Page 31 of Wham Line
I wondered how well she’d be able to avoid me once we got back to Hemlock House.Even if Nalini didn’t want to tell me the truth, I had no doubt that Indira could get it out of her.
Of course, that was assuming Indira didn’t end up in jail.
I’d all but given up on my Coke and fish and chips—and, for that matter, on getting Bobby to eat something—when Talmage emerged from the kitchen.
Whatever anger had fueled her before, it seemed to have burned itself off; now she looked tired more than anything.Wisps of her honey-blond hair curled at her temples.She had a towel over one shoulder, and she dabbed at her forehead with it as she took one of the chairs.
“Where’s your friend?”she asked.
“He had to make a call.”That was about as far as that conversational opening was going to go, so I said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
She waved the words away.
The ambient noise settled between us.At the bar, a red-faced man was talking too loudly about his love for grouper.
“Business seems good,” I said, “for a restaurant that hasn’t officially opened.”
Talmage made a face.“Ghouls.They all want to be able to say that they ate at the same restaurant where that man got gunned down.”
It didn’t seem a particularly fair accusation, especially since there was nothing in the restaurant to indicate any sort of grief at Mal’s passing—I wasn’t sure what that might look like in a restaurant, but the vibe seemed to bebusiness as usual.“I don’t know.Hastings Rock has a lot of good people, actually.And it’s only human to be curious.”
She looked at me for a long moment.Then she said, “I grew up here.”
“What?”
“You know the Archers?”
Ididknow the Archers.The best word for the sprawling conglomeration of aunts and uncles and cousins wasclan.The week before, in the Keel Haul, I’d gotten caught in the crossfire of two little Archer hellions, who had been throwing grapefruits at each other.
The look on my face must have communicated some of that because Talmage laughed.“I lived in Seattle for a long time.”
“That’s why you’re opening your restaurant here,” I said.“I thought you were just trying to take advantage of the tourism.”
“I am.But I wanted to be closer to my mom too.”
A thought that should have occurred to me earlier now popped its head up.“What about Mal?”
Talmage raised two fine blond eyebrows.
“Aren’t most of his businesses in Seattle?Was he going to move here with you?”
She sat back in her chair and looked away.When her gaze came back to me, she seemed to have decided something.“It’s not exactly a secret.Mal and I were having problems.”More of that pink came into her cheeks.“I didn’t kill him.”
I raised my hands in surrender.
“We met when my dad was sick.”She reached out and took one of the glasses by the stem and turned it slowly.The sea-light cast its prismatic spray along the rim.“I needed someone.Or I thought I did.And Mal—” She stopped turning the glass.“Mal always needed someone.And then my dad passed, and…”
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head.“He was in pain.And he had been for a long time.”She released the glass and sat back again.Now she ran the towel along the back of her neck.“Mal didn’t understand.”
“It sounds like he was a difficult person.”
But she only sat there, gazing warily at me.
Sometimes, people like to talk.Sometimes, people can’t wait to tell you every bad thing they know about another person.(I’m sure you’ve met people like that—it’s exhausting, unless you’re sleuthing, and then it’s incredibly helpful.) But some people are less, um, communicative.If you read enough police training manuals (one of those quaint little hobbies my parents introduced me to at a tender age), you learn that an interview is only over if the other person stops talking.So, the key is to keep them talking.
“What’s the deal with Sparkie and Larry?”I asked.
