Free Nightshades (Nameless Detective) by Bill Pronzini Page B

five and a half feet tall, fat, with a bulbous nose and misshapen ears and cheeks pitted with acne scars, and his bullet-shaped head was as bald as an egg. His eyes were small and mean, but there was more pain in them than anything else. This was a man who had lived more than fifty years, I thought, and who had suffered through every one of them.
    He looked at Kerry, looked away from her as if embarrassed, and fixed his gaze on me. “Yes? What is it?”
    “Mr. Penrose?”
    “Yes?”
    Before I could open my mouth again, Kerry said cheerfully, “We’re the Wades, Bill and Kerry. From San Francisco. We’re thinking of moving up here—you know, homesteading. I hope you don’t mind us calling on you like this.”
    “How did you know my name?” Penrose asked. He was still looking at me.
    “The fellow at the mercantile gave it to us,” Kerry said. “He told us you were a homesteader and we thought we’d come by and look at your place and see how you liked living here.”
    I could have kicked her. It was one of those flimsy, spontaneous stories that sound as phony as they are. But she got away with it, by God, at least for the moment. All Penrose said was, “Which fellow at the mercantile?” and he said it without suspicion.
    “Mr. Coleclaw.”
    “Which Mr. Coleclaw?”
    “I didn’t know there was more than one. He was in his twenties and the only one around.” Kerry glanced at me. “Did he give you his first name, dear?”
    “Gary,” I said. “Dear.”
    “Poor young fool,” Penrose said. “Poor lost lad.”
    “Pardon?”
    “He has rocks in his head,” Penrose said, and burst out laughing. The laugh went on for maybe three seconds, like the barking of a sea lion, exposing yellowed and badly fitting dentures; then it cut off as if somebody had smacked a hand over his mouth. He looked embarrassed again.
    Definitely an oddball, I thought. Musket Creek seemed to be full of them, all right. But Penrose, at least, had my sympathy; the strain of coping with physical deformities like his was enough to throw anybody a little out of whack.
    “That was a dreadful pun,” he said. “Gary can’t help it if he’s retarded; I don’t know what makes me so cruel sometimes. I apologize. No one should make fun of others, should they.” It wasn’t a question, so he didn’t wait for a response. He went on, “What else did the boy tell you? Did he say anything about the Northern Development Corporation?”
    Kerry simulated a blank look that would have got her thrown out of any acting school in the country. But again, Penrose didn’t notice; he still wasn’t looking at her, except for brief sidelong eye-flicks whenever she spoke. “No,” she said, “he didn’t. Is that something we should know about?”
    “Yes. Oh yes. If they have their way you won’t want to move here.” He paused. “But I’m forgetting my manners. I haven’t many visitors, you see. Would you like to come in?”
    Kerry said, “Yes, thanks. That would be nice.”
    So Penrose stepped aside and we went in. The interior of the cabin—just one big room—was furnished sparsely with mismatched secondhand items and strewn with books. Against the back wall was a long table with a typewriter, a bunch of papers, and an unlit candle on it. The candle caught and held my attention. It was fat, it was stuck inside a wooden bowl, and it was purple—the same color purple as the one I’d found at the burned-out ghosts.
    I went over to the table for a closer look. When Kerry finished declining Penrose’s offer of a cup of coffee I said to him, “That’s a nice candle you’ve got there.”
    “Candle?” he said blankly.
    “I wouldn’t mind having one like it.” I gave Kerry a pointed look. “We collect candles, don’t we, dear.”
    “Yes, that’s right. We do.”
    “Did you get it locally?” I asked Penrose.
    “From a widow lady who lives here, yes.”
    “May I ask her name?”
    “Ella Bloom. She makes them; it’s her