A Great Day for the Deadly(70)

Glinda sat up a little straighten Gregor got the impression that this was the speech she had been steeling herself to give all day. “Half of everybody in town has been saying they saw Brigit on the day she died,” she said, “so I didn’t pay any attention to it at the time. Don was one of those people who love to think of themselves as insiders, but never quite are. But he came into the library a couple of days ago and said so. The problem was, it was the way I worked it out with Sam, he must have been making it up.”

“Why?” Gregor asked her.

“He made up a lot of things,” Barbara Keel said. She had been so quiet for so long, both Gregor and Glinda jumped. “He was a liar, that man was. A bad liar. He’d lie and then forget he’d lied.”

“He did like stories,” Glinda said, sounding a little doubtful. “Anyway, he said he saw her at quarter of one, coming out of the ladies’ room in that hall at the bank where Barbara saw Josh and Ann-Harriet necking. But he couldn’t have, could he? It was one o’clock when I found her. She had to have been already in the storeroom by quarter to.”

“Not necessarily already in the storeroom,” Gregor said slowly, “but already unconscious, I would think. She was dead when Pete Donovan got here. That was in the report.”

“Oh, yes.” Glinda shuddered. “Of course, that was before we knew the snakes belonged to Sam and weren’t dangerous. It was terrible.”

“I’m sure it was.”

“She did have to be already in the storeroom by quarter to one,” Glinda said. “She had to have time to get the snakes on her. Oh, I don’t know. It’s just the way I told you. Sam and I talked about it. The story is impossible. I can’t see how he could have been killed for telling a story that wasn’t true.”

“Miss Daniels and Mr. Harrigan discuss a lot of things together,” Mrs. Keel said blandly. “In private.”

Glinda Daniels shot her an outraged look, but Barbara Keel didn’t notice. She was busy searching through her handbag for nobody knew what.

“I think it’s a very good idea, myself,” she said, “Miss Daniels and Mr. Harrigan. I think it’s about time Miss Daniels got out and saw a little bit more of what there is in the world to make a happy life. And Mr. Harrigan is such a good man for the job, too, you know, so rich and so nice and so single and so Catholic.”

“Barbara,” Glinda Daniels said.

“Well,” Barbara Keel said, “you were the one who was kissing him in full view of half the town not four hours ago. I can’t see why you’d mind us talking about it now.”

“That’s Sam coming in right now.” Glinda Daniels sounded desperate. “And please, Barbara, try to remember that that scene you witnessed was his idea, not mine.”

“It might have been his idea to start with,” Barbara said imperturbably, “but it was yours by the time it was finished. You better go out and rescue him. That’s Millie Verminck that’s got hold of him and you know what she’s like. By the time she’s done with him, he’ll be booked into giving speeches at women’s clubs for a month.”

“Oh, dear,” Glinda Daniels said.

Gregor watched with some amusement as Glinda shot out of the office and through the gate in the reception desk, heading for Sam Harrigan and the round vigorous woman who had attached herself to him like a barnacle. Sam Harrigan would have been easy to recognize as a personage, even if Gregor hadn’t found his face familiar from magazines and TV. He had that kind of presence. Gregor turned to Mrs. Keel and lifted his eyebrows.

“Did you just do that for fun,” he asked her, “or did you have something you wanted to say to me in private?”

Barbara Keel was still hunting through her handbag. “Mr. Harrigan’s going to come and tell you all about how Josh came to his house this morning. Joshua Malley, that is. I always call him Josh or Joshua Malley. I don’t call him mister the way I might with anybody else.”

“You don’t like him?”

“I don’t think Glinda is right,” Mrs. Keel said, “acting like Joshua isn’t important. I don’t think it’s true. I think he’s very important.”

“To the women in his life.”

“To one of the women in his life.” She lifted her head and gave Gregor a fishy stare. “Are you one of those people who believe that people will kill for love?”

“What?”

“Are you one of those people who believe that people will kill for love,” she repeated insistently. “I’m not. I believe people only kill for money. It really is true.”