E Is for Evidence - Sue Grafton [39]
"Boy, you're dumber than I am, if you believe that. I'm tellin' you it was murder. Why'd you fly all this way if you didn't think so yourself?"
"I don't know what to think. That's why I'm asking you."
"Well, it wasn't suicide. He wasn't depressed. He wasn't the suicidal type. Why would he do such a thing? That's just dumb. They knew him. They knew what kind of man lie was."
I watched her carefully. "I heard he was planning to leave the company and start a business of his own."
"He talked about that. He talked about a lot of things. He worked for Woody fifteen years. Hugh was loyal as they come, but everybody knew the old man meant to leave the company to Lance. Hugh couldn't stand the idea. He said Lance was a boob and he didn't want to be around to watch him mess up."
"Did the two of them have words?"
"I don't know for sure. I know he gave notice and Woody talked him out of it. He'd just bid on a big govern-ment contract and he needed Hugh. I guess Hugh said he'd stay until word came through whether Woody got the bid or not. Two days later, I got home from work, opened the garage door, and there he was. It looked like he fell asleep in the car, but his skin was cherry red. I never will forget that."
"There's no way it could have been an accident?"
She leaned forward earnestly. "I said it once and I'll say it again. Hugh wouldn't kill himself. He didn't have a reason and he wasn't depressed."
"How do you know he wasn't holding something back?"
"I guess I don't, if you put it like that."
"The notion of murder doesn't make any sense. Lance wasn't even in charge at that point, and he wouldn't kill an employee just because the guy wants to move on. That's ludicrous."
Lyda shrugged, undismayed by my skepticism. "Maybe Lance worried Hugh would take the business with him when he went."
"Well, aside from the fact he wasn't gone yet, it still seems extreme."
She bristled slightly. "You asked for my opinion. I'm tellin' you what I think."
"I can see you believe it, but it's going to take more than that to talk me into it. If Hugh was murdered, it could have been someone else, couldn't it?"
"Of course it could. I believe it was Lance, but I can't swear to it. I don't have any proof, anyhow. Sometimes I think it's not worth foolin' with. It's over and done, so what difference does it make?"
I shifted the subject. "Why'd you have him cremated so fast?"
She stared at me. "Are you thinking I had a hand in it?"
"I'm just asking the questions. What do I know?" "He asked to be cremated. It wasn't even my idea. He'd been dead for two days. The coroner released the body and the funeral director suggested we go ahead with it, so I took his advice. You can talk to him yourself if you don't believe me," she said. "Hugh was drugged. I'd bet money that's how they pulled it off. His lab work was stolen so nobody'd see the test results."
"Maybe he was drunk," I suggested. "He might have pulled into the garage and fallen asleep."
She shook her head. "He didn't drink. He'd given that up."
"Did he have a problem with alcohol?" "Once upon a time, he did," she said. "We met in a bar. Two in the afternoon, in the middle of the week. He wasn't even travelin'. He just liked to come watch the planes, he said. I should have suspected right then, but you know what it's like when you fall in love. You see what you want to see. It took me years to figure out how far gone he was. Finally I said I'd leave him if he didn't straighten up. He went into this program . . . not AA, but something simi-lar. He got sobered up and that's how he stayed."
"Is there a chance he'd gone back to drinking? It wouldn't be unheard of."
"Not with him on Antabuse. He'da been sick as a pup."
"You're sure he took the stuff?" "I gave it to him myself. It was like a little game we played. Every morning with his orange juice. He held his hand out and I gave him his pill and watched him swallow it right down.