Chat - Archer Mayor [47]
Agostini looked over her shoulder warily.
Sam had already rolled her window down. “Hey. Beth Ann?”
Agostini’s response was guarded. “Yeah.”
Sam stuck her hand out the window for a shake. “Samantha Martens. I’m with the Vermont Bureau of Investigation.”
Reluctantly, Beth Ann took the hand in her mitten and gave it a limp tug before letting it drop.
Sam stopped the car and got out, still talking. “I’m sorry to bother you. I was just hoping you might be able to help me out with something.”
“What?”
“I want to learn a little about Andy Griffis.”
“He’s dead.”
As was the tone of her voice.
“I know,” Sam admitted regretfully. “I was sad to hear about that. Would you mind if we talked a bit? I’d be happy to buy you a cup of coffee, or at least drive you home.”
A sudden gust of cold wind made the girl hesitate. “What’s to talk about?”
“I was wondering what was happening in his life towards the end. You two were close. It must’ve been a real shock when he died.”
Beth Ann shook her head, staring at the ground.
“You still miss him, I bet,” Sam suggested.
“He was a nice man,” Beth Ann said simply.
Sam reached out and touched her arm gently. “Let me drive you home.”
Beth Ann looked into her face, saw nothing but sympathy, and finally nodded. “Okay.”
Sam waited until they were both settled in the front seat of the warm car before she asked, “Would you like me to treat you to a coffee somewhere? Or a piece of pie?”
That drew a tired smile. “Ugh. Food doesn’t do much for me right now. Not after all day in there.” She gestured toward the restaurant.
Sam laughed. “Good point. I hadn’t thought of that. You probably just want to take a load off. I’ll drive you home and get out of your hair as fast as I can.”
“Thanks.”
Sam pulled out of the parking lot and headed west. “How long had you and Andy known each other?” she asked, wondering if the ice had been successfully broken between them. She was struck once more by her companion’s lack of curiosity. Sam had long ago found that most people of Agostini’s background were used to being questioned by authority figures and were generally, even if listlessly, compliant.
Beth Ann was looking out the side window. “A few months. We met at a bar. The only two people who didn’t want to be there.”
“You were with friends?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Him, too. We joked about that later, how it was like we had a radar for each other. He said we should form a group called Loners Anonymous, except that nobody would show up for meetings.”
Sam laughed. “That’s good. He sounds like a funny guy.”
Beth Ann turned toward her, and Sam feared she might have put her foot in it. But the girl had understood her intent. “He was sometimes, when he was feeling up. But it was hard to tell. He could be real uneven.”
Sam paused before suggesting, “That must’ve been tough.”
“It had its moments.”
“What was he like when he was down?”
“Quiet, mostly. He never got violent or drunk or anything like that. That’s where the loner thing kicked in. He would go off and be by himself.”
“At his apartment?”
She nodded in the darkened car. “Yeah. Did you ever see that place?”
Sam was surprised by the question. “No.”
“It was weird. Like a cell. You know he was in prison, right?”
“Yeah, I read that.”
“Well, his apartment looked just like that to me. I only went there once. Never again.”
“Did you ever talk about it with him?”
“The time I visited, I did. I mean, I said something like ‘Wow, this sure is empty,’ or something. I didn’t actually tell him it looked like a jail cell. But it did—bare walls, a cot, almost nothing in it.”
“How did he react?”
“He looked around like he’d never been there before, and then he said, ‘I like it this way. Makes me feel safe.’ It was weird to me, ’cause I had just the opposite feeling about it. I felt totally cut off from the world in there, like it was a spaceship or one of those explorer balls they drop into the ocean with people inside.”
Sammie nodded, entering the apartment complex parking lot. “His record says