Act of God

a little more. I’m building it better than it has to be, but...” Just a shrug.
    “I’m sorry to have to do this, but I need some more information.”
    Houle came back to me. “Look, I’m sorry. You’ve got a job to do. I don’t remember what all we talked about last time, so you might have to repeat some of it for me.”
    “Since I spoke to you, somebody went through Darbra’s apartment.”
    “I know.”
    “You do?”
    “Yeah. I got a call from a Boston detective. Police, I mean. A woman. It was only... Sunday, maybe, but I don’t remember her name.”
    “Sergeant Bonnie Cross?”
    “Right. Cross. She asked me where I was on Saturday and Sunday both, and I told here I was here. I’d been here all week. Then I asked her why she wanted to know, and she said some guy Darbra knew was dead.” Houle looked at me harder. “You told me about some... men she was seeing, right?”
    “Right.”
    “Good, because that’s what I told her—Cross, I mean. I didn’t know the guy—God, it’s terrible, I can’t even remember what she said his name was.”
    “Teagle, Rush Teagle.”
    “Teagle, right. Teagle. She said he was dead, and did ] know him, and I said no, I didn’t. Then she asked me it \ had a key to Darbra’s place, and I said I did, and she wanted to know if I still had it, and I said I thought so, but with everything else, I didn’t know where it was.”
    “Did Cross also ask you if you knew any reason why somebody would search Darbra’s apartment?”
    “Yeah. I told her no. I mean, it’s not like I bought her jewelry or something, and Darbra never had more than a twenty-dollar bill in her purse. Even that wouldn’t last the day, the way she bought herself little things.”
    “What kind of little things?”
    “Oh, I don’t know. Trinkets, knickknacks. They were all over the apartment.”
    I thought about the Hummels and other figurines.
    Houle said, “I always figured she was just compensating.”
    “Compensating?”
    “For being a little kid and poor. Like she never got presents from her mother except at Christmas and birthdays, and then probably not enough for her.”
    “Darbra ever mention anything about somebody buying them for her?”
    “No. I bought her some of the Hummels, but... wait a minute, you asked me about one of the guys at her store, right?”
    “Right.”
    “Rivlin?”
    “Rivkind.”
    “Right, right. That Cross asked me about him, too.”
    “What about him?”
    “Did I know if Darbra knew him, then about him being killed. She—the policewoman—wanted to know where I was then.”
    “You told me Denver.”
    “I told Cross the same thing. She said could I prove it, and I told her I guessed I could, but the receipts for the plane and the hotel and restaurants—you know, the expense account stuff?—all that was at the office. So I called the secretary this morning to messenger Cross what she needed.”
    “Mr. Houle, you know anybody who’d have reason to hurt Darbra, or get somebody like Teagle to maybe do the job?”
    “Hurt her? No. Darbra... Darbra can kind of rankle you, you know? Or fly off the handle, like she did with me in that restaurant.”
    “When you thought she was acting.”
    “Right. But she could do that, kind of put on an attitude for the occasion. She did it with me, often enough.”
    “I don’t get you.”
    “With, uh...” Houle looked over to the garden. “With like... sex games in her apartment.”
    I thought about it. “But nobody who hated her.”
    “Unless it was reciprocal.”
    “Reciprocal?”
    “Her brother, Wee Willie. She couldn’t stand him. I think I told you that, or at least his name.”
    I’d also told Houle that I was working for William Proft, but I let it pass. “Darbra ever say anything about her brother threatening her?”
    “No. No, nothing like that, ever. Just that she hated him and bated that she had to split the money from her mother with him. That’s about all she ever said to me about Wee Willie, except for his... preferences.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “His...” Another look at the garden, shorter this time. “His sexual preferences.”
    “What were they?”
    “That’s just it. Darbra told me she didn’t think he had any.”
    I was thinking the same thing when Houle said, “Look, I don’t want to seem... touchy, but it’s kind of hard for me to talk about these things... here.”
    “I’m sorry I have to ask about them.”
    He nodded.
    Aware of the last few days with Nancy, I