Murder at the FBI by Margaret Truman

forward, dragging Stein along with it. They followed him until he came to rest against the paper target Harrison would use for the first firing range demonstration that morning.
    Harrison helped Stein down and handed him his suit jacket.
    “Maybe,” Stein said, “but so what?”
    “Thanks, Paul,” Saksis said. “Really appreciate it.”
    When they were back in Ranger, Stein again asked her what point she’d made.
    “It makes it less bizarre and crazy,” she said, “for someone to go to the trouble of hanging him up there. It wasn’t any trouble.”
    “True.”
    “And, it means we don’t rule out a woman.”
    “I didn’t know we had.”
    “Not literally, but there’s always been that question in my mind whether a woman was capable of hoisting him up onto that hook. Now we know there’s no hoisting involved. I did it. Any woman could.”
    Stein smiled and put his feet up on the desk again. “Got one in mind?” he asked.
    “No, but it’s nice to know there won’t be any discrimination based upon sex in this case. Thanks, Jake. You’re a trouper.”
    ***
    Ross Lizenby arrived an hour later. Saksis asked if she could see him. “In a half hour,” he said brusquely.
    Thirty minutes later she sat in his office and filled him in on what she and Jake Stein had done that morning on the firing range. He looked at her blankly.
    “It resolves the question of whether it had to be a man to hook Pritchard up to the trolley,” she said. “And, it explains why anyone, man
or
woman, would have bothered. It wasn’t difficult.”
    “Yeah, okay. What else have you got?”
    She debated telling him about her dinner with Joe Carter and decided to. “Sounds like a waste of time,” Lizenby said.
    “I don’t think it was. I learned a little about George Pritchard, what made him tick.”
    “I knew what made him tick. I worked with him.”
    “I know that but—”
    “Why didn’t you ask me about him instead of Joe Carter? We’re supposed to keep this inside Ranger.”
    “Ross, I was told to follow whatever leads I felt might be fruitful.”
    “Fine, fine. What else?”
    “Pritchard’s .22. Where is it?”
    “I don’t know. It wasn’t in any of his effects.”
    “Why?”
    “How the hell do I know? Check it out.”
    “I will. I also wonder where that elaborate disguise and makeup kit Barry Croft mentioned ended up.”
    Lizenby shrugged.
    Joe Perone knocked. “I talked to Hans Loeffler again,” he said. “He admits he disappeared for an hour that night, claims he found an empty office with a couch and took a nap because he wasn’t feeling well.”
    “Do you buy it?” Lizenby asked.
    “Sounds reasonable enough,” replied Perone. “I just wish he’d told me up front.”
    Perone left and Saksis was about to follow.
    “Dinner?” Lizenby asked.
    Just as though nothing had happened between them.
    “I don’t think so,” she said.
    “Why? Is your friend in town?”
    “No.”
    “Then let’s have dinner. I’m sorry if I’ve been testy this morning. There’s a lot on my mind.”
    “I can understand that.” She paused. “Okay.”
    “Let’s make it late, around eight. I don’t see getting out of here before then.”
    “That’s fine with me.”
    “Want to stay at my place, or yours?”
    “Ross, I—let’s just plan on dinner.”
    “Oh, come on, Chris, get rid of the pout. It’s not becoming.”
    “I’m not—dinner at eight. I’ll talk to you later.”
    ***
    Saksis kept calling Helen Pritchard all afternoon but didn’t get an answer until seven that evening.
    “Mrs. Pritchard, this is Christine Saksis from the bureau.”
    “Yes?”
    “Your husband had a .22 caliber revolver registered to him.”
    “He did?”
    “You didn’t know that?”
    Helen Pritchard laughed. “Oh, sure, I forgot. George bought it for me because I was alone so much.”
    “You had it at home?”
    “That’s right. But it disappeared.”
    “Disappeared?”
    “Yup. One day it was gone.”
    “How long