“Zero,” said Bob, and burst out laughing. “You’re really something else, aren’t you, Bill? Now let me ask you another question. How likely is it that Henry was actually murdered, would you say? On a scale of one to ten?”
“Ten,” said Bill, with full conviction. “No doubt about it.”
“Well, see, that’s where we differ in opinion,” said Bob. “Cause I think he simply died of a heart attack. It happens, Bill. I know you don’t like it, but it happens more often than you think. Probably even more than being murdered by a biographer.”
“Very funny,” said Bill, and closed his notebook, the interview at an end.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_3]
Liz hadn’t actually conducted an interview before, but since once had to be the first time, she stole down the stairs in search of Charlie Moore, who was rumored to be cleaning the cafeteria. And her informant hadn’t lied: there he was, listening to some kind of music on his wireless earbuds and sweeping the floor, which in his case meant that he was moving the mop around in a sort of desultory fashion, and sloshing dirty water on a floor that kept getting more and more dirty with every sweep of his mop.
She cleared her throat and held her notebook at the ready.“Charlie?” she asked, trying to attract the young man’s attention. “Um, Charlie? Could I have a word, please, Charlie?”
Finally Charlie deigned to remove his earbuds and stared at her, none too friendly.“What?” he asked curtly.
“Well, the thing is, see,” she began. “The thing is that Henry—I don’t know if you know this, but Henry Kaur? Well, he died, see. And now we’re trying—we, that’s Bill, of course, my husband, and Olivia, that’s my sister, and now also Janelle and Janette Corr, who recently joined up, we’re trying to find out what happened. And so we’re talking to people, witnesses, you see—like you—to try and figure out what might have caused Henry to, you know, die.” When he didn’t respond, she took a deep breath and went on, “So where were you last night between two and three,Charlie?”
Charlie cracked a smile. It wasn’t a nice smile, nor a friendly encouraging one. It wasn’t the kind of smile that said, ‘Go on, dear sweet lady. Ask me all the questions you want, and I’ll answer them as truthfully as I can.’ No, it was more a smile that said, ‘You stupid cow. Why are you wasting my time with this load of nonsense?’
“You’re actually asking me if I killed old Henry? Is that what you’re asking?”
“Oh, no! Well, yes, maybe. It’s just that…” She swallowed with some difficulty, for the kid was really staring at her, and there was something very disconcerting in that stare. “The thing is that we think he was murdered, you see, and so now we’re trying to find out if—”
“I didn’t kill him, all right? I liked the old geezer. He was all right.”
“But you were having arguments with him all the time,” she pointed out. “You were always fighting, and yelling at him. And he was yelling at you.”
“So? Friends yell at each other. I’ll bet that you and your husband, you yell at each other from time to time, don’t you? That doesn’t mean you want to kill each other, now does it? So yeah, Henry and I used to fight, but that didn’t mean anything. Just friendly banter, you know. Joshing.That’s the way we rolled, Henry and me.”
“Okay,” she said, and noticed how she hadn’t written anything in her notebook yet. Which was probably because he hadn’t actually answered her question. “So can you please tell me where you were last night? Between two and three, for instance?”
“I was in bed with my girlfriend.”
“Asleep, probably?”
“No, as a matter of fact we were doing other things,” he said, and gave her a nasty grin. “And before you ask, we were doing the kind of things you and Bill used to do about a hundred years ago? In fact it’s such a long time ago you probably don’t even remember. And now please get off my back. I’ve got better things to do than to stand around here answering your stupid questions.”
And with this, he demonstratively put his earbuds back in and got back to work.
“Oh,” she said in a feeble voice. “Oh, that’s so rude!”
But the kid had stopped paying attention.
30
Olivia had been assigned the arduous task of trying to interview Kate Doyle. She was, after all, a suspect, even though Olivia didn’t think she’d be able to get a lot out of the woman. Still, if Liz said Kate needed to be interviewed, she needed to be interviewed. Olivia knew better than to argue with her sister, who had always been the smartest of the two sisters.
“Okay, Kate,” she said as she tried to attract the woman’s attention. “So last night, do you remember what you did?” She didn’t want to start with a leading question like ‘Did you go into Henry’s room last night and smother him with a pillow?’ If Kate said yes, that wouldn’t exactly tell them a lot.
Kate beamed at her visitor.“You have such lovely hair, miss. Who does your hair?”
“Please focus, Kate,” said Olivia. “Did you by any chance go into Henry’s room?” Slightly leading, but not too much.