How Like an Angel by Margaret Millar Read Free Book Online Page B

wood paneling, the top-half plate glass. Stand­ing, Ronda could see his whole staff, seated at his desk he could blot them all out. It was a convenient arrangement.
    He was a tall, pleasant-faced, unhurried man in his fifties, with a deep resonant voice. “What can I do for you, Quinn?”
    â€œI’ve just been talking to Patrick O’Gorman’s wife. Or shall we say, widow?”
    â€œWidow.”
    â€œWere you in Chicote when O’Gorman died?”
    â€œYes. Matter of fact I’d just used my last dime to buy this paper. It was in the red at the time and might still be there if the O’Gorman business hadn’t occurred. I had two big breaks within a month. First O’Gorman, and then three or four weeks later one of the local bank tellers, a nice little lady—why are some of the worst embezzlers such nice little ladies?—was caught with her fingers in the till. All ten of them. The Beacon’s circulation doubled within a year. Yes, I owe a lot to O’Gorman and I don’t mind admitting it. He was the ill wind that blew the wolf away from my door. So you’re a friend of his widow’s, are you?”
    â€œNo,” Quinn said cautiously. “Not exactly.”
    â€œYou’re sure?”
    â€œI’m sure. She’s surer.”
    Ronda seemed disappointed. “I’ve always kept hoping Martha O’Gorman would suddenly come up with a secret boyfriend. It would be a great thing if she married again, some nice man her own age.”
    â€œSorry, I don’t fit the picture. I’m older than I look and I have a vile temper.”
    â€œAll right, all right, I get the message. What I said still goes, though. Martha should remarry, stop living in the past. Every year O’Gorman seems to become more perfect in her eyes. I admit he was a good guy—a devoted husband, a loving father —but dead good guys are about the same as dead bad ones where the survivors are concerned. In fact, Martha would be better off now if she found out O’Gorman had been a first-class villain.”
    â€œPerhaps that’s still possible.”
    â€œNot on your life,” Ronda said, shaking his head vigorously. “He was a gentle, timid man, the exact opposite of the fight­ing Irishman you hear about and maybe meet, though I never have myself. One of the things that drove the police crazy when they were on the murder kick was the fact that they couldn’t find a single soul in Chicote who had a bad word to say about O’Gorman. No grudges, no peeves, no quarrels. If O’Gorman was done in—and there’s no doubt of it, in my mind—it must have been by a stranger, probably a hitch­hiker he picked up.”
    â€œTimid men don’t usually go in for picking up hitch­hikers.”
    â€œWell, he did. It was one of the few things he disagreed with Martha about. She thought it was a dangerous practice but that didn’t stop him. Sympathy for the underdog was what motivated him. I guess he felt like an underdog himself.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œOh, he was never much of a success, financially or any other way. Martha had the guts and force in the family, which is a good thing because in the following years she really needed them. The insurance company held off settling O’Gor­man’s policy for almost a year because his body wasn’t found. Meanwhile Martha and the two children were penniless. She went back to work as a lab technician in the local hospital. She’s still there.”
    â€œYou seem to know her well.”
    â€œMy wife’s one of her close friends, they attended the same high school in Bakersfield. For a time there, when I had to print a lot of stuff about O’Gorman, things were cool between Martha and me. But she came to understanding that I was only doing my job. What’s your interest in the case, Quinn?”
    Quinn said something vague about his work in Reno