'I'd like to,' I said.
She looked at me, waiting.
'I'd also like to give you something,' I said, and took out the five-hundred-dollar check Rutka had written as a retainer when he hired me to protect him.
'What's this?'
'I'm a private investigator and John had hired me as a security consultant. This was the retainer he paid me, but I quit after only a few hours. I thought you might want this back for whoever has to straighten out John's finances. Or should I be giving it to Eddie Sandifer?'
She put the pencil down but didn't move otherwise. 'No, I'll take it. I'm the executrix, it turns out. Can I ask why you only worked for John for a few hours?'
'Well, I think that has to be between him and me.'
'Don't bullshit me, please. I get enough of that. You couldn't put up with him, could you?'
I shrugged. 'No.'
'Sit down. Do you have a minute?' She motioned me to a tubular chair with a cracked seat.
'Sure.'
She flicked a Chesterfield out of a pack and lit it. 'What do you mean, he hired you as a security consultant? Do you mean bodyguard?'
'Something like that. He said he wanted protection.'
She looked at the date on the check. 'John hired you yesterday, and you quit yesterday, and somebody killed him last night. You really are up to your ass in this, aren't you-how do you say your name?'
'STRAY-chee, Don. As in Lytton.' Great-uncle Lyt.'
She shot smoke back over her shoulder to the air conditioner that rattled in the window frame. 'So what are you doing here? Are you feeling guilty? You could have mailed me the check.'
'I'm feeling partly responsible.'
'I'm not a priest and I can't tell you that you'll be forgiven, Don. But you said that you quit because you couldn't put up with my brother. I believe it. John drove people apeshit. Did he lie to you?'
'Yes, it's my belief that he did.'
'Oh, that's your belief, huh? Listen, nobody in Handbag ever believed a word John said. Nobody in Handbag who knew my brother ever trusted him any farther than they could toss him. You just happened to catch on fast. Good for you. Don't feel guilty.'
'I guess you and your brother weren't close.'
She snorted smoke and her breasts bobbed twice under the sump-pump T-shirt. 'We put up with each other. For Mom and Dad's sake. That's why I don't understand something. If John trusted you, maybe you know enough to clear something up for me. How well do you know Eddie?'
'Not well. I'm getting to know him.'
'They weren't breaking up, were they? My brother and Eddie?'
'That wasn't my impression. Why?'
She shook her mountains of curls. 'Eddie brought me a copy of John's will. Eddie just found it this morning. I checked with our lawyer, Dave Rizzuto, who was about to call me anyway, and he says it's a good will. It was written and filed last month, and John left almost everything to me. To me-the house and his half of the business. All Eddie got was the cash John had on hand and his dirty socks. That's weird.'
'Was Eddie upset?'
'I think he was. He seemed surprised, and I think hurt. There's three or four K in John's bank account Eddie will get, but it's the business that's worth real bucks, and of course the house. I'm glad to have it, I'll tell you. My divorce was final in June and I've got three kids who'll all be in college at the same time in a couple of years. But I can't figure out why me if they were still boyfriends. Eddie has been John's real family practically since he's been an adult. Eddie and the activists. So if John trusted you, maybe you know what's going on. John didn't trust too many people. Are you gay?'
'Yes, I am.'
'Are you out?'
'Sure.'
'Well, that would help. I don't think John trusted any straight people-'breeders,' he called us-and the people who really set him off were gay people who pretended they weren't.'
'I'm aware of that. As is much of the northeastern United States.'
'You might be surprised to know,' she said, 'that John's campaign to drag gay people out of the closet didn't bother me at all. I can't stand phonies either. We are what we are. Pete, my ex, wasn't too crazy about John going around yelling about queers-this and faggots-that. 'How can he use those words?' Pete'd say. 'If he caught me calling a queer a queer, he'd go apeshit.' Pete missed the point. Pete always missed the point. But John's carrying on was all right with me.
'One of the things I'm really sorry about was that we were never close enough for me to tell him how proud I was of the way he went off to nursing school and pulled his shit together. You'd never believe what a fuckup John was as a teenager. I'm six years older and I was away at school and missed the worst of it, but I heard the stories. And then he went ahead and turned out okay for John. I sure wish I had the chance to tell my dickhead little brother how I felt about him.'
'Maybe he knew,' I said. 'And he was telling you he knew by leaving you the family house and his half of the business, and he was telling you that he was still part of the Rutka family.'
She jabbed out her Chesterfield in a filthy dish full of butts and gave me a look. 'You must watch too much television, Donald, and you've gone a little soft in the head. The Rutka family hasn't been a family for a long, long time. I don't even know why John stayed on after Mom and Dad died. There was nothing for him in Handbag. He and I hardly even spoke to each other. I'd tell him changes I was making in the business, but he wasn't really interested. He just wanted his share of the profits. He never said boo to my kids and not much more to me. No, it wasn't family that kept John in Handbag. I don't know why he stayed. It's a total mystery to me.'
She fired up another Chesterfield and saw me watching her take a deep drag. 'I know,' she said, 'I know. Soon.'
I drove over to the Rutka house and found Eddie Sandifer out back prying up charred boards from the back porch.
'I talked to the chief,' he said. 'I told him I thought John sent his files to Utica for safekeeping.'
'Utica? I thought we decided on Rochester.'
'I changed it to Utica because I don't really know anybody there and I don't think John did either.'
'Did Bailey seem to buy it?'
'I doubt it. But what's he going to do, beat the truth out of me with a rubber hose? This is Handbag.' He ripped up another floorboard and flung it onto the heap out in the yard.
'I hate to do this to a decent guy like Bub Bailey,' I said. 'But this is the way it has to be for now.'
'Hey, I'm cool.'
Given the company he'd kept for a decade, I supposed he was. 'I think I may have found who one of the sets of initials in the payout ledger belongs to. Have you ever heard of a Nathan Zenck?'
'What's he? No.'
'He's a hotel manager in Colonic'
'Never heard of him.' He was ripping away at another board that kept splintering and leaving jagged shreds of itself behind.
'I met John's sister,' I said. 'She told me you'd been by the store.'
Sandifer stood up now and wiped the sweat off his face with the side of his arm. He stood there looking as if he was about to speak but was afraid of whatever might come out.
I said, 'Ann told me about the will.'
Now his shoulders began to shake.
'She was surprised,' I said. 'And she said you were surprised too, and hurt.'
Tears rolled down his face. 'Why did John do that?'
I shrugged lamely. 'You knew how strange he could be.'
Sandifer said, 'I don't need the money-it's not that. I can work. But I was like his family. I was more like his
