"Shadow - 350601 - Back Pages - Grace Culver - Kitchen Trap" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Roswell)

now? How much time had she left?
The lock, as with most cheaply constructed kitchen closets, was not a difficult
one. Almost at once, she felt it turn beneath the probing tip of the gadget in her
hand. As it gave, she pressed silently forward.
The panel slid away from her, swinging out into the lighted kitchen. And in
the sudden glare, just turning from her stove, the black-haired woman was
twisting toward her.
Grace sprang.
A startled snarl, born on the other woman's lips, was choked abruptly as she
dived toward a glittering butcher's knife which, lay on the work table opposite her
stove.
Rosie and the girl from Noonan's reached the table in the same split-second.
The cook's muscular fingers, groping wildly, clamped onto the handle of the
murderous knife. Grace, swinging around the end of the table, had caught up a
flour-dusted rolling pin.
The knife, sweeping upward, glittered savagely in the naked light. Down it
started. Down--as the rolling pin, backed by all the muscle of a wiry young arm,
crashed ruthlessly across Rosie's livid face.
Blood spurted in a horrible stream from the woman's mangled mouth.
Screaming, she flung herself forward. The knife twisted from her hand as Grace
struck again.
The second blow, catching its victim square alongside the skull, thudded
heavily. The cook's big body tottered, lurched backward toward the stove,
collapsed.
As it struck the floor, Grace was upon it. Panting, she caught the limp arms in
her hands and began to pull. Rosie was no lightweight. But the nerveless
poundage of her inert carcass slid gradually over the shining linoleum.
Inch by inch, foot by foot, the redhead dragged her. Around the corner of the
work table and back to the open door of the closet. Into the closet.
She stepped out again quickly, slamming the door behind her. In the pot on
the stove, cold potatoes were being reheated. Mashed potatoes for "the two guys
with hayseed all over 'em," were doubtless heated even more than suited the local
taste in Kokomo. If they ate mashed potatoes in Kokomo.
The girl from Noonan's yanked down a ladle from the open utensil rack above
the stove, and went to work. Out of the pot she fished the double order, and into
waiting saucers. Steam still rose from the smooth potatoes.
Hurriedly, she unclasped the bar-pin from her breast and inserted it in a
mound of mashed potatoes. But Grace's heart was tingling with triumph.
A step sounded suddenly on the far side of the doors beneath the clock.
Catching up the saucers the girl detective swung around the corner of the
work table. In three swift steps she reached the service counter which separated
the kitchen from the pantry beyond.
Quickly setting down the saucers, she shoved them away from her across the
counter. The doors opened. Grace ducked.
Her crouched body trembling as it pressed against the counter and beneath the
protecting overlap of the service shelf, she listened to Rocky's steps come toward
her across the pantry.
"Hey, Rosie, them hicks said to be sure--"
The voice broke abruptly on a startled grunt. Then Rocky stuttered out, "I'll
be--"