Fool's Gold by Ted Wood Read Free Book Online

She nodded instantly. "I was in the office when he came in and asked me to store his gear. Then he drove off past the office window. He was alone then."  
    "Did he always work on his own?"
    She put down her brush for a moment, flexing her arms at the elbows. "I've no idea what his pattern was. But when he was found they said he was alone on the island."  
    I looked at her, musing, and she looked down and picked up her paintbrush. "Are there many transients around? Guys he might have picked up on the highway?"  
    She glanced up. "This place is lousy with transients. Ever since the gold strike was made. Most days I turn away twenty or thirty men, unemployed guys from Toronto or the Soo or Thunder Bay, looking to wash dishes, wait tables, anything."  
    I nodded and said "I see" again. It jibed with what I'd seen in the coffee shop and her diner, earlier, and in the crowded campsite. I guessed too that Gallagher kept transients moving. Olympia wasn't big enough to support a bunch of welfare cases. The paper business had suffered during the recession in '82 and '83. Any charity the town could provide was spoken for at home.  
    She went back to her painting. "Did you have some work for somebody?"
    "Not right now, but I might, you know how it is." Not exactly true, but on an investigation you often find yourself dealing in fractions of the truth. The whole thing is too rare for use outside a courtroom.  
    I stood and looked down at the curls on the top of her head, thinking more about her than about my investigation. As far as the world was concerned, that was a closed book. Anything I found was going to be an embarrassment.  
    She glanced up and caught my gaze. "You're looking thoughtful. Run out of questions?"
    "Not quite." As I started to speak I felt the same awkwardness that always fills me at times like this. I'm thirty-five years old, divorced. I'm six-one and rangy and women have been good to me over the years but I don't have the assurance that some men seem to bring with them from their cradles. I don't feel irresistible. I usually start out with women from a one-down position, like always playing chess with the black men. "This is going to sound like a thousand salesmen you've heard while you've been in this place. I mean, I don't even know your name, but I'm unattached and harmless and I was wondering if you would see your way clear to having dinner with me."  
    She laughed out loud. "My," she said, "That's totally new, I promise you. It's mostly the salesmen who ask me out. Their idea of couth is saying anything other than, 'Hey kid, let's me and you boogie.' "  
    I laughed with her, feeling redder necked than usual, and she said, "Sure. I'd like to have dinner with somebody in Olympia who can recognize burnt umber. And just to set the record straight, my name is Alice Graham." She put her paintbrush down and reached over. We shook hands, grinning.  
    "How about this place while you're out?" I asked, wondering if we were going to eat in the dining room, with her having to leave the table every few minutes to attend the desk.  
    "I'll get Willie to mind the store," she said. "No problem."
    "Great," I said, then realized I needed an exit line and added, "Who's Willie, anyway?"
    She was painting again, using a pinkish-brown now for the face of a rock. She put it on in gobs, then smudged it expertly with the side of her left little finger. It took about a minute before she realized what I'd asked and told me, "Oh, Willie—he's the waiter in the dining room. He's only there on paydays. The rest of the time the girl manages just fine on her own."
    "I met him,” I said. "He's a nice kid, but can you leave him in charge?"
    She looked up again, putting her paintbrush down into the water jar and stretching her arms luxuriously. "No problem. We're full right up; all he has to do is say no politely." And then her grin widened and she added, "That's what I do, most of the time."  
    We set a