Small Vices Part 9

"That's really good," I said. "Eyewitnesses are often confused."

Hunt smiled contentedly. Glenda gazed past me into s.p.a.ce.

"She have a boyfriend?" I said.

"A boyfriend?"

"Yeah. You were close with Melissa, you double-date at all?"

"Yeah, once in a while. Why are you asking?"

"Got nothing else to ask about," I said. "And I'm supposed to be asking something."

"Well; it's a d.a.m.n waste of time," Hunt said. "The jasper did it, and he's where he ought to be."

"She date a guy from Taft? Tennis player?" I said.

"I don't know where he was from or what he played. We only doubled with them a few times. I don't know how serious they were."

"You like him, Mrs. McMartin?"

It took her a minute to come back to us.

"Sure," she said. "He was a cute guy."

"Either of you remember his name?"

Neither of them did.

"I'm afraid this is all the time we can give you, sir," Hunt said. "We haven't had dinner yet, and both of us have early days tomorrow."

"Hard day at the plant?" I said.

"I have some early meetings."

"How about you, Mrs. McMartin. What do you do?"

"I'm training," she said, "at Healthfleet Fitness Center.

"She's learning the business," Hunt said. "We'd like to open a chain of health clubs ourselves one of these days."

"Great idea," I said. "They're starting to catch on."

"The trick is to position yourself to capture a market segment that's underserved."

"That's sort of my secret," I said. "And then you say bye-bye to the family business?"

"No, I wouldn't leave my job. The company's been in our family for four generations. I'd consult, of course, especially during start-up. But Glenda would run the health clubs."

My own sense was that Glenda enjoyed being a member of the leisure cla.s.s and the thought of her running a chain of health clubs made me smile, but I kept the smile to myself. Hunt was on his feet. n.o.body was offering me a second beer, which was too bad, because the White Buffalo was good. Glenda smiled at me thoughtfully. Hunt was still swirling the remains of his single malt over the remains of his ice cubes.

He said, "We really do need to get to our dinner, Mr. Spenser."

I didn't like their story. It seemed glib to me, and I found both of them in their smooth, upper-cla.s.s propriety entirely unbelievable. I smiled graciously, however, and shook hands with them and departed. Spenser the civilized gumshoe.

Chapter 14.

THE PEMBERTON INN fronts on Pemberton Green, a block from the Pemberton College Campus. The bar was small with a working fireplace, and the walls done in old barn boards. They served draft beer in small gla.s.ses. The whole place made me feel like singing boola boola when I went in. It was crowded in the late afternoon with young women from the college looking to meet men, and young men from greater Boston looking to meet women. I edged in at the left hand corner of the bar and ordered a beer. A row of college girls to my right checked me out. One of them had thick red hair that fell past her shoulders. I smiled at her.

"Come here often?" I said.

"Oh, brother!" she said.

"What's your sign?" I said.

She looked around.

"Is there a hidden camera or something?"

"Gee," I said, "I was sure that would work."

"Get a grip," she said.

"Wait a minute," I said. "I've got one more, always works... can I buy you a drink?"

She pointed a finger at me and smiled.

"You're right," she said. "That's the one. Sure, you can buy me a drink."

I gestured to the bartender and she brought a fresh tequila sunrise to the redhead.

"My name's Sandy," she said. "What's yours?"

"Spenser," I said. "With an S, like the English poet."

"Which English poet?"

"Edmund Spenser," I said. "You know, The Shepheardes Calender, The Faerie Queen?"

"Oh, yeah. Spenser your first name or your last."

"Last."

"What's your first name?"

I told her.

"I don't figure you for a soph.o.m.ore at Babson," Sandy said.

"Grad student?"

She looked at me.

"Okay," I said. "I'm not in school, but I have a friend who has a Ph.D. from Harvard."

Sandy smiled.

"Close enough," she said and drank some tequila sunrise. "What do you do for a living, Spenser-like-the-poet?"

I took a card from my shirt pocket and put it on the bar in front of her. She studied it for a moment and then looked at me carefully.

"Honest to G.o.d?" she said.

I nodded.

"You got a gun?"

I nodded.

"I don't believe you."

I opened my coat a little so she could see.

"Jesus;" she said, "you don't have to flash me."

Her tequila sunrise had disappeared again. I bought her another one.

"Is it like on TV?" Sandy said.

"Exactly," I said. "A lot of times I send my stunt double on the hard stuff."

"You working on a case or you got a thing for college girls?"

"Both," I said. Sandy laughed.

"Well, I'm one," she said.

"A case, or a college girl?" I said.

"Both," she said and laughed.

It was a full-out laugh, but no one except Sandy and I could hear it, because the room was full of people talking and laughing at peak capacity. Sandy was wearing jeans and a white tee-shirt under a gray blazer. She had strong b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and she brushed them against me as we talked. I didn't want to make too much of that. The place was so crowded it might have been inadvertent. Either way there was nothing wrong with it.

"Did you know Melissa Henderson?" I said.

"Girl that got killed? That the case you're working on?"

"Yes."

Sandy stared at me for a minute.

"I thought that was all over. They got some black guy for it."

"I'm sort of tying up the loose ends," I said. "Make sure it was really him."

"I didn't know her well," Sandy said. "But, you know, I saw her around."

"She have a roommate?"

"I don't know."

"You know Glenda Baker?"

"Girl that saw it? No, not really, she was a senior when I was a freshman. She's graduated by now."

"Who would have known Melissa well?" I said.

"She was a Phi Gam," Sandy said. "I a.s.sume the girls in the house would know about her."

"See any of them here?"

She turned on her barstool and scanned the room. Her jeans were tight over her thighs.

"No," she said. "But they never come here anyway."

"Why not."

"They're not fun like me. Phi Gams're all Legacies. Their mother went here, you know? and their grandmamma, and their aunt Foofy."

"They have a house on campus?" I said.

"Oh sure. Far end of the quadrangle, opposite the chapel."

We were squeezed close by the crowd. She studied my face.

"What happened to your nose?" she said.

"It's been broken a couple times."

"And you got like, what, scars, I guess, around your eyes."

"I used to fight," I said.