The Fruitcake Murders. Ace Collins
the top file. It was filled with nothing but blank paper. Frantically he grabbed the next two and was horrified to discover nothing but three hundred more sheets of white typing paper. Elrod had evidently been conned and that made Lane look like an even bigger fool. Tossing the file onto the seat, the detective tried to come up with a new plan, but as he caught a glimpse of himself in the car’s rearview mirror, he was taken back to a bit of advice from his youth. If only he’d just thought of it earlier he might not be in this fix.
His father had once told him knee-jerk reactions usually leave a person trying to justify their actions while standing on one leg. Now if things kept going as they were, he soon wouldn’t even have that leg to stand on. Why had he blindly rushed into this situation, and even worse, why had he brought Tiffany with him?
Shoving the car into gear, an angry Lane aimed the Ford back toward the district attorney’s house. Perhaps the only way to find out what had happened to Tiffany was to search Elrod’s personal files and see if he could figure out who the real blonde was. If he couldn’t get a handle on that, then the odds against finding Tiffany were likely very long. As he slid along the slick streets, as one mile became two and two, three, his overriding fear was that his stupidity and haste had signed a death warrant for the woman he might care about much more than he was willing to admit. The more he considered that possibility, the more he wanted to scream.
Chapter 9
9
Thursday, December 19, 1946
2:22 A.m.
Tiffany’s bluff worked, at least temporarily. She’d actually managed to lure her captor into her third-floor, three-room apartment. Now the man was intently watching her, with gun in hand, as she pretended to look through her dressing table for a ring she didn’t have. When she moved over to her dresser, it dawned on her that her plan would have worked much better if she’d had a much bigger place with a lot more furniture.
“Surely you know where you put it,” he barked at the five-minute mark of her little charade. “Or you’re the most scatterbrained person I’ve ever met.”
“I thought it was in a drawer,” she stalled. “Maybe I left it in the bathroom.” As she hurried from her bedroom into the tiny connecting bath, he followed her step by step.
“Can’t you at least give me some privacy?” she pleaded. “I have dainty things hanging over the showerhead to dry.”
“I know what bras and stockings look like,” he sarcastically replied. “I also know when a woman is looking for an exit.”
Tiffany pointed to the eight-by-four-foot room’s only window located five feet over the tub and noted, “A small house cat could barely climb through that window; so I’m not going anywhere. Just let me look for the ring in peace. Your hovering around me like a mother hen is making me so nervous I can’t think straight.”
Leaning against the sink, he shook his head and chuckled, “I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but never a mother hen. As far as my thinking goes, it seems your mind works pretty well. In fact, it’s coming up with more crazy notions with each passing second.” He took a deep breath before adding, “I don’t like being played a fool, so either produce the ring or admit you don’t have it.”
Tiffany pushed her blonde hair away from her face and frowned. The jig was up; she couldn’t bluff anymore. It was time to cave and give out with some bad news. But that didn’t mean she had to tell the truth. There was still one way to keep the con going.
“Listen,” she paused, “what’s your name anyway? I mean we are sharing a bathroom, I think I should at least know your name.”
“McCoy,” he stoically replied.
“What’s your first name?” Tiffany demanded. “I hate calling folks by their last name.”
“That is my first name.”
“McCoy?” she laughed. “You’re the first real McCoy I’ve ever met.”
“That line’s hardly original.”
“Okay, McCoy,” Tiffany coyly replied, “let me level with you. The jade ring is not here.”
“Where is it?” he impatiently demanded as he waved his gun toward her face.
“Well,” she explained, her eyes following the moving barrel, “it’s Christmas, and things have not been going real well in my world.” She smiled nervously and then continued her story. “I have not been able to find a steady job, I needed to buy some presents for friends and family, and I have a really big family, fourteen brothers and sisters, so I pawned it last week.”
“So, there’s no ring?”
“Well,” Tiffany quickly explained, “not tonight. But we can take some of that money you’ve got in that attaché case and retrieve it tomorrow. I can buy it back for two hundred dollars.”
His smirk clearly proved he was not really buying her latest story. Keeping his gun pointed at her face, he pulled a dime from his pocket, tossed it in the air, caught it, and glanced at his palm. He continued the little exercise nine more times.
“The flip of a coin sometimes produces all the direction any of us need,” he explained. “You know, when I was in the Marines that’s how we decided who was going to volunteer for a dangerous mission.”
Her blue eyes followed his hand as he dropped the dime back into his pants pocket. What did this have to do with anything? After all, the only thing she’d volunteered for was to be a part of Lane’s plan. She silently laughed as she realized that decision had made her a sucker. Yep, going along with anything that flatfoot suggested was always a bad idea.
As Tiffany continued to rehash her stupidity by reliving a series of horrible experiences with Lane, the gunman raised his eyebrows and noted, “You don’t get it, do you?”
Forgetting about the cop and dates that went bad, the reporter shook her head and admitted, “I’m not following what a dime has to do with this.”
“Heads, you’re lying,” he explained, “tails, you’re not.”
“What did the dime tell you?”
“Doesn’t matter what the dime said,” McCoy calmly explained, “my gut tells me all I need to know.”
As she waited for him to explain, Tiffany studied the man who evidently held her life in his hands. His hair was dark, his eyes green, and his chin strong. Not only were his shoulders as wide as an axe handle, but his chest was broad and his waist thin. In a different time and place, she would have been attracted to the handsome stranger, but it was hard to warm up to man with a gun in his hand.
“What’s your name?” McCoy demanded, his question reminding her she really was in a tough spot that was getting tougher by the moment.
She licked her lips, searching for a suitable response that didn’t blow her cover while also trying to latch onto a name that seemed real. She almost opted to use Brenda Strong, but that sounded too much like a comic page heroine. The next handle she landed on, Madge Wooley, seemed too old. Janie was a nice name, but what last name worked well with it? She’d just about decided on McCall when McCoy waved his left hand and frowned.
“You’re not the blonde that was supposed to come to the house. By now that’s pretty obvious, so who are you and what happened to her? You might want to give out with the truth and not try to dream up another fairy tale. I outgrew those a long time ago.”
“I have to be the blonde,” she continued to build on her lie. “Otherwise, how would I have known when and where to meet you? I mean, that Lane person sold me out. You see, he assured me I was going to meet a rich guy who had a great job for me. You might have problems believing this, but I sing a bit. So, I naturally bought into what Lane was selling. After all, I told you I had to pawn the ring. I need the money.”
“Yeah,” he smiled, “I can imagine you onstage, after all, I’ve