Mildred Pierced Read Online Free Page A

said. “And I don’t want morbid headlines that might make the studio change its small collective mind about the movie. Joan Crawford Eyewitness to Bizarre Murder. Dentist Murders Wife in Front of Joan Crawford. Movie Star Watches While Man Murders Wife. You understand?”
    “And …?”
    “I think I’d like to ask my questions now.” She leaned toward me, her eyes sincere and just a little moist. “I would like to hire you to keep my name out of the press. I understand from Fred and I’ve heard from several other friends in the business that you specialize in doing just that. So …?”
    “I’m investigating the murder of Mildred Minck,” I said. “I’m working for Dr. Minck.”
    “Are the tasks mutually exclusive?” she asked, her eyes open wide.
    She didn’t blink. Movie stars don’t blink when the camera is on them and they’re doing a take. Crawford was doing a take.
    “No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”
    “Good.” She sat back and reached into her pocket for her now-open pack of cigarettes. “Shall I consider you hired?”
    “Don’t you want to know my rates?”
    “I’m not working,” she said. “But I’m not penniless, either. I’ve made quite a bit over the past twenty years.”
    “Thirty dollars a day plus expenses,” I said. “Two hundred dollar retainer, nonrefundable, not applicable to the total.”
    “That sounds reasonable,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind cash. I’d rather not have any canceled checks made out to a private investigator.”
    “Cash is fine.”
    “Wait.”
    I sat waiting. This wasn’t what I expected. I hadn’t even asked her about the “alleged” murder yet. I’d learned to use the word “alleged” from Marty Leib. There was always hope that the crime, if I was representing the accused, was an accident—or the work of someone else.
    I reached over for the pack of cigarettes she had left on the table and started turning it over and over just to keep my fingers busy. I don’t smoke. Never did. Neither did my brother or our father.
    I was still playing with the pack when she returned. She stopped suddenly, the cash in her hand, and watched me. Then she handed me the bills, reached over and took the pack, and walked into the kitchen. I turned to watch her through the open door as she stepped on the pedal of a tan metal trash can and dropped the cigarette pack into it. The lid dropped down. She returned to the dinning room and sat across from me reaching into her pocket for a fresh pack.
    “You’ll give me an itemized bill when you’re finished.”
    “Yes.”
    “If you succeed in keeping my name from the press”—she opened the fresh pack and gave me a look that said don’t-touch-this-one-or-you’ll-be-sorry—“I’ll give you a bonus of three hundred dollars.”
    “Very generous,” I said.
    “I believe in incentives,” she said. “Now. You want to know what I saw.…”
    I put the bills she had given me into my pants pocket without looking at them.
    “It’s very simple,” she said, removing the cellophane from the pack in her hand. “It was near the tennis courts.”
    “Was there anyone playing?”
    “No. I came down the path behind a patch of trees.”
    “And you saw no one?”
    “On the path? No.”
    “Don’t people recognize you?” I asked.
    “I was wearing dark glasses and a wide-brimmed hat and a plain dress with very little makeup. Most people seem to think I’m just a housewife who bears a slight resemblance to Joan Crawford.”
    I thought, but didn’t say, that in Los Angeles nothing calls more attention to someone than dark glasses and a wide-brimmed hat.
    “He was standing there,” she said. “With that thing out of an old costume drama.”
    “The crossbow,” I supplied.
    “I saw the woman start to take her hand out of her purse and go to her knees and fall backward,” Crawford went on, looking at the backs of her hands.
    “How close was she to the target?”
    She shrugged. “About fifteen feet