"Shadow - 360215 - Back Pages - Grace Culver - Hit The Baby" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Roswell)

SUPPLIES-SUPPLEMENTARY STOREROOM.
"He was heading for that door!" the big detective bellowed. "You're right,
Redsie! Whoever dropped him-didn't want him to get there. It's locked. Where're
your keys, Eisman?"
Panting after him, the flabby mogul looked blank.
"Boyd-he had the caretaker's set. They-they wasn't found on him this morning,
though."
"No duplicates?"
Eisman's head shook.
"Too long it's been locked up. By to-morrow, maybe, I could get-"
"To-morrow's too late. If those keys were worth lifting, I want to see what's
inside that store room, right now!"
From a shoulder holster, the brawny ex-inspector drew a revolver that seemed
dwarfed in his big hand.
Tim stood back a pace from the storeroom door, leveled the gun and pressed
the trigger.
An explosion, just loud enough to attract every worker on. the big stage,
shivered the metal panel.
Noonan snatched for the doorknob, twisted it. As the door jerked forward,
halves of its shattered lock clattered to the cement floor.
"Now we'll get at whatever your zombie didn't want Boyd to find!"
They went over the threshold, Grace and Jerry at Big Tim's heels, with the
studio employees and their stuttering boss crowding behind. The redhead and her
seasoned chief caught at the same eloquent detail with the same soft breath.
"Footprints!"
The supply room was a windowless brick cell, illuminated from a glass
skylight and the open door. Rolls of insulated wire were stacked along its walls,
covered with the grime of long disuse. Nothing else, except two empty crates for
plugs, was visible. The dust lay thick over everything, including the floor-and it
was there that the footprints showed.
Two sets of recent male tracks, an average size shoe, were easily traceable.
One trail led from the door to an open, empty crate in the far right corner. The
other led back again to the door.
Jerry Riker grunted in disgust.
"Shucks! Boyd was in here once, after all. Took away some plugs. There
goes your theory, Redsie. It was cute while it lasted."
The redhead smiled thinly.
"It's still cute."
"But-"
"Mr. Eisman, it's true, isn't it, that every technician who works on a sound set
in movie-making wears rubber soles to kill any noise the sound tracks aren't
supposed to record?"
Moe Eisman blinked.
"Sure! You bet! Nothing but rubber."
Grace met Jerry's puzzled glance. "Leather soles with hard heels made those
marks, Bright Eyes. Which means that it wasn't Boyd but our murdering voodoo
zombie pal who used those missing keys to get in here, and then-"
Faint but sharp, a distant sound cut across her excited explanation. There was
a quality of stark horror in it that jerked every one of the scant dozen in the group
erect.