How Like an Angel

by Margaret Millar

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Your alleged hitchhiker got two dollars, Martha O’Gorman five thousand.”

  Ronda’s face reddened as though in anger, but he spoke calmly. “There was some suspicion, naturally, directed against Martha. Nothing came of it. It’s odd, people were a lot kinder to Alberta Haywood, who committed a crime, than they were to Martha, who was the innocent victim of one. But there again we run into the business of the new furniture for the Boy Scouts and the crippled children’s station wagon. The good dumb people of Chicote didn’t seem able or willing to figure out that they’d been taken for a hundred thousand dollars and got about five percent of it back. The rest of it went to bookies and so on.”

  “Did she give names and dates?”

  “No. She refused, didn’t want to get anyone else in trouble. However, a cigar-store owner told the police she’d been buy­ing the racing form every day for six or seven months previous to the time she was caught.”

  “Just how was she caught?”

  “The president of the bank became suspicious at the rate deposits had fallen off while other banks in the area were in­creasing their deposits. He called in the bank inspectors. For obvious reasons, the staff of the bank is never told in advance about the arrival of the inspectors. Anyway, one of them called Alberta Haywood in to explain a small error in a ledger he’d selected at random. She knew right away the jig was up. She confessed everything, and after a brief trial she was sent to Tecolote prison.”

  “Does she have any close relatives besides her brother George?”

  “A sister, Ruth, who’d left town a year previously, after a family fight concerning the man she married. And a mother who’s one of the town characters. Mrs. Haywood refused to attend Alberta’s trial or have anything further to do with her, and I think she used her influence on George. He’d always been fond of his sister but he only visited her once, in the county jail before she was transferred to Tecolote. As far as her family is concerned, Alberta Haywood died the day the bank inspectors arrived. At least this goes for Mrs. Haywood and George. I don’t know about the younger sister, Ruth. She’s just sort of dropped out of the family picture.”

  “What’s Mrs. Haywood like?”

  “A holy terror,” Ronda said with a grimace. “George de­serves a medal for putting up with her. Or a kick in the pants.”

  “Does he live with her?”

  “Yes. He’s been a widower for seven or eight years. Real estate doesn’t exactly sell like hot cakes around here anymore but he does fairly well. After Alberta was sent up we all thought George should leave Chicote and settle in a larger city where the name Haywood wouldn’t be something to live down. But George is a fighter. He stayed. . . . Well, there you have it, Quinn, the story of Alberta Haywood. And the moral is, if you embezzle a lot of money, don’t give it away, don’t gamble it away. Put it in some safe place to impress the parole board.”

  “When is her hearing coming up?”

  “Next month,” Ronda said. “I reminded George of it when he came in with his usual ad a couple of weeks ago. He wasn’t interested enough even to discuss it.”

  “You seem very interested.”

  “It’s news. Where the news is, the Beacon shines. That’s what it says on the masthead. One of these days I’ll think of something better, or at least more accurate. Now, if you don’t mind, Quinn, I’ll have to let you go. I have work to do.”

  “What about squaring me with Martha O’Gorman?”

  “That won’t be easy. You didn’t exactly impress her.”

  “I’ll do better if I have a second chance.”

  “All right,” Ronda said. “I’ll get in touch with her at the hospital lab. Call me around eleven.”

  SIX

  Quinn called George Haywood’s office from a pay phone in a drug store. A man who identified himself as Earl Perkins said Mr. Haywood was at home with a cold.

  “Is Mrs. King there?” Quinn said.

  “No, she won’t be back until after lunch. She’s out of town showing a piece of property Mr. Haywood was supposed to handle. If it’s anything urgent, you can call Mr. Haywood’s home, 5-0936.”

  “Thanks.”

  Quinn dialed 5-0936 and asked for George Haywood.

  “He’s sick.” The woman’s voice was cracked with age but it was still forceful. “He’s in bed with a cold.”

