Day One
July 21, 1952
Monday Morning
The dead woman in the red dress was someone named Charley-Anna Blackridge. The phone book had her listed at 1331 Clayton in near-east Denver. Wilde headed over in the MG, parked two blocks away and doubled back on foot, intending to break in and find out who was in her life before the night in question. The house was a small brick bungalow with no driveway or garage, jammed in the middle of an endless sea of the same. Wilde knocked on the front door to be sure no one was home before heading around back.
Something happened he didn’t expect.
The door opened.
A woman in her early twenties appeared. The knock had woken her up. Her hair was tossed. Sleep was thick in her eyes. She wore a pink T-shirt that covered her ass but not by much.
“Sorry to wake you,” Wilde said.
She studied him.
“Are you a cop?”
“No, a P.I.”
“Are you here about Charley-Anna?”
He was.
“Come on in but don’t expect much,” she said. “I don’t know anything. You got a cigarette?”
He did.
He did indeed.
The woman turned out to be 22-year-old Alley Bender, the dead woman’s roommate who was, in fact, wearing something under the T, namely white panties that flashed with regularity. She reminded Wilde a little of Night Neveraux, his high school squeeze.
“We were out dancing Friday night at a couple of clubs,” she said. “The last one we were at was a place called the El Ray Club. I met a guy a little after midnight and we ended up leaving. Charley-Anna had her eye on a guy and said she was going to stick around. That was the last I saw of her.”
“Who was the guy?”
“That I left with?”
“No, the one Charley-Anna had her eye on.”
The woman shrugged.
“I didn’t know him,” she said.
“Did she point him out?”
“Yeah but he wasn’t anyone I knew.”
“Describe him.”
Her eyes faded to the distance then back.
“He reminded me of Robert Mitchum. He had that same dimple in the chin and those same bedroom eyes.”
“Robert Mitchum, huh?”
Right.
Robert Mitchum.
“He was nice looking,” she said. “Too nice looking. He had more than his fair share of women gawking at him. There was no danger he was going to end up going home alone, that’s for sure.”
“Did he talk to Charley-Anna?”
She shrugged.
“Not while I was there,” she said. “What happened after I left, I don’t know. Do you want to hear something strange?”
Yes.
He did.
“When they found her she was wearing a short red dress,” she said. “That’s not what she had on that night though. She was wearing a black dress, a longer one with a slit up the side.”
“Well that’s interesting.”
“Isn’t it?”
She brightened.
“Actually, I think I have a picture of her wearing the dress she had on that night. Do you want me to see if I can find it?”
“That would be great.”
She drained the last of the coffee and stood up.
“I like your eyes,” she said. “I’ve always been a sucker for green eyes.”
Wilde watched the woman with a half-eye as she dug through a metal cookie tin jammed with photos. Her knees were slightly open and her panties peeked out.
It wasn’t an accident.
She knew exactly what she was doing.
Wilde pictured the two of them in bed.
The picture didn’t last long though. It got squeezed out by Secret St. Rain.