Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [197]
She flung down the paper and called Annie. “They say somebody killed Harry,” she blurted. “Oh, Annie, who could it be?”
“Any one of a hundred people, I should think,” Annie replied briskly. “I felt like it myself more than once. I guess he just pushed somebody too far and that was it. And I can’t say I blame them.”
Despite herself Francie laughed. “Did I ever tell you you were good for me?” she asked. “You always manage to put things in perspective.”
Annie said, “Thanks for yesterday, Francie. I feel much happier knowing where Josh is, and about his last days. I’ve got a lot to thank the Mandarin for too.”
Francie smiled. “I hear the doorbell. I hope it’s not the reporters again. I’d better go.”
She sipped her coffee, listening as Ah Fong padded across the hall to answer the door. She heard a man’s voice and Ah Fong padded back again. “Miss Francie,” he gasped, his voice shaking, “it’s the police. Three of them, Miss Francie. They say they must see you. Right away, they said—”
“Very well,” she replied, puzzled, “show them into my sitting room.” She supposed they must want to ask questions about Harry since she was his only living relative, and she tidied her hair in the mirror and walked across the hall.
The three men turned to look at her, one uniformed police officer and two in plainclothes. They introduced themselves as Detective Inspector Walter Sinclair, Detective Sergeant Charlie Mulloy, and Officer Stieglitz of the San Francisco Police Department.
She asked them to be seated and the two detectives complied, but the police officer stood by the door and she looked at him surprised. She took a seat opposite the burly plainclothes detectives and asked, “I assume this is about my brother, Harry? How can I help you, gentlemen?”
Inspector Sinclair took a little notebook from his pocket. “Is it true, ma’am, that you are Miss Francesca Harrison? And that you are the sister of the deceased, Harmon Lloyd Harrison, Jr., commonly known as Harry Harrison?”
“Of course it’s true,” she replied, surprised. “You already know that.”
“Just a formality, miss,” Detective Mulloy said quickly.
“Miss Harrison, how would you describe relations between you and your brother?”
Francie glanced scornfully at him. “I hated my brother, everyone knows that. And he hated me. It’s been well-documented in every newspaper in the county.”
“It has been said,” the inspector said, looking her straight in the eye, “that you blamed Mr. Harrison for the death of your son, Oliver, in the Lai Tsin warehouse fire some years ago.”
“My opinions and my private life are my own,” she retorted angrily. “And now would you mind telling me exactly why you are here?”
He cleared his throat, glancing down at his notes again and then back at her. “We have witnesses to the fact that you were heard to say you wanted to kill Harry Harrison for what he had done to your son.”
She looked at his beefy red face and his narrow blue eyes and suddenly realized what he was getting at. “You can’t seriously be suggesting that I had anything to do with my brother’s death,” she exclaimed.
The inspector cleared his throat again, glancing at Detective Mulloy. “Would you mind, ma’am, telling us where you were between the hours of eight and nine on Wednesday night?”
Francie stared at him. They were asking for her alibi, just the way they did in gangster movies, and on Wednesday night she had been with Buck Wingate in Annie’s penthouse and she could never tell them that. But if she told them she was home alone, here in her own house, they would suspect her of Harry’s murder.
She thought quickly and said, “I—I was at Aysgarth’s Arms. I spent the evening with my friend, Annie Aysgarth.”
The two detectives exchanged significant glances and Mulloy said, “I already checked the staff on duty that