The Second Mouse - Archer Mayor [24]
Joe’s eyes widened. “A lawyer? What for? You feel like you need one?”
“No. That’s not what I’m saying. It’s just, all these stupid questions. I mean, who cares? The bitch is dead. There’s nothing to talk about.”
Except maybe how she got that way, Joe thought. “It must have been tough on you, after Archie died, having to deal with Michelle directly,” he said instead.
“Trying to deal is more like it,” he grumbled. “She just pretended I didn’t exist.” He suddenly put the beer down, as if to clear his mind. “Look. I tried being nice. I’m no shit bag. Whatever she was after at first, I knew she was up a creek after Archie died. So I told her she could stay an extra month before I threw her out. She ended up totally abusing that generosity, like I was some landlord she could fleece or something. I mean, damn”—here he pounded his fleshy knee with his fist—“I gave that woman the roof over her head. You’d think she could show some consideration.”
Joe nodded. “You’d think. What reason did she give for staying put?”
“Oh, Christ. You know, ‘I can’t find a place,’ ‘I have no money,’ ‘I’m looking for a job.’ All the usuals. She was just trying to see if she could ride me as easy as Archie.”
All these allusions suddenly prompted Joe to ask, “Did she try anything sexual to convince you?”
Newell looked stunned for a moment. “Me? She’s not my type. I’m a married man, besides. She would’ve known what I’d say.”
But he hadn’t actually answered, Joe thought, and the question still remained whether Newell had ever propositioned her. “She was a good-looking woman,” he pressed.
The fat man allowed for half a concession. “If you like that type.”
“When did you last see her?”
“I didn’t. I mean, not lately. I’d call on the phone. Later I communicated through my lawyer.”
“But when was the last time?”
Morgan put on a show of thinking hard. “Well, there was the funeral. I tried being nice then, like I said, dropping by to see how she was doin’. God, I don’t know . . . maybe about four months ago.”
“That would be after you served eviction papers on her, right?” Joe pretended to be scribbling something in his pad, unconcerned and purely conversational.
Morgan’s face reddened, but he said nothing.
Joe looked up. “Isn’t that right?”
“Yeah, I guess. That was just a legal thing, to show her I was serious.”
“I heard you’ve been out of town for a few days.”
“So?”
“Where’d you go?”
Joe expected some resistance, but Morgan immediately said, “New York—Frankfort. It’s outside Utica. It was like a reunion with some buddies.”
“You were there the whole time?”
The big man’s eyes narrowed, and he stood up, looking down at Joe. “Yeah. What’s that to you?”
Joe’s response was mild, although he noticed that Sam had casually taken up a good place from which to throw a tackle if necessary. “This is a death investigation, Mr. Morgan. Pretty routine question.”
“Bullshit, it is. You’re thinking I had something to do with her dying. I heard she did herself in. You saying she was murdered?”
Joe put on a show of bewilderment. “Jeez Louise. You’re starting to make me think this is something it’s not. What’s got you so worked up?”
“You do,” Morgan blustered. “I know who you are. The VBI is like major crimes. They only do murders and rapes and bank robberies and stuff like that. If Michelle drank herself to death, there’d be some deputy dog here, not you.”
He was perfectly correct, which made Joe long for the recent past, when he’d routinely had to explain that the Bureau wasn’t an enforcement arm of something like the restaurant sanitation division.
“The FBI does banks,” he explained disingenuously. “And I’m just here covering for the state police.”
Morgan rose and moved toward the window, as if giving himself room to escape. “Right. Real likely. That’s why there’re two of you.”
Joe stood up at last, his face set and his voice harder. “Think what you will, Mr. Morgan. Can you prove you were in Frankfort?”
“You bet. I got six buddies to vouch for me, and if you think they’re all in the bag, then I got a bunch of credit card receipts and shit like that