How Like an Angel by Margaret Millar Page B

not only lost my husband, I was suspected of causing his death, either by murdering him or giving him reasons to end his own life.”
    â€œWhat reasons?”
    â€œThe obvious. He was henpecked, I was too bossy, I wore the pants for the family, that sort of thing. A few people, like Ronda and his wife, knew the truth, that there wouldn’t have been any pants in the family to wear if I hadn’t assumed re­sponsibility. Patrick was kind, gentle, loving, but money meant nothing to him. Unpaid bills were no more than pieces of paper. I would have liked nothing better than to go out and take a job myself, but it would have destroyed Patrick’s con­fidence in himself, which was never very high. I walked a tightrope between Patrick’s weaknesses and his needs.”
    â€œNot many women could make a situation like that into a full and happy life.”
    â€œNo?” she said. “You don’t seem to know much about women.”
    â€œGranted.”
    â€œOr about love.”
    â€œPerhaps not. I’m trying to learn, though.”
    â€œI’m afraid you’re too old to learn now,” she said quietly. “Love happens while you’re still young enough to endure the hardships it inflicts and while you’re still able to roll with the punches or stagger to your feet after an eight-count. My son Richard,” she added with a proud little smile, “is a fight fan, he’s teaching me the jargon.”
    â€œRonda tells me he’s very bright.”
    â€œI think so, though I may be prejudiced.”
    â€œTell me about your husband’s accident, Mrs. O’Gorman.”
    Her gaze was steady and direct. “There’s nothing to tell that wasn’t in the file John Ronda lent to you yesterday afternoon.”
    â€œOne thing wasn’t mentioned. Did your husband’s car have a heater in it?”
    â€œNo. We never spent money on luxuries.”
    â€œWhat was he wearing when he left the house?”
    â€œYou know what he was wearing, if you read my testimony at the inquest—a plaid flannel shirt, yellow and black.”
    â€œWas it raining that night?”
    â€œYes. It had been for several days.”
    â€œBut Mr. O’Gorman didn’t wear a raincoat or any kind of jacket?”
    â€œI know what you’re getting at,” she said. “But it won’t work. Patrick didn’t need a raincoat because our garage is at­tached to the house, and at the oil field he parked in what used to be a plane hangar right next to his office. He didn’t have to go out in the rain.”
    â€œIt was cold as well as rainy, I understand.”
    â€œPatrick never minded the cold. He didn’t even own a topcoat.”
    â€œAccording to a newspaper clipping from Ronda’s file, the temperature that night was thirty-nine degrees, which is pretty cold.”
    â€œThe shirt was wool,” she said. “A heavy wool flannel. Besides, when he left the house he was in a big hurry. He was almost frantic to get to the office and correct the mistake he’d made before anyone found out about it.”
    â€œFrantic,” Quinn repeated. It seemed a strong word to use, one that didn’t fit the picture he had of O’Gorman as a quiet, low-pressure, unambitious man. “The accident occurred while he was on his way to the oil field?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œIf he was frantic and in a big hurry, it seems unlikely he’d have stopped to pick up a hitchhiker, doesn’t it?”
    â€œThere was no hitchhiker,” she said bluntly, “except in the busy little brains of Ronda and the sheriff. In addition to your argument, that Patrick was in too much of a rush, there’s another: only a week before, a Chicote couple had been robbed by a hitchhiker and Patrick had given me his solemn promise that he would never again stop to pick up a strange man on the road.”
    â€œWhat about a woman? Or a man he