«What niminy-piminy?» I asked, even though I knew very well what niminy-piminy.
«That peewee with the voice. With her hair up and her mouth tight and her tits squeezed forward and upward and her ass hanging out behind and all the words coming out and being nearly bitten off. She’s not human. It must take her two hours every morning to put herself together and three hours every evening to shake herself apart and pick up the loose pieces.»
I guess she didn’t like Sarah any more than Sarah liked her. Less, maybe.
Six hours before, I would have rejoiced at that little speech, and even now I had to admit it wasn’t a bad word picture on the malevolent side. Still, Sarah had apologized to me manfully (womanfully?) and she was making it in a man’s world, too. And for that matter, whatever Sarah’s artificiality, I preferred it to Eunice’s over-natural look. I wasn’t close enough to Eunice to get a whiff of underarm odor but I bet myself even money it was there.
However, I didn’t take up Sarah’s part. I let it go. My task now was to keep Eunice in good enough temper to answer my questions.
I said carefully, «I’m terribly sorry, Eunice, about the—the tragedy. We were very close, Giles and I, for a while.»
«Very close indeed, Just, if you had his key,» she said dryly.
«That’s what I want to talk to you about. But not here. I’ve identified him, and that’s enough for here.»
I said to the policeman, «All right if I use the phone?»
«What for?»
«To get us another room to talk in with less company.»
He shrugged.
Eunice said, «Who’re you calling?»
I said, «The peewee with the voice.»
It didn’t take too long. I knew I could count on Sarah. In a while a key came up and we moved over into 1524, which was between occupants. We had till six, we were told. I sure as hell didn’t want to spend any longer—if as long.
Still, there are amenities. I said, «You sure you want to stay here? Shall we go have a drink? Are you hungry?»
«No,» she said sourly. «We’ll stay here. I just want this over with. What I want from you is the story of what happened. How did he manage to die?»
I said, «Eunice, I don’t know. When I came into the room, he was already dead.»
«Yes, that’s what you told the police, I gather.»
«That’s what really happened. And because it’s the truth, I’m not telling you anything different.»
«All right, then, tell me about the key. Giles hasn’t gone homosexual, has he?»
«For all I know, he may have,» I said icily, and managed not to point out I would consider it an improvement when compared to marriage with her, «but I haven’t. He gave me the key last night so that I could run an errand for him, and I forgot. I did it today during the luncheon and he was dead when I got there.»
«And is there a connection?»
«Post hoc, ergo propter hoc?»
«You know Latin, I see,» she said, without admiration.
«I know that much. Do you think that because he was killed after I had slipped up on my errand, that he was killed because I had slipped up.»
She shrugged. «Why did you forget?»
«Irrelevant, immaterial, and incompetent.»
«You’ve been watching Perry Mason,» she said. «Well, since you deny you’re a homosexual, I suppose a girl was involved.»
I kept quiet. She was a formidable harridan with an absolutely uncanny way of guessing what went on in your mind. I had experienced that before and I suppose it was a great help to her as a lawyer. How had Giles ever had the guts to marry her, even assuming he lacked the brains not to?
She said, «Well, then, that’s it. He fell in the bathtub. They’ll run the autopsy and give him to me. I’ll see him buried, probate the will, if he’s made one—I swear I don’t know if he’s made one—and that will be it. Do you know if he’s got any family, parents, siblings?»
«Don’t you know?» I asked.
«He never mentioned. I never questioned.»
I shrugged. «He had a father some years ago who would send him money now and then, but I can’t say where he’s to be found, or even whether he’s still alive. And I don’t know anything about any other relatives.»
She said, «I daresay they’ll all show up, right down to the third cousin, each expecting to be remembered in the will and assuming Giles to be a lot wealthier than he was.»
She put her hands on her knees, stood up with a grunt, and said, «That’s all, Darius. You can run along now.»
I found the grace of the remark somewhat less than lovable and would have longed to tell her so in my own inimitable fashion, but I was still playing for cooperation. I sat where I was and said, «But it’s not quite all. Do you mind if I ask you some questions, Eunice? I promise it’s for good reason.»
She hesitated, looked at her watch, sat down again, and said, «Well, till the M.E. arrives, there’s nothing to do, so go ahead.» And then, as though her remark had been too ungrudging, she added, «Provided you don’t take forever.»
«How’s Giles been lately?» I asked.
«Same steady son of a bitch he’s been for quite a while.»
Not perhaps the most loving remembrance of a freshly dead husband, but I wasn’t going to dictate the nature of her feelings.
I said, «You don’t know if he was on drugs, do you?»
«No, not as far as I know—and I think I would have known.»
«Has he been seeing a psychiatrist?»
«No, not as far as I know—and I think I would have known.»
«Has he changed any of his little habits?»
She let out a harsh squawk of laughter. «He? You should know some of his little habits. They never change.»
I nodded and said, «That’s the thing. When you came into his room, was it the way it was when I came in a little while ago?»
«Yes, essentially.»
«Giles’s clothes weren’t in sight?»
«They were in the closet and they were being taken out and everything about them was being marked and itemized.»
«There was nothing on the bed or chairs?»
«His clothes? No.»
«You know how he takes care of his clothes.»
She said, «None better. He blows in his socks and folds them and folds everything else and makes a neat little pile of them like Mommie always told him to do. You roomed with him once; you know.»
«But he hasn’t changed that habit?»
«You can bet anything you want he hasn’t.»
«All right then. How about this? When I came in and found him, his clothes were thrown over the chair and floor. You know that can’t be him.»
«It can’t. So?»
«So someone else must have done that. Someone else was there. And why should the someone else have spread the clothes like that except to make it look as though Giles were taking a shower when he wasn’t?»
Eunice said, «You mean we’re faced with a murder made to look like an accident?»
For once her ability to read minds was useful. I didn’t have to explain. «Well?» I said. «Doesn’t it look that way to you?»
«Because the clothes are scattered? That’s not enough. No jury would buy that.»
«The hell with a jury; don’t be a lawyer. I’m talking about you and me, so be a person. Would you buy the fact that it was murder on the basis of the scattered clothes?»
«It’s an interesting thought,» she said, unmoved. «It’s possible. But there should be more evidence.»
For a moment I thought of telling her about the heroin, but decided not to. There was absolutely nothing but its physical presence to connect it to Giles, and that physical presence no longer existed. In fact, I couldn’t even absolutely swear to its being heroin in full certainty.