Read Online The Cactus Club Killings (Joe Portugal) by Nathan Walpow - Free Book Online Page B

unsuccessful grafts. Something to do with an allergy to his own skin. The result was a red blotch resembling a map of Argentina right above where his hairline would have been if he’d still had one. I knew all this because Brenda had told me, which made me wonder what kind of privileged information about me she’d shared with other people.
    Watery blue eyes studied me from beneath Rand’s mistreated pate. “Hello,” he said, tossing the uprooted aloe into a wheelbarrow. He was no more than five foot five, with skin dark from his hours in the sun. He wore a plain white T-shirt and a pair of threadbare denim shorts.
    I told him who I was. He got a funny look on his face. “The article in the paper. You’re the one who found her.”
    “Yes. I’m sorry for your loss.” A little trite, but serviceable. “I just came up here to see if there was anything I could do.”
    “Do? Do? Just look at this place. It’s falling to pieces. We have whiteflies and blackflies. I don’t have money for fertilizer. My tools are all broken. And now, with Dr. Belinskigone, who’s going to raise even the little bit we did get?” He nudged the wheelbarrow with his foot. “You see this? I bought it with my own money.”
    “I’ll bet that hurt,” I said.
    “What did that mean?”
    I smiled charmingly. “Just that universities aren’t known for their generosity with their staffs. I’ll bet you’re not paid half of what you’re worth. You could probably get a better job somewhere else. It’s only your love for the conservatory that keeps you here.”
    A weird expression crossed his face, somewhere between puppy dog and sex offender. “That’s right. Absolutely right.”
    I’d gotten on his good side, but now what? This interrogating business was harder than it looked. “Do you have any idea who might have wanted Dr. Belinski dead?”
    “I don’t think I want to go through this again.”
    “Again?”
    “Yes. That detective was here yesterday afternoon. What was his name? Carillo. Cabrillo.”
    “Casillas,” I said. “I’m kind of working with him.”
    “Then you should get the information from him. I don’t want to talk about Dr. Belinski any more right now.”
    “You have no idea who might have wanted to kill her?”
    “No! She was a wonderful woman. Why would anyone want to do that?”
    “She could be nasty on occasion, couldn’t she? Was she ever that way to you?”
    “If she was ever unpleasant she had her reasons.”
    “The story goes that she stepped on a lot of toes, what with her pushing for tighter CITES enforcement.”
    “If toes were stepped on, they deserved to be.”
    “Yes,” I said. “I’m sure that’s true, but I hear they’re desperate people, these CITES flouters. Did she ever receive any threats?”
    “No. I’m sure Bren—Dr. Belinski would have told me if such a thing had happened. We were very close.”
    “How close?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Word on the street is that she got around.”
    Silence. Lack of understanding. Or refusal to understand.
    “That she had a lot of men friends. I was thinking maybe you were one of them.”
    “Never. I would never even think of such a thing. Dr. Belinski was a fine woman, whose social behavior was none of my business.”
    “Maybe,” I said, “one of her lovers did her in.”
    Eugene Rand stared at me. Then he remembered his wheelbarrow needed to be somewhere else. He picked up its handles and marched it off toward a metal shack.
    “Mr. Rand,” I said, “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I’d really like to catch Dr. Belinski’s killer. They found the death plant at my place, you know.”
    He stopped and put down the wheelbarrow. He seemed about to say something, but after a few seconds he hoisted the barrow again and disappeared into the shack.
    “‘Death plant’?” I said aloud. “What the hell kind of thing is that to say? And what was that about ‘CITES flouters’?”
    I hung around a few minutes, just in case the killer