Speak Easy, A Kate March Mystery

SPEAK EASY

SPEAK EASY

A KATE MARCH MYSTERY

by

LORI ADAMS

SPYHOP PUBLISHING

Copyright © 2020

ISBN13 978-1-7371312-1-2

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

"I am not at all the sort of
woman you and I took me for."

~Jane Welsh Carlyle (1801-1866)

CHAPTER ONE

77thStreet Precinct,

Interrogation Room,

Los Angeles Police Department,

California

February 1922

It was the blood. That's why I couldn't think clearly. It was in my eyes and in my mouth. I had been left no choice but to spit, twice, into the spittoon next to the table. Detective Bill Cahill, special investigator with the Flying Squad, lacked a single sign of empathy. Even though I was soaked to the skin from the raging storm outside, I hadn't been offered a towel to clean up. The blood, most of which was mine but not all, was running in rivulets bound for my ear—the idea of which I found absolutely revolting.

Detective Cahill slipped a ciggy from his worn case and tapped it on the back of his hand. He lit up and then pinched tobacco from the tip of his tongue, squinting as though deep in thought.

"Butt me?" I asked, offering two fingers for a ciggy. I was not accustomed to the habit but heard it calmed the nerves, which I had plenty of at the moment. Who knew, maybe a shared habit would bridge the tense gap between us?

"You want to start again?" he asked, ignoring my request and blowing a thin mean line of smoke past my cheek.

Had I known how difficult this was going to be I might have done things... no, it had to be this way. I had to explain myself. Defend myself. Before things got further out of hand. I scrambled for an idea and wondered what my hero, the intrepid journalist Nellie Bly, would do.

She would get control of her damned nerves, that's what she would do. Nellie Bly would be calm and confident and in charge of things by this time. If I didn't play things right... yes, that was it. I had to play this old stick in the mud, Cahill, before he locked me up and threw away the—

"Miss March!" Detective Cahill barked. I snapped out my musings and blinked back the self-pity brewing in my gut. I was tougher than this. Sure, things had gone sideways this evening. I mean, I was almost killed and I needed his help, but I wasn't ready to let Detective Cahill know it. Not just yet.

I took a deep breath, slouched like I hadn't a care in the world, and looked across the table. Poor Detective Cahill, he could get so furiously impatient. But who could blame him? I wasn't supposed to be this much trouble. I wasn't even supposed to be involved. He thought I was circling the fringes, begging scraps for a story and yet here I was smack dab in the middle of it.