“Talk sense and I will. When?”
She edged back on the chair an inch. “You don’t know my husband. He was jealous about me even before we married, and then he was worse. It got so bad I couldn’t stand it, and that was why I left him. I knew if I stayed in Pittsburgh he would find me and kill me, so I came to New York. A friend of mine had come here — I mean, just a friend. I got a job at a modeling agency and made enough to live on, and I met a lot of people. Ross Chaffee was one of them, and he wanted to use me in a picture, and I let him. Of course he paid me, but that wasn’t so important, because soon after that I met Phil Kampf, and he got me a tryout at a night club, and I made it. About then I had a scare, though. A man from Pittsburgh saw me at a theater and came and spoke to me, but I told him he was wrong, that I had never been in Pittsburgh.”
“That was a year ago,” Wolfe muttered.
“Yes. I was a little leery about the night club, in public like that, but months went by and nothing happened, and then all of a sudden this happened. Ross Chaffee phoned me that my husband had come and asked about the picture, and I asked him for God’s sake not to tell him who it was, and he promised he wouldn’t. You see, you don’t know my husband. I knew he was trying to find me so he could kill me.”
“You’ve said that twice. Has he ever killed anybody?”
“I didn’t say anybody; I said me. I seem to have an effect on men.” She gestured for understanding. “They just go for me. And Dick— Well, I know him, that’s all. I left him a year and a half ago, and he’s still looking for me, and that’s what he’s like. When Ross told me he was here I was scared stiff. I quit working at the club because he might happen to go there and see me, and I didn’t hardly leave my apartment until last night.”
Wolfe nodded. “To meet Mr. Talento. What for?”
“I told you.”
“Yes, but then you were merely Miss Jones. Now you are also Mrs. Meegan. What for?”
“That doesn’t change it any. I had heard on the radio about Phil being killed, and I wanted to know about it. I rang Ross Chaffee and I rang Jerry Aland, but neither of them answered, so I rang Vic Talento. He wouldn’t tell me anything on the phone, but he said he would meet me.”