A Shroud for Aquarius (A Mallory Mystery) by Collins Max Allan

Author:Collins, Max Allan [Collins, Max Allan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AmazonEncore
Published: 2012-12-11T05:00:00+00:00

Tru-test hardware was a big one-story brown brick building on the slope of First Street, where East Hill falls toward the business district, almost directly opposite the toll bridge across the Mississippi. The place was only a few blocks from where I lived, and I’d stopped in from time to time for some screws (no jokes, please) or fuses or light bulbs; but I wasn’t what you’d call a regular customer. I wasn’t a regular customer at any hardware store, actually, being to Do-It-Yourselfing what Liberace is to pro football.

Still, I’d been in the store often enough for it to come as something of a surprise to me to learn that Brad Faulkner, former classmate of mine, was the manager of Tru-Test, a piece of information Jill Forest had passed along. It was now mid-afternoon, and I hoped to find Faulkner among the hammers and nails, in what proved to be a busy store.

I did.

The tall, dark, lumpy-faced Faulkner stood in white smock with Tru-Test circular red logo on the front, as well as green badge with his name and the word “Manager” underneath; his slacks were shiny black and so was his hair. He was standing by a display of popcorn poppers, a clipboard in his hands, checking his stock.

I approached and he sensed me there, spoke without looking at me, smiled the same way.

“Can I help you?” His smile was automatic and meant nothing more than customer service.

“Brad, my name’s Mallory—went to school together. Remember?”

Now he looked at me, face tensing. I had put my hand out for him to shake; he took it without enthusiasm.

“I remember you,” he said. “But we weren’t exactly friends, were we?”

I shrugged; smiled. “We weren’t exactly enemies either.”

He and his clipboard turned back to the popcorn poppers. In a voice that was almost a whisper, he said, “We weren’t exactly anything.”

“Faulkner, I…”

He glanced back at me, his lip gently sneering. “What happened to ‘Brad’?”

“Look, I feel awkward about this, too—I know we weren’t good friends or anything. I don’t know what to call you, exactly—I usually don’t call people my own age I went to high school with ‘mister,’ do you?”

“No,” he said, looking at the poppers, jotting notes on a page on the clipboard, “but I don’t feel awkward about finding something to call you. You’re a busybody.”

I resisted the urge to hook my thumbs in my belt and say, Them’s fightin’ words, podner.

Instead I just said, “I’ve had harsher reprimands in my time. But why do you consider me a ‘busybody’?”

He turned and looked at me; he had a couple inches on me, and was fairly sturdy—no middle-age spread at all. “You’re asking around about Ginnie Mullens, aren’t you?”

“Who told you that?”

“I don’t have to tell you anything. I don’t have to talk to you at all.” He poked me in the chest with a thick forefinger; he was trembling just a little, but with anger, not fear. His voice was soft, however, when he added: “If you aren’t a customer, I’d prefer you leave.

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