the visual pun for SPUDS, and Lindsey’s name.
“I hope you don’t mind Millicent.” Mrs. Simmons pushed the dog aside and admitted Lindsey. Millicent sniffed his trousers, decided he was not a burglar, and backed away.
Moments later, seated in the living room, Lindsey said, “Mrs. Simmons, I understand that you are suing Gordian House.”
“Angela Simmons, please. Marston and Morse and I.”
Lindsey found himself liking her. She was casually but neatly dressed, her medium brown hair done in a soft style, her manner relaxed. This was a woman who knew who she was, who lived comfortably, if modestly, who accepted herself on her own terms and the world on its.
He said, “Yes.”
“Gordon’s publishers.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t recognize his byline. I’m afraid I don’t read as much as I ought to.”
“That’s all right, he didn’t use his real name. I’ve saved copies of his books. He was careless about them but I was proud of him, I saved all his editions.”
She crossed the room to a bookcase and returned carrying half a dozen paperbacks. She spread them on the coffee table. The covers featured colorful paintings and splashy lettering. The titles followed a pattern: The Blue Gazelle, The Pink Elephant, The Yellow Thrush, The White Bat, The Purple Cow.
Lindsey couldn’t keep from starting, “I’ve never seen a purple cow.…”
Angela put up her hand like a traffic cop stopping the flow of cars. “We laughed about that a lot. Nobody younger than forty seemed to get the joke.”
Lindsey scanned the book covers. The artwork wasn’t really too bad. His own father had been a cartoonist and Lindsey had an eye for skillful rendering. The subject matter on these was fairly lurid. The byline was Wallace Thompson. Lindsey looked a question at Angela Simmons.
“Gordon had a civil service job. There were government regulations about publishing outside work. I don’t know what they were afraid of. Maybe somebody would give away secrets of the Social Security system. Or maybe someone would write dirty books on the side and some politician would kick up a fuss. But it wasn’t a bad thing. Gordon liked to keep his day job and his writing separate anyway. No one at the office knew about Wallace Thompson.”
Lindsey reached inside his jacket for a notebook and a silver International Surety pen. He hadn’t got a gold watch but at least he’d got a silver pen and pencil when he said good-bye. “You don’t mind if I take some notes?”
She didn’t mind. In fact she offered to get them coffee, and Lindsey accepted with gratitude.
“Mr. Lindsey—”
“Hobart.”
“I don’t understand why International Surety has got involved. There’s no problem with Gordon’s life insurance, is there? You can’t take the money back. It’s all gone. I used it to pay off the mortgage on this house.”
Lindsey shook his head. “Nothing like that. You see, International Surety isn’t just a life insurance company. We sell many kinds of insurance. Including business and indemnity policies.”
She waited for him to continue.
“We have an indemnity policy with Gordian House. If your suit against them—yours and Marston and Morse—is successful, we will have to reimburse Gordian House for their damages. The damages they will have paid. Do you see?”
“Then you’re—” Angela Simmons lowered her coffee cup onto its saucer with a clatter. “Are you here—you’re on their side? On Gordian’s side? Mr. Lindsey, I probably shouldn’t be talking to you. At least not without my lawyer present. I think maybe you’d better leave. Right now.”
Lindsey slid his pen back into his pocket and closed his notebook. “I’m not on anybody’s side, Mrs. Simmons.” So much for Angela and Hobart. “I’m just trying to understand the case.”
Mrs. Simmons stood, called Millicent, clicked a leash onto her collar, and walked to the door with Lindsey.
“Millicent needs to go out.”
At the bottom of the steps she stopped to let the dog sniff a bush. Apparently someone else had been there and left a message. Angela Simmons laid her free hand on top of the brick pillar.
“It was right there,” she said.
Lindsey said, “What do you mean?”
“Where Gordon hit his head.”
Lindsey waited.
“It was raining. We were in bed. Millicent started howling and woke us up.”
Apparently she had changed her mind about talking to Lindsey. A minute ago she’d regarded him as the enemy. Now she was telling him the story of her husband’s death.
“Gordon always locked the car. Not just at night. Even during the day, any time he wasn’t driving, he always locked the car.”
She let out a deep breath.
“But he’d been working late at the library. He’d just finished a book. He hadn’t even turned it in to his editor at Marston and Morse. He was starting research on the next book, that was why he had the laptop at the library. He came home with an armload of books and it was dark out and it was raining hard and he couldn’t handle everything at once. He brought the books into the house. He was so tired. He’d worked all day shuffling papers for the government and spent hours doing research at the library. He stayed until they closed. Once he was in the house he forgot all about his laptop. I made him a hot bowl of soup and a slice of toast. He was too tired to eat anything else. And then we went to bed.”
Millicent was tugging at her leash but Angela Simmons was reliving a night a year in the past.
“When Millicent heard something—she must have heard something—she woke us and I said, ‘Gordon, it’s a burglar.’ He put on his slippers and went downstairs but there was nobody there. I kept Millicent with me, I was afraid, I was holding her in bed. I heard the door, Gordon went outside. Then I heard his voice but I couldn’t make out what he said. Then I heard the car door open and Gordon’s voice again and then the car door slammed shut and I put Millicent’s leash on her and we ran downstairs and ran outside. Gordon was lying on the ground.”
She gestured to the sharply pointed corner of the brick pillar. “That was where it happened. I ran back in the house and called nine-one-one and the police came and an ambulance came. Gordon’s nose was broken and it was bleeding and there was blood on the bricks here, too. I thought it was just his face, I thought he would recover, but they said that he’d smashed the back of his head on the corner of the bricks. He had bone splinters in his brain.”
She stopped. She was out of breath. Millicent had got tired of waiting for her walk and done her business on the lawn.
Lindsey said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Simmons.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“They took him to the hospital, they tried to save him, but it was no use. He had splinters in his brain.”
