The Second Mouse - Archer Mayor [71]
Gagen sat back and laughed. “Oh, ugh. What an awful man. Why on earth would you be interested in him?”
“Can we say that’s confidential and not hurt your feelings?” Sam quickly asked.
“Of course, sweetie. I’ve always thought he must be up to something, but I very much doubt I want to know what. He’s such a terrible fellow.”
“How so?” Willy asked, finally taking a sip of his drink.
“He yells at his wife, for one. I cannot tolerate that in a man. I hope you never do that.”
“He’s more the silent type,” Sam said with a smile, not being entirely truthful.
“Well, I wish Newell were more silent, but I wish even more that Lillian would just leave him. She never will, though. She’s a God-fearing woman, and that man is her cross.”
“How ’bout other people?” Willy asked. “Does he have friends drop by?”
“Oh, Lord, yes, usually when she’s not around. Large, lumpish men like him. Never women, thank goodness. I have no idea what they do in there, but it’s usually noisy, and the trash he puts out afterward is mostly empty bottles. He’s on disability, so called—probably his brain—which means he has way too much free time. He spends most of it watching that enormous TV set. You can see the glow of it at night—and hear it, too. So rude.”
“Do you know who the friends are?” Sam asked her. “Maybe seen them around town? Or where they work?”
Gagen shook her head. “No, but they come here often enough.”
Willy took a shot in the dark. “Did they come by as a group a couple of weeks ago and all pile into a car together, like they were going on a trip?”
“Yes, they did,” she said excitedly. “Were they off to rob a bank or something?”
Willy looked sour. “Hardly. They spent four days getting drunk.”
Her expression matched his own. “Oh, poor Lillian.”
Sam was thinking back to their last update from Gunther, who’d called them this morning with the crime lab’s findings in Wilmington.
“Mrs. Gagen . . .”
“You can call me Mary Ann. I’d like that.”
“Okay. Mary Ann, have you ever seen him with someone else? Maybe recently? Someone who caught your eye in particular?”
“There was the truck man. At least, that’s what I called him.”
“He drove a truck?” Willy asked.
“No. He bought one. Newell had it for sale.”
“Oh.” Willy nodded, his disappointment obvious.
Once more Gagen reached out, her eyes bright again. “No, you don’t understand. He was a mean-looking man, and he came by a couple of times. I remember thinking at the time that I should pay attention. You know how some people just strike you that way? Like they’re up to no good? This man was like that, and he dressed like a biker, complete with tattoos. He even arrived on a motorcycle.”
“About how long before the big trip was this?”
“Maybe three weeks, and there was something else. I didn’t really think about it until now. But after the truck was sold, I saw Newell get in his car a few times—several days apart—and drive off for an hour or two each time.”
“He doesn’t drive much?” Sam asked.
“That wasn’t it,” Gagen continued. “It was the way he did it, just on those occasions. It was sneaky. He looked around really carefully. I had to make sure I was hidden by my flower boxes. I just knew he was up to something.”
Willy pulled a photograph from his pocket of a laughing Michelle Fisher and Archie Morgan, posed together at some beach. He passed it over to Gagen.
“Ever see either one of them?”
She tapped the picture slowly with her fingertip, her face grave. “That’s Archie, poor boy. Died half a year ago—maybe a little more. I don’t know the woman . . . Don’t they look happy, though? I hope this is a recent picture. I’d like to think of Archie being happy toward the end.”
“Wild guess,” Willy said. “He and the old man didn’t get along.”
Gagen returned the photograph slowly. “What they had made Lillian’s relationship look normal. I always wished Archie had been underage. Then I could have called on you folks to have his father arrested for abuse. The way that man treated that boy . . . Shameful.”
“Did it ever get physical?”
“Not that I