Read Online Big Sick Heart: A Detectives Seagate and Miner Mystery by Mike Markel - Free Book Online Page B

of the tracks.
    A logging truck downshifted to make it up the
slight rise on the highway in front of the hotel. I waited for the rumbling to
stop. “Do you get along with her okay?”
    “Sure,” Connie said. “I do my job, she does hers.
I mind my own business. She’s not looking for a friend.”
    “And Jonathan Ahern?” She turned to me and
focused, for the first time. “What can you tell us about him?”
    “Nothing, really.”
    “Is he a friend?”
    “No,” she said, her gaze drifting off again. “He’s
part of the show. Just another room to book.”
    “Do you ever go out for a drink after the debates
with him and Mr. Hagerty?”
    “No, I don’t drink,” she said, taking a folding
metal ashtray out of her coat pocket and stubbing out her cigarette. She folded
the ashtray and put it back in her pocket. “Besides, I’m not one of the guys.
That’s not my role.” She unbuttoned her jacket and pulled back the lapels so
the sun could warm her dark blue cotton turtleneck.
    “Got it,” I said, catching a whiff of the diesel
from the logging truck. “Did Mr. Hagerty or Mrs. Hagerty ever talk with you
about why they have separate rooms?”
    “I know they have separate rooms at home. Maybe
she just wants some privacy. I don’t get into that.”
    “Do you know whether they sleep together?”
    Connie gave me a look that said, Back-off. “I
don’t know—and I don’t care.”
    “Do you know whether Mr. Hagerty used to have sex
with anyone, either at home or on the road?”
    Connie said, “Listen, Detective. I’ve told you
what I know. I’ve got a job with the Hagertys. I make the arrangements for the
debates. I also do anything else they need me to do, like getting special food
when Mrs. Hagerty wants it, or dry cleaning. I’m their assistant. Whatever they
do in their private lives, that’s not my business.”
    “One more thing. Any idea of who might want to
kill Arlen Hagerty?”
    She looked like she was thinking about the
question. “I didn’t kill him. I know that.”
    “Okay, Ms. de Marco, thanks a lot for talking with
us. We might need to come back to you and talk some more, so I’m afraid you’ll
have to stick around here in town.”
    “Yes, she told me that. That’s okay with me. Can I
go?”
    “Yeah. Thanks,” I said, as she walked back around
the corner toward the entrance of the Courtyard.
    “Let’s go sit in the cruiser, see what we’ve got,”
I said. The car was about fifty yards away. It was warm from the bright sun.
“What do you make of her?”
    “Well, she’s got herself a pretty wicked case of
OCD.”
    “What?”
    “Obsessive compulsive disorder. See the way she
lined up the creamers and the sugar? And carrying around an ashtray?”
    “Yeah, I saw that. What’s it mean to you?”
    “Well, it could mean nothing. I just noticed it
because one of my sisters has it. It can be a reaction to stress.”
    “Yeah, well, she’s had plenty of that. And that’s
only counting the shit we know about. If she wants to line up her sugar packets
and carry around cigarette butts, I’m good with that. What else did you see?”
    “Her affect is kind of blank. You notice she
doesn’t laugh or smile. Her voice is flat, and her eyes look empty.”
    “Could just be the circumstances of his murder. Or
a reaction to cops. My guess is she hasn’t had a lot of positive experiences
with us in her lifetime.”
    “Yeah, but you noticed she didn’t come right out
and say she doesn’t know anything about who Hagerty was sleeping with. Or who
might have killed him.”
    “It was like she didn’t want to outright lie to
us,” I said, “but she just wanted to set up boundaries.”
    “She probably hasn’t had a chance to think through
how the murder screws up her job, but she knows there’s no way it can be good.
So she’s stalling.”
    “Okay,” I said, “but it’s obvious if she wasn’t
doing Hagerty she knows who was. So we’re gonna have to stay on top of her.”