  “I wonder if I may talk to him for a minute.”

  “You may nor.”

  “Is that Mrs. Haywood?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not going to be in the city very long and I’d like to see Mr. Haywood about an urgent matter. My name is Joe Quinn. If you’ll tell him I called—”

  “I’ll tell him at the proper time.” She hung up, leaving Quinn wondering whether the proper time might be noon or next Christmas.

  He bought a copy of the Chicote Beacon and ordered a cup of coffee at the lunch counter. The Beacon printed a minimum of world news interspersed with long dull accounts of local doings and long dull lists of names of the people who did them. It was no wonder that John Ronda had expressed grati­tude to O’Gorman and Alberta Haywood: at least they’d given him something interesting to write about. Ronda would undoubtedly welcome a chance to reopen either case. Maybe that’s why he’s putting himself out for me, Quinn thought. The Beacon needs another boost and a new clue to O’Gor­man’s murderer would knock the Women’s Club canasta parties and the YMCA wienie roasts right off the front page.

  At eleven o’clock he called Ronda at his office.

  “Well, I did it,” Ronda said, sounding pleased with himself. “Martha was reluctant, naturally, but I talked her around. She’ll meet you at noon in the cafeteria at the hospital. It’s on C Street near Third Avenue. The cafeteria’s in the basement.”

  “Thanks very much.”

  “Did you get in touch with Haywood?”

  “No. He’s in bed with a cold and his mother refused to let me talk to him.”

  Ronda laughed as if at some private joke he didn’t want to explain. “What about Willie King?”

  “She’s out of town.”

  “Bad timing all around, eh?”

  “For me,” Quinn said. “For Willie and George Haywood it’s very convenient timing.”

  “You have a suspicious mind, Quinn. If the incident in the café last night happened as you said it did, Willie will cer­tainly have some legitimate explanation for her actions. She’s a respectable businesswoman.”

  “Everyone in Chicote seems respectable,” Quinn said. “Maybe if I hang around long enough some of the respect­ability will rub off on me.”

  The hospital was new and the cafeteria in the basement was light and airy with wide windows looking out on a plaza with a fountain. Beside one of the windows Martha O’Gorman was waiting at a small table. She looked neat and attractive in her white uniform. Her face, which Quinn had last seen twisted with anger, was now composed.

  She spoke first. “Sit down, Mr. Quinn.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What’s your pitch this time?”

  “No pitch,” Quinn said. “The umpire hasn’t thrown the ball in yet.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “So you expect umpires in this dirty game? You are naïve. Umpires are to make sure of fair play, to protect both sides equally. That isn’t how it’s worked out for me and my children, let alone for my husband.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. O’Gorman. I wish I could—well, help.”

  “I’ve suffered more at the hands of people who tried to help me than I have at those of indifferent strangers.”

  “Then allow me to be an indifferent stranger.”

  She sat stiff and uncompromising, her hands folded on the table. “Let’s not beat around the bush, Mr. Quinn. Why did some
woman hire you to locate my husband?”

  “That information was given to John Ronda in strict con­fidence,” Quinn said, flushing. “I didn’t expect him to repeat it.”

  “Then you’re a poor judge of people. He’s the town blab­bermouth.”

  “Oh.”

  “Not that he intends any harm—blabbermouths never do, do they?—but he dearly loves to talk. And print. What about the woman, Mr. Quinn? What’s her motive?”

  “I really don’t know. Ronda probably told you that, too, didn’t he?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “I took the job because I needed it,” Quinn said. “She didn’t ask me for references, I didn’t ask her. I assumed that Mr. O’Gorman was a relative or an old friend with whom she’d lost contact. Naturally, if I had known I was going to run into this kind of situation I’d have asked her more questions.”

  “How long has she been living with this cult, or whatever it is?”

  “She claims that her son sends her a twenty-dollar bill every Christmas. She gave me a hundred and twenty dollars.”

