Bill Pronzini - Crazybone

I let that pass. “Secure in his job?”

“Seemed to be. The computer racket can be iffy, but he wasn’t a Silicon road runner. He—”

“Road runner?”

“Commuter, wage slave. Didn’t work down in the Valley, at least not regularly. Private consultant, did most of his work at home. He’d been at it several years and he had a couple of medium-size companies on his client list.”

“Estimated annual income?”

“Six figures, easy.”

“A twenty-five-thousand-dollar double indemnity policy is pretty skimpy for a man making that kind of money.”

“Exactly what I tried to tell him,” Twining said. “He wouldn’t listen. I had a hell of a time as it was, signing him on the small term life.”

“Why do you think he bothered, then?”

“The truth?” Twining’s grin this time was of the preening, self-congratulatory variety. “To get me off his back. Persistence is my middle name. I never met a sales resistance I couldn’t break down sooner or later.”

“I don’t doubt that,” I said. “No employment listing for Mrs. Hunter, I noticed.”

“Nope. She didn’t need to work, so she didn’t.”

“Was she trained for anything?”

Another grin, the smutty kind. He had quite a repertoire. “Women like Sheila don’t need to he trained. She was born with all of her best skills.”

“Meaning?”

“She’s a fox,” he said. “Genuine, grade-A stone fox. One of the most drop-dead gorgeous women I’ve ever set eyes on. Jack Hunter was one lucky bastard.”

“Until two weeks ago, maybe. How does Mrs. Hunter... what’s her maiden name, by the way? I didn’t see it in the report.”

“Underwood, I think.”

I wrote that down. “How does she spend her time? Other than being a homemaker and mother, I mean.”

“Potting, mostly. That’s her thing.”

“What kind of pottery?”

“Odd-shaped bowls and urns, bright glazes with black designs. Pretty good, if you like that kind of art. She has a studio behind their house.”

“She sell or display any of her work?”

“Local gallery has a sampling for sale. Anita Purcell Fine Arts. Couple of blocks west of here on the main drag.”

I made another note. “About the Hunters’ marriage,” I said then. “Would you say it was solid?”

“Who knows about things like that?” Twining said, and shrugged. “Looked good on the surface, especially where Jack was concerned. He talked about her all the time, all but drooled on her in public. So would I if I was married to a stone fox like that. Not that my wife’s a dog, you understand.”

Some compliment. I let that pass, too. “So as far as you know, they were faithful to each other.”

“Depends on your definition of faithful. Me, I subscribe to the Clinton version.” He laughed. “I can tell you this — she wouldn’t play the one time I tested the waters. And if I couldn’t score, chances are nobody else could, either. Jack was the only one getting a piece of that pie.”

Twining had succeeded in making me actively dislike him. He was one of the breed that looks at every woman the way a glutton looks at a plate of food; that measures and rates every woman in terms of her physical attributes, potential sexual prowess, and availability to him and his line of seductive bullshit. The type that thinks with his little head instead of his big one. A hard-on disguised as a man, in one of Kerry’s more colorful phrases. Men like Richard Twining are a central reason why Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem and the leaders of NOW became hardcore feminists. Difficult enough to take in their twenties and thirties, past forty their outlook and their shtick become pathetic as well as tiresome and annoying. As far as I was concerned, any woman who had the misfortune to be married to this horse’s ass would be completely justified in having him gelded and stabled with the rest of Greenwood’s aging stallions.

I managed to maintain an even tone when I asked, “What can you tell me about Mrs. Hunter’s background?”

“From Pennsylvania, same as Jack. Harrisburg. Married back there, moved out here when he got a job with Raytec in the Valley. I don’t know anything about her family. Or his.”

“They sound like private people.”

“More so than most. Didn’t talk much about themselves, and you couldn’t draw them out.”

“How long have they lived in Greenwood?”

“About ten years. Little girl, Emily, was born right after they settled here.”

“Ever in trouble of any kind?”

“Model citizens,” Twining said. “Kept to themselves, never bothered anybody.” Elaborate sigh, followed by a broad wink. “I sure wish she’d let me bother her a time or two. Man, she—”

“Suppose we stick to the issue, Mr. Twining. I really don’t care about your lust for Jack Hunter’s widow.”

He didn’t like that. He opened his mouth, snapped it shut, glared at me for three or four seconds. I could almost read his thoughts: Tight-assed old fart. Maybe you’re a fag, huh, buddy? It was a good thing for both of us that he kept them to himself.

There was no open declaration of hostility. Twining was first and foremost a salesman, whether it was insurance or himself he was peddling. And like it or not, I was a representative of one of the companies he worked for. His expression shape-changed until he was once again wearing his easygoing professional smile, a little more crooked now but otherwise firmly in place. It took about five seconds and it was like watching time-lapse photography of new skin knitting to erase a wound.

He said as if I hadn’t interrupted him. “Two nice people, no question about that.” His tone was cheerful: you had to listen close to hear the underlying anger.

“They have any close friends?”

“Not that I know about. Except maybe Doc Lukash. Jack played a lot of golf with him and I guess they were pretty friendly, at least at the club.”

“Doc. Medical doctor?”

“Dentist. Lukash Dental Clinic, one of the largest in the county.”

“Here in Greenwood?”

“Redwood City. Downtown, off El Camino.”

I had him spell the name Lukash and then wrote it down in my notebook. “How about Mrs. Hunter? Anyone she sees fairly often — shopping, lunch? Or who shares her interest in potting?”

“Anita Purcell. Only one I know.”

“Personal as well as business relationship?”

He dipped one shoulder: he didn’t want to talk about Mrs. Hunter anymore. “You’d have to ask her.”

“All right. Tell me about the accident.”

“Not much to tell. One of those things. Jack went over to the coast on business, was driving home on Highway 84 about eight P.M. That’s a mountain road, lots of twists and turns—”

“I know, I’ve driven it.”

“Sure you have,” Twining said. “Dark night, foggy, and he was heading up the grade out of La Honda. Damn drunk decided to pass a truck on the downhill side, misjudged the distance, hit Jack’s car head on. Both of them killed instantly.”

“No doubt that it was the drunk’s fault?”

“None. Goddamn wetback off one of the farms out there. Booze-hounds, all those braceros, and menaces when they get behind the wheel.”

Philanderer, chauvinist, and a bigot, too. I said thinly, “Drunk drivers come in all races, colors, and creeds.”

“Yeah,” he said. “What were you thinking? That maybe Jack committed suicide?”

“Always a possibility.”

“He had no reason to kill himself.”

“So you’ve indicated. How soon after the accident did you talk to Mrs. Hunter about the policy?”

“Couple of days.”

“You called her?”

“Called and then went to see her. Offer my condolences, get the paperwork started on the claim.”