “let me explain. My husband neglects me. He’s at the bank all the time. All he cares about is money. We never have sex. Never. And I love sex. I can’t live without it. I’ve had sex with Rusty Knox, for Chrissake, that’s how badly I want it. And I want it now, but not for the same reasons.”
“Uh, no?”
“No,” she said. “Today I’m bored, and into my house— my life—walks the Gunsmith. I’ve read about you; I’ve heard about you and now you’re here. I’d be a fool to pass up the chance to have sex with you.”
“Mandy—”
“Men are impressed with the stories of you and your gun,” she said, cutting him off. “Well, women are impressed by other things. Don’t you think we’ve heard the stories?”
“The stories?”
“About you and women?” she asked. “How women can’t resist you?”
“Mandy, that’s all exaggerated.”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I mean, here you are, and here I am, throwing myself at you.”
“Mandy, you don’t really want to do this,” he said. “You’re just mad at your husband—”
“You bet I am,” she said. “I’m furious with that bastard. He’s taken the best years of my life from me.”
“Then why don’t we just talk—”
“I’m through talking,” she said. She put her glass down and started to unbutton the rest of her shirt. “If you want me to talk any more, you’re going to have to take some action.”
“Mandy—”
She finished unbuttoning the shirt and whipped it off. Her breasts were big, almost pear-shaped, with large, distended pink nipples. She held them in her hands, as if offering them to him.
“Am I not pretty enough for you?” she asked.
Outside, Ben McCloud was wondering what was taking so long. Clint Adams should have been out of the house by now. In fact, he never should have been allowed in. McCloud wondered what the woman of the house was thinking. Her husband had been given the message loud and clear, and had given assurances that she would go along. McCloud decided to take a more active role.
He crossed the street, looked around to be sure he wasn’t being watched, and then approached the house. He moved around to the back and tried looking in a kitchen window, but there was nothing to see. From there he moved around to the far side of the house. Those windows looked in on a downstairs bedroom and another room that looked like a den. Nothing there.
Carefully, he moved around the house to the front. From there he should be able to see the living room, since he’d been in the house once before. It turned out he could only see part of the room. He’d have to move to the other side of the house to get a better look. He did so, peered in the window, and was just in time to see a man’s legs going up the stairs to the second floor.
What the hell?
TWENTY-THREE
Clint’s mouth was dry.
Mandy Hollister moved closer to him, still cupping the breasts in the palms of her hands. She was tall, and her breasts were right there in front of him. Also, he could smell her, a combination of scents that was making him dizzy.
She dropped her hands and kept walking until her breasts bumped right into his chest. She put her arms around his neck, mashed her breasts against him, and kissed him, opening her hot mouth wide. He was helpless to resist, and besides, he did need the information she had. What else could he do?
He put his arms around her and pressed his hands to the bare skin of her back, which was smooth, supple, and very hot. He kissed her back, opening his mouth as wide as hers. She was feverish, rubbing against him, her hands all over him. Her ass was in both his hands when she finally pushed away, breathless, her eyes slightly out of focus.
“Come upstairs,” she said breathlessly, grabbing his hand. She pulled him to the stairs, then released his hand and went up ahead of him. Naked to the
waist, with her jeans and boots still on, she was quite a sight climbing the stairs ahead of him.
He couldn’t wait to get her out of those boots and pants . . .
McCloud was puzzled. Why would the Hollister woman be taking Adams up to the second floor? Then he thought, You dumb ass. Didn’t she take you up there the first time you were in the house with her alone? He remembered she stripped off her shirt only a split second slower than it took her to rip his off. The woman was insatiable, and wasn’t getting anything from her banker husband.
Thinking back, he found his body reacting to the picture in his mind of her naked on her bed—and now Adams was seeing the same picture right in front of him.
McCloud wasn’t jealous of Clint Adams. Well, not the way a husband or lover would be, anyway. He was jealous that the man was up there now with that naked woman. Lord, she was something to see when all her clothes were off, and then she was wild when you were in bed with her.
So okay, he was some jealous of Adams being up there. He’d just wait out here for him now, and make him pay for it later.
Clint followed Mandy Hollister down the hallway to her bedroom. As he entered the room, she was by the bed, undoing her pants and pulling them down to her ankles, then sitting to take off the boots and the pants and toss them away. Seconds later underwear followed, and then she stood up and posed for him. She had long legs, a firm, high ass, the prettiest belly button you’d ever want to see. Between her legs was a black tangle of bush that made you want to burrow in there with your nose.
He walked up to her, took her in his arms, and kissed her again. This time when he cupped her ass, he squeezed it and she gave a little yelp into his mouth. Hurriedly, she reached between them to undo his belt, and his gunbelt, which he took from her and hung on the bedpost.
“You think you’re gonna need that?” she asked.
“You never know.”
She reached out and touched the gun tentatively, ran her finger along the barrel, then turned her attention back to the man. She finished undoing his pants and impatiently yanked them to the floor. She did not bother to pull down his underwear, but simply reached inside and pulled him out.
Clint Adams, Detective Page 7