  “Six years then,” Martha O’Gorman said thoughtfully. “If she’s been living apart from the world that long, it’s possible she never found out Patrick is dead.”

  “Quite possible.”

  “What does she look like?”

  Quinn described Sister Blessing as well as he could.

  “I don’t remember Patrick knowing anyone like that,” Mrs. O’Gorman said. “We were married sixteen years ago, and his friends were my friends.”

  “My description of her isn’t very good, I’m afraid. When a group of people all wear the same shapeless gray robes it’s hard to differentiate them. That’s probably the purpose of the robes, to suppress style and individuality. It works, anyway.”

  He realized, even as he spoke, that it was an exaggeration. Sister Blessing had managed to retain her individuality, and so, to a certain extent, had the others: Brother Light of the In­finite with his anxious concern for the livestock that were his responsibility, Sister Contrition trying to save her children from the evil ways of the world they would learn in school, Brother Tongue, mute, with only a little bird for his voice, Sister Glory of the Ascension thriftily constructing a mattress from the Brothers’ hair, Brother of the Steady Heart wielding his razor with myopic zeal—they were, and always would be, individuals, not ants in an ant hill or bees in a beehive.

  “She was once a nurse?” Martha O’Gorman said.

  “So she told me.”

  “I know a lot of nurses now, of course, but I didn’t in those days before I started to work here. Besides, most of the people Patrick and I considered our friends are still living in Chicote.”

  “Like John Ronda and his wife?”

  “His wife, certainly. John, perhaps.”

  “And George Haywood?”

  She hesitated, looking out at the fountain as if the moving water had half hypnotized her. “I’ve met Mr. Haywood, though not socially. A long time ago Patrick worked for him for a few weeks. It wasn’t a satisfactory arrangement. Patrick was much too honest for that kind of job.”

  Her version, Quinn noted, was a lot different from Ronda’s. “Are you acquainted with a Mrs. King, one of Haywood’s associates?”

  “No.”

  “What about Alberta Haywood?”

  “The one who stole the money? I was never introduced to her but I used to see her occasionally in the bank when I cashed Patrick’s paycheck. Why on earth are you asking me about all these people? They have nothing to do with Patrick or me. It’s been seven years or more since Patrick worked for Mr. Haywood, and, I repeat, I never met him socially and I don’t know either his associate or his sister.”

  “Your husband was a bookkeeper, Mrs. O’Gorman?”

  She looked suddenly cautious. “Well, yes. He took a cor­respondence course. He didn’t have a natural talent for figures, but—”

  “But you helped him?”

  “Sometimes. You got that from Ronda, I suppose. Well, it’s no secret. It’s a wife’s job to help her husband when he needs it. I’m not ashamed either of helping him or of his needing help. I’m a realistic woman, Mr. Quinn, I don’t fight facts. If Patrick was not overly endowed with brains, he could lean a little on mine, as I leaned, more than a little, on the fine qualities he possessed which I didn’t, sweetness, generosity, tolerance. Those aren’t my good points. They were Patrick’s. We borrowed from each other, and we leaned on each other, and we had a full, happy life together.”

  Tears glistened in her eyes, and Quinn wondered whether they were caused by regrets for the once full and happy life or by a realization that it had not been as full or happy as she liked to pretend. Had the O’Gormans been an ideal couple, or a couple whose ideals prevented any admission of failure? Had O’Gorman accepted the fact of his own inferiority with the same equanimity as his wife did?

  “For a long time after Patrick’s accident,” she said, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief, “there were rumors, whispers, insinuations. People would stare at me and I could see them thinking, is that the Martha O’Gorman we know or is it some monster who would kill her husband for his insurance money? No, I wasn’t imagining things, Mr. Quinn. My own friends were suspicious. Ask John Ronda, he was one of them. For me it was a double tragedy: I not only lost my husband, I was suspected of causing his death, either by murdering him or giving him reasons to end his own life.”

  “What reasons?”

