Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 116, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 709 & 710, September/October 2000

They worked the deep background checks first, Nash doing Cliff Logan and Golden taking Ruth Tenney. Through accessing of public records, beginning with voter registrations and driver’s licenses, they developed past addresses, which they sent out for subsequent neighborhood canvasses by out-of-town agencies. Soon they learned that Cliff Logan had lived in Las Vegas, Oklahoma City, and Honolulu. Ruth Tenney had resided in Dayton, Hollywood, and Reno.

“No residential matches,” said Golden.

Logan’s pilot’s license showed that he had learned to fly in the Marine Corps, and after discharge had logged flying hours as a crop duster in Oklahoma, piloting inter-island commuter flights in Hawaii, and later flying between Las Vegas and Reno for a small, regional airline called Las Reno Air.

Ruth Tenney, maiden name Ruth Slott, had left Ohio to try acting school in Hollywood, done some modeling, and finally been a pole dancer for a while before giving up on California and moving to Reno, where she took dancing lessons and ultimately landed a job in the revue line at the Miramar Hotel’s showroom.

“Reno might be a match,” said Nash. “Ruth lived there, Logan flew in and out.”

Golden nodded. “I’ll check with Las Reno Air.” After he had done it, he said, “Bingo. When Las Reno flight crews overnighted up north, they stayed at the Miramar.”

Sam Spear was almost maniacally gleeful when Nash reported that news to him. “I knew it! They’re a couple of losers: a hoochy-cooch dancer and a hobo pilot.”

“Doesn’t make them murderers,” Nash demurred.

“It will, it will! Keep digging. Find out how a tramp like her hooked a geologist for a husband.”

The marriage license showed that Ruth Marie Slott had married Richard Alan Tenney in front of a Justice of the Peace in Reno thirteen months earlier. A check with coworkers who remembered her from the Miramar revue said that she had met Dick Tenney when a petroleum association had booked the entire showroom during a convention and the dancers were paid extra to circulate among the mostly male guests after the show. Tenney had invited Ruth to dinner, she had accepted, and a month later they were married.

“What a schmuck this Tenney must have been,” Golden groaned. “He should have found himself a nice schoolteacher or librarian.”

But Sam Spear was delighted. “Nice guy falls for tramp, just like I figured,” he boasted. “Now,” he licked his lips in anticipation, “find me out these two answers: One, how long after the marriage was it before Cliff Logan was hired as Eureka Petroleum’s company pilot; and two, what did other people think of the Tenney marriage?”

The first part was easy. Cliff Logan had been hired by Eureka eight months earlier, which was five months after the Tenneys married. The previous pilot had been fired after the wife of a Eureka executive reported that he had fondled her in the company parking lot when she came to pick up her husband after work. The executive’s wife was Ruth Tenney.

As for the state of the Tenney marriage, Nash checked that one out himself. He flew to Reno, drove to Fallon, Nevada, where the company had its headquarters, and made some discreet inquiries of the Tenneys’ neighbors. What he learned, by this time, did not surprise him. Richard Tenney was a navy veteran who had gone to college on the G. I. Bill. He was described as a very low-key, introspective, scholarly type, with thinning light-brown hair. He wore wire-rim eyeglasses, was soft-spoken, thoughtful, even a little shy. Neighbors and coworkers at Eureka Petroleum had unanimously been surprised when he married a vivacious, showy, obviously self-indulgent woman like Ruth Slott. Most acquaintances had predicted that the union would not last six months. Ruth was thought to be far “too much woman” for her somewhat timid husband. A number of wives were known to have begun keeping a close watch on their own husbands in the expectation that it would not be long before Ruth Tenney decided to start “playing around.” There had been a collective sigh of relief when the handsome, dark-haired, virile, and single

Cliff Logan came on board as the new Eureka company pilot. It wasn’t long before Ruth began to be seen with him, innocently enough at first, dancing at the company club, on the Eureka bowling team, taking flying lessons in Cliff’s spare time. Richard didn’t seem to mind; he was convinced they were just friends, and he trusted Ruth. Anyway, as a geologist, rocks were his life, not people.

“Are you convinced now?” Spear asked Nash, after reading this latest report.

“I’ve always been convinced there was something improper regarding the claim,” Nash defended himself. “I just couldn’t buy your murder theory. I’ve talked to both of them, Sam, face-to-face. I’m sorry, they just don’t seem like murderers.”