Death by the Riverside by J. M. Redmann; Jean M. Redmann

face.”
    There was the sickening, wet wheezing sound of air and blood mixing. Turner was gasping through his broken jaw. Barbara turned her face from the scene; she looked very pale and frail. I put my arms around her and held her. She started to gag. The air in the room seemed to change, the smell of a dying man overcoming the wet, dirty odor of decay.
    Milo motioned to the driver, who led Barbara away from me and out to the yard. I heard her vomit outside.
    “Make sure she’s finished before you let her in the car,” Milo instructed. “Cleaning bills ain’t cheap these days.”
    “It won’t take long,” I said. “She hasn’t had anything to eat since lunch yesterday.”
    “Now, Miss Private Eye Knight, who do you work for?” Milo asked.
    “It’s an hour drive to New Orleans. Surely you don’t expect me to tell you anything before then,” I replied.
    Milo repeated my answer into the phone.
    “Let me work her over for the next hour. I might knock it down to forty-five minutes,” he told his boss.
    “I made a deal,” I said, loud enough for the unseen caller to hear. “In an hour, I’ll talk.”
    Milo was listening again. He mumbled a few sputtered explanations. Evidently Mr. Big found some fault in his handling of the situation. Milo finally said, “Okay, I’ll be there. And don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.” He turned off the phone. “Take her downstairs and tie her up.” He added, “I’ll be back,” to me.
    Goon boy led me back to my favorite rat-infested basement and tied me to the stake, then I heard the slamming of the doors and the room was dark again. A car drove away in the distance.
    But goon boy was not the expert in marlinespikemanship that Turner was. By maneuvering my arms up the column a bit I was able to bring my hands closer together and get some slack in the rope. It took me some time and a bloody wrist, but I managed to work myself free.
    By groping in the dark, I found my purse and the small pocket flashlight that I always carry. Let there be light. The next thing I pulled out was my gun. Then I started looking around the basement.
    It was basically a hole in the ground in which junk had been deposited. There was a pile of boxes covered by dust and spiderwebs stacked against one wall. Against another wall was an assortment of furniture that made the stuff upstairs look like the finest D.H.Holmes had to offer. I was afraid that any second now my flashlight beam would discover the shackles used on slaves. I didn’t like the idea of tortured ghosts in here with me. But only a blackened brick wall appeared in my light.
    The basement was odd shaped. The wall on the other side of the door went back at a ninety-degree angle into another section of the basement, like a square added to the rectangle.
    I explored back in that direction, hoping that that wasn’t where the killer rats were hiding. More junk and broken furniture appeared in my circle of light. There was a large pile of lumber and some old broken doors in what I guessed to be an outside corner. Something scurried away from my light. Probably just a little mouse, I told myself. Dark, dank basements always make sounds seem much louder than they really are.
    Just to prove to myself that I wasn’t scared of any field mouse, I decided to look behind the doors. I lost my footing for a moment stepping over the lumber in my work pumps. That didn’t do much for my rating on the Butch-o-Meter. I pulled the last door away from the wall, first shining my light on the floor, just in case any cute, little, adorable rodent should be in the vicinity. A number of insects, but nothing mammalian. As I looked up, my flashlight illuminated something very interesting. Two rusty hinges attached to a metal door, maybe two feet by three. It was a very dusty black, evidently a coal chute. And it looked wide enough for me to fit in. Eureka! I remembered seeing a pile of old clothes somewhere. If I was going to be climbing up coal chutes, it