Act of God

you call it when you were young, ‘trysting’?”
    Not even formally. “Can you describe him?”
    “Yeah, but wouldn’t his name be a little more help to you?”
    I looked at her. “It would.”
    “Okay. His name’s Roger Houle. It sounds like ‘jewel,’ but it’s spelled like French.”
    “H-O-U-L-E?”
    “I think so.”
    “Address?”
    “I don’t know, but you can find out easy enough.”
    “How?”
    Wickmire looked at me as though I should be sitting in the sectional piece facing the corner. “They used to phone each other all the time to set up ‘logistics,’ Darb said he called it. All you have to do is check with Ma Bell, right?” Not quite as easy as that. “Okay—”
    “ ‘Course, he’s not going to be much help to you, John.”
    “He’s not?”
    “Uh-unh. Darb broke up with him, oh, a month ago, maybe?”
    I thought about it. “Before or after the ‘sugar daddy’ call? She took a moment. “After. I remember thinking, ‘Well, it’s a good thing she still has her sugar daddy.’ ”
    “Did you say that to Darbra?”
    “No.” Wickmire seemed indignant. “That would have been pretty insensitive of me, don’t you think?”
    “Whose idea was it to break up?”
    “I don’t know, but probably Darb’s.”
    “Why?”
    “Men who are stupid enough to get involved with her don’t usually walk away from her. She said it was a real screamer, though.”
    “What was?”
    “The breakup. In a restaurant yet, can you picture it?”
    “Which restaurant?”
    “Some place over by her job. Funny name...”
    “Grgo’s?”
    “That’s it. Yeah.”
    I didn’t really want to ask the next question. “This special somebody from the furniture store, the ‘sugar daddy,’ could he have been the man who was killed there?”
    Wickmire wiggled her toes. “I wondered about that, even kind of hinted around it, you know, but Darb won’t say. I can tell you this. She was really upset about it.”
    “About the killing, you mean?”
    “Yes.”
    “You were with her that night?”
    “The night the man was killed, you mean?”
    “Yes.”
    “Yeah, we went out to the movies.”
    “What time?”
    “About seven, got back at nine-thirty, ten, and I’m just about through my apartment door when she calls to tell me the cops were on her answering machine about it.”
    “The cops were.”
    “Right.”
    “No other messages?”
    “She didn’t mention any.”
    “But she was upset.”
    “Yeah, but you have to know Darb.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Well, she was more like ‘Aw fuck, what do I do now?’ not ‘Ohmigod, my poor boss just got killed.’ ”
    “Okay. So we’ve got the sugar daddy and Roger Houle. Any other recent men?”
    “Just her new boytoy.”
    Boytoy. “Who’s that?”
    “Rush Teagle.”
    For some reason the name sounded familiar. “You know how I can find him?”
    “You’re probably sitting about thirty feet above him.” One of the names by the mailboxes. “He lives here.”
    “Basement apartment. That way he can practice without driving the rest of us nuts.”
    “Practice what?”
    “Guitar. He’s got this band. I think he’d like to call it ‘Rush,’ but that was already taken, you know?”
    “How long has Darbra known Teagle?”
    “I’m not sure. He’s been sniffing around her awhile, but I don’t think they were making it until a few weeks ago.”
    “After the breakup with Houle?”
    Wickmire gave the impression she was concentrating hard on my question. “About the same time, I think.”
    “By ‘boytoy,’ I take it you mean—”
    “Sex toy. Human dildo.” There was a trace of bitterness before the coyness kicked back in. “Oh, that got you a little, didn’t it? Darb once said to me, ‘Trace, if Rush had a CB in that convertible, his handle’d be Wagon Tongue.’ Let me tell you, John, she has quite an appetite that way. Just another reason why it’s more fun to be with her than to live with her.”
    As if Wickmire needed another reason beyond the dander allergy. “Tell me, Traci, if Teagle was seeing Darbra and lived in the building, why didn’t she ask him to feed her cat?”
    “Why?”
    “Yeah, you having the allergy to it and all.”
    “Outside of bed, Rush isn’t what you’d call the most reliable guy in the world.”
    I glanced through my notes. “Any other men?”
    “Not that I know of, John, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there weren’t any.”
    “When did Darbra leave on vacation?”
    “Let’s see...