Which Way to Die? Read Online Free Page A

covered up. The boys’ lawyers advised them not to press charges. They must have figured public sympathy would be with Barber. But if he was capable of trying to kill them—and believe me, he wasn’t kidding—then he’s still capable of it.”
    â€œSounds interesting,” Baer said. “Shall we start a pool on who gets them?”
    â€œYou not only had no mother,” Corrigan growled, “but that rock that fathered you had no sense of humor. Shut up and let me work, will you?”
    At eight-thirty on Thursday morning Corrigan and Baer were waiting on the front steps of police headquarters. The private detective had a small valise at his feet; Corrigan had brought nothing. Mrs. Grant had informed him over the phone that he would not need a bag. After all the secrecy about the released men’s destination, this struck Corrigan as a stupid breach of security. Since he would not be gone overnight, it was clear that the hideout could not be far from Manhattan.
    The limousine, a Lincoln Continental, arrived at 8:35. It was chauffeured by a huge square-faced man of middle age with bristling brows and a massive jaw. John Alstrom and Elizabeth Grant were in the tonneau.
    Corrigan got a polite reception from Alstrom and a cold shoulder from the woman. Her open dislike did not bother him. He had learned four years earlier that Elizabeth Grant was an overprotective mother incapable of an objective viewpoint where her son was concerned. All he felt was pity for her predicament.
    It was a seven-passenger job. The chauffeur stowed Baer’s suitcase in the trunk, Baer took one of the jump seats, and Corrigan elected to sit beside the chauffeur.
    â€œHow are you, Andy?”
    â€œOkay, Captain,” the chauffeur said. He sounded as frigid as his mistress.
    Andy Betz shared Elizabeth Grant’s attitude toward Corrigan, and for the same reason. He had a slavish faith in young Frank’s innocence. Betz, now in his mid-fifties, had been in the employ of the Grant family for twenty-five years—since two years before Frank’s birth. He was a phenomenon rare in mid-century America: an old family retainer. Devoted to the family, he idolized the “young mister,” as he customarily referred to Mrs. Grant’s son. It was hardly surprising that he looked on Corrigan with a hostile eye.
    His hostility rolled off Corrigan’s back, too, but with a difference. The MOS man could only admire the unwavering loyalty from which Betz’s hostility stemmed. As far as Corrigan knew, the man had no life or interests outside the Grant family; at least he had not had four years ago. He was unmarried. He lived in a room above the garage on the Grants’ Long Island estate.
    En route to Ossining, Corrigan sat half faced about. Conversation was minimal. Mrs. Grant was largely silent with resentment, and Alstrom seemed immersed in thought. Even Chuck Baer was infected, and the fact that Mrs. Grant objected to his cigar smoke did not make him communicative. There were long periods during which Corrigan did nothing but glance at the road ahead and back through the rear window.
    They were some ten miles out of the city when he spotted the tan Buick sedan a few hundred yards behind them. As far as he could tell, it contained no one but the driver; Corrigan could not even make out if it was a man or a woman. When it steadily maintained its distance over the remaining twenty miles to Ossining, it took no Sherlock Holmes to deduce that it was a tail.
    He did not mention it to the others. The tailing driver would know he had been spotted if Alstrom and Mrs. Grant turned to peer back, as they undoubtedly would.
    When they reached Ossining’s town limits, the Buick shortened its distance to half a block. It held that relative position until Betz turned into the street going by the main gate of the prison. As Betz slowed down, the Buick picked up speed.
    Corrigan said, “Chuck,” and