Free The Marble Kite by David Daniel Page B

the world. I turned the question around.
    She clenched her hands together at her chest and sent a furtive glance around, though we were the only ones there. “I wonder if people are
going to be angry with us … on account of what happened. I mean, not that we caused it—I don’t think that—but that it, you know … happened here.”
    Her face was a transparent screen where I watched her emotions come and go. “Nicole,” I said gently, “are you thinking that someone shot your dog on purpose?”
    She lowered her eyes. “Well, only that I know sometimes people get angry and … scared over things they don’t understand.”
    â€œTrue. Anything else?”
    â€œWhen I was walking just before I saw you, a car went by and someone yelled out the window. I won’t repeat what they said. It wasn’t nice.”
    â€œFor some people life is so boring, they feel they have to bother other people just so they know they’re alive. Don’t mind them. Just be careful, all right?”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œGood,” I said, keeping my own sudden worry to myself.
    â€œThank you. I feel better.”
    â€œMaybe the city will change its mind, and Pop will decide it’s a good idea for the show to get back on the road and let the legal system take care of things here.”
    She forced a smile through an expression of pain. “I can tell you don’t know Pop very well, Mr.—Alex. He don’t quit easy. But I will do like you said and be careful. You be, too.”
    I watched her go back to her carnival, and I turned and headed for my car to go to mine.

10
    Courtney approached me in the hallway as I unlocked my office. “Mr. Meecham just sat down with a woman who knew the murder victim. Can you join them?”
    Flora Nuñez’s acquaintance was perched on one of the client chairs in Fred Meecham’s inner sanctum, looking edgy. She was a tan-skinned woman in horn-rim glasses and wearing a dark sweater with an autumn leaf pattern on it and black jeans. “Ms. Colón,” Fred said, “this is Alex Rasmussen. He’s working as my investigator. Alex, Lucinda Colón.”
    â€œLucy, please,” she said. “It is nice to meet you.” Her fingers were cool, her grip soft.
    She wasn’t pretty by conventional standards—her mouth was too wide, her dark coppery hair cropped very short—but there was a fashionable glamour about her. I took a chair, and Meecham said, “Ms. Colón was just telling me that both she and Flora Nuñez came from the same town in Puerto Rico. Patillas, wasn’t it?”
    â€œYes, but we only met when we were here. We went in a class at the community college together, and we became friends.”
    â€œHow long did you know each other?”
    â€œFor more than two years.”

    â€œDid Ms. Nuñez ever mention Troy Pepper?” I let Meecham pose the questions.
    â€œThey knew each other in New Jersey, before Flora came to Lowell. They were in contact with each other and were planning to get together when the carnival came to town.”
    â€œWhen did she tell you this, Lucy?”
    â€œIn May, I think. She said this guy that she used to date and was sometimes in love with, he was going to be in Lowell in September. They dated before, but it never got too serious.” She had a charming accent and a lively manner, though I read sadness for her friend in it, too.
    â€œDid you ever meet Troy Pepper, or see a photograph?”
    â€œYes, she showed me a snapshot she had of him. But I never saw him with my own eyes.”
    â€œWhen did you see Flora last?”
    â€œOh, not for a while. She was working at the Hilton downtown. A chambermaid. But on the telephone, we spoke often. Is very sad what happened.”
    â€œWhen you talked with her the last few times, did she mention Troy Pepper?”
    â€œShe just said that she was going to tell him