Free Out Cold by William G. Tapply

her.”
    â€œWell,” she said, “now she’s dead. What a world, huh?”
    I nodded. “I want to know who killed Sunshine.”
    â€œMe, too.” She picked up a manila folder that had been lying on her desk. She held it in both hands and tapped the bottom of it on her desktop to square the papers that were inside. “This is her folder,” she said. “I made copies of everything for the police. You can look at it if you want. Everything I know about her is in here.”
    I thumbed through the folder. There were three or four sheets of paper in it. I skimmed through them and found nothing I didn’t already know. “Do you have any idea who might’ve killed her?” I said to Patricia McAfee. “And why?”
    â€œSorry,” she said. “That information isn’t in her folder, I guess.”
    â€œDo you have any thoughts?”
    â€œMe?” she said.
    â€œThe police seem to think it was some other homeless person,” I said, “wanting something she had.”
    â€œThey got that idea from me,” she said. “I told them that’s probably what it was. That’s what it usually is. Somebody wanted her hat or some worthless trinket she had. Something trivial. Something stupid. Not that I have any specific knowledge of anything. Just that our guests—well, let’s say they’re not exactly one great big happy family. These are not calm, peace-loving, well-integrated members of society. These people are mentally and physically ill. They are economically and intellectually deprived. They are social misfits. Their lives are in chaos. They survive one day at a time. They are depressed and defeated and desperate. Sunshine was actually in better shape than most of them, and as you know, she was pretty bad off. You want a motive for murder, you’ve got to understand who these people are, where they’re coming from. The police wanted me to name names. I would’ve been happy to, but I couldn’t.”
    â€œSurely they’re all not like that,” I said.
    She shrugged. “Most of them are.”
    â€œSunshine worked at Skeeter’s,” I said. “She had money. Is that what her killer wanted, do you think?”
    â€œSunshine didn’t carry very much money with her. Most of our people knew that.”
    â€œWhat did she do with what she earned?”
    â€œActually,” said Patricia, “she gave it to me. I put it in the bank for her. She had a little over five hundred dollars saved up.”
    â€œDid some of her money go to”—I waved my hand around her little office—“to your operation here?”
    Patricia dismissed that idea with a flap of her hand. “Wouldn’t take it if it were offered,” she said. “If our guests are able to earn some money, and if they’re actually trying to save some of it, we figure they’re that much closer to regaining their lives. That’s what we want for all of them. That’s our whole purpose. It would be counterproductive for us to take their money.”
    â€œIf she wanted some money?…”
    â€œI gave it to her. It’s her money.”
    â€œWhat did she do with it?”
    She shrugged as if the answer was self-evident. “Booze.”
    â€œBut you gave it to her anyway, even knowing how she was going to spend it?”
    Patricia McAfee leaned across her desk and looked at me. “Do you give money to homeless people, Mr. Coyne?”
    I nodded. “There are four regulars between my home and my office. I always give them something.”
    â€œWhat do they do with your money?”
    â€œI used to tell them I hoped they’d buy a nice hot meal or a pair of warm gloves or something like that, something I approved of, you know, and they always said, Oh, yes, sir, that’s exactly what I aim to do. A pair of gloves. A bowl of soup. Yes, sir, Mr. Coyne.” I smiled. “I