Read Online Strawman Made Steel by Brett Adams - Free Book Online

contours of her high cheek bones, and the
firm but feminine sweep of her jaw.
    She worked in silence a minute, tamping
down the tender seedlings, then said over her shoulder. “What’s the matter, Mr.
McIlwraith. Didn’t think I was one to get my hands dirty?”
    “You’re wearing gloves.”
    She stood, and stepped out of the bed. She
slipped her hands from gloves of dirt-stained leather. Her hands came to rest,
clasped loosely before her, and shining with marble luster.
    “What do you think of my garden?” she said,
and swept her gaze in an arc that terminated somewhere over Staten Island.
    “You could list this lawn alone on the
stock exchange,” I said.
    “Call it excess. But a lady in my position
has certain expectations put upon her.”
    “I wasn’t judging. What position is that?”
    She ignored the question. “I made all of
this from fallow earth and bare concrete. The previous owner wasn’t the
nurturing type.”
    I scanned the ground again. My gaze got
stuck on a series of statues―four crouched monsters, their backs to the flower
bed, jutting from the limiting wall into thin air like rocky protuberances.
    “Was the previous owner the gargoyle type?”
    She tracked my gaze. “No. They are my own.
I remodeled following the death of my husband. Some women cut their hair.” She
stroked one of the things grainy flanks. “They are from Verona, from the
workshop of Puccelli. You have heard of Puccelli?”
    I hadn’t. The hunched, bulbous-headed
creatures didn’t enflame a desire to hear of any Puccelli. To judge by one
sample of his work, Puccelli had a thing for phalluses.
    “Would you care for a drink?”
    “No, thank you. I came to fill you in on my
investigation.”
    “Well, at least keep a widow company while
she drinks.” The line sounded absurd formed by those lips, and she knew it.
    I followed her through the grounds and back
into the drawing room. It felt cold after the early afternoon sun.
    The butler ghosted in again. The lady
ordered a martini without looking at him. He inclined his head to me and
whispered, “For sir?”
    My head said whiskey sour and my mouth said
water. He drifted away and Mrs. Speigh opened a pearl-inlaid cigarette case,
from which she withdrew a cigarette, inserted it into a jade holder, and lit
up. She pursed her lips and exhaled a thin stream of smoke. “Will you at least
join me in a cigarette?”
    I shook my head. “Trying to quit.”
    She nibbled on the end of the smoker, and
smiled around it. “I wonder. Which of life’s pleasures are non-negotiable for
you, Mr. McIlwraith?”
    She lay herself along a chaise lounge. I
sat facing her on the edge of an easy chair.
    “How much do you want this murder solved?”
    Her body, until then strung in a feline
posture, went rigid. Her eyes flashed and she half sat up.
    “I want you to pursue it with the utmost
energy. What else could you think?”
    “That’s not an answer to my question, but
let’s run with that.” From a coat pocket I tugged my notebook, and behind it
arranged my thoughts.
    “Euripides was murdered between midnight
and three yesterday morning.”
    She nodded. Her gaze fixed upon me.
    I said, “Or maybe he wasn’t.”
    She didn’t bat an eyelid at that.
    “If that sounds odd,” I said, “I suppose it
should. It’s a philosophical matter that turns on causes and effects.”
    She let go another streamer of smoke into
the fractured sunlight.
    “I’m no philosopher, Mr. McIlwraith, but if
it will help solve this murder, I will listen.”
    “Is a man murdered when the murderer pulls
the trigger or when the hammer strikes the bullet? Or when that bullet tears
flesh? Normally the distinction is of no account―the chain of events is so
brief.” I drew a finger over the open page of my notebook as if connecting
dots. “In this case it happens to be entirely of account. The trigger was
pulled sometime during the previous day, and the hammer didn’t fall until the wee
hours of