and I were talking at dinner last night and he mentioned you were here investigating poor Munroe’s death for the insurance company, talking to people who knew him, that sort of thing, and that we should all cooperate in any way we can in order to get the matter settled as quickly as possible.”
Some sentence. Some Mrs. O’Daniel, too. She had a better reason than that for wanting to see me; and I had a pretty fair idea what it might be. She hadn’t had dinner with her husband last night, either, or found out about me that way. He’d reminded her on the phone yesterday that he was leaving from the office for some lake in the area, to spend the weekend on a houseboat.
But I said, “You knew Mr. Randall pretty well, did you?”
“Oh yes. I met him when Frank and I were married several years ago. His death was a terrible shock.”
“I’m sure it was.”
“Such a tragic accident,” she said. She had lowered her voice a couple of octaves and given it a sepulchral tremor; it sounded only about half sincere, like an undertaker sympathizing with somebody else’s loss. “That garage of his… well, it was an awful firetrap. I don’t know how many times Frank and I warned him to clean it up.”
I said something noncommittal.
“The police said that’s where the fire started-in the garage. Spontaneous combustion. I suppose your findings concur with that?”
“So far they do, yes.”
“So far? You mean you think the fire might have started somewhere in the house?”
“I mean it’s possible the cause wasn’t spontaneous combustion.”
She took a large bite out of her gin and tonic; she looked vaguely uneasy now. “I can’t imagine what could have caused it then,” she said.
“A match, maybe.”
“Match? You don’t mean arson?”
“It’s possible. I haven’t ruled it out yet.”
“But that’s absurd!”
“Your husband doesn’t think so. Neither does Martin Treacle.”
“They don’t believe the fire was deliberately set.”
“They admitted the possibility.”
“I don’t believe it either. It was an accident.”
I waited, not saying anything.
Pretty soon she said, “Those people in Musket Creek… are they the ones you suspect?”
“I don’t suspect anyone, Mrs. O’Daniel. Not yet anyhow.” I paused. “But it could be one of them; they all seem to have had good reason to hate Randall.”
“I suppose so. I know very little about their problems with Northern Development; I’m not a woman who takes an active interest in her husband’s business activities.”
I felt like grinning at her: she just wasn’t a very good liar. “You don’t know any of the Musket Creek residents personally, then?”
“Of course not.” She said it too quickly, seemed to realize that, tried to cover herself by saying something else, and botched that too: “Why would I have anything to do with anyone who lives in the backwoods?”
“Lots of people live in the backwoods,” I said. “Writers, gold hunters, homesteaders. Artists.”
She made the rest of her drink disappear. She didn’t look at me while she did it.
Time to back off on that angle, I thought. I asked her, taking a new tack, “Did your husband tell you about the threatening note he received?”
“Yes, he told me.”
“You don’t sound very concerned about it.”
“Why should I be? It was nothing but a crank note, like those telephone calls we kept getting last year. I’m sure Frank mentioned those?”
I nodded. “And did he also tell you that Jack Coleclaw attacked him in his office yesterday?”
“Well, he said there’d been a minor altercation. But he didn’t elaborate.”
“It wasn’t so minor. If I hadn’t been there, your husband might have been badly hurt.”
She looked at her empty glass, seemed to want to get up and refill it, then just sat there with it in her hand. Her face revealed nothing. Maybe she had a hard shell that was full of feeling on the inside, like a piece of rock candy with a liquid center. Or maybe she just didn’t give a damn about her husband’s welfare. I thought it was probably the latter; the way it looked to me, the only person Helen O‘Daniel cared about was Helen O’Daniel.
I said, “Let’s get back to Munroe Randall. I understand he was quite a ladies’ man.”
She stiffened a little. “What do you mean by that?”
“I was told he had relationships with a lot of different women. Intimate relationships. That’s true, isn’t it?”
“I… yes, I suppose it is.”
“Do you know any of his women friends?”
“Not really. I may have met one or two, but…”
“How about Penny Belson?”
“That bitch. Munroe should have known better.”
“You know Miss Belson, then.”
“Yes, I know her. Why? Have you been talking to her?”
“Yesterday at her salon.”
“What did she tell you?”
“About what?”
Pause. “She’s a liar, you know. And a tramp.”
Pot calling the kettle black, I thought.
“What did she say about me?” Mrs. O’Daniel asked.
“Nothing specific. I understand you used to be one of her customers. What happened?”
“I decided to go to another salon, that’s all.”
“Why? Did you have some sort of trouble with Miss Belson?”
“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
Time to back off again. “Who else did Randall date regularly?” I asked.
“I told you, I don’t really know.”
“But you were a friend of his-”
“I didn’t pry into his personal life.”
“You saw him socially, though, didn’t you? Often?”
“Not very often, no.”
“Did you see him on the day he died?”
“Of course not.” But again she said it too quickly. “I don’t see the point of all these questions. Just what are you leading up to?”
“I’m not leading up to anything. I’m only doing my job-asking questions, looking for answers. Trying to find out if anybody has anything to hide.”
“Are you insinuating I have something to hide?”
“Do you, Mrs. O’Daniel?”
She looked a little pale now under her buttery tan. “No,” she said, “I do not,” but the lie was there in her eyes, naked and bright. She got to her feet. “I think you’d better leave now,” she said coldly. “We have nothing more to say to each other.”
“Not for the time being, anyway.”
I stood up too, and she turned immediately and led me back through the house to the front entrance. She didn’t roll her hips this time; she walked in short, choppy steps with her back stiff and straight. When she got to the door she flung it open, stepped back, and looked at me with her eyes smoldering. Scene in an old-time melodrama, I thought. I half expected her to say something like, “Go, and never darken my door again.” But all she said was,
“Well?” when I didn’t walk out right away.
“Your husband told me he was going to spend the weekend on a houseboat,” I said. “I’d appreciate it if you’d