  “The obvious. He was henpecked, I was too bossy, I wore the pants for the family, that sort of thing. A few people, like Ronda and his wife, knew the truth, that there wouldn’t have been any pants in the family to wear if I hadn’t assumed re­sponsibility. Patrick was kind, gentle, loving, but money meant nothing to him. Unpaid bills were no more than pieces of paper. I would have liked nothing better than to go out and take a job myself, but it would have destroyed Patrick’s con­fidence in himself, which was never very high. I walked a tightrope between Patrick’s weaknesses and his needs.”

  “Not many women could make a situation like that into a full and happy life.”

  “No?” she said. “You don’t seem to know much about women.”

  “Granted.”

  “Or about love.”

  “Perhaps not. I’m trying to learn, though.”

  “I’m afraid you’re too old to learn now,” she said quietly. “Love happens while you’re still young enough to endure the hardships it inflicts and while you’re still able to roll with the punches or stagger to your feet after an eight-count. My son Richard,” she added with a proud little smile, “is a fight fan, he’s teaching me the jargon.”

  “Ronda tells me he’s very bright.”

  “I think so, though I may be prejudiced.”

  “Tell me about your husband’s accident, Mrs. O’Gorman.”

  Her gaze was steady and direct. “There’s nothing to tell that wasn’t in the file John Ronda lent to you yesterday afternoon.”

  “One thing wasn’t mentioned. Did your husband’s car have a heater in it?”

  “No. We never spent money on luxuries.”

  “What was he wearing when he left the house?”

  “You know what he was wearing, if you read my testimony at the inquest—a plaid flannel shirt, yellow and black.”

  “Was it raining that night?”

  “Yes. It had been for several days.”

  “But Mr. O’Gorman didn’t wear a raincoat or any kind of jacket?”

  “I know what you’re getting at,” she said. “But it won’t work. Patrick didn’t need a raincoat because our garage is at­tached to the house, and at the oil field he parked in what used to be a plane hangar right next to his office. He didn’t have to go out in the rain.”

  “It was cold as well as rai
ny, I understand.”

  “Patrick never minded the cold. He didn’t even own a topcoat.”

  “According to a newspaper clipping from Ronda’s file, the temperature that night was thirty-nine degrees, which is pretty cold.”

  “The shirt was wool,” she said. “A heavy wool flannel. Besides, when he left the house he was in a big hurry. He was almost frantic to get to the office and correct the mistake he’d made before anyone found out about it.”

  “Frantic,” Quinn repeated. It seemed a strong word to use, one that didn’t fit the picture he had of O’Gorman as a quiet, low-pressure, unambitious man. “The accident occurred while he was on his way to the oil field?”

  “Yes.”

  “If he was frantic and in a big hurry, it seems unlikely he’d have stopped to pick up a hitchhiker, doesn’t it?”

  “There was no hitchhiker,” she said bluntly, “except in the busy little brains of Ronda and the sheriff. In addition to your argument, that Patrick was in too much of a rush, there’s another: only a week before, a Chicote couple had been robbed by a hitchhiker and Patrick had given me his solemn promise that he would never again stop to pick up a strange man on the road.”

  “What about a woman? Or a man he knew?”

  “What man? What woman? No one had a grudge against Patrick. And if anyone had asked him to hand over the money he had, Patrick would have done it quite willingly. No vio­lence would have been necessary.” She spread her hands in a gesture of resignation. “You see now why I know it was an accident. There’s nothing to back up any other theory. Patrick was in a hurry, he drove faster than usual and visibility was poor on account of the heavy rain.”

  “You loved your husband very much, didn’t you, Mrs. O’Gorman?”

  “I would have done anything for him. Anything in the world. And I still—” She turned away, biting her underlip.

  “You still would, Mrs. O’Gorman?”

  “I meant, suppose something terrible happened inside Patrick that might—suppose he went suddenly and completely out of his mind—well, then if he ever comes back, or is ever found, I will stick by him.”