Read Online Scent of Evil by Archer Mayor - Free Book Online

say hi when we saw each other and ask about the family, but he never had us over and never accepted our invites for a barbecue or whatever. But he was nice about it. I figured he just liked his privacy.”
    “Did you ever see any of his friends?”
    Beaumont leered slightly. “Sometimes he’d have a lady friend over. He had real good taste.”
    “Did you know any of them by name?”
    “Oh, he never introduced them. I would just happen to notice now and then, through the window or when I was in the yard.”
    “When was the last time he had a guest, that you know of?”
    “Oh, I don’t know. A week, maybe.”
    “A woman?”
    “Yeah. Sometimes men would come by too, by the way.”
    “What did this woman look like?”
    “Blonde—short hair… I guess they call it a page-boy. She was real cute. Not much up here,” he patted his own fleshy chest, “but good-looking. She’d been by a few times before.”
    “You’ve never seen her anywhere else?”
    “Nope, and I’d remember her—it was real blonde hair, almost silvery.”
    He looked at Jardine’s house again and shook his head. “I can’t believe he’s dead.”
    I figured I wasn’t going to learn too much more here, and I knew I could find Beaumont again if I needed him. Also, Santos had opened the door by now, and Klesczewski was standing impatiently on the threshold. I stuck my hand out for another soft, warm, damp handshake. “I want to thank you for your help, Mr. Beaumont, and we appreciate your discretion. I’ll keep in touch.”
    He opened his mouth to say something but obviously thought better of it at the last moment. Instead, he backed away a few steps, gave us a half wave as Ron closed the door behind me, and muttered, “Anytime—mum’s the word.”
    The inside of Jardine’s house was surprisingly cool, and in the brief moment of quiet before we set to work, I could hear the muted hum of air-conditioning.
    Santos noticed the same thing. “He must’ve been doin’ all right to leave the AC on when he was at work.” Santos was a transplant from Queens and had a thick New York accent—a detail that had startled more than one flatlander who’d had their vehicle stopped by him on the road.
    “Could be a timer. Or maybe he thought he was coming right back,” I muttered. Just because Beaumont hadn’t seen Jardine at home since the previous morning didn’t make it fact.
    We divided our labor. Ron took the upstairs, Santos the basement, and Mayhew the garage. I took the ground floor, which consisted of a living room, a kitchen, a study which had once been a dining room, and a combination utilities and mud room.
    It wasn’t a terribly revealing environment, at least not on the surface. I’m a bachelor, too—a widower, actually—and my Oak Street apartment is like an old dog’s kennel, filled with books and the bric-a-brac of a lifetime’s memories. This home was store-bought, displaying more of J. C. Penney’s current fashion statements than any of Jardine’s character. The furniture went well with the wall paint, the calendar-art pictures, the fake-wool area rugs, and the occasional chunk of decorative antique farm equipment. Looking at it from the entryway, I thought the one thing none of this was designed for was a human being or two; it was perfect just the way it was—tastefully bland, neat, cool, and empty.
    It also spoke of some quick money and not a lot of it. None of what I was looking at would have been called “quality goods.” Indeed, I’d seen similar interior decorating in upscale motels. From what John Woll had said vaguely about Jardine’s occupation, coupled with his being “a partner” in ABC Investments, I guessed Jardine had benefited somehow from the 1980s feeding frenzy on Wall Street, albeit in a minor way.
    The house’s sterility allowed me to make quick work of the living room and kitchen, both of which were immaculate and lacking in telling detail. I discovered that Jardine should have checked more