Dead on the Level by Helen Nielsen Page A

sort of way. Her eyes seemed larger with tears in them, and she looked very small and very frightened.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve been nearly frantic all day. I guess I just didn’t stop to consider what you must have been thinking. If you’ll only listen—”
    Casey listened, but not just then. For the next few minutes he was too busy scooping Phyllis Brunner up from where she’d collapsed on the floor.
    “She fainted,” Casey was saying. “She just stood there talking to me and fainted. She’s awfully cold and wet.”
    “I can see that,” Maggie announced tersely. “Stop acting like a helpless male and go away somewhere while I get her out of these wet clothes. Go make some coffee—if you know how.”
    Casey retreated to the kitchen and began to make a lot of noise with a coffeepot and a can. Seeing a girl cry was bad enough; seeing her collapse was worse. Nobody had ever been more welcome any place than Maggie had been when she burst into the studio with an amazed expression and a pair of hands that hadn’t turned to thumbs. At first she had glared at him accusingly, as if he’d knocked the girl down—or something worse—but that wasn’t what made Casey’s hands shake so as he measured out the coffee. What was behind that would take a lot of analyzing, and he was working on it when Maggie called him back from the kitchen.
    “She’s alive,” Maggie said, “and talking.”
    “Casey—”
    That was the first he realized that Phyllis knew his name. She must know a lot of other things about him that he couldn’t remember having told, but they weren’t important now. He walked over to the couch where she sat adorned in an army blanket, and not much else, and sat down.
    “All right,” he said. “I’m listening.”
    “It wasn’t the way you said.”
    “How was it?”
    “It was—terrible!” She pulled the blanket higher about her shoulders, but it was more than the atmosphere that had set her trembling. “It was late when we reached my father’s apartment,” she went on. “I don’t know just how late, eleven or so. You were awfully drunk, but I managed to get you out of the car and up to the apartment—there’s an automatic elevator. I saw the light in Dad’s study and decided to take you in to meet him.”
    “That’s a new angle,” Casey said. “Your father must have been broad-minded.”
    Phyllis didn’t seem to hear him. Her face was very intense.
    “We were clear into the room before I saw what had happened. I couldn’t cry out or even move for a minute, but you stumbled over the poker on the floor and picked it up. That’s how you got the blood on your coat.”
    “Picked it up!” Casey repeated. “That really makes things fine! Now I’ve got my fingerprints all over that poker.”
    “I guess so. I never thought to wipe it off.”
    He glanced toward Maggie.
How do you know when she’s lying
, his eyes were asking.
How do you know what to believe?
But Maggie, if she had an opinion, was keeping it to herself.
    “When I finally realized what had happened,” Phyllis continued, “I got scared. The building was terribly quiet and then I heard the elevator coming back up again. It didn’t stop at our floor, but the very sound of it was enough to make me want to run. Maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe I should have stayed and called the police, but I was panic-stricken. I was especially afraid for you, Casey. I didn’t want to get you in trouble.”
    “Now that’s what I call being thoughtful,” Maggie said.
    “I mean it!” Phyllis insisted. “It wasn’t easy, but I finally did get Casey downstairs and into my car. It had started to rain in the meantime, and I must have driven around in the rain for hours before I thought of taking him here. This was the only place I could think of.”
    “And then where did you go?” Maggie asked.
    “I started to go home—to Mother’s, but I couldn’t.”
    “And why not?”
    “I don’t know. I just