Page 57 of A Winter of Discontent for Henry Milch

“Fine. Okay, I’ll try to fit it in. It might take a day or two.”

“You can’t be that busy.”

“I happen to be investigating Bobbie LaCross’s murder.” Okay, that was an overstatement but at least close to the truth.

Then she said, “You don’t know? Patty Gauthier confessed this morning.”

“How do you know that?”

“My first two customers told me all about it.”

That prompted her current customer to say, “I heard that too. Apparently, she stabbed Bobbie thirty-six times.”

“Bobbie was strangled,” Opal and I said at the same time.

“Well, that’s just what I heard,” the customer said.

I said good-bye, though why I bothered I do not know.

Patty confessed? Why would she do that? Yes, they had issues. But Patty had gotten rid of her. She no longer lived at Patty’s house. She was just an annoying person she occasionally ran into. That wasn’t a good reason to kill someone. Not that therearegood reasons to kill people, but some reasons are better than others and this was definitely not a better reason.

I was about to go downstairs and tell my grandmother she’d missed an opportunity to gossip, when my phone rang. It was Bernie Schaub, Jr.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard—” he began.

“I have.”

“Yes, well, I’m taking my aunt’s case and I’ll need an investigator. Can I hire you directly? What’s your hourly?”

That was a problem. For one, I didn’t know my hourly. I kept forgetting to ask. And for two, I worked for Hamlet. We never talked about this kind of situation, but it didn’t feel, well, ethical.

“You know, I should probably talk to Ham first.”

“Interesting. After everything I’ve heard about you, I thought you’d jump at the chance.”

“What have you heard about me?”

“That you’re a drug addict, very slutty and passably clever.”

“Well, you heard wrong. I’m passably slutty and very clever. Actually, I think I only had sex once last year.”

“Well, in Masons Bay once is enough to get you called a slut.”

I really needed to change the direction of this conversation. “I’m very happy to work for you. You should probably book me through Hamlet, though.”

“Oh, very well. I’ll call him later this afternoon. Consider yourself hired.”

“So, you don’t think your aunt did it?”

“I have no idea. She says she did so she probably did.”

“But she’s your aunt.”

“Oh, I lost all faith in humanity right after puberty.”

Honestly, he didn’t look like he’dfinishedpuberty.

“So, I think Bobbie was killed at the Campbell compound and then thrown in front of Three Friends Winery. Do you think your aunt is strong enough to strangle a seventy-year-old woman and then carry her to a car, in the snow, and then dump her somewhere else?”