She glared at me, said, “Oh, it's you again,” and got ready to shut the door in my face. “You can't see my aunt. She's not seeing anybody—”
“I didn't come to see Mrs. Crane,” I said quickly, “I came to see you.”
“Me? What for?”
“To ask you some questions.”
“About Harmon Crane, I suppose. Well, I'm not answering any questions about him, not for you or any other fan.”
“I'm not a fan.”
“Writer, then.”
“I'm not a writer.”
“Well? Then what are you?”
“A private detective.”
If that surprised her she didn't show it. Suspicion made her little pig eyes glitter. “Prove it,” she said.
I proved it with the photostat of my license. “Now can we talk, Miss Dubek?”
“It's Mrs. Dubek, if you don't mind. Talk about what?”
“About Harmon Crane.”
“Listen,” she said, “what is this? Who hired you to come around here bothering us?”
“Michael Kiskadon.”
“Oh, so that's it. Claiming to be Harmon's son. I don't believe it for a minute. Not a minute, you hear me?”
“I hear you, Miss Dubek.”
“It's Missus Dubek.”
I said, “Do you have any idea why Harmon Crane shot himself?”
“What?” she said. Then she said, “I'm not going to answer that. I don't have to answer your questions, why should I?” And she started to close the door again.
“If you don't answer my questions,” I said, “you might have to answer the same ones from the police.”
“What?”
“The police, Miss Dubek.”
“Missus, missus, how many times do I have to—Police? Why should the police want to ask me questions?”
“You and Mrs. Crane both.”
“That's ridiculous, I never heard of such a thing. Why, for heaven's sake?”
“Because of some bones that were found the other day at Tomales Bay. Human bones, buried at the site of the cabin Harmon Crane rented up there. A woman's bones.”
She gawped at me slack-jawed. Behind her, somewhere in the house, Amanda Crane's voice called, “Marilyn? Do we have company, dear?” The Dubek blinked, glanced over her shoulder, said in a tolerable bellow, “No, Auntie, it's all right, you go back and rest,” and glared at me again. “Now see what you've done,” she said, using a snarl this time, and then crowded past me onto the porch and shut the door behind her.
“I'm sorry, Miss Dubek, but I—”
She made an exasperated sound through her teeth. “You're doing that on purpose,” she said, “calling me Miss Dubek like that, trying to get me all flustered. But it won't work, you hear me? It won't work!”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Now what's this about bones? A woman's bones, you said?”
“That's right. Buried in an old earthquake fissure at Tomales Bay. Probably right after one of the bigger quakes—the one in 1949, for instance.”
“You don't think Harmon buried those bones? My God!”
“It wasn't bones that were buried. It was the body of a woman.”
“That's crazy. Harmon? Harmon and some woman?”
“You don't believe that's possible?”
“Of course not. Harmon wasn't a philanderer like that lowlife I married; he and Auntie were devoted to each other.” She scowled and waggled the saucepan at me. “What woman are you talking about? Whose bones?”
“The police aren't sure yet. But she was probably a redhead, the kind with milk-white skin and freckles. Would you know if the Cranes knew anyone who fits that description?”
“Redhead, you say? Milk-white skin?”
“And freckles. Lots of freckles.”
“How do you know all of that, anyway? What she looked like? If it was just bones that were found—”
“The police have ways,” I said cryptically. “About that redhead, Miss Dubek …”
“You stop that now. I won't tell you again, it's missus—missus, missus, missus!”
“About that redhead, Mrs. Dubek.”
Another scowl, but it was in concentration this time. Pretty soon she said, “I remember I went up to Tomales Bay with Auntie one summer to see Harmon, 1948 or 1949, I was just a girl at the time. We had lunch with some other people; I think one of the women was a redhead … yes, I'm sure she was. Red hair and white skin and freckles.”
“Do you remember her name?”
“Some Italian name. Her last name, I mean. I thought that was funny because she looked Irish—all that red hair, Irish, not Italian. And her first name was … let's see … Kate, that's it. Kate.”