There Was a Little Girl (Matthew Hope) by McBain Ed

Author:McBain, Ed [McBain, Ed]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781612189901
Publisher: AmazonEncore
Published: 2012-10-22T16:00:00+00:00

4: When she was good…

* * *

EARLY ON Wednesday morning, the twenty-third of March, Matthew telephoned the Byrd residence and asked to speak to Mrs. Byrd, please. When she came onto the line, he told her he was a lawyer who’d met with her husband the day before to discuss some land his client was hoping to purchase…

“What land is that?” she asked.

“On Barrington and Welles,” Matthew said. “The state fairgrounds. I’m not calling about that, though…”

“What are you calling about?” she asked. “Who’d you say this was again?”

“Matthew Hope,” he said. “Mrs. Byrd, I understand you once knew Willa Torrance…”

“Oh God, is it that time of year again?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I get a call every year around the anniversary of her death. You’d think she was Marilyn Monroe or somebody.”

“Actually, that won’t be till May,” he said.

“Terrific,” she said. “Give me something to look forward to.”

He visualized her rolling her eyes.

“I was wondering if I could talk to you about her,” he said.

“Why?” she asked.

“Well, as I may have mentioned to your husband”—actually, he hadn’t mentioned this to him

at all—“there’s been a challenge…”

“I don’t like to meddle in any of Andy’s projects. If this is something you’ve already discussed with—”

“No, it—”

“—him, then—”

“It isn’t.”

“Then what is it?”

“There’s been a challenge to the will,” he said, figuring if the lie had got by Davey Sheed, it should be good enough to get by Jeannie Lawson Byrd as well. “I was hoping—”

“What will?”

“Mrs. Torrance’s will.”

“How would I know anything about her will? I was seventeen the last time I saw her. That was a good five years ago.”

“But you knew her pretty well back then, didn’t you?”

“No. She was a grown woman, you should pardon the expression, and I was a teenager.”

“The challenge is coming from someone you might have known while you were with the circus,” he said.

Oh, what tangled webs we weave…

“Who?”

“I’m not at liberty to reveal that, Mrs. Byrd.”

…when first we practice…

“Why not?” she asked.

…to deceive.

“Not on the phone,” he said.

“Anyway, I hardly knew Willa.”

“I was wondering if I could come out there, Mrs. Byrd—”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“Or perhaps—”

“No.”

“I know how keen your husband is to have this deal go through—”

“My husband’s in Mexico just now. You can talk to him when he gets back.”

“The point is—”

“I told you—”

“If I can put this other matter to rest, we might be able to move ahead more swiftly on the land deal. I’m aware that the Lawson-Byrd company—”

“All I do for Lawson-Byrd is sign papers and checks. I have nothing else to do with the company.”

“I understood otherwise.”

“You understood wrong. My husband will be home on Friday morning, you can talk to him then, if you like. As for Willa—”

“Mrs. Byrd,” Matthew said, “she may have been murdered.”

“I’m not surprised,” she said, and hung up.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.