Act of God

what looked like the hide from Tonto’s pinto pony. The furniture was arranged in no apparent pattern, with a corner piece facing me, two side pieces together against a wall, and a second corner piece literally facing the corner, a plush dunce chair.
    In the center of the room, on another side piece, a petite woman sat Indian-style, her ankles under the opposite thighs and a small computer on what there was of her lap. She had kinky hair that ran to strawberry blond, barely shoulder length but tousled like she’d just gotten out of bed. Her clothing consisted of blue jeans with tears through the knees and a green flannel shirt so many sizes too big that she had to roll the sleeves twice for them to end at her wrists. The woman inclined her head downward, consulting a spiral notebook that lay folded over next to the little computer. “Ms. Wickmire?”
    She looked up, big eyes and a broad nose over a coy smile on thin lips. “Found me.”
    “I had a lot of hints.”
    The smile lost some of its coyness, then regained it. “You’re the detective, right?”
    “Private investigator.”
    “What’s the difference?”
    “Detectives are on police forces. I don’t have any official status.”
    “Is that like a Miranda warning?”
    “Is what?”
    “Your telling me you don’t have any... ‘official status.’ ”
    “No. As long as I didn’t show any hoked-up ID or misrepresent myself, I could let you go on with whatever false impression you drew yourself.”
    “Wild Bill told me your name was Cuddy.”
    “John Cuddy.”
    “Does that mean that I get to call you by your first name?”
    More coyness, but without any body language to go with it, as though she were trying to act out a Magnum, PI, or Rockford Files but had been given only her dialogue, not any stage directions. “Ms. Wickmire, you can call me anything you like.”
    “Why do I get the feeling you’re not flirting with me?”
    “Maybe because neither of us is.”
    Wickmire lost the smile entirely, then hit a few keys on the computer and a switch on its side. “Since it looks like you’ll be here awhile, I’ll conserve the battery.”
    I took her comment as an invitation to sit, which I did in the corner piece in front of me. “That a laptop?”
    She shook her head. “Next generation. A ‘notebook,’ though I’m told there’re now ‘subnotebooks’ for the executive who’s really on the go.”
    The lifting voice again, the sarcasm more evident face-to-face. I said, “And you’re an executive not on the go?” Wickmire closed the cover of the computer and set it and the spiral notebook aside, bringing her feet out from under her. The feet were bare, the nails painted a salmon pink approximating the shade of her hair. “Wild Bill didn’t tell you much about me, did he?”
    I took out a pad just a little smaller than hers. “You can speak freely.”
    She seemed to catch herself starting to smile, then didn’t. “I’m a free-lance writer, Mr. Cuddy. Right now I’m working on an article for Boston Magazine about the local charities. We’re going to separate the needy from the greedy.”
    “Catchy.”
    Wickmire seemed to measure something. “You aren’t exactly trying to butter me up, are you?”
    “No.”
    “Why?”
    “When I came in here, you played at being playful without seeming to mean it. Then you seemed to settle down somewhere around witty, so I’m just going along till I figure out what’s going on.”
    “I don’t think you’d be a fun interview.”
    “I don’t know how much your audience would be interested in reading.”
    “Somehow I doubt that. But, like you said, let’s ‘figure out what’s going on.’ Darbra’s what’s going on for you, right?”
    “I’ve been hired to find her, and most of the people I’ve talked with seem to point me toward you.”
    “Ask your questions.”
    “How did you and Ms. Proft come to know each other?”
    “Boy, we’re starting way back, huh?”
    “It’s usually the best place.”
    “Okay. How. We met in college. Drama class. I was taking it because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with myself: actress, playwright, muckraking journalist. Darbra was a little more focused, and, of course, she went further with it”
    “How do you mean?”
    “Oh, she used to do summer stock on the Cape or up in New Hampshire , Vermont . You know, The Fantasticks and that kind of schmaltzy stuff, where you fiddle around with the costumes and makeup while you’re also the