Part 18 (1/2)

”Yes?”

She lifted her gla.s.s in an uncertain hand.

”Clint, I just don't know what to think any more.”

”Are you trying to say this? Are you trying to say that now you're wondering if he could have killed her? And you want me to tell you that's nonsense?”

She looked down and when she looked up again, I heard tears in her voice. One tear rolled down her cheek and she wiped at it quickly with the back of her hand, a child's appealing gesture.

”I just don't know any more.

I just don't know. And I don't know anyone else to talk to.”

”What has started you wondering?”

”He's been... so very strange. He hasn't been himself, I guess not since we came here to Warren. Last night he was up most of the night, pacing- around. He doesn't hear me when I speak to him.”

I told her of my conversation with him in the washroom. Perhaps I should have edited it.

”Six or seven times,” she said, a bitter expression on her mouth.

”And I know nothing about it. Nothing at all. I suppose these things should have a mathematical value.

Six or seven is better than twenty. But one is equal to a hundred, isn't it?”

”I can't see him killing her, Nancy. Not Dodd. He'd risk an affair, but not a murder. He's too cold to risk murder.

Too cold and too hard and too ambitious and... perhaps too selfish.”

I had hoped to comfort her. It was the wrong way. Her eyes flashed.

”How can you say that? How can you say a thing like that? People have always liked him and always liked working with him. You're entirely wrong about him.

Entirely!”

I thought of Tory's warning, and Ray's warning. I could have told her, but I realized that she didn't have much left.

By telling her I would be taking away one more thing, the illusion he had created in her mind. Even though he had hurt her dreadfully with infidelity, she perhaps had a right to be proud of his professional makeup.

”Maybe I'm wrong about that, Nancy.”

”You are, Clint.”

It surprised me a little that Nancy had never been aware of his ruthlessness in business. He had pretended with her, as with everyone else. I wondered if there was anyone he showed his real face to. I wondered if he had been frank with Mary Olan.

She s.h.i.+vered.

”It's awful of me to keep wondering if he could have done it. If he acted normal, I wouldn't keep wondering. But he has something on his mind-something so important he seems far away, as if I don't really know him any more.”