Free Seven Kinds of Death by Kate Wilhelm Page A

after? Before Spence Dwyers, or after? Before Walter Buckman, or after? None of that really mattered, she understood, not to Tootles, possibly not to Max.
    “You’re going to live in the condo?” she asked.
    “Yes. I’m out here about half the time, in downtown Washington the other half, and this is better. I’m ready to slow down a little, and, of course, she wants to be close to the work, to the kids.”
    “I’m just surprised you got her to agree to go even that far,” Constance said. Then she added, “Max, I think you should talk to a lawyer, you and Tootles, maybe before the sheriff asks any more questions.”
    His face became very still, the smile frozen in place. “You think it’s going to come to needing an attorney?”
    She nodded. “It could. Maybe I can get to the telephone now.” She went into the dinette-turned-into-office and dialed, only to get the answering machine at the other end. She frowned and said that she would be delayed, please call her, and gave the number. Then she cursed under her breath.
    That afternoon Constance mounted outside stairs that led up to a sun deck that ran the length of the house, facing south. Her bedroom, which Toni and Janet now shared, opened to it, as did a number of other rooms. Up here there were lounges, chairs, pillows, tables—Toni and Janet were sunbathing on mats.
    “Hi,” Constance said as she approached them. “Toni, I wonder if I might borrow Paul’s book. I noticed it in your room earlier, but it isn’t there now.”
    “Oh,” Toni said. “Marion has a copy.”
    “She doesn’t know where,” Constance said.
    “I’ll look for mine,” Toni said after a moment. “I’m not sure where I put it.”
    “It’s on the table by your bed, the bottom shelf,” Janet said. “I remember seeing it there.”
    Toni stood up finally; she was in a bikini that revealed a beautiful body evenly tanned all over. She pulled on a terry shirt that reached to her knees, and went to the bedroom window, where a screen had been removed and propped against the house. She stepped over the sill to enter the room. Constance sat in a chair near Janet.
    “Yesterday, when Victoria and Paul came downstairs, you introduced them to Johnny Buell, and then you were all laughing. Remember that? It seemed such a lively and pleasant little group, telling jokes so soon, having a good time.”
    Janet raised her head from the mat in order to look at Constance. “I know. And then…” She buried her face in the mat again.
    “What was the joke?” Constance asked, ignoring the young woman’s distress.
    “I don’t know,” Janet said, her voice muffled. “Something about opposites attracting.”
    “Ah,” Constance said thoughtfully. “Like Max and Marion. Or Spence and Marion in the distant past.”
    “Yeah, just like that. I was thinking of Spence and Marion, in fact. You know, how crazy he is about her and all. Victoria said jocks often were attracted to artists, like that. And, how often real ladies seem to love prizefighters. Spence used to be a fighter. Victoria said she got a proposal from a jock recently. That’s why she came out here, to get away from him or something.” She had raised her head to speak, and now lowered it again. “It doesn’t sound a bit funny now, but it did then.” Her voice became muffled again.
    “Then Johnny left,” Constance said. “Did she say anything then? Maybe something to you and Paul?”
    Janet shook her head. “Next thing she said was when Paul left, how his ironic pose was wearing him down.” Janet scowled at Constance. “It sounds so dumb, but I can’t help it. She said it, I didn’t. Then she said she was going to check out a smoke. And she went out to have a cigarette. That’s all she said.”
    “Check out a smoke?” Constance repeated. “Were those her words?”
    “I don’t know,” Janet cried. “It’s how I remember them. I don’t know!”
    And apparently her memory was all they had to go on, since Paul would