K is for KISS OF
DEATH
“You sure you got
your facts straight?” Peabody asked. “I mean, how could one woman kill twelve
men in seven years and not see the inside of a slammer?” He shook his head
dumbfounded. “It just doesn’t reckon. I mean, she’d be a regular Bluebe—say,
what would you even call her?”
“I’d call her
deranged and dangerous,” Detective Smothers cut in. She was becoming irritated
with the newspaperman’s insipid blathering. “And don’t go thinking because she
isn’t some mug with a face like Boris Karloff with a dirty picture tattooed on
his arm, that she can’t be the killer, neither.”
She’d followed the
leads, and they all led to the same cul-de-sac: Marjorie Fritzell. One-time
nurse, one-time burlesque dancer, twelve-time killer. All wealthy men; tough
guys, too. All of them oblivious to the fact that a member of the so-called
fairer sex might be the death of them. It was laughably ironic, she mused. Here
she was–a dame private eye in a business that she was repeatedly told,
oh-so-condescendingly, was a man’s business. You needed strength, you needed
speed, you needed a five o’clock shadow and a baggy trench coat. You had to be
ready to rumble and make good with the tough talk, and of course a woman who
stood five-five on her tippy-toes couldn’t ever hoe a proverbial row in that
field. She’d heard it all a million times. Not always in words, but the smug
smirks on the faces of the cops and perps and clients she dealt with, when they
realized that who they were dealing with was a P.I., and a she at that. And
here she was hunting down a black widow that had been able to rack up kills,
had been allowed to succeed in continuing her craft, because she wasn’t a man.
Because the very same reasons she couldn’t be a detective according to the
world of men, were the reasons Marjorie Fritzell, the dazzling blonde socialite
with a tabloid figure and a face for magazines, couldn’t be a serial killer.
“I’ve done my
legwork, Peabody. You don’t like my conclusions, get out of my office and let
me do my job. There’s a new ice cream parlor opening up on Division. It’s late
in the day, but if you hurry you might be able to get a scoop.”
Peabody sneered at
the joke, grabbed his hat and pad and headed towards the door. “If you’re so
sure this Fritzell gal is responsible for all of this, why ain’t the police on
her like white on rice?”
“I’m sure some of
them would like to be. Truth is she’s a looker. And she’s got a pocketbook of
aliases and phony papers about as thick as a phone book. She’s been good at
covering her tracks: changing her hairstyle, laying low, moving around a lot.
But that amount of moving leaves dirt on your shoes, and at least one or two
footprints lying around somewhere to have traced back to you. I followed her
trail from California to New York, to Arizona, to Minnesota and now Wisconsin.
Sometimes I could confirm it with pictures in the local papers—engagement
announcements, etcetera. Someone with money and brass gets a girl like Marj,
he’s going to flash her around like winning lottery ticket. Other times, in the
smaller towns, places where she skipped when someone got too close to pinning
her for who she really was, I had to flash a photo, but the identification was
always dead certain.
“So whattaya figure?
Is this new dope she’s with, that banker who was in the paper you asked for, is
he going to be unlucky thirteen?”
“I don’t know,”
Peabody said. “But I have to believe it. I’m sure she’s waiting for old
moneybags somewhere right now, watching for his car out the window and applying
some poisoned lipstick or something.”
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