“Forget it?”
“Sure. It was my flashlight all right. But either it was stolen from my locker, or I had left it around and somebody picked it up. The FBI men quizzed me about it, but I proved that I couldn’t have been anywhere near the airfield that night. I room with a fellow by the name of Pete Saunders. He works in the terminal checkroom. Well, that particular night, Thursday, I met Pete after work and we ate supper at Cicco’s Italian restaurant down by the docks. Then we went to a movie and got home a little after twelve. I told all this to the FBI man, and Pete told him too.”
“What I was thinking about,” Vicki said, “was the job offer that man made you in here the same afternoon—the man who promised you a hundred dollars to do a job for him and offered to give you twenty-five of it in advance.”
Joey’s eyes widened.
“How—how in the world did you know about that, Miss Vicki? I haven’t mentioned it to a soul. Not even Pete.”
“It just so happened, Joey, that I was sitting in the next booth—this very one we’re in now—and I couldn’t help overhearing.”
All Joey could say was an astonished: “Gee!”
“Have you seen him again? Mr. Duke? Wasn’t that his name?”
Joey finally found his voice. “Gosh, no! I figured he was nutty or something. Offering me all that money out of a clear sky. I wouldn’t have touched it for anything. It sounded either crazy or crooked, and I didn’t want any part of it.”
Vicki breathed a deep sigh of genuine relief. She’d been pretty sure that Joey wouldn’t get himself mixed up in something wrong.